https://fair.org/home/climate-change-is-the-real-job-killer/
[links, audio in online article]
May 8, 2019
‘Climate Change Is the Real Job Killer’
CounterSpin interview with Joe Uehlein on Green New Deal
Janine Jackson
Janine Jackson: Republican Rep. Sean Duffy likely thought he was onto a
winner when he dismissed the Green New Deal as “elitist,” the sort of
thing that “sounds great” if you are “a rich liberal from maybe New York
or California.”
Opposing environmental concerns with the livelihoods of working-class
people has been a tried and true method for dividing people: industry
versus industry, the coasts versus the supposed “heartland,” and
dividing people against themselves, as we’re presumed to have to choose
between having clean air to breathe or having a job.
The immediate, cogent pushback to Duffy’s characterization from
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—who, along with Ed Markey, introduced the Green
New Deal—is one indication that things have changed. Old fissures can’t
be counted on to confuse people about their shared interest in fighting
climate change and advancing workers’ rights. Though that doesn’t mean
there isn’t room for confusion about what alternative visions could look
like—particularly when news media, as in coverage of the Green New Deal,
shortchange the role of workers in that vision.
Our next guest works to fill that void. Joe Uehlein is founding
president of the Labor Network for Sustainability. He joins us now from
Takoma Park, Maryland. Welcome to CounterSpin, Joe Uehlein.
Joe Uehlein: Thank you.
JJ: Even before the Green New Deal—which is not legislation, but a
resolution, calling for decarbonization of the economy—you’ve been
talking about the impact of climate change on workers, and the role
workers and labor could play in what, if we take science seriously, has
to be the response.
What’s your starting point when you talk with people who think this
isn’t labor’s fight, or workers whose experience suggests they’ll get
the short end of the stick?
JU: Well, I start with two things. One is that climate change is the
real job killer, not the answers to climate change. And we’ve done
studies to show that, but, for a lot of working people, it’s very obvious.
For example, if you work in the public sector, which a lot of people do,
the only way you can negotiate good contracts is if you have healthy
state and local budgets; those budgets will be decimated by the impact
of climate change. And we’re seeing that, not only in New York, in the
aftermath of Sandy, but up and down the entire West Coast, with the
budget increases those states have seen to fight forest fires. As Sara
Nelson talks about—she’s the president of the Flight Attendants
Union—they’re already losing jobs to more and more flights being
grounded due to increased turbulence caused by climate change. And that
list goes on and on.
But I start there, and then point out that the Green New Deal, this
14-page resolution—and I always stress that, because everybody says,
“Well, what are the details? It’s short on specifics.” Yeah, it is. It’s
a framework—it’s the best framework that we, in labor, have seen in a
very long time for advancing workers’ rights. It sets a federal jobs
guarantee for people who want to go to work fighting the climate crisis,
and it also provides for what they call living wages, or
family-supporting wages, in that jobs guarantee. And it steps up to the
plate on climate.
JJ: Media often speak, kind of crudely, about “winners and losers” under
policy changes, but of course it’s true that societal shifts have
fallout. If we get Medicare for All, well, people who are now in the
insurance business will need new jobs. But we don’t say, “Well, we need
to keep making asbestos,” you know, “because those people need work.”
It’s really more about whether you acknowledge the possibility of
guaranteeing people’s well-being through a transition that society needs
to make.
JU: Yeah, I mean, there are 10 industries right now, including
healthcare, that are in transition, with no guarantee that that
transition will be just. The Green New Deal does call for just
transition for all displaced workers.
So, again, regardless of the industry you work in, whether it’s food or
healthcare or transportation—energy, obviously—lots of people are going
to either lose jobs in an unjust and unfair way, or transition into
other jobs with income maintenance and the retention of their health and
pension benefits. That’s what we’re fighting for.
JJ: USA Today, back in February, ran a piece from a guy from the Cato
Institute, warning that:
This green-painted Trojan horse is filled with the biggest single
government expansion the United States has seen since the 1930s.
So they’re actually trying to scare people with the New Deal. Like,
remember how much you hate Social Security? Is this going to be the
tactic, to just paint it as socialism and therefore it’s just bad, we
can’t even have a conversation?
JU: Yeah, it will be. And it’s the talking points of the American
Petroleum Institute, the fossil fuel industry, and a lot of people use
their talking points. So yes, and look, they’ve got a lot of money.
We’re talking about the Koch brothers and others here, and there will be
a well-funded pushback campaign that will say what you just said, about,
“This is socialism, expansion of the federal government.”
But also, they’ll say that it hurts working people. We have a little
document we just prepared that takes on the six most prevalent lies that
we see out there. And these are being covered extensively by the
right-wing press. So we’re trying to counter that with good, solid
arguments.
JJ: Yeah, I have to say, I resent, above many things that elite media
do, the way they tell folks, “It’s just not possible for everyone to
have a decent life. We just can’t,” you know? And so, you might think,
“Well, golly, we do need to overhaul our energy system, and at the same
time, we have a lot of people unemployed and underemployed. Surely,
these things can be brought together.” But then here come the Very Smart
People to say, “Ah, that sounds right. But, you know, we can’t do it,
because…reasons.” It’s just very frustrating.
But you have found that when you’re able to talk around some of these
undermining narratives, people, rank-and-file working people, understand
it, right? And there are labor groups that are that are building these
bridges.
JU: Yeah, there are. There are also labor groups that are trying to tear
those bridges down. So we’re right in the middle of that scrum, if you will.
JJ: Yeah. Well, we often see politicians counterposing, as I said
earlier, the environment and workers. And from politicians, it’s often
very fake. You know, “I have to oppose regulation, because I care so
much about these coal miners,” where we don’t necessarily see that
concern in evidence in many other places. But still, I think it can be
easy to sell people on being afraid when people are already struggling,
you know?
JU: Yeah, absolutely. Fear is a very powerful motivator, maybe the most
powerful motivator, and they know that. One thing I would point out is,
where have they been over the last 20 years, as tens of thousands of
coal miners have lost their jobs? They’ve not been there fighting for
them. Coal miners still don’t have the federal guarantee of retaining
their pension and health benefits in retirement that was promised to
them. And who’s opposing it? All the same forces who oppose the Green
New Deal.
So we’re fighting for that, for coal miners in retirement to retain
pension and healthcare. And the other side, they’re fighting against it.
And then they still use that fear argument. It’s a bit frustrating, but
we’re putting the materials out there that counter all of that.
JJ: You were on the UN Commission on global warming for decades, an
organizer with the AFL-CIO; I know you worked on the anti-WTO demos in
Seattle, so this is a long time coming for you. Do you feel like this is
it? Certainly it’s an opportunity on a scale that we haven’t seen in in
many, many years.
JU: Yes, I do feel like this is it. And I do feel that it is a great
opportunity. And I’m disappointed when I hear labor leaders, including
Rich Trumka the other day, who said, “We’re opposed to the Green New
Deal.” And then he rattled off some reasons that kind of indicated maybe
he hasn’t read that resolution. He said there’s no worker interest in
it. There’s more worker interests in that 14-page resolution, like I
said before, than anything we’ve seen.
So I do think this is it. Not only because of the absolute urgency of
the climate crisis—and we see a whole new wave, now, of really young
people, rising up and striking, not going to school, that’s going to
grow—and this better be it. We have to win this. We have to solve the
climate crisis, and we have the opportunity to do it in a way that
improves the world we live in for working people and everyone. Why don’t
we take that?
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Joe Uehlein. He’s founding president of the
Labor Network for Sustainability. They’re online at
Labor4Sustainability.org. That’s the numeral four.
His piece with Jeremy Brecher, “12 Reasons Labor Should Demand a Green
New Deal,” can still be found on InTheseTimes.org. Joe Uehlein, thank
you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
JU: Thanks for having me.
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