SEIU and Environmental Issues

The ITUC has been participating in the climate change talks for years. Last year was the first time a U.S. labor delegation was formed, and the first time SEIU participated.

SEIU's engagement was spurred by several factors. One was a growing level of grassroots member engagement on green issues - from members forming environmental labor-management committees in hospitals, to property service workers learning and practicing green building maintenance. Another was the recognition that so many of our members in large cities suffer disproportionately from bad environmental conditions, from high asthma rates among our children, to contaminated air, land and water in our neighborhoods.

This past June at the SEIU convention, we passed our first comprehensive resolution on jobs and the environment.

U.S. Delegation Meeting

Early in the day, Bob Baugh of the AFL-CIO secured a meeting between the U.S. labor delegation and the leaders from the official U.S. delegation. The U.S. negotiators were both from the State Department: Harlan Watson, the ambassador and special envoy to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and Daniel Reifsnyder, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Sustainable Development.

Our group met before hand to plan what we wanted to cover in the 30-minute session. We put together our agenda, understanding that Watson was leaving his post within weeks.

We found our way to the U.S. delegation office, which was made up of temporary partitions in one of the cavernous spaces within the Poznan Convention Center.

About 10 of us crowded around the table. United Steelworkers, Utility Workers, International Union of Electrical Workers/CWA and the United Farmworkers of America were among the unions represented.

Dave Foster of the Blue Green Alliance opened the meeting by saying that the labor movement fully expects our government to take an active and productive part in the climate negotiations. It soon became clear that this was an assignment Watson was not going to miss. He commented on the "crazy" process and said that environmental ministers "have a disconnect from reality."

Roxanne Brown of the Steelworkers asked about trade policy and border adjustments, and he said that's not the purview of this body. When we said that stakeholders, such as labor, should be included in the U.S. delegation as they are in other delegations, they both told us about what a slippery slope that was: when you let in labor, you have to let in business, when you let in one kind of business, you then have to let in another kind of business. And so on.

And one more notable quote from the outgoing ambassador: "It would have destroyed the economy to have addressed climate change in the way that was proposed."

Good thing we didn't do that.

Green Recovery Panel

The Blue Green Alliance's panel discussion on "Green Recovery" was a definite labor highlight of the day. The Blue Green Alliance (BGA) is a unique coalition of environmental and labor organizations in the United States. The founding organizations were the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club. More recently, they've been joined by the Communication Workers of America, the National Resources Defense Council, and SEIU.

With the unappealing time slot of 6 to 7:30 p.m., I wasn't expecting stellar turnout. But the sizable room was completely full soon after we started. And it had been selected for webcast. After an opening overview presentation by Dave Foster, the executive director of BGA, representatives from each of those organizations gave brief comments on the role of green jobs in economic recovery.

Many people at this conference want to connect with the optimism of new leadership in the United States. That, combined with the unique collaboration represented by BGA, no doubt drew high interest in this panel. Foster's opening overview addressed the potential of green job development in clean energy sectors, and included a basic introduction of what green jobs are. Then participating organizations--SEIU, Steelworkers, Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council--each described their engagement on climate change and labor and the importance of the intersection of those issues.

And it was Margrete Strand from the Sierra Club who said that a strong labor movement is crucial to a strong environmental movement, and that's why environmental activists should fight for the Employee Free Choice Act--a statement that drew a raucous response from the U.S. labor delegates in the room.

Combining environmental and economic development issues has not always been well-received in international settings. But the worsening economic crisis has led to greater openness to this idea, and labor unions are effective messengers on the issue.

Please check back to this blog throughout the week for additional reports from the U.N. Climate talks.