[rad-green] A Green New Deal Can Win, Even Among Building Trades Unions

*https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/a-green-new-deal-can-win-even-among-building-trades-unions
<https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/a-green-new-deal-can-win-even-among-building-trades-unions>Jacobin
         12.30.2019*


*A Green New Deal Can Win, Even Among Building Trades UnionsBy Ryan Pollock*


*Construction workers are seen as they work with steel rebar during the
construction of a building on May 17, 2019 in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle /
Getty*


In order for the Green New Deal to move forward, organized labor must take
it up as a demand. Building trades unions have been written off as
hopelessly reactionary on fighting climate change — but they shouldn't be,
as one union electrician explains.


The building trades have often been one of the more reactionary elements of
organized labor in the United States. Even as a tradesman myself — an
inside wireman with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(IBEW) — I had my own doubts about how much support for the Green New Deal
<https://jacobinmag.com/series/green-new-deal> (GND) could be garnered from
the building trades.

My recent experience at the 60th Annual Texas AFL-CIO Constitutional
Convention shattered that understanding. Not only were many of my fellow
trades siblings — plenty of whom work in the fossil fuel industry or
represent fossil fuel workers `— strongly in favor of the GND at the start
of the convention, but the political struggle to get most everyone else on
board required minimal effort. In the end, our state AFL-CIO passed a
GND-style resolution. This victory is a powerful model for conventions
across the country; it shows how resolutions like this one can become a
standard labor demand.

In March of this year, shortly after the release of the GND resolution in
Congress, the AFL-CIO Energy Committee released a memo
<http://www.ibew.org/Portals/22/IBEW%20Letters/2019/Markey.Ocasio-Cortez%20Letter.Climate.pdf?ver=2019-03-11-111951-970>
harshly
criticizing the resolution. Surprised by the response of an organization
that I felt the resolution intended to strengthen, I set out to identify
their reasons for opposition. In the process
<https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2019/9/3/labor-and-the-green-new-deal>,
I discovered a pro-GND resolution
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i2li6UU1VIN_IM1pjDHb7hdSMm4CtVXK3RHDQ9z0d0E/edit>
passed
by the Alameda, California Central Labor Council (CLC), a confederation of
union delegates that make recommendations on local and statewide labor and
political issues.

After reading the Alameda resolution, I wondered if I could pass something
similar in my own CLC (Austin, TX), to which I’m a delegate. After tweaking
the language of the Alameda resolution to make its references to the crisis
in California more relevant to Texans, I submitted the resolution at the
July meeting of the Austin CLC. After some explanation and discussion, the
resolution
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1606vWupImnQzoMuKTH-7AhcCMQsVVkMuBfhq0XxDVNk/edit>
passed
unanimously.

The next step was the state level — a week after the Austin CLC meeting,
the 60th Annual Texas AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention took place, and I
was appointed by my union local to attend.

Soon after the meeting agenda went public, I received a call from my friend
Jeff Rotkoff, the campaign director for Texas AFL-CIO, letting me know that
leadership at Texas AFL-CIO loved my resolution, but that it was also
already causing a stir. While they applauded my efforts, they didn’t expect
it to get very far. I didn’t blame them at all for their pessimism. I
didn’t expect <https://jacobinmag.com/2019/03/afl-cio-green-new-deal-letter>
much
progress myself. Over the next few days, entire districts of building
trades threatened to walk out of the convention if my resolution even made
it to the floor. I came ready to fall flat on my face.

When I arrived at the stakeholder meeting that had been set up to discuss
my resolution, however, my expectations quickly brightened. I was
immediately introduced to Lee Medley, president of a Gulf Coast United
Steelworkers (USW) local, who, instead of writing me off as I had expected,
showed both good faith and a genuine interest. He asked me if I was
familiar with the concept of just transition. As I informed him that the
trades defining our own terms for a just transition was exactly what I was
trying to accomplish with this resolution, I understood that we were going
to be making some serious progress that weekend.

Folks in the stakeholder meeting gave some constructive criticisms of the
resolution. Reference to the desires of “young climate activists” and
“Congress” were removed, as rank-and-file tradespeople generally couldn’t
care less about what activists or Congress think. It was also pointed out
that “the Green New Deal” would trigger members already inoculated by
media, so we replaced GND with “Federal Environmental Policy,” to placate
those members and allow for the resolution to apply to policy other than
the GND itself. These changes proved to be critical in getting this
resolution through the next round of meetings — the union caucuses.

I made my way from the stakeholder meeting to the IBEW caucus, made up of
about sixty IBEW workers from across Texas. Many of them work in oil
refineries and coal-fired power plants and came prepared for intense
discussion. Once again, I was surprised to find the majority of the
membership was already on board. Even the skeptical minority eventually
came around, as they couldn’t deny what they are personally experiencing.
Our homes, jobs, conditions, and overall quality of life are being
threatened, more and more with each passing day, by both climate change and
the contradictions of capitalism (although most of my brothers and sisters
present at that meeting would deny the latter as a culprit for their
increasing precarity). As even fewer and fewer of those who identify with
the political right in the United States are able to deny the causes of
climate change, these workers are already reckoning with the fact that the
jobs they rely on today will ruin them tomorrow.

Of course, not everyone felt this way. A few objections were made, mostly
in bad faith. One member thought they could score points by getting me to
say that a GND-style policy would increase the deficit (fortunately, others
and I shot this point down). Interestingly, the most ardent opposition came
from a representative for the international level of the IBEW. When he saw
that his arguments weren’t winning him any favor, he disappeared into the
hall and then reappeared, claiming to have called his bosses. He explained
they told him that they were currently negotiating the GND, and to not let
us pass any resolution on it as it had the potential to contradict their
negotiations. I smiled and informed him that this was great news, as my
resolution made no reference to the GND.

With that, we felt we had reached consensus and took a vote. Out of the
sixty or so delegates in the room, all but a few voted to support the
resolution. The next morning the resolution went to the AFL-CIO floor and
passed unanimously, no discussion required.

Let that sink in for a minute: building trades workers unanimously
supported a GND-style resolution in the state of *Texas*.

Of course, the fact that I wasn’t able to get the resolution through with
clear language linking it to the GND shows that the gap between climate
leftists and labor still hasn’t been completely closed. Many workers have
been inoculated against the messaging of Sunrise and others by right-wing
media. When they hear “Green New Deal,” they make jokes about farting cows
and banning air travel. As I saw throughout this process, however, this
inoculation is very superficial: it doesn’t go much deeper than recognizing
the name, an aversion Rep. Ocasio-Cortez
<https://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-interview-democratic-primary>,
and a couple of easily debunked talking points. Much like the campaign
for Medicare
For All
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/medicare-for-all-social-workers-health-care>,
my experience tells me that a coordinated educational campaign would likely
move the GND into the mainstream of labor demands.

Bringing resolutions to various labor bodies and committees is a large part
of such an educational campaign, as it stimulates debate which cuts against
right-wing propaganda. Resolutions like this are also tools that labor uses
to communicate, both internally and externally, where we stand. Our
internal committees look to them to inform our endorsement processes, and
elected officials look to them if they’re seeking our support or trying to
avoid our ire. They also inform the greater climate movement of whether or
not momentum for the GND amongst organized labor is building, where it’s
building or stalling, where/when it’s wise to engage, etc.

What does the labor-focused segment of the climate justice movement need to
do next? First, we must repeatedly engage labor, from the local level on up
to the national/international level, in as many places as we can — both
through defined democratic processes like the one I experienced, as well in
the rank-and-file space of our locals. The goal is not to simply push
resolutions through, but to educate and build a base of support in the
process.

In order to do this, we need to understand both what’s failed in the past
and what’s different this time.

In the past, environmental activists typically targeted the industry in a
way that didn’t account for the material interests of workers. They worked
to shut down coal-fired plants and pipelines without any labor protections,
leaving workers unemployed and understandably upset. If a proper class
analysis is applied, we can understand that workers’ most immediate needs —
the ability to provide a decent life for themselves and their loved ones —
must be addressed before they can concern themselves with averting climate
disaster.

We don’t need to explain to workers on the Gulf Coast why we need to
decarbonize. We don’t need to convince them that the climate crisis is real
when they’re still recovering from Hurricane Harvey and they’ve experienced
their fifth “500-year flood” in five years. We don’t need to explain to
them that the fossil fuel industry is on its way out when they’re
experiencing the job loss firsthand. We don’t need to tell them that we’re
losing green tech manufacturing jobs to even *more* exploited labor
overseas. US labor is well-acquainted with how we’ve failed to react to
rapid economic change, and we won’t stand by again if and when leadership
rolls over and capitulates to capital. When workers understand that the GND
won’t take away their livelihood, but instead secure an even better one,
they support it.

The importance of this message coming from a trusted source from within
exemplifies the critical role of the rank-and-file strategy in our
eco-socialist project. By entering jobs in the unionized building trades,
we can help direct worker struggles away from the bosses’ dead-end carbon
protectionism towards inclusive climate action and a just transition. A
crucial part of this effort in Texas was that the effort wasn’t being led
by some Sierra Club staffer: it was coming from a fellow worker of the
organized building trades who will also be dislocated by a Green New Deal.
There was no question that our interests were one and the same. I support
the GND not only because I know that we need to decarbonize, but because I
want what’s best for the global working class, the building trades, and the
IBEW. As an eco-socialist and a member of the building trades for six
years, I can’t stress enough how impactful it is for us to be in these
spaces, as well as rewarding.

In order for the Green New Deal to move forward, it must become a standard
demand from organized labor. The task for us now is to replicate this kind
of effort at each and every one of our locals (I suggest taking a look
at Calling
All Union Members
<https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2019/5/20/calling-all-union-members> by
Johnathan Guy for a more detailed idea of how to apply this locally), CLCs,
and conventions. Understand your local conditions while keeping in mind the
conditions of your greater region, and apply them to any resolution when
necessary. Power map <https://movetoamend.org/toolkit/guide-power-mapping> your
leaders (officers, staff, and organic leaders of the rank and file);
organize them to educate the membership, build support, and whip votes.
When you feel like you have sufficient support, bring a motion to the floor.

Building consensus here is just as important as a passing vote in our
locals, as we’re going to need to approach this with as much strength and
solidarity as we can muster.
Republished from The Trouble
<https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2019/11/28/the-case-for-an-ecosocialist-rank-amp-file-strategy-in-the-building-trades>

Ryan Pollock is an IBEW Local 520 electrician in Austin, TX and a member of
Austin DSA.

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