Blue and Green on a day for Reds
Much of the world celebrates labor day on May First and that's a good enough excuse to write something about the labor movement.
Yesterday I was looking at the website for the Blue Green Alliance. Its a joint project of unions and environmental groups lead by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club. Their top issues include Global Warming/Clean Energy, Fair Trade and reducing toxics. They have a document showing the potential for job growth in Illinois if we invest in renewable energy.
I notice that the companies with the worst environmental records often have bad records for how they treat their employees. It makes sense that a company who is willing to disrespect the air and water for short term gain will also disrespect their workers. It happens when a company has a group mindset that its acceptable to do anything they can get away with to increase their profit margin.
The last thing they want is unions and environmental groups working together, which is why you see the corporate voiceboxes in the media trying to define environmentalism as a cultural issue instead of an economic one. They want people to believe there's a huge cultural divide between blue collar union workers and hippie environmentalists. But I know union leaders who are Sierra Club members and I know Sierra Club leaders who belong to a union.
The website mentions Karen Silkwood's union supporting her when she blew the whistle on safety violations at a nuclear power plant. I recently saw the 1983 movie about Silkwood staring Cher of all people. Its pretty good.
Karen Silkwood is mentioned in the Gil Scott-Heron song, We Almost Lost Detroit, which gives me an excuse to post a song I like.
Happy May Day!