Labor & Employment Law

Learning and Doing in Copenhagen

By admin

Barbara Byrd, secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO and co-chair of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, is taking part in climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate change talks here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Labor delegates from around the world are taking full advantage of opportunities to negotiate, educate, persuade and build bridges here in Copenhagen.

Most of us spend time at the World of Work pavilion, located at the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions. The events here provide labor delegates and others with chances to share information and strategies for labor’s involvement in lowering carbon emissions globally. These education sessions have been the most helpful to me in drawing lessons for the Oregon union movement in dealing with climate issues.

For example, the international labor group Public Services International led a discussion on “Public Services: Key to Getting Us Out of the Climate Crisis.” We heard from public sector union leaders from Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom about the important role public workers can play in reducing the carbon footprints of their departments and agencies and stimulating change in other sectors of the economy. 

David Arnold of UNISON, one of the United Kingdom’s largest public employee unions, said:

Public services came about to address market failures. Climate change is itself an example of a disastrous market failure.

Our own members in AFSCME, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and other public unions play a similar role in Oregon, drawing attention to the need to “green” their own workplaces while helping the state meet its energy efficiency and renewable energy targets. As testament to the Oregon unions’ interest in this issue, Jon Hunt, president of ATU’s Portland local, is here in Copenhagen for the talks.    

Near the end of the workshop, delegates from Uruguay and the Philippines told us how the climate crisis has created huge problems with their public water supplies. These countries suffer the double whammy of the climate crisis and poverty, stalling their efforts to deal with flooding and water resource depletion. Uruguay’s public service unions also are fighting privatization of the public water supply, just as Oregon’s public sector unions have fought privatization of public services. 

It was a stark reminder of what we have in common with our union brothers and sisters in the global south. And it contained an implicit call for increased financial assistance from wealthy industrialized nations. While we argue with our bosses about using recycled paper, union members in these countries lose their livelihoods-and sometimes their lives-to the climate crisis.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on December 18, 2009 (boomark / email).