| November 29, 2007 |
Labor Goes to Bali: Unions Ready to Take on Global Warming
by Brendan Smith and Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Global Labor Strategies
AlterNet, The Mix is the Message, ForeignPolicy
The devastating realities of climate change, and the scientific consensus around its cause and cure, are shifting the global political climate.
Some people might say you are anti-business. Is that the case?
This week trade unionists from around the world will travel to Bali for the December 3rd launch of negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse
gasses. It will include delegates from such U.S unions as the Electrical Workers (IUE), Mine Workers, Service Employees, Boilermakers, Steelworkers, Communication Workers,
Transport Workers (TWU), and UNITE HERE garment and textile workers. It will also include the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council as well as such labor-oriented groups as the
Blue-Green Alliance, the Cornell Global Labor Institute, and the Labor Research Association. The Kyoto Protocol was signed by 172 countries - not including the U.S. The AFL-CIO, which then represented the great majority of all U.S. unions, opposed the
Kyoto protocol. What will be the stance of American labor toward an even stronger version for the future?
As trade unionists, we are confident that Bali will mark the beginning of a new and more ambitious process of social change, where our collective hearts and minds must
aspire to save our planet, on the basis of solidarity and mutual respect. |
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