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TWU Supports Resolution 1 Responding to Climate Change-1

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TWU Supports Resolution 1 Responding to Climate Change-1 DATE: July 26, 2010 TO: All U.S. Affiliates of the International Transport Federation FROM: James C. Little, International President, Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO “We Move America” RE: TWU Supports Resolution 1, “Responding to Climate Change,” and the work of the ITF Climate Change Working Group The TWU, representing more than 200,000 active and retired members, is proud to be JAMES C. LITTLE International President one of more than sixty (60) ITF affiliates from around the world supporting Resolution I submitted to the 42’’ Congress of the ITF. While we acknowledge the HARRY LOMBARDO concerns expressed by TCU President Robert A. Scardalletti in the Position Paper he International Executive Vice circulated to the ITF and its U.S. affiliates, we believe that paper ignores fundamental President realities with which the science of climate change confronts our movement. To protect our members and the planet we share, we must have the courage and vision to JOSEPH C. GORDON International Secretary-Treasurer lead. Organized labor must join with other social movements in seizing the opportunity to make the changes climate science demands of our species. In short, we SUSAN RESCH must evolve or dissolve. Here’s why: Administrative Vice President I) Organized labor is in a desperate struggle for its very survival in the United States JOHN M. CONLEY and many other parts of the world. Our survival requires, among other Administrative Vice President things, that we change as the world and the nature and very definition of work change. As even the TCU acknowledges, “the science of climate change is JEFFREY L. BROOKS, SR. real.” Administrative Assistant to the International President 22) Jobs are involved in many sectors that produce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and adversely impact the environment, not just transport. These include jobs in offshore drilling; strip mining and mountain top removal; industries that overproduce plastics; and many others. Then there are the untold numbers of jobs The oil, coal and other transnational corporate interests that have a linancial TRANSPORT WORKERS stake in downplaying the scale UNION OF AMERICA of the climate crisis have painted a misleading public portrait of’ the AFL-CIO Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a sort of environmental advocacy organization. In fact, the IPCC has a reputation of being conservative and erring on the side of caution. That is one of the reasons it was so stunning and signilicant that it was under the auspices International Headquarters of the IPCC that 2.0(X) of the world’s leading scientists. aller years of exhaustive research. & Offices of the Railroad produced the now famous 2007 report recognizing the potentially devastating consequences of Division & Transit, Utility, climate change. Universities and Service Division 2 One of the better definitions of Greenhouse Gas comes from the New Zealand Ministry of 1700 Broadway, Floor 2 Economic Development: New York, NY 10019 GHG collective 212.259.4900 is a term for those gases which reduce the loss of heat from the earth’s atmosphere. and thus contribute to global warming and climate change. The greenhouse gases most commonly used in calculations of global warming potential include carbon dioxide 2). Regional Headquarters Air (C0 methane 4). nitrous (CH oxide 20). hydrofluorocarhons (HFCs), perlluorocarhons Transport Division (N (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride 1791 Hurstview Dr. (SE-,). Available Hurst, TX 76054 online at http://www.mcd.eovt.nz/ternplates/StandardSummarv 381 50.aspx. 817.282.2544 Retrieved July 20, 2010. www.TWU.org 19 altected not by climate change but by technological changes. The question is not whether we address these changes, hut how. 3) The just demand for and inevitability of GHG emission reduction must be approached as an opportunity to re-tool and re-engineer the economy and secure just futures for our members and for organized labor. The ITF Climate Change working Group document is a comprehensive, integrated blueprint for transport adaptation and mitigation measures that a) The science of climate change demands, and h) Are necessary to ensure the survival of the labor movement and the dignity of work in the coming decades. Our fiduciary duty lies with the survival of our species and the growth of our movement. It is in our members’ interest to transition to a sustainable transportation industry, because ii is in our members’ interest for our movement and our planet to survive. 4) While it is inevitable, the transition away from the energy sources and transportation policies that are destroying workers’ health and the future of our planet towards renewable and sListainable sources of energy will take decades. Union members moving coal and oil are unlikely to be affected for many years to come, and then only gradUally. This means that, while we must begin to act now to save our planet and our movement, we also have the opportunity to carry out our duty to protect jobs by engineering robust “just transition” policies that maintain income and benefits for the workers who will be transitioning to safer and more sustainable work. The Reduce-Shift-Improve model proposed by the ITF Climate Change Working Group points us towards a process that will ensure a just transition. A just transition doesn’t favor some affiliates over others, it builds our movement as it saves our planet by adding good union jobs in sustainable industries such as mass transit and rail and protecting workers who are transitioning into those industries.3 5) Cutting emissions by reducing the level of unsustainable and low-wage transport will lead to MORE unionized jobs in freight and passenger rail, and also in public mass transit, even assuming there is a reduction in the tonnage of coal transported by 4 rail. One major source of job creation is the shift from road-to- We have solid models to draw from in the history of unions that have protected their members in the midst of profound industry transitions. For example, as automation and containerization transformed the shipping industry, the ILA protected its members with initiatives such as the Guaranteed Annual Income program, the Job Security Program and the Rules on Containers. These protections have endured, often in the face of vehement employer opposition. This analysis just focuses on transportation—it does not even begin to take into account the increased tonnage of freight rail transport that is likely to result from a shift to environmental sustainahility in sectors of the economy outside the transport sector. 2 rail. As well as being more fuel efficient, rail transport is also more jobs— 5 These include direct employment in freight intensive than road transport. jobs rail as well as employment in manufacturing (locomotives, freight railcars, shop machinery), construction (rail roadway buildings, warehouses, grading), the iron 6 In and steel industries (rail and over—the-road track materials), and more. addition, freight rail jobs are typically higher paying and of better quality than road freight jobs. The shift from private vehicles to public transport, which will entail a large expansion and improvement of public transport systems, will also create more jobs. Overall, several studies have shown that investment in public transportation creates more jobs than investment in new road construction and a greater variety of jobs, including in transit construction, operation, maintenance, administration and housing, retail and commercial construction near new transit. 6) In the United States and elsewhere, organized labor confronts near a fatal decline in labor market density and in popularity among communities of working people. This decline dictates a need to preserve and build partnerships with other social movements. The movement to protect the environment is probably the greatest emerging popular front. In transport, the trade union agenda and the climate 7 To retreat in this area, or to act as a brake, protection agenda are one and the same. is to promote our more rapid decline into irrelevance. 7) Vision and leadership are required today, not sand to bLiry our heads in, hoping will 9 The TWU has many areas of that changes and challenges simply go away. WWF note 110, cited in ITF Climate Change Working Group, Transport Workers and Climate Change. Towards Sustainabilitv and Low-Carbon Mobility, at n. 50 (2010). 6 Full Speed Ahead, cited in ITF Climate Document, n. 53. Transport sectors that have been most affected by liberalization and deregulation, and have the lowest unionization rates, are the ones where emissions have gone up the fastest. Thus, reducing emissions requires a strong trade union agenda that calls for the full costs of transport to be internalized. The powerful forces opposing action on climate change are the same anti-union corporate interests that have made the most money in the history of money off the potential destruction of the planet. “in early 2009,” writes Bill McKihben. just as Obama was getting set to unveil his energy plans. word came that 2,340 lobbyists had registered to work on climate change on Capitol Hill (that’s about six per congressman), 85 percent of them devoted to slowing down progress.” B. McKibben, Eaarth, Times Books, p. 56(2010). Walter Reuther of the UAW provides another fine example of a visionary labor leader who. confronted with a structural crisis. transformed it into an opportunity for change. Faced with a declining demand for personal automobiles. he successfully advocated retooling the industry to support the anti-fascist movement in World War Il. Rather than bemoaning lost demand. he advocated a full employment economy in coalition with unemployed workers. and supplied the vision needed to transform the industry to meet the existential challenge of his era. Later, Reuther travelled to Memphis. Tennessee with a $50,000 check to show solidarity with striking black 3 common ground with the TCU.
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