
Labor activists join environmentalists wearing turtle costumes at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, Washington. (Courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives, Item 175623)
Labor activists join environmentalists wearing turtle costumes at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, Washington. (Courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives, Item 175623)
We know weâre dumping carbon in the atmosphere,
Itâs warming the earth, messinâ with the oceans, climate change is here.
We know what weâve got to do, leave it in the ground;
Look to the sun, feel the wind, listen to the sound.
Long sung from the throats of Ralph Chaplin, Pete Seager, and workers around the world, âSolidarity forever / For the union makes us strong!â is the authentic fighting song for organized labor, centering solidarity as their greatest strength against exploitative capital. Yet for Joe Uehlein, it is hard not to see this as a âhollow sloganâ after more than four decades at the intersection of labor organizing and environmental activism. To him, the climate crisis has pulled organized laborâs prioritiesâits âtwo hearts beating within a single breastââin opposite directions, giving into a false duality of âjobs vs. environmentâ as though we can’t have one without the other.
As one heart fights for the health, safety, and future of its members, the other must protect their jobs, as âthe smoke coming out of the steel mill smokestacks⌠[means] bread on the tableâ for Americaâs working class. Through his tireless work as a union organizer, environmentalist, and musician, Uehlein picks out a new tune that âspeaks to something other than the intellect,â helping those beating hearts ârecognize each otherâ and coalesce environmentalism with organized labor, taking down the barriers that keep these movements in separate âsilosâ to fight for a just, sustainable future.
Though they normally occupy two separate political spheres, organized labor and environmental activism could not be more relevant, more interlinked, or more personal for Uehlein. The social life of his Ohio hometown revolved around the United Steelworkers Local 1104 union hall, and both of his parents made ends meet thanks to their union work. But when the nearby Cuyahoga River caught fire, Uehlein and his community were forced to question what they were doing to â[their] paradise, Lake Erie.â Signs reading âDonât Swim in the Lakeâ and âDonât Eat the Perchâ were visceral reminders that the steel millâs smokestacks represented more than just their daily bread.
Uehlein brought this environmental consideration to the forefront of his work. After his early career in several union jobsâboth as a manufacturing and construction worker, and as a union repâand election to Secretary-Treasurer for the industrial division of the AFL-CIOâthe nationâs largest federation of unionsâhe joined the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988. âIâd never heard of global warming,â Uehlein said, âbut I read about the [congressional] testimonyâŚand I thought, Iâm representing the energy unions, mine workers, steelworkers, refinery workers. I better learn about this.â Seeing both the available science and the presence of foreign labor unions, Uehlein judged that Americaâs labor movement was dangerously unconcerned with the looming danger of climate change. However, pushed by the energy unions under their banner, the AFL-CIO opposed Uehleinâs work on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, undercutting their own representation on the Panel and causing Uehlein to resign in frustration.
Why is the AFL-CIO so reticent in its attitude on climate, despite the danger to its roughly 12.5 million members and to working people around the globe? Of its 57 affiliated unions, many have no stated environmental policy, while a handful advocate for some climate action as a peripheral issue. That leaves a bloc of about a dozen unionsâthe building trades, steel, utility, and mine workers whose jobs depend on the fossil fuel industry or other climate-unsustainable sectors. Far from being outright malicious, these unions have a legal duty to advocate for their members, especially in a time of increasing wealth inequality and corporate power. Thus, these powerful and highly motivated energy unions direct the entire AFL-CIO into an âAll of the Aboveâ energy policy, accepting âgreen jobsâ and infrastructure projects while vehemently opposing any attempts to curtail extractive industries. In the early 1980s, pressure from the United Mine Workers dissolved the AFL-CIOâs action on community health issues like air pollution and acid rain, and toxic rhetoric about âjobs vs. environmentâ has continued to poison laborâs political action. Following protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, special interests like the American Petroleum Institute have learned to inflame these tensions and now wield huge influence through energy unions.
According to Uehlein, correcting this is a matter of advocacy. Yet, in his experience as a strategic advisor for the Blue-Green Alliance, a founding member of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the chief organizer of the AFL-CIOâs 50,000-strong presence at the 1999 WTO protests, and leading countless workshops on cross-issue activism, Uehlein observes that the prominent environmental groups who ought to be leading this charge are mired in shortcomings of their own. Because of their general unwillingness to utilize direct action or mass mobilization tactics, these major environmental organizationsâNational Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense Fund, Audubon Society, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Clubâappear to deal more in respectability politics than the massive popular demonstrations needed to motivate sustained action. Ossified by beltway politics and the need to remain respectable amidst the mainstream Democratic Party, these âBig Greensâ hold intransigently to their traditional organizing patterns and lose support because of it.
For Uehlein, the bottom line is that âboth movements are losing.â Traditional environmentalism fails to elicit the nation-stopping turnout of 1970âs first Earth Day, and traditional unionism has been greatly weakened in many sectors by multinational corporations and weak labor-rights enforcement. Both movements, in their most institutionalized forms, are dominated by white male voices which fail to represent the women, people of color, and working poor who are most threatened by corporate greed and climate catastrophe. When operating in separate âsilos,â labor and environmentalism fight each other instead of their common enemy.
Yet despite the failings of Big Green and Big Labor, these movements have so much to gain from cooperation. The federal jobs guarantee, a cornerstone of the Green New Deal and other major climate legislation, would benefit organized labor more than any legislation in the past several decades. According to Uehlein, such a program would âdrive wages and benefits up and allow unions to do what they do best: Negotiate good contracts.â The infrastructure necessary to transition the U.S. to a sustainable power grid would employ millions of Americans across the country, and vigilant oversight could ensure fair workplace conditions that new unions to grow and flourish. And these new unions could bolster the waning power of American workers. History shows us that laborâs greatest victories follow minority inclusion, like women in the â9to5â movement or black workers in the Congress of Industrial Organizations [the âCIOâ in AFL-CIO]. Recent victories at Starbucks and Amazon rejected the parenting of established unions, garnering more widespread support by organizing themselves. With the prominence of Black Lives Matter, youth climate activism, environmental justice, and indigenous movements, Uehlein maintains that labor must platform and learn from these activists who are actually doing something.
How do we achieve this cooperation and dispel the toxic, false dichotomy of âjobs vs. environmentâ? Uehlein now heads the Labor Network for Sustainability, a research and advocacy group working out the nuts and bolts of a just transition. He was arrested for civil disobedience protesting Keystone XL, arm-in-arm with Bill McKibben. And heâs in a rock band. The U-Liners have performed with Pete Seager, Tom Morello, and at both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and AFL-CIO headquarters. Whether singing his originals or covering Jerry Garcia, Bruce Springsteen, and Willie Nelson, Uehleinâs performances are a testament to his beliefs. He changes Billy Edd Wheelerâs lyrics to give the unions due credit and prefaces each set with words of love, empathy, innocence, or revolution. As opposed to capitalismâs propensity for division and addiction, âart and music⌠arrest life and invite contemplation,â Uehlein muses, and âhelp [laborâs two beating hearts] recognize each other and come together.â In tributing laborâs rich history of art and music, he marvels at how songs can tell coal miners to âleave it in the groundâ with empathy and nuance that prose could never achieve. âLiving life is art,â he says, and when business-as-usual fails us, it is the unexpected gracenotes in our musicâand our marchingâthat keep us fighting.
***
This article was originally published here: https://cawei.georgetown.domains/STIA396_Spr22/uncategorized/music-mobilizing-and-making-a-living-on-a-living-planet/