e CONFRONTING GREENPEACE - In July of 1997, the I.W.A. captured Greenpeace vessels on the Vancouver wate! organization blocked logging roads in British Columbia.

rfront, after the international

environmental

Striving for balance between sustainability, quality jobs, stable communities and inter-union solidarity

by Kim Pollock, Director Environment & Public Policy

orking people have

a strong, self-evi-

dent interest in

environmental act-

ion. Workers and

their families are, after all, on the front lines when it comes to workplace contamination, chemical and mechanical health hazards or homes proximate to dan- gerous industrial plants.

At the same time, however, “envi- ronmentalism” has turned into a highly codified ideology that ori-

ates not with the working class,

ut largely with the professional middle classes. As such, it is an ide- ology that often neglects the needs and interests of working people and ignores their key concerns: class paity and solidarity, jobs and com- munity.

Herein lies the crucial difficult; and contradiction of environmental- ism: it is an undeniable need for workers as they struggle for a bet- ter life for themselves and their loved ones; it is also a movement that for the most part is peopled by middle class groups and individuals who owe, for the most part, only tactical allegiance to the working class movement.

The first challenge for workers in Canada and other nations, then, is to harness the best of environmen- talism and conservation to the inter- ests of working class action, while distancing and protecting them- selves from the most extreme and ruthless elements of the “green”

_ movement.

second challenge comes from industry and capital. Workers

ently have an instinctive eae itimate class response to ini- ives that come from middle class

ideologues and intellectuals or from green-controlled non-government organizations. Employers often manipulate this response to pit workers against environmentalists in a way that ignores real and seri- ous and environmental concerns. All too often, after all, factories do pollute; industries do over-reach the bounds of sustainability; profits do come before the health of workers and communities and the truth about these activities is suppressed in the interest of corporations and their shareholders.

In addition, environmental change is usually viewed by industry as a cost, the payment of which must cut into either profits, wages or invest- ment. Companies therefore attempt to resist these costs: often they can- not, either because of competition, political or regulatory pressure or the effects of pollution or poor prac- tice on the operating system itself. When they cannot, often the brunt is borne by workers, in the form of one or more of:

° downward pressure on wages, benefits or employment;

¢ deployment of new technology, which can reduce either employ- ment or workers’ control over their workplace or both;

° an ideological attack on the green groups or government regulators who have pressured industry to change practices, forcing workers to feel they have to choose between their health and ecosystem sustain- ability, on one hand, and their job security and remuneration, on the other.

Tn short, workers all too often are the “meat in the sandwich” in a struggle between industry and green

ups. This can often mean either that both sides attempt to use and manipulate working apesele in their struggle for gain and hegemony or that workers’ interests are sacri-

ficed in the struggles and accommo- dations between these two forces.

Thus the first and foremost lesson for unions and working people: we must develop our own perspective and position on environmental issues, one that answers important issues about conservation and sus- tainability, but which simultane- ously puts up front our concern for solidarity, jobs and community.

There are a number of important observations that follow.

First, environmental issues are complex and multi-faceted, in spite of the simplifying and codifying efforts of protagonists’ on either

Large environmental organizations are often stronger, better equipped for battle and more resourceful than the corporations they attack.

side of a given issue. This means there is no substitute for indepen- dent analysis and aude either by workers, union officials or their attics In environmental issues it is crucial to remember that “the howl- ing of the righteous is indistinguish- able from the howling of the damned.” Because the various play- ers are highly ideologically moti- vated and interested, they can be expected to bend and manipulate the “facts” of “scientific” inquiry and conjecture. We must develop our

own ability to interrogate these “facts”, whether in-house or by trusted academics and profession- als. This is often time-consuming, costly and likely to embroil a union in controversy.

Second, in fact, there are no “truths.” Environmentalism is an ideology, not a science, and as such, its conclusions depend and are highly coloured by its assumptions. Many of these assumptions — the fragility of the earth, the finiteness of its resources, the “fact” that environ- mental quality is constantly, implacably and irreversibly worsen- ing and the belief that human activ- ity is the main and root cause — are just that: assumptions, not proven or irrefutable scientific fact. There is good reason to believe that these

ments originate in a concerted effort to “dampen down” working class expectations in the face of the recessions of the mid-seventies and early eighties. Although subse- uently taken up and em! braced by the middle-class, popularization of green ideology really began with reports such as the C. lub of Rome’s mid-seventies exploration of the “limits of growth.” Ee

In opposition to this ideology, it is just as easy and reasonable to put forward the belief that through col- lective action and technical innova- tion, humanity has, can and will solve the problems of scarcity and want and that we can overcome and transcend the current limits imposed by capi and the limits of our tech- nical knowledge and industrial capacity. Moreover, it can be argued that environmentalists in fact over- state the danger human activity poses to the earth, which has repeat- edly proven its resilience in the face of human and natural devastation and damage and which has arguably

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