Labor and the Environmental Movement

Labor and the Environmental Movement PDF Author: Brian K. Obach
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262263993
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Relations between organized labor and environmental groups are typically characterized as adversarial, most often because of the specter of job loss invoked by industries facing environmental regulation. But, as Brian Obach shows, the two largest and most powerful social movements in the United States actually share a great deal of common ground. Unions and environmentalists have worked together on a number of issues, including workplace health and safety, environmental restoration, and globalization (as in the surprising solidarity of "Teamsters and Turtles" in the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle). Labor and the Environmental Movement examines why, when, and how labor unions and environmental organizations either cooperate or come into conflict. By exploring the interorganizational dynamics that are crucial to cooperative efforts and presenting detailed studies of labor-environmental group coalition building from around the country (examining in detail examples from Maine, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin), it provides insight into how these movements can be brought together to promote a just and sustainable society. Obach gives a brief history of relations between organized labor and environmental groups in the United States, explores how organizational learning can increase organizations' ability to work with others, and examines the crucial role played by "coalition brokers" who maintain links to both movements. He challenges research that attempts to explain inter-movement conflict on the basis of cultural distinctions between blue-collar workers and middle-class environmentalists, providing evidence of legal and structural constraints that better explain the organizational differences class-culture and new-social-movement theorists identify. The final chapter includes a model of the crucial determinants of cooperation and conflict that can serve as the basis for further study of inter-movement relations.

Labor and the Environmental Movement

Labor and the Environmental Movement PDF Author: Brian K. Obach
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262263993
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book

Book Description
Relations between organized labor and environmental groups are typically characterized as adversarial, most often because of the specter of job loss invoked by industries facing environmental regulation. But, as Brian Obach shows, the two largest and most powerful social movements in the United States actually share a great deal of common ground. Unions and environmentalists have worked together on a number of issues, including workplace health and safety, environmental restoration, and globalization (as in the surprising solidarity of "Teamsters and Turtles" in the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle). Labor and the Environmental Movement examines why, when, and how labor unions and environmental organizations either cooperate or come into conflict. By exploring the interorganizational dynamics that are crucial to cooperative efforts and presenting detailed studies of labor-environmental group coalition building from around the country (examining in detail examples from Maine, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin), it provides insight into how these movements can be brought together to promote a just and sustainable society. Obach gives a brief history of relations between organized labor and environmental groups in the United States, explores how organizational learning can increase organizations' ability to work with others, and examines the crucial role played by "coalition brokers" who maintain links to both movements. He challenges research that attempts to explain inter-movement conflict on the basis of cultural distinctions between blue-collar workers and middle-class environmentalists, providing evidence of legal and structural constraints that better explain the organizational differences class-culture and new-social-movement theorists identify. The final chapter includes a model of the crucial determinants of cooperation and conflict that can serve as the basis for further study of inter-movement relations.

Making a Living

Making a Living PDF Author: Chad Montrie
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807831972
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
In an innovative fusion of labor and environmental history, Making a Living examines work as a central part of Americans' evolving relationship with nature, revealing the unexpected connections between the fight for workers' rights and the rise of

Environmental Unions

Environmental Unions PDF Author: Craig Slatin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351868012
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
During the 1970s and 1980s, a hazardous waste management industry emerged in the U.S., driven by government and polluting industry responses to a hazardous waste crisis. In 1979, labor unions began to seek federal health and safety protections for workers in that industry and for firefighters responding to hazardous materials fires. Those efforts led to a worker health and safety section in the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. The legislation mandated regulation of hazardous waste operations and emergency response worker protection, and establishment of a national health and safety training grant program - which became the Worker Education and Training Program (WETP).Craig Slatin provides a history of labor's success on the coattails of the environmental movement and in the middle of a rightward shift in American politics. He explores how the WETP established a national worker training effort across industrial sectors, with case studies on the health and safety training programs of two unions in the WETP - the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers and the Laborers' Union. Lessons can be learned from one of the last major worker health and safety/environmental protection victories of the 1960s-1980s reform era, coming at the end of the golden age of regulation and just before the new era of deregulation and market dominance. Slatin's analysis calls for a critical survey of the social and political tasks facing those concerned about worker and community health and environmental protection in order to make a transition toward just and sustainable production.

Leverage of the Weak

Leverage of the Weak PDF Author: Hwa-Jen Liu
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452944776
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Comparing Taiwan and South Korea strategically, Hwa-Jen Liu seeks an answer to a deceptively simple question: Why do social movements appear at different times in a nation’s development? Despite their apparent resemblance—a colonial heritage, authoritarian rule, rapid industrialization, and structural similarities—Taiwan and South Korea were opposites in their experiences with two key social movements. South Korea followed a conventional capitalist route: labor movements challenged the system long before environmental movements did. In Taiwan, pro-environment struggles gained strength before labor activism. Liu argues that part of the explanation lies in an analysis of how movements advance their causes by utilizing different types of power. Whereas labor movements have the power of economic leverage, environmental movements depend on the power of ideology. Therefore, examining material factors versus ideational factors is crucial to understanding the successes (or failures) of social movements. Leverage of the Weak is a significant contribution to the literature on social movements, to the study of East Asian political economies, and to the progress of the comparative-historical method. It enhances knowledge of movement emergence, investigates the possibilities and obstacles involved in forging labor–environment alliances, and offers the first systematic, multilayered comparisons across movements and nations in East Asia.

The Conflicts Between Labor and Environmentalism in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States

The Conflicts Between Labor and Environmentalism in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States PDF Author: Heinrich Siegmann
Publisher: Dartmouth Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Comparison of trade union attitudes to environmental protection in Germany, Federal Republic and USA, 1965 to 1982 - describes the interest group conflict over employment policy, economic growth and energy policy; examines the social status, economic conditions and decision making processes of the two sides; discusses political integration and the role of ideology. Bibliography, statistical tables.

Power Lines

Power Lines PDF Author: Jeff Ordower
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620978229
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
The essential anthology on the most effective ways to organize a labor movement for environmental justice, from leading organizers in the field The corporate elite have long pitted climate and labor movements against each other through a “jobs vs. the environment” narrative that maximizes profits. But over the last few years, labor unions and climate organizers have been pushing back against this framework and organizing for a real just transition. Featuring contributions from key organizers in climate justice and labor, Power Lines tackles the most pressing questions facing those who are trying to build a movement for economic and environmental justice. The collection provides practical organizing models and strategies as well as inspiration for the possibility of making change on climate. Power Lines moves beyond an analysis of the class politics of climate change or the strategic imperative of federal climate legislation, making the case for the urgency of a robust labor–climate justice movement. It also shows us how we can build that movement by sharing some of the most creative and effective organizing happening on the ground right now.

Labor-environmental Coalitions

Labor-environmental Coalitions PDF Author: Thomas Estabrook
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351843362
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In 1984, the oil, chemical and atomic workers began a 5-year campaign to win back the jobs of its members locked out by the BASF Corp. in Geismar, Louisiana. The multiscale campaign involved coalitions with local environmentalists as well as international solidarity from environmental and religious organizations. The local coalition which helped break the lockout was maintained and expanded in the 1990s. This alliance is one of numerous labor-community coalitions to emerge increasingly over the past 20 years.""Labor-Environmental Coalitions: Lessons from a Louisiana Petrochemical Region"" traces the development of the Louisiana Labor-Neighbor Project from 1985 to the present, within the context of a long history of divisions between labor and community in the U.S. The Project continued after the lockout, thriving during 1990s, expanding from one community to four counties to include 20 local member organizations, and broadening its agenda from the original jobs crisis and pollution problems to address a wide range of worker, environmental health, and economic justice issues."" Labor-Environmental Coalitions"" explores the dynamics of the Louisiana coalition to offer lessons for other coalition efforts. The book seeks to understand coalitions as a necessary strategy to counteract the dominant forces of capitalist development. The author contends that the Labor-Neighbor Project, like labor-community coalitions generally, created a unique blend of politics shaped by the geographic nature industry's politics; by the relative openness of government; and by the class experience of labor and community members.The Louisiana Project demonstrates that for labor-community coalitions to thrive they must broaden their agenda, strengthen their leadership and coalition-building skills, and develop access to multiscale resources. The author argues that for labor-community coalitions to have longer term political impact, they should adopt an explicitly progressive approach by building a broader class and cultural leadership, and by demanding state and corporate accountability on economic, public health, and environmental justice issues.

Forcing the Spring

Forcing the Spring PDF Author: Robert Gottlieb
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Originally published in 1993, Forcing the Spring was quickly recognized as a seminal work in the field of environmental history. The book links the environmental movement that emerged in the 1960s to earlier movements that had not previously been defined as environmental. It was the first to consider the importance of race, ethnicity, class, and gender issues in the history and evolution of environmentalism. This revised edition extends the groundbreaking history and analysis of Forcing the Spring into the present day. It updates the original with important new material that brings the book's themes and arguments into the 21st century, addressing topics such as: the controversy spawned by the original edition with regard to how environmentalism is, or should be, defined; new groups and movements that have formed in the past decade; change and development in the overall environmental movement from 1993 to 2004; the changing role of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in today's environmentalism; the impact of the 2004 presidential election; the emergence of "the next environmentalism." Forcing the Spring, Revised Edition considers environmentalism as a contemporary movement focused on "where we live, work, and play," touching on such hot-button topics as globalization, food, immigration, and sprawl. The book also describes the need for a "next environmentalism" that can address current challenges, and considers the barriers and opportunities associated with this new, more expansive approach. Forcing the Spring, Revised Edition is an important contribution for students and faculty in a wide variety of fields including history, sociology, political science, environmental studies, environmental history, and social movements. It also offers useful context and analysis for anyone concerned with environmental issues.

Coalitions across the Class Divide

Coalitions across the Class Divide PDF Author: Fred Rose
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501718738
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Too often struggles for jobs and economic justice have been divided from social goals such as peace or protecting the environment. How do we create an economy where both the process and product of work serve life-sustaining goals? Coalitions across the Class Divide argues that the seeds of this new society are being sown by those who learn to bridge working and middle-class movements and cultures. A new generation of activists is seizing a historic opportunity to organize coalitions across the labor, peace, environmental, and other movements that have previously worked in isolation or at odds. Fred Rose brings the challenges and potential of coalition organizing to life through an in-depth look at cases of conflict and cooperation. From the timber wars in the Pacific Northwest to military conversion coalitions emerging with the end of the Cold War, these cases teach practical lessons about the processes and pitfalls of organizing across movements and classes.

Making a Living

Making a Living PDF Author: Chad Montrie
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807877647
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
In an innovative fusion of labor and environmental history, Making a Living examines work as a central part of Americans' evolving relationship with nature, revealing the unexpected connections between the fight for workers' rights and the rise of the modern environmental movement. Chad Montrie offers six case studies: textile "mill girls" in antebellum New England, plantation slaves and newly freed sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, homesteading women in the Kansas and Nebraska grasslands, native-born coal miners in southern Appalachia, autoworkers in Detroit, and Mexican and Mexican American farm workers in southern California. Montrie shows how increasingly organized and mechanized production drove a wedge between workers and nature--and how workers fought back. Workers' resistance not only addressed wages and conditions, he argues, but also planted the seeds of environmental reform and environmental justice activism. Workers played a critical role in raising popular consciousness, pioneering strategies for enacting environmental regulatory policy, and initiating militant local protest. Filled with poignant and illuminating vignettes, Making a Living provides new insights into the intersection of the labor movement and environmentalism in America.