Furthermore, in large part because of the struggles waged by U.S. refinery workers, the health, safety and environmental controls at U.S refineries are among the highest in the world. The same could not be said about refineries in India or South Korea, for example.
3. Attacking the livelihoods of oil refinery workers weakens the alliances needed for reduction of greenhouse gases and the transition to a clean energy economy.
But aren't there plenty of labor organizations that already support strong action on climate change? If so, why should we care about these highly paid fossil fuel workers?
The answer relates to how we amass sufficient political power to curb greenhouse gasses. Nearly all of the labor groups that currently support strong action on climate change don't have jobs at risk. They are health care workers, service workers and others who would not see their livelihoods threatened by job loss due the reduction of fossil fuel emissions.
But if oil workers are in alliance with the environmental community, an important political message can be sent. It could show that the workers most impacted by the transition also want a cleaner and more stable environment for themselves, their families and their communities. Such an alliance would bring more resources, organizational muscle and troops to the environmental struggle and it would have the potential to put a dent in the power of the oil executives to rally their employees against environmental protections.
4. Talking about Just Transition and the New Green Economy is not good enough.
But isn't this job fear foolish? Doesn't the new green economy now dwarf the old fossil fuel industries?
Yes, it's true that solar and wind are rapidly growing. But it's very, very hard to make the case to an existing fossil fuel or manufacturing worker that he or she is going to get these new jobs, or that pay and benefits will be anything close to comparable.
In the U.S. there is no just transition program that guarantees the incomes of those who lose their jobs due to needed environmental protections. Given four decades of attacks on organized labor, very few of the new green jobs are unionized or pay anything close to the fossil fuel/high energy jobs.
Creating a just transition program is an important and noble aspiration. But if such a program is to be actually "just," it will require enormous changes in how our economy functions: i.e., how people get the new jobs and how incomes and benefits follow people during the transition. And it will require an enormously powerful political movement both to halt the climate crisis and protect worker rights.
The late Tony Mazzocchi, a leader of unionized oil workers and other industrial workers in the U.S., invented the concept of just transition. He understood there would be an enormous clash between the needs of the planet and the needs of working people to maintain their hard fought wages and benefits. He predicted decades ago that right wing demagogues would emerge to seize on these fears unless a real transition program came into being.
The key concept of just transition as he envisioned it is "making workers whole." This means that dislocated workers in environmentally sensitive industries would receive full pay and benefits as they transitioned to other jobs. Mazzocchi argued that, at the very least, these dislocated workers should receive four years full pay and benefits, plus free tuition to college or a trade school of their choice, modeled after the GI Bill of Rights following WWII.
If that's what environmentalists mean by just transition, then there is an opening for a productive dialogue. But that opening will only exist if environmentalists first do the math on how we meet continuing demand for gas to fuel our real driving needs, and on whether domestic, highly-regulated production of oil produces less carbon than alternative sources out of state or overseas.
5. How do we win the struggle to contain the Climate Crisis?
It's hard to make the case that we're winning much of anything right now. Congress and the White House are now ruled by anti-labor, climate change deniers. We have an environmental lunatic as president. Perhaps it's time to review our organizing strategies.
Because both labor rights and environmental progress are in grave danger, we should explore whether an alliance between oil workers and environmentalists is possible and productive.
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