Author Archives: dhubbard

Taking Stock of OWS on its One Month Birthday

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Posted By: dhubbard

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Reposted from TWU Workers’ Rights are Human Rights page.

Delivering ponchos and posters to Occupy Philly, October 2011

As the Occupy Wall Street movement celebrates its one month anniversary, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on the larger meaning of the movement.  Where did it come from? What do supporters want? Where is it headed?

Occupy Philly, October 2011:

Occupy Philly kitchen fed three meals a day to all comers

Occupy Philly General Assembly

We are living through a critical and inspiring moment in history, as ordinary people around the country and the globe, many for the first time, are stepping up in movements like Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philly and Occupy DC and Dallas and Bridgeport and Miami and San Francisco and on and on, and the indignados movements in Spain and Latin America, and the anti-austerity movements in the rest of Europe.  They are all using the human mic to say “NO!” with one voice to a world of corporate greed, where the richest 1%, who have everything, have used that power only to create unemployment, inequality, homelessness, environmental devastation, and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and alienation on the part of ordinary people everywhere.

Occupy Philly, October 2011

People are through waiting, and are moving themselves to create a new world in which the 99% have a voice, in which human rights are more important than property interests. And they are saying, in essence, “we will occupy our public spaces and we will carry out direct actions and build a new democratic community until we believe that new world is being born.”

Who would have thought a month ago that a tiny band of young people in New York would have inspired such an inspiring worldwide mobilization?  And who would have thought that TWU would play such a critical role in sparking this movement, lending the legitimacy and power of the labor movement at a key moment in its development?  If we take a look back, it’s not surprising.

Photo: Roger Toussaint; Occupy SF, October 12, 2011

Since March, the WR=HR e-news has been telling the story of how the richest 1%, many of them bailout beneficiaries who are enjoying record profits, have tried to blame organized workers and the most vulnerable members of our society for the economic crisis the 1% themselves created.  We have reported how this 1% are refusing to pay their fair share of taxes and trying to make those who had nothing to do with creating the mess shoulder all the burden of paying for the crisis.

We have reported on how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in January 2010 opened the floodgates of corporate spending in politics, underwriting the Tea Party and drowning the November 2010 mid-term elections in corporate cash. We have reported how this lead to the takeover by the far right of the U.S. House of Representatives, 638 state legislative seats and control of both state legislature and the Governor’s mansion in 21 states.

Occupy DC, October 3, 2011 (Freedom Plaza)

We have reported how the extreme right then chose Wisconsin as the launching pad for the most vicious all-out nationwide assault on organized workers in the public and private sector in our lifetimes.  We told the inspiring story of how students led the Capitol occupation there, prefiguring the OWS movement in their attempt to build the kind of community they are fighting for in the midst of that very struggle.

We have reported on the outpouring in Ohio, where 1.3 million residents, with the help of TWU members statewide, demanded a “citizens’ veto” of the union-busting SB 5 bill championed by right wing favorite Gov. John Kasich.

We have reported on how the political puppets of the 1%, egged on by the Tea Party, held the U.S. economy and our global competitiveness hostage and even shut down the FAA in support of demands to cut trillions from essential programs that the 99% depend on, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

We have reported how even so-called excluded workers, such as foreign students here on cultural exchange programs, are organizing and fighting back against brutal exploitation by companies like Hershey, recreating before our eyes the very idea of what it means to be a union.

We have reported on the demands of young people and immigrants and people of color and excluded workers and women and the unemployed to reclaim and remake the labor movement in a way that meets their needs and their vision for a more humane future.

We have reported on the Occupy Wall Street movement from the time it was just a gleam in the eyes of a tiny handful of young activists.

And we were there to tell the story when TWU proudly led the rest of the labor movement into supporting this struggle at a critical moment in its development, helping spark its global growth.
All these events and more combined to create the conditions for the success—so far— of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  It is now time to translate the popular sentiment that movement has generated into concrete gains for the 99%.

Why Future-Leaning Unions Decided to Oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline

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Posted By: dhubbard

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Sitting in, then being arrested in non-violent civil disobedience at White House as part of successful protests against Keystone XL pipeline, September 2011


 

 

 

On August 16th, 2011, the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) became the first U.S. unions to oppose TransCanada Corporation’s application to construct the Keystone XL Pipeline, which has been called a “1700 mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.”  TWU and ATU were later joined in their opposition by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Domestic Workers United, and, after President Obama came out against the pipeline, by much of the mainstream of the U.S. union movement, including the United Steelworkers, the Communication Workers of America, the Service Employees International Union and the United Autoworkers.

Why Would Unions Take a Stand on an Environmental Issue?

For TWU and ATU, the decision to oppose Keystone XL project was taken after months of discussions and background research.  These unions understood that the Keystone conduit, which would be constructed from pipe built in India, would transport oil extracted from “bitumen sands” or “tar sands” from the world’s largest boreal forest in Alberta, Canada, across the pristine Ogallala Aquifer which supplies America’s bread basket with drinking water, to the Gulf Coast, where it would be refined and/or transported further to unknown destinations, many of them offshore.

They were concerned that the pipeline, if built, would destroy far more jobs than it creates, through its contribution to the climate crisis (which will cause major job losses through damage to water, energy, transportation and public health systems, as well as important economic sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, forestry, manufacturing, and tourism), through contamination of water via oil spills (which will also cost farming, ranching and tourism jobs), increased air pollution (which causes respiratory and other illnesses which keep people from working), and lost construction and refinery jobs in Canada.

They understood that the pipeline project, if approved, would directly benefit the labor movement’s most vicious enemies. It is supported by the very same forces that are attacking unions and holding our economy hostage in their concerted effort to destroy the safety net for tens of millions of Americans. The billionaire Koch Brothers, for example, who have bankrolled both the attacks on the labor movement and climate science denial nationwide, stand to profit from the Keystone XL project.  They are already responsible for close to 25 percent of the bitumen sands crude that is imported into the United States, and they own both a crude oil terminal at the starting point of the proposed pipeline and a refinery that is already receiving 250,000 barrels a day of Alberta tar sands oil.

These unions concluded that the project would have very serious adverse impacts, and that it could ultimately kill far more jobs than it would create. They listened carefully to the Canadian unions, including the Alberta Federation of Labor and the CEP (Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union), the Canadian union that represents the tar sands and refinery workers who would work on the project, who oppose the pipeline and the whole model of development it embodies, because it is unsustainable and cuts off the possibility of creating a democratic energy policy that reduces emissions and benefits workers in Canada for the long haul. They learned that people in the Midwest oppose the Keystone XL pipeline because it would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, a major source of clean water for the America’s breadbasket.  They were informed that the Keystone I pipeline, already completed, has leaked 14 times in the single year it has been in operation, making it the newest pipeline ever to be declared an imminent threat to public safety by federal regulators.  They noted the concerns expressed by “First Nations” people in Alberta about the rapid expansion in development of tar sands oil, which is destroying their traditional culture as it encroaches on the boreal forest, and is having tremendous health repercussions on workers and people in surrounding communities. They shared the EPA’s concerns that the State Department had not adequately addressed concerns about increases in greenhouse gas emissions, spills from the pipeline, and more air pollution.

They also regarded their opposition to Keystone XL to be entirely consistent with, if not demanded by, the climate protection policies developed by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Industry Job Claims are Unsubstantiated

TWU and ATU also became convinced that the direct and indirect jobs estimates by TransCanada and its hired research operation, The Perryman Group, were inaccurate.  The job estimates contained in the State Department’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (6,000 mostly temporary construction jobs over three years) were, they believed, more reliable than the unsubstantiated claim of 20,000 direct jobs made by TransCanada and the American Petroleum Institute, or the 119,000 indirect jobs estimated by Perryman.   The only academic study of the jobs claims by a group not supported by the industry calculated that even if the Perryman Group’s numbers were accurate, and all the workers in year one of the construction were immediately hired, the unemployment rate in the U.S. would be 9.1% – exactly where it stood last August.

More importantly, they knew that the dilapidated state of our country’s infrastructure is such that there are plenty of pipelines that need to be repaired or replaced with U.S.-made pipe by U.S. workers, projects that could more effectively fight unemployment while improving the environment and upgrading the nation’s infrastructure.   Keystone XL, they concluded, boils down to temporary jobs for a few, profits for the oil companies, and environmental damage that would—through CO2 emissions in particular—have a broad adverse impact on jobs and livelihoods worldwide.

Impact on 21st Century Jobs We Need Now

Science tells us that if we don’t change course immediately, the climate crisis will be irreversible.  TWU and ATU no doubt concluded that approval of Keystone XL would send a signal to our elected representatives and private investors that the U.S. is simply not serious about creating the jobs we need now to reduce emissions and end our dependence on climate-destroying fossil fuels. Approval would have a chilling effect on public and private investments in energy conservation, alternative fuels, and low-carbon public mass transit systems. Such investments create more jobs and improve the environment – whereas Keystone XL, they believed, would do the opposite.

They understood that we need a “Green New Deal” now, not at some date in the far off future, to create the jobs that will help us make the transition to a low carbon economy, from railroad repair to public transit operations to bridge construction.  Such work must be a central part of building a new energy system, saving our water infrastructure, building a new transportation system, and constructing sustainable cities – everything that’s necessary to halt and reverse the ongoing human destruction of the climate.

And the transition to an economy that protects the climate must be a just transition that protects the livelihoods of those who through no fault of their own may have to pay the price of change.

Need for Honest Debate on the Future of the Labor Movement

For years, the TWU has been speaking out on the urgent need for a science-driven approach to resolving the climate crisis via a Green New Deal, binding emissions targets, and sharp reductions in our dependence on fossil fuels.  For years, the ATU has been building coalitions and mobilizing communities around the vital need to increase support for public transportation services, and the disparate impact cuts in those services are having on already marginalized communities.

These experiences led both unions to understand that it is in labor’s vital interest to get ahead of the curve and help lead the way to the 21st century green economy.   To be blunt, if the labor movement did not take its proper role in this movement, it would have been contributing to its extinction as a movement, not to mention that of the human species.

Opposing construction of the bitumen sands pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast was not principally an act of solidarity with some cause unrelated to labor’s.  Labor’s vital interests include not only the short-term needs of a few but the long-term interests of the many.

We are all in the climate and jobs crises together. We have strong differences about how best to solve them, differences that should be debated openly and honestly.

Re-fighting the Civil War: The Dangerous Theologies of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann

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Posted By: dhubbard

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With Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann being taken seriously as Presidential contenders, it’s important to understand how deeply influenced they are by bizarre and racist theologies which hold that (right wing) Christians alone should control all secular institutions, and that African-Americans should be grateful for the Christianizing influence of slavery. 

 

Christians in particular have a responsibility to inform ourselves and speak out against these theologies and politicians who espouse them.

Perry’s espousal of secession by Texas is well-known.  A long and detailed New Yorker piece also points out that Bachmann has praised the writing of a historian who claims that slavery was a good thing, in part because it brought the “sanctifying” impact of Christianity to “pagan” Africans:

“[In] an interview with George Stephanopoulos, [Bachmann] defended an earlier statement that the Founders worked tirelessly to end slavery. . .

“‘Bachmann’s comment about slavery was not a gaffe. It is, as she would say, a world view. . . While looking over Bachmann’s State Senate campaign Web site, I stumbled upon a list of book recommendations. The third book on the list, which appeared just before the Declaration of Independence and George Washington’s Farewell Address, is a 1997 biography of Robert E. Lee by J. Steven Wilkins.

“Wilkins is the leading proponent of the theory that the South was an orthodox Christian nation unjustly attacked by the godless North. . . In the book, Wilkins condemns ‘the radical abolitionists of New England” and writes that “most southerners strove to treat their slaves with respect and provide them with a sufficiency of goods for a comfortable, though—by modern standards—spare existence.’

“African slaves brought to America, he argues, were essentially lucky: ‘Africa, like any other pagan country, was permeated by the cruelty and barbarism typical of unbelieving cultures.’ . . .Wilkins also approvingly cites Lee’s insistence that abolition could not come until ‘the sanctifying effects of Christianity’ had time ‘to work in the black race and fit its people for freedom.’

“In his chapter on race relations in the antebellum South, Wilkins writes:
‘Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith.’

“For several years, the book, which Bachmann’s campaign declined to discuss with me, was listed on her Web site, under the heading ‘Michele’s Must Read List.’ “

How could someone helping to propagate these lies be taken seriously as a contender for President of the United States?  Although it should be unnecessary, in the unlikely event anyone reading this is inclined to believe Wilkins, Frederick Douglass provides an antidote:

“. . .[I] n several of the states of America it is made punishable with death to teach a slave to spell the name of the God who made him—(cries of “shame”). The slave-owner exercises unlimited right over the body and soul of his slaves. The slave has intellect, but he dares not use it. He has a soul—he may not call it his own. He has a conscience—he may not be guided by it. His master thinks for him, decides for him; his master supplants his intellect—his master supplants his soul—he supplants Almighty God—(sensation). This is the relation between master and slave as it exists in the United States. Not only is the slave absolute property, but he must be barbarously and inhumanly treated in order to keep him a slave. . .

“. . . My master, the man who claims to own these hands and this body, who says I am his property, who writes me down in his ledger among his horses, sheep and swine,—who calculates on bequeathing me at his death to his children,—who expects that my children will be the property of his own—he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America—(cries of “shame,” and “oh! the hypocrite”). His name is Thomas Hall [actually Thomas Auld]. I have seen him take up a young woman, and cause her to stand like this (the speaker displayed a painful posture) for four hours at a time. I have seen him make bare her back and lash her until the warm blood trickled at his feet—(sensation). . .

“The religion of the land, so far from being opposed to this state of things, is the great supporter of it—(hear, hear). What I mean by religion is simply this—Various bodies calling themselves Christians defend the system and encourage it. These bodies are the Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Unitarians, Universalists, and others. The churches in the southern states are corrupt to the very core.”
Excerpt from Douglass, The Horrors of Slavery and England’s Duty to Free the Bondsman, available online at http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1081.htm.
It is absurd that we even have to have this conversation in the 21st century. But, if the beliefs of Republican Presidential contenders Bachmann and Perry are any indication, it appears that we do.
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This article by Michelle Goldberg lays out the basics of Bachmann’s and Perry’s theologies: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/14/dominionism-michele-bachmann-and-rick-perry-s-dangerous-religious-bond.html.

This piece by Chip Berlet gives more details on where the Dominionist and Reconstructionist theologies fall on the spectrum of right wing Christianity: http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/dominionism.htm.

This long and detailed New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza provides frightening details about the development and impact of Bachmann’s theology: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=al.