United we stand, divided we fall is a phrase heard too often. Forces which was held from to be two separate entities like oil and water, are burying their bitter differences for a common cause. A University of Florida research points to labour unions and environmental groups joining hands in becoming natural allies about health concerns shared in workplaces and communities. This bond is aimed at stopping groundwater contamination in the Silicon Valley, toxic chemical spills in New Jersey, air pollution from the nation’s ports and other hazards that affect communities and workplaces alike, said Brian Mayer, a University of Florida sociology professor.
“Health issues are increasingly becoming the common ground on which blue-green coalitions are developing across the United States,” he said. “Recognising that the same toxins that cause workplace hazards escape into surrounding communities has brought workers and environmentalists together to look out for everyone’s protection.”
In his new book “Blue-Green Coalitions: Fighting for Safe Workplaces and Healthy Communities,” published by Cornell University Press, Mayer throws light upon the popular image of these groups. “Stereotypes of blue-collar workers as interested only in putting food on the table and being willing to do anything to trade off the environment are no truer than perceptions of an environmentalist as someone middle class or upper class who is preoccupied with outdoor leisure opportunities,” he said.
The book helps common man in filling a huge gap in their knowledge about how unions and environmentalists have worked together. “A Climate of Injustice; Global Inequality, North-South Politics and Climate Policy offers creative ideas about how this potentially powerful coalition might work together in the future,” said J. Timmons Roberts, a sociology professor at the College of William and Mary and co-author of the book.
During the past economic booms, the world was excited about new factories, but today, a large number of workers have service jobs, which can put them in close proximity to a variety of hazardous chemicals. An increase in such environmental risks has encouraged unions and environmentalists to unite.
“If you think about hotel workers, custodial workers and other employees who come into direct contact with a lot of cleaning chemicals, their jobs can be dangerous,” Mayer said. “More and more of these workers are concerned with health.”
The Service Employees International Union is one of the few unions in the United States with an expanding membership which represents the vast numbers of employees in the service and hospitality industry.
Mayer feels that the decline of organised labour to about 12 percent of the nation’s work force from 36 percent earlier has encouraged unions to reach out to non-traditional allies by collaborating with environmentalists.
The formation of Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow in Boston in 2001, proletariat coalition that worked to pass a Massachusetts law requiring that proponents of a product must prove its safety before it goes to the market, is one example of such an affiliation. The Alliance is today an organisation that works with scientists, public health experts and community activists across the state in promoting the substitution of safer alternatives.
In California, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition fought for a similar legislation, as well as addressed health concerns about electronics, expanding into a global presence today as high-tech industries have moved overseas, observes Mayer.
A small tax collected from shipping containers entering the ports of shipping containers entering the ports, which is used to update and refit trucks to make them cleaner and more efficient, is one of the most recent blue-green coalitions. Ships, trains and diesel trucks that collect in and around ports pollute city air and have been blamed for about half of the emissions in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Source: University of Florida
