DEC-Holiday-2009 :Holiday Issue
Inside
12/15/09
9:47 AM
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MEETING NOTICES
See
Page 7
Volume 110
Number 24
December 18, 2009
Portland
Oregon labor leaders
attend climate talks
Shop union this holiday season
Anne Koster, a 28-year member of Portland-based Bakers Local 114 and cake decorator at Roth’s Fresh
Market in Salem, shows off a gingerbread house sculpted in the bakery using Aunt Katie’s Gingerbread
House kit. Roth’s has been a union bakery since 1966 and maintains the “scratch baking” tradition. Aunt
Katie’s Gingerbread House kits are union-made in McMinnville, Oregon, by members of Bakers Local
364. Look for more union-made products inside on Page 8.
Unions join in march for trade justice
About 1,800 people turned out for a
Dec. 5 Portland march and rally against
the World Trade Organization (WTO),
just over 10 years after 50,000 protested
a Seattle summit meeting of the organ-
ization.
The WTO facilitates and enforces an
international legal framework of multi-
party treaties. But labor unionists, en-
vironmentalists and human rights ac-
tivists say the WTO elevates trade,
investment and so-called “intellectual
property rights” above the interests of
workers, the environment, and commu-
nity.
“We were flimflammed,” Oregon
AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain
told Portland rally-goers. “We were
told these treaties would bring good-
paying jobs and raise our living stan-
dards.”
Instead, for American workers, out-
sized trade deficits of $700 billion a
year tell a story in which trade con-
tributes to job losses. Some 5 million
jobs have disappeared in the U.S. man-
ufacturing sector in the last 10 years.
Mostly, the WTO exerts its influ-
ence indirectly, preventing rather than
overturning action by national govern-
ments. An example is what happened
when the U.S. Congress proposed the
“cash for clunkers” program, in which
the government would pay up to $4,500
toward the purchase of a new automo-
bile if it was substantially more fuel-ef-
ficient than a purchaser’s existing vehi-
cle, which would be scrapped. The
program was conceived as a way to
spend U.S. tax dollars to stimulate the
economy during a severe recession —
and increase the fuel efficiency of cars
on the road. In its first version, the pro-
Union members made up a large
portion of the estimated 1,800 people
who marched through the streets of
downtown Portland Dec. 5 to protest
proposed expansion of the World
Trade Organization.
posal was limited to U.S.-made cars.
But the European Union ambassa-
dor to the United States protested that
(Turn to Page 15)
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Workers of the world may not
have a seat at the table, but they’re in
the room — for the climate change
talks under way in Copenhagen, Den-
mark.
The Dec. 7-18 conference is be-
tween governments that are party to
the United Nations Framework Con-
vention on Climate Change, a non-
binding UN treaty in which govern-
ments committed to measure and
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The International Trade Union
Confederation has observer status at
the 2009 talks, and is using that op-
portunity to advocate a set of what it
calls “just transition” principles. ITUC
came to Copenhagen with a 400-
strong contingent of labor unionists
from around the world. The labor rep-
resentatives are lobbying their official
government delegations to commit to
major investments in alternative en-
ergy and energy efficiency, and do so
in a way that creates and maintains de-
cent jobs. They are also calling for
commitments to minimize harm to
workers caused by both climate
change and measures to combat it.
Heading up the 40-member U.S.
labor delegation is Bob Baugh, co-
chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task
Force, and former Oregon AFL-CIO
secretary-treasurer. [Three other Ore-
gon trade unionists are in Copen-
hagen: Oregon AFL-CIO Secretary-
Treasurer Barbara Byrd, and Ron
Heintzman and Jon Hunt of the
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).]
Also present are several top U.S.
union leaders, including Plumbers
and Fitters General President William
Hite, Laborers General President Ter-
ence O’Sullivan, and Boilermakers
President Newton Jones.
The United States is one of 192
nations that signed the 1992 United
Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, but it was not a part
of the later Kyoto Protocol, a binding
1997 treaty in which 37 developed
countries made specific commitments
to reduce greenhouse emissions to 6
to 8 percent below 1990 levels. Presi-
dent Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto
treaty, but the U.S. Senate failed to
ratify it. At the time, the AFL-CIO
opposed the Kyoto treaty because it
did not require developing countries
— chiefly China and India — to
make similar commitments.
Eleven of the last 14 years have
been the warmest on record. The Arc-
tic ice cap is melting. Scientists from
many fields attribute the warming to
human causes — mainly the addition
of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to
the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the
most common greenhouse gas, is now
present in earth’s atmosphere at over
380 parts per million, up from 315 in
1960.
Despite the efforts of some coun-
tries to meet the targets set by the Ky-
oto Protocol, global greenhouse gas
emissions have continued to rise al-
most every year, and even the rate of
increase has risen. Most European
nations have reduced greenhouse gas
emissions through energy efficiency
and alternative energy, but their
progress has been more than canceled
out by the rapid industrial growth of
China. This doesn’t vindicate inaction
by the United States, but it does make
it clear that countries like China and
India will have to be included if any
progress is to be made reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
Getting a concrete commitment
from the United States, and bringing
the developing world into the process,
is the heart of what’s being discussed
(Turn to Page 13)