PAGE 8 | December 18, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
A labor report from the Paris Climate Talks
Washington AFL-CIO President
Jeff Johnson tells why he was
there, and why labor must get
involved
Change is coming. Will it be
just? At the Nov. 30 to Dec. 11
meeting of the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change
in Paris, foreign ministers from
195 countries hammered out a
legally binding agreement to
fight climate change. Behind the
scenes, a small delegation of
U.S. labor officials worked with
union leaders from other nations
to make sure workers’ interests
were represented in the final
document. Jeff Johnson, presi-
dent of the Washington State
Labor Council, AFL-CIO, was
one of them. The Labor Press
interviewed him by phone Dec.
14, the day he returned.
You’re Washington state’s
top-ranking labor leader.
Why were you attending the
Paris climate talks? Our state
labor movement has prioritized
climate change as one of those
core issues that the labor move-
ment has to be involved in.
Given the level of seriousness of
climate change and the negative
impacts it’s having on the world
around us and on the economy,
labor has to be at the table.
We’re about to experience one
of the largest economic transfor-
mations that will ever occur, and
if we’re not at the table, we’re
going to be served up as part of
the meal. We’ve got to be at the
table talking about how this tran-
sition to a clean energy economy
occurs, how we mitigate carbon
emissions, and how we adapt to
climate catastrophes. In Oregon
and Washington we’ve seen
drought, forest fires, rapid gla-
cier melts, and flooding, causing
hundreds of millions of dollars
to property, in some cases taking
lives … and this is just the be-
ginning. In Paris as I talked to
trade unionists from around the
world, I heard about the devas-
tating impacts of rising sea lev-
els, of ocean acidification, of
glacier melts and droughts.
We’ve already got millions of
food and water refugees being
created out there, and we’re go-
ing to have more. So why is it
important to labor? It’s important
because everything that happens
around climate is going to have
an impact on communities, our
health, on our jobs, and on our
economy. The transition is going
to happen, and we’re saying it
has to be done in a fair and just
manner.
You mentioned you were
part of a labor delegation.
How did that come about, and
were you inside or outside the
talks?
The national AFL-CIO at-
tends each one of these [United
Nations] climate negotiation
sessions. They knew I’d been
doing a lot of work on climate;
I put together a resolution for
our convention in July that puts
us on record as a labor move-
ment supporting carbon reduc-
tions and a cap-and-invest sys-
tem, working on rebuilding our
infrastructure and organizing
clean energy jobs. They asked
whether I’d be interested in be-
from the
Columbia-Pacific Building &
Construction Trades Council
Willy Myers, Executive Secretary Treasurer
At the UN Climate Summit in Paris,
Washington State Labor Council
president Jeff Johnson carries a
chair — one of 196 chairs taken by
demonstrators from banks all over
France. The chairs, one for each
country at the summit, were meant
to make the point that money from
corporate tax evasion should be re-
purposed to fight climate change.
ing part of the delegation, and I
said ‘absolutely.’ We were fortu-
nate that the United Nations
gave us enough badges that we
could go. I was really pleased
that I got to go, because we got
to do some heavy-duty lobbying
of the U.S. delegation.
A lot of your efforts were
about promoting something
called “just transition.” Can
you explain what that means?
It’s clear there’s a huge eco-
nomic transition coming. Trying
to wean ourselves off of fossil
fuels by the second half of this
century will necessitate that
most of our coal, natural gas and
oil stay in the ground. That’s go-
ing to create huge dislocations
for fossil fuel workers and
workers in energy-intensive
Turn to Page 16
Season’s
Greetings
from the Officers, Representatives
and Office Staff of
Machinists
District W24
Lodge 63 in Gladstone
W38 in Shelton,
Lodge 1005 in Gladstone,
W130 in Centralia
Lodge 1432 in Gladstone
W157 in Tacoma,
W12 in Klamath Falls
W536 in Longview
W246 in Springfield
W98 in Arcata, California,
W261 in Central Point,
W364 in Lewiston, Idaho,
W2 in Aberdeen
Local 88 in Butte, Montana
International Association of
Machinists & Aerospace Workers,
Woodworkers, AFL-CIO