Tag Archives: fracking

Home, International Program for Labor, Climate and Environment, Labor Studies, New Labor Forum

Standing Rock-Solid with the Frackers

This post was originally featured at New Labor Forum.

By Sean Sweeney

If anyone were looking for further evidence that the AFL-CIO remains unprepared to accept the science of climate change, and unwilling to join with the effort being made by all of the major labor federations of the world to address the crisis, the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) provides only the most recent case in point. Taking direction from the newly minted North American Building Trades Unions (NABTU) and the American Petroleum Institute (API), the federation stood against the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribal nations. Continue reading Standing Rock-Solid with the Frackers →

Home, International Program for Labor, Climate and Environment

Congress of Unions in São Paulo Urges Governments to Stop Fracking

With Dilma’s impeachment imminent, unions unite against “coups and corruption.”

TUCA-CSA 3rd Congress, São Paulo, April 28th, 2016

More than 500 delegates representing unions in the Americas today adopted a ‘base document’ that included a call for governments in the hemisphere to issue a moratorium on fracking. Via the TUED-initiated Unions Against Fracking, five trade union centers in the Americas had earlier supported the call for a moratorium, namely CTA Argentina, CSN Quebec, the Canadian Labour Congress, CUT Brazil, and CUT Peru. A growing number of individual unions are also on board. The TUCA-CSA Congress document also declared, “We fight against the extractive model imposed by the business logic of large oil production and mining transnational corporations that do not foster development.”

Convened once every four years, the 3rd Congress of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas is meeting at a time when unions in Brazil and across the region believe that a coup against president Dilma Rousseff is imminent. A right-wing government replacing the governing Workers Party is expected to push forward with an aggressive privatization agenda and a full-force attack on collective bargaining. Continue reading Congress of Unions in São Paulo Urges Governments to Stop Fracking →

Home, International Program for Labor, Climate and Environment

Two Major Unions Join Call for Global Moratorium on Fracking

The International Union of Food Workers and the Tunisian national center, the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT), have joined the Trade Union Call for A Global Moratorium on Fracking.

The statement sends a strong message calling for “a global moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for shale gas, coal seam gas, and shale oil,” stating that “[f]racking has led to attacks on land rights, and the large amounts of water used in fracking also threatens to increase water scarcity in areas where water supply and access pose real problems for people, particularly those in poor rural communities.” Moreover, “[t]he experience of fracking in the United States since 2002 has shown that the process threatens the health and quality of life of communities situated near drilling sites.”

See the full statement and a list of signatories here.

 
 

Photo by Simon Fraser University via flickr (CC-BY).