The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.
The AFL-CIO and the Laborers International Union (LiUNA) have come out in support of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), demonstrating the extent to which the construction trades continue to control the federation’s climate change policy. Simultaneously an array of other unions have stood up to publicly oppose it. In this way, the climate crisis calls into question the validity of an old notion of internal labor solidarity that protects unions’ turf in directing policy decisions regarding the industries they represent. The fact that the planet is everyone’s “turf” has begun to force a rethinking of this narrower notion of solidarity.
To provoke discussion on this issue, we’re leading off with an article by New Labor Forumcolumnist Sean Sweeney that will appear in our January 2017 issue in which he asks: Is Labor Putting Its Head in the Gas Oven?
The DAPL has been a long time coming – years in development, with construction already in progress. Yet the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, with the backing of supporters from across the country, have been able to stop the project – so far – through a combination of protests, legal action, and effective use of social media.
Table of Contents:
- Standing Rock Solid with the Frackers: Is Labor Putting Its Head in the Gas Oven? by Sean Sweeney
- Dakota Access Pipeline and the Future of American Labor by Jeremy Brecher
- Unions Weigh in on the Dakota Access Pipeline: Statements by AFL-CIO, LIUNA, SEIU, NNU, and CWA
