As A HUGE disclaimer, my wife are both union members. Our prents were Union members. My great grandfather was a card carrying Socialist and ran for City Alderman in Chicago as such. So I believe in Unions. But when they get stuck on saving jobs no matter what. They get a little lost and sometimes real lost. These becomes apparent with police unions – though appropo to this topic. They protect bad cops for jobs sake. Well, the IBEW and other unions are no better. Instead of saying, “We will change power plant jobs for better jobs in the green sector”. They say, “We will not lose the jobs we have”. They act like it is heroic when it is pathetic.
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/22/18628299/green-new-deal-labor-union-2020-democrats
The Green New Deal is fracturing a critical base for Democrats: unions
National labor leaders oppose the Green New Deal but some state unions endorse it. That’s a challenge for presidential contenders.
As a statement of principles and goals, the Green New Deal seems to take economic justice and workers’ rights pretty seriously. It calls for a federal jobs guarantee. It says we need workforce retraining, strengthening collective bargaining rights, retirement security, and universal health care.
The resolution decries “antilabor policies” and says it must be fleshed out with input from “frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, [and] worker cooperatives,” with the goal of creating “high-quality union jobs.”
Which is why it was so surprising that the leader of the national AFL-CIO — the largest federation of labor unions in the United States, representing more than 12.5 million workers — recently came out against the proposal.
“We weren’t part of the process, so the worker’s interest wasn’t really figured into it,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in April. “We would want a whole bunch of changes made so that workers and our jobs are protected in the process.”
(Disclosure: I was on the bargaining committee of the Vox Media Union. We organized with Writers Guild of America, East, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.)
But this week, Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed her state’s version of a Green New Deal with the backing of labor unions.
:}
Go there and read. More next week
:}