This past Saturday, former Sierra Club President Aaron Mair spoke at the Texas AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, before an audience of over 400 union members, including many who work in the oil and gas industries. Environmental, environmental justice, and labor activists from Texas and national organizations followed up with a well-attended workshop (video here). Attendees participated in an honest and heartfelt dialogue that touched on the many shared values of the labor and environmental movements, and dug into strategies to work more closely together in the Lone Star State.
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@HighSierraAaron @SierraClub organizing & mutualism= shared tradition of enviro and labor @TexasAFLCIO #txlabor2017
This was the theme of the Convention laid out by the TX AFL-CIO:
. . . We have to build organizations that are democratic, multiracial, and ready to act, with a foundation in solidarity. “Solidarity” meaning that even if you don’t experience a particular oppression, it doesn’t matter, because you understand that as ordinary people, our fates are tied together, and that one group’s liberation is dependent upon the liberation of all the oppressed and exploited.
In Saturday’s speech before the Texas trade unionists, Mair reflected on his family’s roots in South Carolina, first as enslaved African Americans and eventually unionized as Teamsters. He pointed out that slavery was in its essence a system of labor exploitation, and he reminded attendees of the roots of the labor movement in organizing against slave labor. Mair said the labor movement is essential to workplace democracy, and workplace democracy is a prerequisite to political democracy.
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You are the critical link @TexasAFLCIO for a healthy democracy @HighSierraAaron @TexasAFLCIO #TxAFLCIO
At the same time, Mair noted that the transition to a clean economy is necessary and inevitable. Noting the rampant handouts to big corporate polluters, he called for public incentives for family-sustaining clean energy jobs that will save the planet. In Texas where wind energy is plentiful, the Sierra Club is committed to standing with building and construction trades unionists to make sure more of these jobs go union.
Mair went on to recall the Sierra Club’s sponsorship of an “Unjust Transition” award for Nissan at the Paris climate talks because of its union-busting of African-American workers organizing for dignity and human rights. He said the Sierra Club will continue to call out any “clean energy” employer that uses “degraded labor” as inimical to the values and traditions of both the environmental and labor movements. He acknowledged the difficulty of union organizing in a so-called “right to work” state, a misnomer for a legal structure designed to strip workers of the ability to defend their interests collectively. Mair received a standing ovation at the close of his speech.
That afternoon, labor activists from the Sierra Club and TEJAS (Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services) engaged in an honest and heartfelt dialogue with about 50 representatives of the Texas labor movement in a workshop called Building Solidarity: Winning Labor, Environmental and Racial Justice Fights in Texas. Moderator Dee Arellano of TEJAS opened by asking participants to name values they associated with the Labor Movement and the Environmental Movement.
(Photos courtesy of Dave Cortez)
This brainstorming on shared values set the stage for the moderator to lead the panelists, all of whom have deep histories working in the labor, environmental and EJ movements (Larry Williams Jr., the Sierra Club Labor and Economic Justice Program Coal Coordinator, Dave Cortez, the Sierra Club’s Senior Organizing Representative in Texas, and TEJAS co-founders Juan Parras and Ana Parras) and audience participants in a dialogue around working together despite a false narrative that environmental and labor activists don’t share the same values. What kinds of issues can we work together on to build unity? What's our vision for protecting the health of communities and workers as we power our economy and protect the environment? What can the labor and EJ movements do together to fight racial inequality? And what educational and organizing resources can unions, environmental and EJ organizations provide to each other to begin answering these questions? The responses to these questions led to a powerful dialogue based on recognition of our common interests and a commitment to joint work in Texas around both EJ and labor issues.
Overall, this experience demonstrated that when we move workers’ rights and union values from the margins to the center of the environmental agenda, we can move mountains. The Sierra Club is grateful for the opportunity the Texas AFL-CIO provided for dialogue between leaders and rank and file members of our movements, and for the big step we took together towards deeper collaboration in Texas and around the country.
(Left to right: Orlando Lara, Larry Williams Jr., Dave Cortez, Michael Leon Guerrero, Pedro Cruz, Ana Parras, Juan Parras, ___, Dee Arellano, Yvette Arellano)
(Photo courtesy of Dave Cortez)