A Match Made in Seattle: Labor & the Greens

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 12, 2000 | by John Elvin

The left's dream of a labor-environmentalist alliance has been fairly much a figment of the imagination at the down-and-dirty activist level due to issues such as logging vs. spotted-owl sanctuary. Then came the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund protests, and a new day is dawning. As described by a reporter for the Associated Press, the recent protests saw "hard-hatted Teamsters [marching] alongside protesters in sea-turtle costumes in a united front against corporate globalization."

Next up as a joint effort will be protests at the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Don Kegley, a third-generation steelworker and official with the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, said the focus will be "to say to both parties, 'You don't represent the mainstream of America.'" The newlyweds (the groups actually held a mock marriage ceremony in advance of the WTO protest in Seattle with a hard-hatted Teamster exchanging vows with an environmental activist) might want to make the best of the honeymoon. Despite the current obsession with protests against globalization, environmental organizations still are bent on pursuing goals that put them in conflict with workers in targeted industries.