A diverse group of trade unionists, environmentalists, academics and social justice activists gathered at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City for the third annual “Climate of Change” conference.
Conference organizers – The Healthy Planet Mobilization Committee* – kicked it off with a well attended press conference on Friday night featuring dozens of scientists, climate experts and the former Mayor of Salt Lake City. All the speakers took a strong public stand against a resolution adopted by the Utah House of Representatives earlier this month that rejected scientific evidence of global warming, criticized federal efforts to deal with it, and called for the state to abstain from regional collaboration to reduce carbon emissions. The press event was well covered by the local media.
On Saturday morning, former CWA Rep. and well-known author Steve Early and I opened up the conference with a workshop on reviving the labor movement and building labor – community coalitions. The roughly sixty participants were drawn from a great mix of local union leaders and staffers, rank-and-file activists, students, faculty members, and longtime Salt Lake City progressives. There was a lively exchange on topics like labor-environmental coalitions, based on the emerging Blue Green Alliance model, supported by the United Steelworkers Union. (More info at www.bluegreenalliance.org.)
We also discussed some new opportunities to build Jobs with Justice in Utah. The federal airport security officers (TSOs) are hoping for a change in rules governing the TSA that would give them collective bargaining rights that were denied by the Bush Administration.
Most of the TSA workers have united in AFGE. The union currently has approximately 12,000 dues-paying TSA members at more than 100 airports in 36 locals nationwide including Salt Lake. AFGE needs help to build support for the TSOs to gain collective bargaining rights within the labor movement and in the community and once that is achieved, support for a winning a first national contract. (Learn more at http://tsa.afge.org/represent.cfm.)
The recent lockout of 540 Rio Tinto miners in Boron, CA is another coalition building opportunity with workers at the large Rio Tinto-owned Kennecott “Bingham Canyon” Mine in Utah. The miners there belong to the United Steel Workers and their local union is a member of Utah JWJ. There was a strong consensus that JWJ could be very helpful linking the locked out miners with their Kennecott brothers and sisters. (More info at http://boraxminers.com.)
Other workshops at the conference included “The Carbon Reduction Imperative,” “Justice for Palestinians” and a workshop on “Health Care Reform and the Utah Political Situation.” (More info about Utah Jobs with Justice and the conference are on line at: http://utahjwj.org/hpmc.)
Alternative media coverage of conference issues was also provided by local progressive radio — in the form of SLC radio station KRCL’s “RadioActive” program. An hour-long show about the problems facing Utah workers was enlivened by host Lauren Wood, a University of Utah senior and former JWJ intern, now working with Peaceful Uprising. (Listen to the podcast at: www.publicbroadcasting.net/krcl/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1611280/RadioActive/RadioActive!.Feb.10.Worker’s.Unite.)
Among the most difficult working conditions are those reported by younger activists employed in the state’s burgeoning call center industry. Utah JWJ organizer Linda Parsons and other activists arranged a meeting after the conference with some workers who are building a network of call center activists. Their appalling “electronic sweat shop” working conditions are the twenty-first century equivalent to what Joe Hill and many others faced in Utah nearly a hundred years ago.
Joe Hill was executed in downtown Salt Lake City to silence a militant and creative voice on behalf of a deeply-exploited immigrant and native-born working class. Now the offspring of the same bosses who killed Joe Hill are still active in Utah today, trying to take away the same rights that he and others fought and died for. Meanwhile, supporters of Utah JWJ are helping to keep the spirit of Joe Hill — and the accompanying specter of unionization — alive and well, as a counter-balance to unbridled corporate greed.
* The Healthy Planet Mobilization Committee initiated the conference in cooperation with the Campus Committee for Peace and Justice at the Univ. of Utah and with the support of Utah Jobs with Justice, Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land, the Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, and The Mormon Worker. Campus sponsors include the Univ. of Utah’s Office of Sustainability, the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and the Economics Department. Community sponsors include the Utah Environmental Congress, Peaceful Uprising, Everybody-In, Sustain Utah, the Environmental Ministry of the First Unitarian Church, High Road for Human Rights, the King’s English Bookshop, KRCL Radio, and the SLC Film Center.
