Working-class Americans often lack protection from exploitation. If they are lucky, they have union representation. But even if they lack an organized voice in the workplace, government regulations on workplace safety and health provide them some security from the ravages of industry. Environmental organizations, often backed by unions, helped pass laws that allowed working-class people to live healthier and safer lives.
United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, however, recently attacked the Environmental Protection Agency, in response to proposed EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions in coal-fired power plants. Roberts said he has to listen to the voices of those who pay his salary - the membership of the UMWA. In targeting the EPA, Roberts took on an agency that has done much to protect the working-class. The creation of the EPA in 1970 was a major victory for environmentalists and labor unions seeking to protect their workers from industrial hazards. EPA oversees regulators tasked with ensuring that Americans have clean water and clean air, as well as protection from toxic substances and industrial waste.
With Americans beginning to move away from coal-fired energy to natural gas and renewables, UMWA members are desperate to hold onto their jobs. Declining coal seams, technological innovation, and coal company investment have placed Robert's union under tremendous pressure. But fighting the EPA means the union has taken a stand that hurts the health of its own members. Laws pioneered for the protection of Americans from the hazards of industrial life matter. They especially matter to working-class Americans. Income and housing quality reflect proximity to hazardous waste and sources of pollution; working-class people lived next to pipes pumping sewage into rivers and smokestacks belching heavy metal-laden smoke onto their homes. Rich people can live far away from pollution, but the poor cannot.
Today, climate change is our greatest environmental risk. The EPA proposed new rules for the coal industry as a way to limit carbon emissions and fight climate change. Like other environmental disasters, climate change predominantly affects the poor. As we have seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in flooding in Bangladesh, and with tornadoes that kill people living in poorly constructed mobile homes without foundations, “natural disasters” often kill people because social inequities place their lives at risk. Climate change will exacerbate these problems, creating refugees around the globe. Fighting climate change should be central to any working-class agenda.
It makes little sense for Roberts to side with the coal companies on the EPA (or anything else). Those companies have little sympathy for people. They ruled the coal country like a fiefdom, murdering union organizers and forcing workers into generations of endemic poverty. It took organizers like Mother Jones and John L. Lewis to pull the companies out of the Middle Ages. In the 1880s and 1890s, coal companies in Tennessee used convicts as slave labor, leading to a major labor uprising in 1891. In 1921, West Virginia erupted into war after workers, tired of decades of oppression, took up arms when a sympathetic law enforcement was murdered by company thugs; over 100 union members were murdered in the weeks to follow. After decades of struggle, conditions for coal miners slowly improved, but the companies never stopped fighting against reforms. Thousands of miners died of black lung disease throughout the 20th century, but the companies refused to recognize the illness or grant compensation to victims until Congress passed the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. The coal companies continue to treat workers’ lives as expendable. Coal mining remains one of the nation’s most dangerous professions. We rarely hear about the miner or two dying each month in accidents, but the death of 29 miners in 2010 at the Upper Big Branch Mine grabbed Americans’ attention. Massey Energy, owner of Upper Big Branch, had a long history of labor violations and was openly contemptuous of safety regulations. Most of the coal industry reflects Massey’s indifference to worker health and safety.Moreover, the mine companies have sought to reduce employment for decades.
Not only have the companies looked to lay off as many workers as possible, but nor do they care about people or Nature. Mountaintop removal mining has destroyed forests and streams, dumped toxic chemicals into waterways and rivers, and forced people off their land. When corporations blame environmental regulations for job losses, they are creating an excuse for how they mined and logged out a resource. They want to shift the blame for the destruction.
Coal companies don’t oppose carbon capture technology because they want to keep workers employed. They oppose it because they want to maximize profits without caring one iota about the health of workers or the general public. The coal companies have never operated with their workers’ interests in mind and never will. Too often, labor leaders take bosses’ side when it comes to environmental protections and jobs, fearing regulations will cause unemployment. But these labor leaders often fail to understand that corporations are just using the unions to further their rapacious agenda. Companies see both workers and nature as resources to be exploited for profit. Attacking the EPA isn’t going to bring the coal jobs back. It is just going to provide further ammunition to those who would like to eliminate an agency that protects the working-class from pollution. Roberts should know this. Demonizing a department that helps protect working-class lives and health for sectional purposes isn't defending your union members' general well-being or overall interests. It simply benefits the bosses.
Adapted from an article by Erik Loomis, professor of labor and environmental history
United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, however, recently attacked the Environmental Protection Agency, in response to proposed EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions in coal-fired power plants. Roberts said he has to listen to the voices of those who pay his salary - the membership of the UMWA. In targeting the EPA, Roberts took on an agency that has done much to protect the working-class. The creation of the EPA in 1970 was a major victory for environmentalists and labor unions seeking to protect their workers from industrial hazards. EPA oversees regulators tasked with ensuring that Americans have clean water and clean air, as well as protection from toxic substances and industrial waste.
With Americans beginning to move away from coal-fired energy to natural gas and renewables, UMWA members are desperate to hold onto their jobs. Declining coal seams, technological innovation, and coal company investment have placed Robert's union under tremendous pressure. But fighting the EPA means the union has taken a stand that hurts the health of its own members. Laws pioneered for the protection of Americans from the hazards of industrial life matter. They especially matter to working-class Americans. Income and housing quality reflect proximity to hazardous waste and sources of pollution; working-class people lived next to pipes pumping sewage into rivers and smokestacks belching heavy metal-laden smoke onto their homes. Rich people can live far away from pollution, but the poor cannot.
Today, climate change is our greatest environmental risk. The EPA proposed new rules for the coal industry as a way to limit carbon emissions and fight climate change. Like other environmental disasters, climate change predominantly affects the poor. As we have seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in flooding in Bangladesh, and with tornadoes that kill people living in poorly constructed mobile homes without foundations, “natural disasters” often kill people because social inequities place their lives at risk. Climate change will exacerbate these problems, creating refugees around the globe. Fighting climate change should be central to any working-class agenda.
It makes little sense for Roberts to side with the coal companies on the EPA (or anything else). Those companies have little sympathy for people. They ruled the coal country like a fiefdom, murdering union organizers and forcing workers into generations of endemic poverty. It took organizers like Mother Jones and John L. Lewis to pull the companies out of the Middle Ages. In the 1880s and 1890s, coal companies in Tennessee used convicts as slave labor, leading to a major labor uprising in 1891. In 1921, West Virginia erupted into war after workers, tired of decades of oppression, took up arms when a sympathetic law enforcement was murdered by company thugs; over 100 union members were murdered in the weeks to follow. After decades of struggle, conditions for coal miners slowly improved, but the companies never stopped fighting against reforms. Thousands of miners died of black lung disease throughout the 20th century, but the companies refused to recognize the illness or grant compensation to victims until Congress passed the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. The coal companies continue to treat workers’ lives as expendable. Coal mining remains one of the nation’s most dangerous professions. We rarely hear about the miner or two dying each month in accidents, but the death of 29 miners in 2010 at the Upper Big Branch Mine grabbed Americans’ attention. Massey Energy, owner of Upper Big Branch, had a long history of labor violations and was openly contemptuous of safety regulations. Most of the coal industry reflects Massey’s indifference to worker health and safety.Moreover, the mine companies have sought to reduce employment for decades.
Not only have the companies looked to lay off as many workers as possible, but nor do they care about people or Nature. Mountaintop removal mining has destroyed forests and streams, dumped toxic chemicals into waterways and rivers, and forced people off their land. When corporations blame environmental regulations for job losses, they are creating an excuse for how they mined and logged out a resource. They want to shift the blame for the destruction.
Coal companies don’t oppose carbon capture technology because they want to keep workers employed. They oppose it because they want to maximize profits without caring one iota about the health of workers or the general public. The coal companies have never operated with their workers’ interests in mind and never will. Too often, labor leaders take bosses’ side when it comes to environmental protections and jobs, fearing regulations will cause unemployment. But these labor leaders often fail to understand that corporations are just using the unions to further their rapacious agenda. Companies see both workers and nature as resources to be exploited for profit. Attacking the EPA isn’t going to bring the coal jobs back. It is just going to provide further ammunition to those who would like to eliminate an agency that protects the working-class from pollution. Roberts should know this. Demonizing a department that helps protect working-class lives and health for sectional purposes isn't defending your union members' general well-being or overall interests. It simply benefits the bosses.
Adapted from an article by Erik Loomis, professor of labor and environmental history
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