Auto unions unite with green group for the sake of jobs; now what about oil and coal workers?

Recently we examined the importance of getting oil and coal workers involved in a renewable energy future.  The push for green energy should be framed as something that can provide new, safer jobs for a segment of the workforce gripped by legitimate economic anxiety.  Unions need to be brought on board, and workers need to be assuaged.

While there isn’t any immediate news on that specific sector, word out of Detroit bodes well for auto workers; they’re in.  The United Auto Workers is the latest union to join the BlueGreen Alliance, which unites labor and environmental groups – not natural allies, mind you – pushing for greenhouse gas limits and other pro-green jobs policies.

This is no small feat.  The union claims to have close to 400,000 active members in electoral vote-rich industrial belt states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the biggest prize of them all, Ohio. Perhaps even more importantly, it includes the fastest-growing union in the US, the Service Employees International Union.

Simply put, the union envisions a future where the staggering US auto industry is rebuilt through clean vehicles.

It’s the old divide-and-conquer theory.  Currently, many interest groups and demographics are scattered; it’s chaos out there.  The general rules of politics go out the window.  For example, some environmentalist are actually against certain clean energies, like wind turbines, arguing they’ll destroy the natural habitats of indigenous species.

But all this proves is that with a concerted message, these groups are ripe for convincing.  If 20 years ago, you were told that American auto workers – makers of gas guzzling, pollution-creating, low MPG vehicles – would team up with the Blue Green Alliance, you’d be shocked.  (Think about it: The Blue Green Alliance is a partnership between the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers.)  But that’s just how fast and profoundly the political terrain has shifted.

And if alliances such as these, buttressed by the might of the auto unions, can speak with a unified voice, they may, in fact, have enough leverage to bring recalcitrant oil and coal workers over to their side.  A small fraction is all that may be necessary.  Or their new, combined strength, lobbying might, and persistent calls for new, clean jobs, may simply overwhelm these aging, staggering fossil fuel industries, who as of now, are the biggest obstacles to a renewable energy future.

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