Jun 07, 2017

Good Jobs and a Clean Environment

USW International President Leo W. Gerard and progressive talk show host Leslie Marshall this week discussed President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and the pressing need for both good jobs and a clean environment.

The president’s decision was foolhardy and shortsighted, Gerard said, because it misses opportunities to do the right thing on both employment and climate change.

“So global warming’s happening, and we take the next step and say ‘well are we contributing, yes or no?’ And clearly the answer is yes,” said Gerard. “So if the answer is yes, why don’t we say, ‘what can we do to remove carbon from the atmosphere and do it in a way that protects and maintains jobs?’ There are so many things that could be done in a positive, constructive way.”

Gerard cited wind power as a place where traditional manufacturing easily intersects with the green economy. “There’s more steel in a wind turbine than there is in a bunch of cars,” he said.

Yet in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the president is ceding the lead in the green economy and the jobs that go with it. “A lot of companies will now move to someplace else whether it’s Europe or China or other parts of Asia,” Gerard said.

The USW has long understood that labor and the environment go hand in hand. More than ten years ago, the USW founded the BlueGreen Alliance with the Sierra Club “because we did not believe that it was either good jobs or a clean environment. It was either over the long haul and the midterm we’d have both good jobs and a clean environment, or in the long term we’d have neither,” Gerard said.

In the end, it falls to the American people to counteract Trump’s folly. “I’ve got faith that the institutions of America, the governors, the municipalities, the educators, the labor movement, will come together and will move the agenda forward,” Gerard said.

Listen to the full discussion below: