@HowesPaul Says No To Green Jobs #Ausunions

via newmatilda.com

Via: http://newmatilda.com/2011/11/15/no-green-jobs-howes

Illawarra unions and business groups devised a green jobs plan for the region in 2009. The Greens took it to Parliament - where it was rejected by Labor last week, writes Lee Rhiannon

Is the head of the Australians Workers Union and occasional visitor to Wollongong Paul Howes putting his personal dislike of the Greens ahead of the interests of his own members and the promotion of job projects in the Illawarra?

Paul Howes has been a vocal critic of the Greens and has worked hard to discredit our policies and priorities.

Last week, when the Senate debated the Steel Transformation Plan that earmarked $180 million for BlueScope, the Greens moved an amendment that called on the government to "pay particular regard to the Green Jobs Illawarra Action Plan and any other similar plans in other affected regions."

The Green Jobs Illawarra Action Plan, released in 2009, was produced by a committee that included the South Coast Labor Council, the University of Wollongong, Illawarra TAFE, Illawarra Business Chamber and the Australian Industry Group.

The plan sets out in a great deal of detail the jobs that can come with a shift to a greener economy and greener communities.

Just one example is its bid to position the Illawarra as a "centre of excellence" for wave power generation technologies, by harnessing the R&D capacity of the University of Wollongong and the innovative manufacturing and engineering capacity of regional firms.

The steel bill was passed with the backing of Greens and Labor MPs but when the Greens amendment was moved, the Coalition and the Government joined forces to reject it.

It is disappointing that the Labor Government could not stomach voting for the Greens’ amendment in support of a plan that would enable a regional community to build on the carbon package and the new steel laws.

In campaigning to defeat the amendment, Howes effectively put sectional Labor interests ahead of the interests of his union’s members.

On the day we announced our amendments Howes was reported on ABC Radio News saying, "We don’t support the Greens’ amendments. We believe that it [the steel package] should go through as it is. It gives the guarantees and the certainty that is needed in terms of steel-making, the transition that is needed but also to guarantee minimum manning levels, minimum personnel levels across the industry."

Why would an Australian trade union leader not back this plan? His own union is a member of the South Coast Labor Council which helped initiate and actively promotes the plan. When it was announced, then-ACTU president Sharan Burrow trumpeted the plan as showing "how a regional economy traditionally dependent on ‘brown’ industries could be transformed by co-operative action on climate change".

Secretary of the South Coast Labor Council Arthur Rorris explains:

"This action plan turns conventional wisdom on its head: it demonstrates that our steel and heavy industries are actually the ones that should give us a competitive advantage in the green economy.

"Just take a look at the renewable energy sector, whether it’s wind turbines, wave power and solar thermal plants — we are talking thousands of tonnes of steel and the fabrication, engineering, design and logistics that go with it."

The Greens made it clear that our support for the $300 million steel package was not dependent on our amendment promoting the benefits of the Illawarra Jobs Plan being passed.

In parliament our job is to determine whether we should support, object or try to improve legislation when it is introduced. In this case, the Greens determined that the Steel Transformation Bill was an opportunity to highlight the great work undertaken by unions, education institutions and business groups in the Illawarra to promote green jobs.

This plan provides a model for regional centres across Australia facing jobs losses due to the mixed economy.

When the Greens were determining our position on the Government’s steel plan, Senator Bob Brown and I visited Wollongong and met with South Coast Labor Council delegates who put the case for why the legislation should pass. We were also briefed about the Illawarra Jobs Plan.

Proposals such as the Green Street Project, retrofitting iconic public buildings and clean energy systems are set out in comprehensive detail that any government or union leader should appreciate. The report examines how the strengths of the Illawarra’s economy can be utilised in emerging green industries and points to the jobs that will be created in the shift to a greener economy and communities.

When the news broke in August that BlueScope would axe 800 jobs at their Port Kembla plant Senator Brown and I thought it was time to take the Green Jobs Illawarra Action Plan to the federal parliament.

The plan is a road map on how to diversify the Illawarra economy in concrete ways that would promote long term jobs growth in sustainable industries.

With another financial crisis looming and the ongoing challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, every regional centre across Australia needs it own version of the Green Jobs Illawarra Action Plan.

The negative vote by Labor and the Coalition in the federal Senate and the hostility from Paul Howes just served to show how out of touch they are with the needs of the Illawarra.

Posted via email from The Left Hack

Reclaiming the environment for the labour movement #alp #Auspol | Progressive Oz

This is the first in our Young Progressive Leaders series, over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting blog entries from those who participated in the inaugural Young Progressive Leaders Program.

Anyone who’s been following the carbon tax debate recently (and really, who can avoid it) may have had cause to wonder, why is the Labor Party pinning so much on climate change?

There must be some who resent the environment being such a dominant issue. Why can’t Labor just talk about health, or education, or industrial relations? Why not leave the environment stuff to the Greens?

The reality, though, is that environment protection must be at the very centre of what Labor stands for. The Labor Party and the labour movement have to reclaim the environment as their issue — not just because they can’t avoid it, but because it’s inextricably linked to everything that they already stand for.

Environment protection is about social justice. Environmental problems are invariably created by the rich and powerful, and suffered by the poor and vulnerable. Environment protection is all about the fair distribution of environmental costs and benefits. It’s a classic labour issue.

Environment protection is about human beings — not just trees and animals. Climate change means more bushfires, more floods, and more droughts, all of which spell disaster for vulnerable people, especially rural communities.

It is working people who will suffer if the companies who employ them can’t adjust to a low-carbon economy. It is the poor and underprivileged who are least able to adapt to climate change and its impacts. It is developing nations who will be underwater first. Clearly, protecting these people is core business for Labor.
It’s not just climate change, either. Human beings benefit from ‘ecosystem services’ provided by many parts of the environment. A healthy Murray-Darling rivers system, for example, is essential to sustaining the regional economy and regional communities.

Environment protection is about economic prosperity. The Labor Party has always stood for tough economic reforms that guaranteed our long-term prosperity. The need to shift our economy to a model that our planet can sustain will be one of the biggest and toughest economic transformations we’ve seen yet.

Even if it weren’t such a classic progressive issue, Labor simply doesn’t have a choice. A strong environment policy is increasingly becoming a political necessity for a progressive party.

Labor has already lost a large chunk of its base over its weak approach to the environment — particularly the decision to dump the CPRS. The electoral cost of a weak environment policy will only grow over time, as the environment challenge grows more and more urgent.

The fact that Labor is losing these voters to the Greens is no consolation. Although Greens preferences generally flow to Labor anyway, Labor needs its progressive base for more than just votes. It needs engaged, inspired, committed activists to drive its values and policies (not to mention political candidates).

Labor is perilously close to losing a generation of progressive activists to the Greens. It needs to reclaim the 66,000 young people who have flocked to the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, who spend election day wearing ‘Vote Climate’ T-shirts and handing out how-to-vote cards that preference the Greens.

Besides, imagine if Labor could make the environment a political strength? Imagine if it could overcome this perennial weakness, by ditching the middle-of-the-road policies that open it to attack from the Coalition and the Greens, and fighting from a strong progressive position?

It’s unlikely that Labor will ever be green enough to win back all the voters who have left it for the Greens. But it can certainly win back most of them. It can convince a critical mass of progressive Australians that Labor is unambiguously pro-environment, but better at implementing its policies than a minor party.

After all, that’s the way it used to be. The ALP has a proud history of environment protection. It was Bob Brown who protested the Franklin Dam, but it was Bob Hawke who made sure it wasn’t built. It was Hawke who defied the international community and protected Antarctica from mining. It was Whitlam who introduced Australia’s first environmental impact assessment laws. Let’s face it — Labor was green before it was cool.
If it is serious about winning the fight for progressive Australia, it needs to be green again. So long as the progressive movement in Australia remains split into two parts — red and green — it will lose. The labour movement needs to make peace with the green movement, and bring them back into the fold.

The only way to do that is to get serious about environment protection. Labor needs a Murray-Darling Basin Plan that will actually sustain the Murray-Darling Basin. It needs to be honest and tough about the environmental risks that coal mining and coal-seam gas extraction pose. It needs to get much more serious about sustaining biodiversity. And it needs a strong commitment to climate change, which recognises that a carbon price is just the first step.

It’s been a long, hard fight over the carbon price, no doubt about it. But unless Labor puts the environment at the very front and centre of its values and policies, and rebuilds a single progressive movement that combines the red and greens wings into a winning coalition, it won’t get any easier.

Mick Power is Victorian Co-convenor of the Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN). He works at the Environment Defenders Office (Victoria), a public interest environment law NGO. Follow him on twitter at @mick_power.

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via progressiveaustralia.org.au

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