Blue-Green Insurgency
This is by Carl Davidson, at the excellent website SolidarityEconomy.net.
Blue-Green Insurgency Gets Fired Up at the DC Green Jobs Conference
By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue
When you walk into a large Washington, DC hotel lobby and find it teeming with thousands of smiling, buzzing people—half in labor union jackets and ball caps, the other half dressed in 30-something hip-hop causal—you know some special is happening.
This was the lively, energized scene for three cold wintry days this Feb 4-6 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, as nearly 3000 activists and organizers gathers for the “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” National Conference. The gathering was convened by more than 100 organizations, representing every major trade union and every major environmental group in the country, among others.
It’s called the “blue-green alliance,” the core of which is the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club, which jointly launched the “Green Jobs” movement nationally at a conference in Pittsburgh, PA a year ago. The turnout this year is triple in size and highly energized by both the victory of President Barack Obama and the looming onset of an economic crisis unmatched in scope since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition to the steelworkers, the building trades were well represented, and the green groups spanned a wide range of concerns, for toxics to energy to climate change. Also notable was the participation of a contingent of “high road” corporations rooted in the growing “green economy.” Gamesa, a major Spanish firm specializing in wind turbines, and Piper Jaffray, a large paper company focused on recycled paper products, are two examples.
But a critical new dimension was added by Green For All, an organization rooted among inner city youth, and headed up by Van Jones. Jones is the author of “The Green Collar Economy” and an inspirational voice for a rising generation of multinational, multicultural insurgent youth.
Read the rest of the article.
2 Responses to “Blue-Green Insurgency”
Anonymous says:
March 10, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Piper Jaffray, a large paper company?????????????????????fact check
Dollars and Sense says:
March 10, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Heh heh–he must have meant <>commercial<> paper.