A federal job guarantee is popular. Policies to slash climate pollution are even more popular. What if the Democratic Party combined the two?
A sunny future for unions? The Democratic National Committee ’s controversial decision Friday to backtrack on its two-month-old ban on fossil fuel donations highlights the pipeline industry’s grip on unions and the party’s struggle to bridge the gap between its labor and environmental wings. But a movement now gaining steam among 2020 Democratic hopefuls could challenge the age-old axiom that good-paying jobs conflict with reducing the fossil fuel emissions roasting the planet. On Friday, the DNC voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution, proposed by Chairman Tom Perez, that the party “support[s] fossil fuel workers” and will accept donations from “employers’ political action committees.” The vote effectively reversed a resolution the DNC adopted in June banning fossil fuel industry donations. The new resolution came in response to what the DNC described as “concerns from Labor” that the original resolution “was an attack on workers” at a time when Republicans are scoring a historic string of victories to weaken unions. Just 4.4 percent of workers in coal, oil and gas extraction are union members, and organized labor represents just a sliver more, at 4.8 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data from January. But powerful building trades unions ― including […]
