PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 4, 2023
Workers’ collective actions are not just about wages and working conditions. Organized workers have also built bridges across racial, class and gender divides to address critical issues like environmental climate change, pollution, racial justice, affordable housing and immigration. During the International Paper strike of 1987, the members of UPIU Local 14 in Jay took soil and water samples, documented environmental conditions, and strategized on how to clean up the environment. As a result, the town passed pioneering environmental ordinances. Recently, a coalition of construction trades unions, fisheries and environmental groups worked with legislators and Gov. Mills to pass a law allowing the construction of offshore wind turbines in a way that protects fisheries and creates thousands of union jobs. To address some of the most critical problems we face as a society, we must listen to the voice of labor. ~ Matthew Emmick, Scontras Center for Labor and Community Education, USM