Turtles and Teamsters Revival? Analyzing Labor Unions’ Environmental Discourse from the 2014 People’s Climate March

• In Event: 036 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Social Movements and Labor Solidarity

Abstract

This paper contributes to the burgeoning discussion on blue-green alliances by elucidating how unions are framing and organizing around the issue of climate justice. On September 21, 2014, 10,000 members from over 70 labor organizations flooded the streets of New York to participate in the People’s Climate March—a historic labor turnout for an environmental cause. However, despite previous attitudinal research demonstrating that union members are concerned about environmental degradation, labor’s environmental activism has historically been inconsistent, largely single-issue based, and often curtailed by the real or perceived threat of job loss. Therefore, these studies provide an insufficient analysis of the negotiated form that workers’ environmental consciousness takes in union policy, and fail to reveal the multiplicity of values and ideologies that inform and shape environmental activism across organized labor. Utilizing mixed-methods, including in-depth interviews with labor participants of the People’s Climate March, I provide a more nuanced examination of climate politics within the labor movement. I explore the ideological underpinnings and political implications of the frames employed, and illuminate emerging trends across industry sectors. In addition, I utilize political opportunity theory for a structural analysis of how the current political environment is influencing union mobilization around climate change. Ultimately, I argue that the predominant climate change discourse amongst interviewees indicates a deployment of an environmental justice “master frame” and a revival of social movement unionism. I conclude by extending my discussion to what implications this framing has for the trajectory of climate justice mobilization and the broader labor movement.

Author

• Lauren Contorno, Northeastern University