Clyde Hanson announced the BlueGreen Alliance in Duluth
Minnesota Blue Green Alliance
Environmental and Labor Leaders Challenge Bush Administration Failure to Protect Minnesota Jobs and Environment
“Blue Green Alliance” to create jobs and protect environment
Duluth, MN –Contrasting President Bush’s campaign photo-op with the power of the Minnesota grassroots, local labor and environmental leaders responded Tuesday to Bush’s visit—with his own record of failures to protect Minnesota jobs and environment.
Responding to economic and environmental threats to the quality of life in Minnesota and fed up with politicians dividing Minnesotans for political gain, labor and environmental leaders have joined together in the Blue Green Alliance, a grassroots organizing effort designed to strengthen Minnesota’s economy and safeguard its air, water and land.
Over the last three years, Minnesota’s average wage has fallen while mercury contamination in our water has remained high. While President Bush has defended tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas, Minnesota has lost forty-three thousand manufacturing jobs, leaving more working families without the income and benefits they need. Additionally, in the last three years, mercury pollution has reached such high levels that Minnesota is one of 19 states with a statewide advisory on all our freshwater lakes and 4,100 miles of rivers, threatening our ability to eat some of the fish we catch.
“Do you want to know how the economy is doing,” asked Jerry Fallos, former President of USWA Local 4108 at the now-closed LTV mine in Hoyt Lakes. “Ask the workers of Minnesota if you have more job security today than you did four years ago? If your healthcare costs are going down? If your retirement savings and investments are more secure? If people in rural Minnesota have a brighter economic future? Northeastern Minnesota needs tens of thousands of new jobs, and we need them now.”
The Blue Green Alliance builds on over ten years of efforts by Minnesota labor unions and environmentalists to oppose unfair trade policies and encourage corporate accountability. Unions, conservation groups and environmental groups are joining forces for change through large memberships, strong grassroots organizing skills and a shared tradition of activism.
“Labor unions, conservation groups, and environmental organizations have large memberships, strong grassroots organizing skills, and long-term activist traditions,” added Rosie Loeffler-Kemp of Clean Water Action Alliance. “The combination will be much more effective than going it alone.”
Blue Green Alliance Partner Organizations include the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Sierra Club North Star Chapter, United Steelworkers of America District 11, Clean Water Action Alliance, AFSCME Council 6, SEIU Minnesota State Council, Teamsters Joint Council 32, Minnesota Building Trades and Environment 2004, Izaak Walton League of America -Midwest Office, Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient (ME3) Economy, Institute for a Sustainable Future (ISF), League of Rural Voters.
A positive, activist-outreach movement, the Blue Green Alliance’s forward-looking practical action plan includes:
- Challenging the “environment vs. jobs” myth that has been used as a wedge to divide working people and environmentalists/conservationists.
- Promoting our shared goals of fair trade, corporate accountability, workplace health and safety, workers’ rights, and environmental protection;
- Developing a policy agenda focused on growing the economy, creating jobs while protecting the environment; and
- Advancing the right of all people, and their children and grandchildren after them, to enjoy the outdoors in recreational activities such as hunting, birding, hiking, fishing, and canoeing.