 |
Opinion 2005 • GAINING INDEPENDENCE FROM OUR CARS • POT SHOTS AT TRAIN MISS THE MARK • ON GLOBAL WARMING, SONOMA COUNTY MUSN'T BE SILENT • GAINING INDEPENDENCE FROM OUR CARS • GETTING SMART TRAIN ON TRACK By Bill Kortum • GET THE BALL ROLLING by David Keller • THE NORTH BAY'S `HOURGLASS ECONOMY' by Martin Bennett • A NEW MODEL OF ECOMONIC DEVELOPMENT • NORTH BAY NEEDS BOTH BUS AND RAIL FOR SUCCESS • INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY
A recent Press Democrat article informed us that we have the most cars per capita of any of the nine Bay Area counties. The North Bay Business Journal just published results from a survey conducted by the North Bay Council which found that nine out of 10 employees at polled companies drive alone to work. The benefits of replacing some of our reliance on driving with alternative modes of transportation are many -- improved health, decreased traffic congestion, fewer parking headaches and traffic accidents, consumer savings, increased mobility for non-drivers, energy conservation, decreased pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, more efficient use of our limited land. In the North Bay Council survey, 50 percent of those responding indicated they would prefer to use alternatives -- rail, carpooling, bus, walking or bicycling -- to get to work. So the question is, how do we get from where we are today to a place where we have more viable transportation options to choose from? Solutions to these challenges can be found in the most unlikely places. In 1992, the Denver Regional Council of Governments recommended that the region invest in a transit system rather than more highways as a key strategy to combat its ever-increasing sprawl and traffic congestion. Since then, Denver, with funding from sales tax measures, has invested aggressively in implementing an integrated transit system consisting of light and commuter rail and rapid bus routes. An important element in the success of Denver's strategy is the associated change in land-use decisions being embraced in the region. Rather than continuing to sprawl, new housing and business construction is being concentrated in mixed-use, transit-oriented developments. When Denver finishes its expanded transit system in 2016, half of the region's new residents -- 550,000 people -- are planned to be living and working within walking distance or a short ride from a transit stop. One quarter of all rush-hour commuters are expected to use the rail and rapid bus routes. The situation in Sonoma County is obviously very different from Denver -- our four-lane highway and population under 500,000 are small compared with Denver's 12-lane expressways and population of 2.5 million people. However, Denver illustrates some key principles that we should consider as we look to the future of getting around in Sonoma County. In fact, some of these principles are already being applied in cities across the county. For example, several Sonoma County cities -- Cotati, Petaluma and Windsor -- are embracing smart growth principles to build livable, walkable communities close to their SMART rail stations. Local organizations like the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and the SRJC Neighborhood Association are promoting changes that will make our streets safer and more enjoyable for walking and bicycling. Voters in Marin and Sonoma counties will vote in 2006 on the funding necessary to bring commuter rail to the North Bay. These are essential first steps in establishing a new transportation infrastructure for our future. To those who are skeptical that we will ever let go of our devotion to our cars and feel investments in public transportation are a poor use of taxes, there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Like Denver, cities that have accompanied their investments in transit with supportive land-use policies have experienced significant growth in total transit ridership. They are also seeing economic growth as new businesses and younger workers are attracted to the affordable housing and vibrant lifestyle of urban villages that are viewed as desirable alternatives to suburban sprawl. Over many years, our land use and transportation policies have resulted in a car-dependent Sonoma County. To break free of this dependency will take time, policy changes and investments. Rather than discouraging us, the recent news on cars per capita should be viewed as further incentive to invest in an integrated transportation system that provides Sonoma County commuters with convenient, comfortable and affordable alternatives for their daily commute. Tanya Narath is a Santa Rosa resident and the executive director of the Leadership Institute For Ecology and the Economy. POT SHOTS AT TRAIN MISS THE MARKPublished in the Press Democrat, December 12, 2005 By CHRIS COURSEY The response to the environmental report for a Sonoma-Marin commuter train is a lot like the response to a clay pigeon launched into the air above a gun club: It's taking a lot of shots.
GAINING INDEPENDENCE FROM OUR CARS Published on December 3, 2005 CLOSE TO HOME © 2005- The Press Democrat By Tanya Narath
The news is not encouraging for Sonoma County commuters. Why should we be concerned about these statistics? Because they indicate that we are missing a tremendous opportunity for improved quality of life for Sonoma County residents.
ON GLOBAL WARMING, SONOMA COUNTY MUSN'T BE SILENT Published in the Press Democrat, "Close to Home" December 14, 2005 By Ann Hancock, Coordinator for the Climate Protection Campaign Nations of the world met last week in Montreal to combat global warming. Although the Bush administration blocked progress there, Sonoma County elected officials are leading ambitious local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. GAINING INDEPENDENCE FROM OUR CARS Published on December 3, 2005 CLOSE TO HOME © 2005- The Press Democrat By Tanya Narath The news is not encouraging for Sonoma County commuters. Why should we be concerned about these statistics? Because they indicate that we are missing a tremendous opportunity for improved quality of life for Sonoma County residents. Getting SMART Train on Track By Bill Kortum In the mid-eighties the San Francisco Chronicle published an article by Peter Calthorpe describing his concept of turning the rail corridor in Sonoma and Marin counties into a series of “pedestrian pockets” to accommodate growth in a less auto dependent and more pedestrian friendly configuration. Peter Calthorpe, considered by Newsweek as one of the 25 brightest innovators in the United Sates, utilized a universal fact, that users of rail transit will walk up to 1500 feet to a station. His concept was to devise pedestrian friendly communities with a 1500-foot radius around transit stops on our rail corridor. What a refreshing concept, to provide alternatives from auto driven sprawl and accommodate a percentage of our growth to people who would rather not be so dependent on the automobile. In 1990 both Marin and Sonoma counties put a half-cent sales tax on the ballot to widen 101 to six lanes and establish a commuter rail. On examination the ballot language of the measure did not protect the rail financing from being raided to pay interest on proposed bonds to expedite the highway. Two weeks before the election a group of 21 organizations called the Sonoma County Transportation Coalition mounted a sign campaign with a Burma Shave theme to defeat the measure. In 1994 our Sonoma County Transportation Land Use Coalition, representing 21 groups with George Ellman as our diplomat, helped form a joint committee with the business group, Sonoma County Alliance, to work toward a jointly sponsored transportation ballot measure. Our Coalition lobbied to have a land use connection if a transportation tax was put before the voters. Marin and Sonoma at the same time jointly sponsored the Sonoma/Marin Multi modal Transportation Land Use Study in 1995. They hired Peter Calthorpe to do the study. Then-Supervisor Cale, despite much criticism, obtained $400,000 of Caltrans money to do the land connected study. In 1996 the Santa Rosa Chamber urged that a measure appear on the Fall ballot but the Coalition insisted that without a completed land use study we would not go along. By 1997 Calthorpe completed his work and found that enough jobs, housing, and ridership existed around stations to make a feasible rail project. He also found that the rail project would be the least expensive rail start up in the nation because of the public ownership of the rail corridor. Most interesting was his multi modal study determination that improvements to every form of transportation from highway to bus to bicycle would be needed. Despite all modes, congestion would still prevail. In 1998 our partnership between environmental and business groups backed the Supervisors to put two measures on the ballot, Measure A and Measure C. This was based on a successful formula developed in Santa Clara County to bypass a required two-thirds vote and allow a simple majority for passage. The half cent sales tax was a general tax that could be spent for any county function. Measure A, the Calthorpe Transportation Land Use Plan, described where the money was to be spent, and Measure C asked for the tax. The tax measure did not include the Novato Petaluma Narrows because as a regional connector its improvement was the province of the State Highway Commission. Holding them responsible was our leverage to have local gas tax money returned to our region. Supervisor Kelley teamed up with Ghilotti, North Bay’s largest road builder, and included the Narrows to the Marin County line into the ballot measure. The opposition was properly angered by the maneuver and used the growth inducement message to defeat the measure. The plan was adopted by 72 percent of the voters; the tax lost with a 48 percent vote. Two years later, in year 2000, Ghilotti claimed that the rail was the cause of the 1998 defeat, and convinced the business side to walk out of the environmental partnership and sponsor an $800,000 campaign for a highway only measure. Supervisor Smith added a rail measure at the last minute but with no financial support to run the rail campaign, the Transportation Land Use Coalition stayed out and mounted a campaign against the Ghilotti highway measure. Both required a two-thirds vote. Both lost but Rail, with no campaign, received 2 percent more votes than Highway. Meantime former Congressman Doug Bosco, a long time advocate of public ownership of the rail corridor, talked his old Assembly friend Governor Gray Davis, who was then flush with dot com tax revenue, into donating $60 million to restore rail freight to Eureka and $35 million to do the engineering and EIR studies in preparation for a passenger rail ballot measure in 2004. With the recession hitting Sacramento, only $7 million of the $35 million went to a two-county SMART committee to prepare a plan. The recently released draft EIR is a product of this investment. Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) now has a detailed description of rail transit impacts in the North Bay area. In 2003 Joe Nation sponsored a bill to set up the Sonoma Marin Rail Transit District. The SMART committee became the SMART Authority composed of elected officials from both city councils and boards of supervisors in both counties. The board of directors planned to put a quarter cent sales tax on the ballot in 2004 to start up rail. The final hitch was for Marin to sponsor a sales tax to underwrite a local bus system in the Fall of 04 and having their members on the SMART board refuse to place the SMART rail measure on the same ballot. With no rail measure for 2004, Sonoma County put Measure M on the ballot and gained voter approval of a quarter cent sales tax to improve Highway 101, local roads and a small investment for SMART rail. A promoter of the Marin bus transit tax but member of the SMART board, Mayor Al Boro of San Rafael, was inundated with letters from his rail constituency. Many of us see rail as the third leg of land use protection. We have an Open Space purchase program, we have voter controlled urban growth boundaries. And the rail as the third leg stimulates transit oriented development to accommodate the future smart growth alternative to land use completely dependent on the automobile. Bill Kortum is past chairman Sonoma County Transportation Land Use Coalition
By DAVID KELLER, Petaluma EDITOR: With the loss of the existing Little League, soccer and football fields at Kenilworth by the end of this year, Petaluma kids and sports teams desperately need new fields in town. Further, for team members over 7 years old living on the west side, there are almost no fields available. We need new, permanent fields to serve our growing population of enthusiastic participants. It's time for us to take bold and heroic action. If the city buys the risky flood-prone parcels now (including the unbuilt Chelsea parcels B and C, as well as adjacent parcels), we can have 30 to 60 acres of new fields and a central park in a beautiful riverside setting. Further, as west-side parents won't have to drive across Washington Street at the height of rush hour to deliver and pick up children from east side fields, the traffic congestion on Washington will be reduced.
THE NORTH BAY'S `HOURGLASS ECONOMY' Published on March 4, 2005 BY MARTIN BENNETT Dark clouds are gathering on the horizon as the North Bay moves unevenly into the economic recovery. The collapse of Telecom Valley and the slashing of 4,500 high-tech jobs have cooled the robust economic growth of the late 1990s, a period when regional job growth outpaced the state and national rates. Now a sober assessment of the boom years reveals the dramatic growth of income inequality and working-class poverty in the North Bay. This week the nonprofit New Economy, Working Solutions (NEWS), released a report, "The Limits of Prosperity: Growth, Inequality and Poverty in the North Bay,'' by University of California researchers Nari Rhee and Dan Acland. The report examines the transformation of the regional economy over the last two decades and calls for new public policy to address the crisis of low-wage employment and the polarization of wealth and income in Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. The spreading economic insecurity and the structural weaknesses of the regional economy could undermine renewed prosperity. The report argues that the emergence of an "hourglass economy,'' with job growth concentrated at the top and the bottom of the labor market while middle-income jobs are shrinking is driving the current economic insecurity. Income inequality grew at "staggering rates'' in the 1990s compared to the 1980s. In Sonoma and Napa counties during the 1990s, the income of the top one-fifth of working families grew six times as fast as the bottom one-fifth. In Sonoma County income for the upper one-fifth ballooned by 24 percent, from $144,476 to $179,615 in inflation adjusted-dollars. For the bottom one-fifth family income was stagnant and grew by only 4 percent, from $23,001 to $23,991. The hourglass economy spurs the rapid growth of the working poor, families for whom wages and incomes are not sufficient to pay for basic necessities such as food, housing, transportation, child care and health care. The report documents how incomes at the bottom have failed to keep pace with spiraling housing, medical and other costs of living. More than 30 percent of the workers in the North Bay do not earn wages sufficient to enable two parents working full-time to support two children. Adjusting for the cost of living in each county, the self-sufficiency or living wage for two parents working full-time to support two children is $9.75 in Mendocino, $11.48 in Napa, $12.46 in Sonoma and $15.05 in Marin. Most alarmingly, job growth projections for the North Bay indicate that the base of the hourglass is continuing to widen. Service sector jobs such as janitors, child-care and home-care workers, security guards and retail sales will account for much of the the 62 percent of new jobs paying an entry wage of less than $12 an hour. Latinos, who are clustered in industries that offer the least pay, training and job security, are twice as likely to be poor as whites. More than 43 percent of the Latino working family population in Sonoma and 60 percent in Mendocino do not earn a living wage. The California Budget Project suggests that Latinos will constitute over 43 percent of the state's population by 2020 and low levels of educational achievement for Latinos will limit upward mobility and could choke off future economic growth. The NEWS report warns of dangerous consequences if the hourglass economy persists: The authors conclude with a set of recommendations to address the deepening income inequality. They advocate for a higher state minimum wage indexed to inflation, more protections for workers seeking to form unions, increased access to affordable housing and health care, and ensuring that good jobs with benefits are created when public funds are provided for new commercial development. Ultimately, the report suggests that shared prosperity, which enables all income brackets to grow together, is the basis for a healthy and sustainable regional economy. Martin Bennett teaches American history at Santa Rosa Junior College and is the board chairman of New Economy, Working Solutions.
PETALUMA: CITY AT A CROSSROADS By David Keller What is the true Petaluma Outlet Mall story? What do we want for Petaluma? Theaters and clubs, restaurants, shops, offices, residences, delightful public spaces along the river, parking structures, a new transit hub and street landscaping await our support. We are preparing a garden to bear fruit for many years to come -- a harvest we've been eagerly anticipating, and one that will take care and protection to get it firmly established. Or, we can choose to abandon this generation's hard work and commitments to our city's identity, by allowing the 500,000 square feet of proposed new malls and a new cinema to grow along the freeway, as common weeds fed by inattention and city subsidies, sucking life from the downtown and the city. We must learn from hundreds of cities, large and small, that have seen their downtowns shrivel as malls capture new retail growth. Repeatedly, local businesses fold as they face predatory competition from national chains. Crime rates in downtowns rise, investments in redevelopment are slashed, sales and property tax receipts drop, and historic buildings go vacant and decay. Cities watch as hometown profits and local capital for business formation, support of community efforts and real job formation dwindle. Many cities find that as local businesses start becoming successful, national chains come in to cannibalize the economic progress achieved by local effort and investment. They let the locals take risks, then come in for the kill. They drive locally owned and operated businesses out, competing with below-cost, predatory pricing, inside deals with manufacturers and distributors not available to smaller retailers, cost-cutting through centralized services and a willingness to pay higher rents than the locals can afford. They pay low wages with few or no benefits, using high-turnover part-time employees who can't afford local housing and must commute. Many of these chains' strategies depend on growth by capturing existing local market share, rather than actually producing new sales. This strategy feeds such giants as WalMart, Target, Home Depot, RiteAid and Barnes & Noble. This destruction to local economies and downtowns is extremely well documented by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and others. We can chose to create and reinvest wealth in Petaluma. Many cities are learning how to successfully protect their integrity with various strategies: limit the size of stores; special fees for large multiple chain retailers; limit or prohibit "formula retail'' businesses and restaurants; incentives favoring small-scale, locally owned or community-serving businesses; require studies of the economic and fiscal impacts to downtowns before approvals. Cities like Solvang, Carmel, Pacific Grove and Mill Valley, the state of Vermont, and the nations of Ireland and France, have used various means to limit damages and preserve the best qualities of their communities (see www.newrules.org). How can we keep the character of Petaluma and not become another "anywhere USA'' city? We need to review not only the evironmental impacts of any project proposals like the Petaluma Outlet Mall expansion but also whether the proposals really serve Petaluma's values, goals and economy. Petaluma's downtown is on the verge of a renaissance. We have an opportunity to support this burst of growth, or leave it in the doldrums for years to come. Petaluma's main street: Will it be in the heart of the city or along the freeway? David Keller is the co-chair of the Central Petaluma Specific Plan Citizens' Advisory Committee and a former Petaluma City Council member. A NEW MODEL OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Accountable Development Efforts Gain Momentum By Sabrina Ross In April, more than 30 Sonoma County leaders convened in Santa Rosa's SEIU Local 707 for an accountable development workshop led by the California Partnership for Working Families and hosted by New Economy, Working Solutions. The workshop brought labor, environmental and community-based organizations together to prepare for upcoming efforts to achieve accountable development within Sonoma County. Accountable development allows communities to achieve smart growth, rather than the haphazard expansion that frequently occurs. Led by facilitators who have negotiated accountable development agreements in Los Angeles, Emeryville, San Jose, and Oakland, among many other California cities, the workshop focused on the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), a tool which has recently enabled many communities to secure environmental building standards, living wages, affordable housing agreements, childcare center space and funding, and a host of other community benefits from developers. Workshop facilitators explained the workings of CBAs to the assembled community leaders: these project-specific contracts between developers and community organizations allow community groups to have a voice in shaping a project, and ensure that major developments benefit a community and meet its particular needs. Communities in California have been increasingly successful in recent years in arguing that developers of large projects have a particular social responsibility, not only because they're entering existing communities, but because taxpayer dollars subsidize their projects. According to the nonprofit California Budget Project, California alone devoted more than $8 billion last year to state economic development incentives, and local governments spends billions more. Cities and states have long offered free land, tax breaks, grants, and other incentives to entice new development. Increasingly, however, community advocates, local governments and even the developers themselves are acknowledging that projects receiving public dollars should be asked to deliver improved wages, health benefits, parks, and other community benefits that fit the local circumstances and needs. "We're looking forward to bringing more accountable development to Sonoma County," said Living Wage Coalition coordinator Ben Boyce, "Making clear what the community expects from its developers early in the process should make the process of development easier and more positive for all involved." CBAs usually occur through negotiation between leaders of community groups and developers, and sometimes involve local governments. Groups behind the accountable development process often include environmentalists, ethnic chambers of commerce, faith leaders, neighborhood associations, academics, and advocates for labor, housing, and childcare. In the negotiation process, the developer agrees to shape the development in a certain way or to provide specified community benefits. In exchange, the community groups support the proposed project before government bodies that provide the needed permits and subsidies. Cities, in turn, can get guarantees of timely construction and funds for city-provided services. The training leaders also explained measures that effective CBAs include for monitoring and enforcement of developers' agreements. CBAs are not the only tools for achieving accountable development however. Presenters also described how communities can participate even earlier in the development process-- in crafting the Request for Proposals (RFP) document that cities write when commencing the process of scouting for developers of areas where some public funds will be used. Indeed, the RFP itself can include some of the criteria so that developers will understand from the outset the parameters of their role. In a recent Los Angeles RFP, the city included affordable housing, funds for public art, active energy conservation measures, and a living wage standard in the development requirements. While Sonoma County has yet to see any accountable development CBAs, there are precedents which prefigure a community benefit agreement: In 2000 the Petaluma City Council, the Living Wage Coalition and the North Bay Labor Council negotiated an agreement that mandates in return for receiving 2.75 million in public subsidies, the developers of the Petaluma Sheraton Hotel agreed to provide a living wage to all workers and to remain neutral if the workers requested an election for union representation. Moreover, the County Board of Supervisors, on a 4 to 1 vote, with Kelley voting no, recently passed a Workforce Housing Ordinance, a progressive policy-level development measure that requires new commercial developers to participate in the county's affordable housing program. The timing of the Accountable Development training is apt: key redevelopment areas in Santa Rosa and Petaluma are poised for development. The second part of the day's training focused on clarifying the community's direction for seeking accountable development of two major developments in downtown Santa Rosa and Petaluma. In Santa Rosa, the RFP for 5.5 critical redevelopment acres in Railroad Square is scheduled to be crafted in June and July. This is a pivotal property in the County not only because it lies at the heart of downtown Santa Rosa, but because its planned to house the primary Sonoma County station for the Sonoma Marin Train. The Basin Street area of Petaluma is also undergoing significant development for which community leaders hope to accomplish accountability. "This is an opportunity for communities to shape the development process early on, so that we can participate in a positive process that working families, environmentalists, housing advocates, cities and developers alike can support," said Martin Bennett, chair of New Economy, Working Solutions. For more information, or to get involved, call Marty Bennett at (707) 545-7349 ext. 221 or e-mail mbennett@vom.com. Benefits That Have Been Negotiated As Part of Accountable Development Agreements Include: A living wage requirement for workers employed in the development; A "first source" hiring system, to target job opportunities in the development to residents of nearby or low-income neighborhoods; Construction of affordable housing; Space for a neighborhood-serving child-care center; Developer funding for community park and recreation needs; Standards for responsible contracting and leasing decisions by the developer Sustainable building standards, including energy conservation systems and LEEDS certified construction For More Information On Accountable Development, see: Front Range Economic Strategy Center: 303-477-6111; www.denverlabor.org Good Jobs First: 202-737-4315; www.goodjobsfirst.org Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy: 213-486-9880; www.laane.org San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce: 408-291-5250; www.sjchamber.com Strategic Actions for a Just Economy: www.saje.net Working for America Institute: 202-974-8100; www.workingforamerica.org Working Partnerships USA: 408-269-7872; www.wpusa.org Sabrina Ross is a Legislative Advocate in Sonoma County, and serves as staff for the Sonoma County Accountable Development Coalition. NORTH BAY NEEDS BOTH BUS AND RAIL FOR SUCCESS Published on January 15, 2005 By MIKE DI GIORGIO and BILL KORTUM Every now and then someone suggests that the future of transit in the North Bay is possible with a bus-only system. They are mistaken. We need both buses and passenger rail service now for the transportation well-being of the eight cities between Larkspur and Cloverdale. A comfortable, high-capacity rail system can attract mixed-use pedestrian friendly development into the core of our cities, maintaining the city-centered growth that is a cornerstone of planning for both Sonoma and Marin counties. Transit-oriented pedestrian friendly development is not for everybody, but it's an option that an increasing number of mobile families and empty nesters are embracing. Bus-only transit does not encourage builders of such developments, because bus routes can change. Development near train stations offers builders the incentive of stability, and residents a dependable mode of transportation. Experience shows that transit users willingly walk twice as far to train stations as to bus stops. Rail stations, therefore, serve four times the acreage of bus stops, making it possible to develop diverse pedestrian areas that permit people to carry out many errands on foot. Passenger rail service can also protect against sprawl by centering development where it will do the least environmental damage. This is critical in Sonoma and Marin, where voters have inoculated their landscapes against urban sprawl by adopting Urban Growth Boundary mandates and open space and ag land purchases. The Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) board of directors has adopted transit-oriented development as an objective for North Bay station planning, providing a powerful land use protection tool. Trains and buses also work well together. Rail systems served by buses are proving successful around the nation. Transit agencies serving mid-sized and small cities like Encinitas, Carlsbad, Boulder and Salt Lake have discovered that it takes rail service to attract transit riders. Our bus-only transit systems, like others, have failed to build sufficient ridership. The recent cutbacks of Gold Gate Transit service to the Larkspur ferry prove this. Rail critics seem anxious to pick at forecasts of ridership, cost benefit, air quality and commuter convenience even before the current environmental and ridership studies have been approved. They urge that bus-only transit can use uncongested carpool lanes, ignoring the fact that such lanes often fill up, and the lanes through Sonoma County will only be completed at great cost over another decade. Passenger rail service can be up and running in far less time. Voters will hear much more reliable information about the SMART passenger rail project as the draft environmental impact report, cost and ridership estimates are presented for public review and comment during the next several months. These documents will be a reliable basis for determining just how trains can serve as a backbone linking cities between Larkspur and Cloverdale, complemented by linking our bus systems between rail stations and the North Bay's population centers. The data may qualify the SMART project for federal help. The completed plan will allow voters to decide on multiple methods of relieving congestion and safeguarding sensible land use. Will a small number of bus-only naysayers be able to stop the train? Not if facts and vision prevail.
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY Protecting workers' rights also safeguards environment Friday, December 9, 2005 By Carl Pope Saturday marks the 55th anniversary of International Human Rights Day, designated by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1950 to commemorate the 1948 signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration is a bold statement concerning the values, freedoms and rights that open societies champion and protect -- among which the declaration includes the right to freedom of association and to form and join unions. At first glance, the ability of workers to exercise freely their democratic right to form or join a union may seem disconnected from the work of the nation's oldest and largest environmental organization. But protecting workers' freedom of association is intrinsically linked to the Sierra Club's efforts to protect the environment and our communities. Historically, environmentalists and union members worked together to pass such landmark protections as the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Clean Air Act. More recently, the United Steelworkers and the Service Employees International Union worked with the Sierra Club to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We find common cause with unions such as Unite Here to address the dangers posed by chemicals used in the industrial laundry business, and the United Farm Workers to defend workers and communities against the misuse of pesticides. Similarly, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is championing new investments in solar power and other renewable energy technologies, and many building and trade unions are leading the charge locally for responsible development centered on public transportation hubs and other smart-growth solutions for communities. Those important efforts, however, are being compromised by a growing injustice against America's workers. According to a study commissioned by American Rights at work, a labor advocacy organization, when workers tried to organize, 30 percent of employers surveyed fired pro-union workers, 51 percent coerced employees into opposing unions with bribes or special favors, and 49 percent threatened to close a workplace if employees tried to form a union. These findings by the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development confirm what workers have known for years -- that employer interference, through both legal and illegal means -- is off the charts. In 91 percent of the organizing drives surveyed for the report, a majority of workers indicated that they wanted a union before the union-representation election process began. After workers were exposed to the kind of union-busting activity listed above, just 31 percent of the campaigns resulted in union-represented workers. Such elections are administered by the National Labor Relations Board, the government agency charged with enforcing labor law. But porous guidelines, nonexistent penalties and broad-based institutional delay in the grievance process render the agency ineffectual at best. Constraining the ability of workers to unite and bargain for better working conditions has far-reaching consequences for our air, water and the places we call home. Unions often serve as the front line of defense against hazardous pollution, chemical spills and other accidents that can devastate communities. They are the first ones to spot and report the dangers that begin, but rarely end, in the workplace. Strip unions of their power to safeguard workers and you strip them of their power to protect all of us. The erosion of American labor standards, contrary to so many of the stated goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, urgently signals that it's time to bring labor law into the 21st century. The Employee Free Choice Act, sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., along with Reps. George Miller, D-Martinez, and Peter King, R-N.Y., would make it easier for workers to form unions without employer interference and would strengthen penalties for workers'-rights violations. International Human Rights Day provides a valuable pause for reflection upon the values we share and promote as a society. Tolerating abuse of workers' rights shouldn't be one of them. Congress must act so that a workers' right to a free choice and fair chance to form a union is protected. Ultimately, the environment will benefit, too. *Carl Pope is executive director of Sierra Club and a board member of American Rights at Work, a national workers'-rights advocacy organization in Washington. |
 Photos
|
 |