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Good Jobs and a Clean Environment:
Is There a Conflict?

There is a common public perception that we must make a choice between "jobs and the environment." Public opinion polls regularly ask citizens if they would be willing to support environmental improvement "even if it might cost some jobs," and corporations regularly play jobs and the environment off against each other when dealing with labor or other policy issues. In this workshop, representatives from the environmental, labor, occupational health, and community economic development movements discuss the true and false aspects of the so-called "conflicts" between jobs and the environment, and propose strategies and policies through which we can have both good jobs and a clean environment for all our citizens.

Moderator:

• Dr. Sam Parigi, Texans United, and Economics Department, Lamar University, 6250 Ivanhoe, No. 217, Beaumont, TX 77706.

Other Speakers:

• Pam Stone, Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, P.O. Box 530613, Grand Prairie, TX 75053; (617) 795-7552, will discuss the many ways in which labor and environmental movements share common grounds and can work together for mutual benefit in her talk, "Healthy Jobs and Communities: A Partnership for Workers and Environmentalists."

• Jimmy Herrington, Secretary-Treasurer, Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers (0CAW) Local 7-23, 2490 S. 11th St., Beaumont, TX, 77701; (409) 842-3952, will discuss the frequent use by corporations of the threat of jobs vs. environment, and will propose a "Superfund" to retrain workers laid off from polluting or environmentally hazardous jobs in his talk, "Environmental and Job Blackmail."

• Lynn Nelson, Co-Chair, Committee on Occupational and Environmental Health, Women's Health Network, and Central NY. -COSH; 122 Milnor St., Syracuse, NY; (315) 471-6187, will discuss strategies for healthier jobs in the context of health and environmental issues in her talk, "Protecting Your Rights to Your Health and Your Job."

• Jim Benn, Executive Director, Federation for Industrial Retention and Renewal; 3411 W. Diversey Ave. #14, Chicago, IL 60637; (312) 252-7676, will discuss the environmental and community disruption caused by plant closings, and will propose strategies for greater community input into the local economy and local industrial development in his talk, "Economic Democracy and Community-Based Development."

• Len Krimerman, Grassroots Economic Organizing Newsletter (GEO), P.O. Box 5065, New Haven, CT 06525; (203) 486-3467. Changing Work magazine; Philosophy Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269; (203) 389-6194, will discuss new worker-owned enterprises which are dealing with environmental problems in his talk, "The Link between Worker Ownership and Environmental Justice."

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