* Can Autoworkers Save the Climate?

At the UN Climate Change Conference COP 19, the even-more-depressing-than-usual climate summit that took place in Warsaw in 2013, one small ray of light made it through the dark corporate clouds that were otherwise suffocating even the slightest effort to address the ongoing environmental disaster. On the last day of the conference, an unusual alliance was formed as environmental organizations and trade unions together walked out of the venue under the banner of “Enough Is Enough.” Sick of the meaningless talks, they stated:

“We are now focusing on mobilizing people to push our governments to take leadership for serious climate action. We will work to transform our food and energy systems at a national and global level and rebuild a broken economic system to create a sustainable and low-carbon economy with decent jobs and livelihoods for all. And we will put pressure on everyone to do more to realize this vision.”

If not entirely unique, this action nevertheless promised a new hope for a climate movement that never recovered after its (greatly exaggerated) expectations cruelly disappointed at the summit in Copenhagen four years earlier. The relationship between trade unions and environmentalists has often been strained, if there has been one at all. More often than not, those claiming to defend the earth and workers’ rights are operating at a crossroads, sometimes colliding in head-to-head confrontation – especially when jobs are pitted against environmental interests.

Two Crisis

I found myself in that squeeze when the financial crisis hit the auto industry in 2008. The previous year, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and climate change topped worldwide headlines. But with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the auto industry in free fall, the climate crisis quickly disappeared from general discussion, even more so among auto-industry workers. Profits (disguised as “jobs”) were the main issue, not the complicated and distant phenomenon of global warming.

This was very much the case in Sweden, a small country with two crisis-hit U.S.-owned car producers (Volvo and Saab), two truck corporations (Volvo Trucks and Scania), and a widespread network of subcontractors, making the industry a pillar of the national economy. In the debate over what to do about the crisis, two positions quickly crystallized in Sweden, much as they did in other car-producing countries:

“Let it die!” This position was represented by true believers of the invisible hand and creative destruction – a rapidly shrinking flock at the time.
“Support the industry!” In most countries, this became the rallying call of unions, social democrats, governments – and, naturally, the industry itself. They advocated subsidies of various kinds, from “cash for clunkers” to the involuntary quasi-nationalization of GM and Chrysler – and to varying degrees, sacrifices from auto-industry workers.