ABSTRACT
This chapter shows dialogue between a prominent labor leader, Robert Wages, and a well-known environmentalist, Carl Pope. Wages is former president of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers and current executive vice president of PACE (Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Workers) International Union. It examines a social and political movement powerful enough to require producers to make a transition from current problematic production to more responsible manufacturing practices while producing more and better jobs and healthier communities. Powerful corporate interests, shortsightedly trying to shape the new global economy around a discredited laissez-faire model from the 1900s, are simultaneously trying to roll back domestic labor and environmental protections by claiming that they interfere with job creation and economic development in the new global economy. Just as importantly, we must construct a vision of a healthy, sustainable economy in which cleaning up and protecting the environment and investing in new, nonpolluting technologies produce good jobs and vibrant communities.
