On this day September 26, 1989, the Australian Trade Union movement tried to go green. The ACTU – the Australian Confederation of Trade Unions – released a report…
“The ACTU has signalled it is changing its colours and turning green by making its first major policy statement on environmental issues.
The statement – to be debated at the ACTU Congress this morning – represents a concerted attempt by the organisation to overcome public opinion that the union movement is full of pro-logging rednecks.
“The ACTU hopes that by tapping into the groundswell of concern over environmental matters it will prove its relevance to the community and boost its membership numbers.
1989 Moffet, L. 1989. ACTU turns a decided shade of green. The Australian Financial Review, 26 September.
The context is that everyone in Australia was running around proclaiming their green-ness at the time. In May 1989 there had been a public spat between the Australian Labor Party government’s Environment Minister, Graham Richardson, and a senior union official (see June 9 1989 post)
On this day the PPM was 350.09 ppm.
Now it is 420ish – but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
The need for red-green coalitions – and the difficulty of creating/maintaining these – have a very very long history.
What happened next?
Climate and energy policy got subcontracted/given to the coal-miners union within the ACTU. And that did not go well. More on this another time perhaps.