Date:          Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:07:11 +0000
Subject:       Labor Party convention


At the risk of being accused of "spamming", I repost here the 
comments I made on the Labr.Party IGC conference in response to Paul 
Zarembka's report.

Tom

****

I disagree with Paul Zarembka that the only two weak points in
the program are the health and foreign policy sections. The
health section needs its language strengthened, but is basically
okay. The environmental section (see text below), is not only
weak but, unfortunately, has language which should have been
taken out. The fifth paragraph, with its "if and only if"
language, accepts the "false choice" which paragraph two rejects.
At least one delegate submitted a "friendly amendment" to the
Program Committee on this, but they didn't accept it.

(Of course, at a convention in Cleveland, a city which doesn't
even appear to have recycling, it probably shouldn't be strange
that an environmental section with no mention of anything except
pollution -- 25-year-old news -- would be all we'd get.)

Incidentally, the civil rights language in the program was
strengthened only because the sisters and brothers from Black
Workers for Justice kept the committee up until 1 a.m. arguing
with them.

Tom Condit

*****

>From Labor Party program:

14. Build a Just Transition Movement to Protect Jobs and the
Environment

This Labor Party affirms its commitment to a clean and safe
environment. We all need clean workplaces, clean air, and clean
water. But we also need our jobs.

We reject the false choice of jobs or the environment. We will
not be held hostage by corporate polluters who poison our
workplace and our communities.

We refuse this corporate blackmail. Corporations are not
interested in either saving our jobs or protecting the
environment.

But we also know that environmental change is coming. What we
produce and how we produce will change as steps are taken to
protect people and the natural environment from harm.

The Labor Party will support taking such steps if and only if the
livelihoods of working people endangered by environmental change
are fully protected.

Therefore, the Labor Party calls for the creation of a new
worker-oriented environmental movement -- a Just Transition
Movement -- that puts forth a fair and just transition program to
protect both jobs and the environment.

* All workers with jobs endangered by steps taken to protect the
environment are to be made whole and to receive full income and
benefits as they make the difficult transition to alternative
work.

* The cost of this Just Transition Income Support program will be
paid for by taxes on corporate polluters.


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