Printer FriendlyEnvironmental Unions: Labor and the Superfund, by Craig Slatin was just released. Published by Baywood Publishing as part of its Work, Health and Environment Series, the book provides a historical analysis of the U.S. Superfund Worker Training Program, a twenty-two year national worker health education intervention.
The book explores how organized labor came to establish a highly successful health and safety training program for workers engaged in hazardous waste operations and emergency repsonse to hazardous materials incidents.
Slatin provides a history of labor's success on the coattails of the environmental movement and in the middle of a rightward shift in Amercian politics. Case studies present the health and safety training programs of two labor unions in the national health and safety training grant program "Worker Education and Training Program" - the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers and the Laborers' Union. Despite different histories and sectors, Slatin shows how the political economy of the work environment led to unexpected similarities between the programs.
Slatin's analysis calls for a critical survey of the social and political tasks facing those concerned about worker and community health and environmental protection in order to make a transition toward just and sustainable production. It builds on UMass Lowell's longstanding experience as the directing base of The New England Consortium, one of the Worker Education and Training Program awardee organizations. Based on empirical evidence, the book provides examples that can inform new efforts to create a green economy and make a transition toward sustainable development built on a foundation of public health.