Pro-Keystone Unions Donating to the Chamber of Commerce
By Several construction labor unions have decided to lend their support to the Keystone XL. Though critics charge that the pipeline will lead to a drastic increase in carbon emissions, the unions, including Laborers International Union and the International Union of Operating Engineers, have endorsed the project in exchange for several thousand short-term jobs and only 35 permanent jobs.
Trading a few jobs now for environmental destruction might seem like short-sighted strategy, but apparently such thinking runs deep in both unions.
According to a search of Department of Labor records, both the Laborers and the Engineers provided the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest anti-union lobbying group in the country, with $50,000 each.
Wow. It’s one thing for LIUNA and the Operating Engineers to support building Keystone. I disagree with this decision very strongly, for many reasons, including the very few permanent union jobs it will create, not to mention the divisions created with labor’s badly needed allies in the environmental movement. But OK, I get it.
Donating to the Chamber of Commerce is a whole other deal. Does LIUNA and the Engineers need reminding that the Chamber of Commerce opposes card check? Supports right to work laws? Opposes a higher minimum wage and the enforcement of labor law? The Chamber of Commerce is opposed to everything the labor movement believes in. Except I guess the building of the Keystone pipeline. Donating union dues to the Chamber is a betrayal of members’ interests regardless of where the union leadership stands on the pipeline. It’s embarrassing and it shows just how poor some internationals are at separating short-term interests from long-term interests.