SALEM, ORE. - Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor issued the following statement today regarding the Oregon State Senate’s negotiations on a cap and invest policy:
The Oregon AFL-CIO represents more than 300,000 workers across the state and in every sector of the economy. Just as the Oregon Legislature has debated major climate policy for more than a decade, so has the Oregon Labor Movement in our efforts to ensure the clean energy economy is one that creates family-supporting jobs and protects workers in impacted industries. We have always believed that workers must be at the center of policy when debating how their work could be impacted, and especially in a cap and invest program that has the potential to produce major shifts in Oregon's economy.
Unfortunately, the Oregon State Senate is currently considering a draft of a cap and invest policy that leaves out all protections for workers who could be most impacted and strips the standards that would ensure the investments from a cap and invest program create family wage, quality jobs that our state can be proud of.
Workers and their communities shouldn’t be treated as negotiating pawns. Any climate action that leaves behind workers and communities disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change is a policy and a process that should be rejected.