The United Auto Workers and the Emergence of Labor Environmentalism

Abstract

Recent collaboration between labor unions and environmental organizationshas sparked significant interest in “blue-green” coalitions. Drawing onarchival research, this article explores the United Auto Workers (UAW)'slabor environmentalism in the late 1960s and 1970s, when the union promoteda broad environmental agenda. Eventually the union went as far asincorporating environmental concerns in collective bargaining and callingfor an end to the internal combustion engine. These actions areparticularly noteworthy because they challenged the union’s economicfoundation: the automobile industry. However, as a closer examination ofthe record shows, there was a significant disjuncture between the union’sinternational leadership, which pushed a broad vision of laborenvironmentalism, and its rank-and-file membership, which proved resistantto the issue. By the close of the 1970s, the conjunction of economicpressures and declining power in relation to management led the union toretreat from its environmental actions.