From Stark
Via Facebook, we learn that Whatcom County labor organizations are planning a rally in support of SSA Marine’s Gateway Pacific Terminal project on the steps of City Hall an hour before the Monday, July 23 City Council meeting.
The International Association of Machinists local that represents most Alcoa Intalco Works employees is promoting the 6 p.m. Monday rally via its Facebook page, in response to a proposed City Council resolution that calls for extensive review of the proposed terminal’s on- and offsite impacts. That includes, among other things, the increase in rail traffic through Bellingham, and the health impacts from the trains.
The resolution also calls for a “programmatic” environmental study that would assess the total impact of all proposed coal terminals in the region.
The announcement of the labor rally on the Machinists’ page says that unions want the proposed Cherry Point terminal to get thorough environmental scrutiny, but the programmatic study is “NOT THE ANSWER!”
The council meeting begins at 7 p.m. Monday in City Hall, 210 Lottie St. The resolution is also scheduled for committee discussion during a committee meeting scheduled for 2:05 p.m.
Let’s see. Goldman Sachs (big interest in the Gateway Pacific Terminal) is currently selling the International Association of Machinists down the river (as well as U.S. military security) by attempting to unload its Hawker Beechcraft Corporation jets to China.
Let’s see. How is it that the International Association of Machinists presumes to speak for all of the unions with respect to GPT? In 2005 the IAM was in bitter dispute with the ILWU over SSA Marine’s employment of both unions at the Port of Everett. SSA Marine (big time perpetrator of the GPT project) has been the long term employer of ILWU although SSA Marine is seen by some members of that union as “our mortal enemy.”
Let’s see. If you look down the list of unions on the stationary of the infamous “whereas” document (language in that document supplied by the proponents of the project), the by now woefully outdated resolution of the Northwest Washington Central Labor Council in support of this flawed project, you will find among the affiliates “Faculty Professionals,” the “Retired Public Employees Council,” the “United Faculty of Western Washington,” the “Washington federation of State Employees,” and the “Washington State Council of County and City Employees” among others.
If these other unions are indeed in support of GPT, let’s hear from them.
Thanks Glenn Bachmann for your occupation of Goldman Sachs. So Mr. Insightful or would it be Tee? How about some real jobs for the community your little group seem to have pushed out of the conversation? You know the ones that don’t ride around on bikes with bells ringing searching for the next “non-profit” to pocket some tax free cash. I know hard to imagine there are others outside of your vegan village that actually want a real living wage jobs. You know those people? Just this morning I witnessed 6 individuals sleeping under bushes on the concrete Im sure they would LOVE to have one of those jobs and have a real bed to sleep in. But you guys go on keepin on. Keep shuttin down anything that doesn’t get you your girl scout badge to show off at your next GA to show just how green you can be. Don’t break your arms patting yourselves on the back.
Thought I might share a relevant link, so long as we’re talking about all these “real jobs” that are, you know, somehow not dependent on the future of our natural resources:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/climate-change/july-dec12/swinomish_07-18.html
If you wreck the environment, there will be no jobs, “real” or otherwise.
So until you all figure out how to “create” more clean jobs the unemployed have to wait. Good answer. Oh wait that’s right you guy’s are going to set up a barter system, recycle rain water, plant gardens… yeah mhmmm.
When you pluralize a word, please don’t use an apostrophe.
thanks
I forget us liberals are grammar nazis.
Darn it I forgot, us liberals like to be grammar nazi’s. Thanks Jeremy.
I assume that those opposed to coal trains will be equally opposed to “oil trains” and will oppose the $60 million investment by BP in a rail facility. A similar facility was recently constructed at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, and I understand it is already receiving rail shipments.
What’s interesting is that opposition to drilling in ANWR has resulted in reduced flows to the Alaska Pipeline, possibly resulting in its premature shutdown.
In that case, BP’s primary source of supply will disappear, and coal trains will multiply, won’t they?
Be careful what you wish for.
We are going to see many more unit trains of oil tank cars in addition to the unit trains of coal hopper cars.
Don’t you love it?
Hey!
Look at the bright side!
BP might shut down its pier!
(Did we miss when the unions held a vote? Because I was at the WA Dems convention when the vote for a PEIS was 99+% in favor.)
Good Jobs Now. For oncologists. http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3549565.htm
(From link above.)
A six year investigation into cancer rates at one of the country’s largest coal loading terminals has found workers there are getting cancer at nearly three times higher than average.
Workers at Port Waratah Coal Services’ Kooragang Island coal terminal near Newcastle were told about the disturbing figures late yesterday.
i heard that most coal trains would come from canada,alot do already,i see em all the time up north of ferndale. we need the jobs,we have the technology to keep things clean,its just the lib/progressives;ie communist/socialists agenda to oppose any energy jobs to help ruin the US & its economy, i am old enough to remember when krusev,or how ever you spell that old commies name, said that they would bury us,& they would do it from with in. look at how many us housereps are either comms or affilliatedwith comm party.& then how about prez obamas mentor marshal davis ,card carring comm that the fbi was to pick up in the case of a war with the soviets,to much bad stuff happens nowadays when the dems are in charge. socialism does not work in a capitalist system period. boot the comms & socialist out of any office either local-stae or fed.
Speaking of the WA Dems convention, that’s where labor distributed the flyer urging a yes vote on the resolution calling for the PEIS. That document is here http://media.bellinghamherald.com/static/images/downloads/JaredPaben/IMG_0003.pdf from Jared’s blog post found here http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/politics/politics/at-state-convention-democrats-pass-resolutions-on-coal-exporting-terminals/#comments.
Readers key in SSA Marine Oakland April 2003 wooden bullets.
SSA has leveraged union contract provisions allowing them to introduce new technologies to reduce certain jobs by 75% in the container shipping
sector, claiming, “We, as employers, earned it. We deserve this technology.”
See http://www.joc.com/maritime/ssa-marine-eyes-advanced-technology?page=2.
Have our membership friends in the Unions thought about the fact that there are 1400 acres of heavy industry zoned land that will be occupied by the coal dump? 230 or MAYBE 460 permanent jobs…1400 acres of heavy industry, the best deep water port on the west coast. Those jobs are the fewest possible you could get on that land. Coal Terminals have the lowest number of jobs you could have. I know the former head of the Labor Council is now working again… as an employee of the cabal that is trying to shove this project down the throats of our community but what about the membership do you really want these highly mechanized industries that have never been a friend to labor (Goldman Sacks, SSA, Berkshire Hathaway… These folks are NOT the friends of union members they just buy a few leadership folks and manipulate the others. Has there been a vote of the MEMBERSHIP of any of the unions. Most of the union folks that I talk to are retired that come to the public meetings.
‘….The common view of environmentalism is that its goal is the betterment of mankind–that it wants to purify our air and clean up our parks so that we can live healthier and happier lives. But that is a very superficial interpretation. When environmentalists are faced with a conflict between the “interests” of nature and those of man, it is man who is invariably sacrificed….
The environmentalist goal, in other words, is to protect nature, not for man, but from man……
Human beings survive by reshaping nature to fulfill their needs. Every single step taken to advance beyond the cave……constitutes an improvement in human life, achieved by altering our natural environment. The environmentalists’ demand that nature be protected against human “encroachments” means, therefore, that man must be sacrificed in order to preserve nature….”
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5200&news_iv_ctrl=2457
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Here’s a good blog thread about coal trains:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/17/hansens-death-trains-now-with-extra-scary-coal-fallout/
“But, annoyingly inconvenient for the activists, it seems the problem has been solved by BNSF, who voluntarily implemented coal dust standards in 2010 for their rail shipments. But Oregon’s BeyondToxics doesn’t tell you that.”