Ecology Center staff Mary Beth Doyle, foreground, Michael Garfield, and Tracey Easthope along side the Huron River outside Ann Arbor, Mich.

Huge, dramatic protests against unfair U.S. trade policies and the World Trade Organization--in Seattle and Washington--have brought union members and environmental activists together in common cause against the worst abuses of corporate power.

The fair trade policies that the UAW and other unions demand include environmental protections as well as worker rights. And environmental organizations like the Sierra Club recognize that "free" trade is bad business for wildlife and workers alike.

This new labor-green coalition is an exciting development, but it’s not so new to UAW members. The union has a long history of supporting sound environmental policy, dating back to and beyond the UAW’s role in founding the first Earth Day three decades ago.

Today UAW members are active in a wide range of environmental concerns, and employees of environmental organizations in Michigan, California, and New York are members of amalgamated UAW locals.

UAW Local 157 represents about 25 employees at Recycle Ann Arbor and nine staff at the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. Nine staff members at Great Lakes United in Buffalo, N.Y., are members of UAW Local 55, and Local 2103 represents about 100 employees at Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco.

In Ann Arbor, UAW members staff one of the nation’s oldest ecology centers. Since its founding in 1970, Ecology Center staff have worked with hundreds of community groups to shut down air-polluting incinerators, clean up toxic waste dumps, protect open space, educate children and consumers about the environment, and clean up workplaces ranging from Dow Chemical to UAW plants like Johnson Controls.

"Organizing into the UAW made a huge difference in the organization of the center," says Michael Garfield.

The center’s Clean Car Campaign, for example, recognizes the importance of the auto industry in Michigan. Campaign coordinator Charles Griffith stresses the need to work with the UAW to press U.S. automakers to take the lead in manufacturing environmentally-friendly vehicles while protecting good-paying union jobs.

UAW Local 157 member Todd Askew, steward at Recycle Ann Arbor, sorts and collects recycled materials on his daily route.

Ecology Center staff turned to the UAW in 1991 when the center’s board tried to implement traditional, top-down management. The union contract preserves a democratic management style that requires staff consensus in decision making.

Recycle Ann Arbor employees, who are in a separate Local 157 unit, drive recycling routes, accept recyclables at a drop-off center, and work in other operations, including a reuse center that recycles building supplies and other materials.

The center contracts with the city to pick up recycled materials. "There is a lot of pressure from the city to depress wages and get more work out of people," says steward Todd Askew. "Our contract protects our wages and health care benefits from this pressure."

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