Washington State labor unions can generally be counted on to align with environmental groups to help elect liberals to state office. From Jay Inslee on down to your local legislators, the so-called “blue-green alliance” can usually be counted on to provide money and foot soldiers to help Democrat candidates.
However, as many blue collar jobs go away, some in the labor movement – particularly in the private sector trade unions – complain that when it comes time to settle policy disputes that the liberals who benefit from their support tend to come down on the side of their environmental allies, not those in labor.
That’s why it was interesting to note the editorial in the State Labor Council’s daily online newsletter that points out problems with “the state’s regulatory-review process. It is technical, it is cumbersome and it is a side of government few ever see up close.”
Those who are particularly seeing this “cumbersome” process up close are the supporters – including organized labor – of the Millennium Bulk Terminals project in Longview. As the editorial – authored by the Executive Director of the Building Trades Council and the legislative head of the Machinists Union – highlights, “where the people of Washington should be concerned is with the absurd length of time it took to review the (Millennium) proposal along with the unpredictable — perhaps unreachable — scope it seeks to impose.
“Employers looking to build new facilities here need to know how long the permitting process will take. In the case of Millennium, it’s already taken more than four years just to get a draft environmental report. That’s a statistic likely to scare off most investors — and the family-wage jobs that go with them.”
Unfortunately, regulatory certainty is not a goal for Jay Inslee and his appointees in the Department of Ecology. Job creation and stronger communities take a backseat to far-Left ideology and commitments to his environmental donors.
Perhaps once this current battle is resolved, some leaders in the labor movement will determine that blind support for liberals like Inslee is not helpful to their members – or their jobs.
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