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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Conservationists, unions teaming

Blaine Harden Washington Post

SEATTLE – In a first-of-its-kind alliance that could fundamentally reshape the environmental movement, 20 labor unions with nearly 5 million members are joining forces with a Republican-leaning umbrella group of conservationists – the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership – to put pressure on Congress and the Bush administration.

The Union Sportsman’s Alliance, to be rolled out in Washington this week after nearly three years of quiet negotiations, is to be a dues-based organization ($25 a year). Its primary goal is to increase federal funding for protecting wildlife habitat while guaranteeing access for hunters and anglers.

The unlikely marriage of union and conservation interests comes at a time when the Bush administration, with its push for oil and gas drilling in the Rocky Mountain West, has limited public access to prime hunting and fishing areas on federal land. This has triggered a bipartisan backlash from sportsmen and conservation groups.

The strength of that backlash is making bedfellows of blue-collar workers and old-guard conservationists.

“We can make the union movement and environmentalism compatible and not antagonistic,” said Tom Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists. “As of late, an awareness has grown that our goals are the same. We want good air, clean water and access to the outdoors.”

Jim Range, chairman of the board of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which includes most of the nation’s mainline hunting and fishing groups, said his organization forged an alliance with the unions in large measure because of their numbers, money and lobbying savvy.

“It opens up a tremendous amount of territory for us to work on both sides of the aisle,” Range said.

The American environmental movement, created and run by upper-middle-class professionals, has tended to look down its nose at blue-collar workers and their tastes in outdoor recreation, said Thomas R. Dunlap, a professor of history at Texas A&M University and an expert in the history of environmentalism.

“This alliance with unions is certainly something quite new,” he said. “If it really takes off, it may have a major effect in reshaping the environmental movement for this decade.”

Together with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the 20 labor unions recently commissioned a poll that found that 70 percent of union members hunt or fish. As important, 72 percent of those polled said they are concerned about the loss of good places to do either.