Young Activists Take To Streets To Link Environment, Labor

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Chanting “The youth are rising- no more compromising!” thousands of fired-up young environmental and labor rights activists rallied, marched and blocked the streets of the nation’s capital yesterday. “There’s a real connection between environ-mental injustice and economic injustice, which directly affects workers,” Marge Dodson – from Wesley University in Connecticut - told Union City.  “If we don’t get climate justice now, workers of future generations are not going to get justice either.” Starting out in Lafayette Square opposite the White House (top), the colorful band of more than 2,000 young activists marched across to the Chamber of Commerce and sat in the street while giant puppets depicting corporate polluters bobbed overhead (below). “We’re here trying to improve the planet and the quality of life for Americans,” said Troy Moten, a student at the University of Maryland, who was helping carry a banner at the head of the march. “We’re trying to help the government see the light. There’s no reason to do this the dirty and unhealthy way. They need to shift their priorities. It’s time that they take the people seriously and stop playing games. It’s time for people’s health to come before profits.” Stretching out over several blocks, the demonstrators then marched to oil giant BP’s DC legislative offices on New York Avenue NW, to the GenOn offices in the Homer Building (where labor activists occupied the lobby on March 16 to protest a fundraiser for the Michigan GOP) and then on to Department of the Interior headquarters, where over 1,000 took over the building’s lobby for almost an hour chanting “We have the power!” and “Make big polluters pay - not the EPA!” The demonstrators – who were in town for the 2011 Power Shift climate summit – demanded that President Obama and Congress “stand up to big polluters, protect the Clean Air Act, and make corporate polluters like BP pay for their pollution.” Said Adam Thomas, who’d come down from British Columbia, Canada, “Congress needs to stop funding dirty fuel and switch to renewable energy. Get with the people, because we’re the voice of the future." – report/photos by Adam Wright