Note: This was written by my friend John Cronan who originally posted this on his blog at ZNet.

In recent weeks, the battle has intensified over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Its passage would greatly increase workers’ rights to organize and strengthen collective bargaining; because of this, organized labor has made its passage one of its top priorities, and in early February, thousands of workers marched on the Capitol.

No wonder why the largest opposition has come from big business and its mouthpieces, like the Wall Street Journal. The latter has been persistently spreading the lie that EFCA would eliminate employees’ right to a secret ball election to determine union representation; what it really does is leave the choice up to the workers whether they want an election or pursue card check—in fact, increasing workplace democracy. Additionally, as Dean Baker recently reported, arguments are being promoted that higher unionization rates—an expected outcome if EFCA passes—lead to higher unemployment, which in these tough economic times no one wants. Luckily, this is argument also holds no water.

Contrary to those opposing the act, EFCA would strengthen the bargaining power of the American working class, which would, if taken advantage of correctly, lead to many positive developments for the economy as a whole and the environment.

"We're living somebody else's vision for our city." Donele Wilkins, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice

Detroit has a 22% unemployment rate. It is the poorest major city in the country and has the highest rate of segration out of every other city in the nation. The city counted over 45000 ecologically contaminated sites before they just simply stopped counting. The mayor, Dennis Archer, in the early 90s tried declaring the entire city a brownfield site. Detroit needs a green jobs future that will clean up Detroit's environment and bring jobs back to the city that can lift poor residents out of poverty.

I was inspired today at a forum on bringing green jobs to Detroit at the IBEW Local 58. The event was held by the Sierra Club, AFL-CIO and Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, but there were tons of different groups and organizations represented there from the labor, environmental and social justice movements. The three speakers covered the issues that link the environmental and labor movements together and how we can work to build a stronger "blue-green alliance."

"Every generation must discover it's mission; fulfill it or betray it."

"The times they are a-changin.'"

Anybody would find it hard to describe how they felt on Tuesday as they watched the results come in. And I'm certainly no exception. I squeezed myself into a bar on my campus that was packed wall-to-wall with young people who kept pouring in as the night unfolded.

Every state that Barack Obama won was punctuated through loud cheers, beers clanging and hugs passing around. But the elation that was building around us was all in anticipation of that moment that inevitably arrived.

The bar erupted as McCain conceded the election. Cheek-to-cheek smiles spread across everybody's faces. Then, not long after, the bar hushed from an explosive din to an attentive silence as the president-elect delivered his speech to the hundreds-of-thousands gathered at Chicago's Grant Park.

I cried so hard. I'll admit it (you probably did too!) The sight was overwhelming more than I could imagine. Shoulder-to-shoulder students were washed over by the heaviness of the moment. America's homogenous 232 year-old Presidential lineage shattered. This marks the beginning of the end of eight years wracked with war, corruption and financial collapse, at least, and at most, the beginning of a wonderful window of opportunity and hope. I opened my eyes and could tell I wasn't the only one.

If you asked me four years ago if this moment would've come in my lifetime, I'd 've responded with a near definitive "No." (Call me a cynic, perhaps?) "How did this happen?" I asked to myself as I examined the faces of the still crowd around me listening to the speech. The room was silent as the president-elect answered.

This historic moment, brought to you by "the young people." The room flared up again celebrating our success. It was the young people who "rejected the myth" of our "generation's apathy" and worked to make this change.

This was written by Wayne State student and Power Voter Kim Siegel!

Power Voters set their sights to the dorms last week at Wayne State in Detroit. We wanted to bring the campaign's message door-to-door and asked if the students are interested in pledging to vote for a clean and just energy future for the country.

Our purpose was clear: to get our fellow students to pledge to vote with clean and just energy on their minds in this election. Power Vote is a campaign with the goal to engage 1,000,000 youth-voters across the nation by November 4th, showing the candidates that Americans care deeply about the planet and are ready to create millions of good, green jobs with a clean energy economy.

The team split up to cover as much ground as possible. After a little over an hour passed by, we congregated to the second floor hallway to count the pledges. We gathered a total of 120 pledges in less than an hour! That averages out to more than twenty-five per person!

Going door-to-door in the dorms was an effective way to spread the word about our campaign and events. Sometimes news does not always reach everyone. Face-to-face encounters are excellent ways to get students more involved. Most students proved interested in Power Vote and willingly signed the pledge. Personally, I had no issues with students refusing to sign. Many students even invited us into their dorm rooms to talk and explain more about Power Vote!

This was also a great opportunity for others to practice and work on the way they address others. Perhaps if the leader did not properly explain the point of Power Vote, the student would ask them to elaborate on that particular point. When they knocked on the next door, they could use their experience from the previous room to explain themselves more thoroughly.

This was written by Wayne State student and Power Voter Kim Siegel!
Power Voters set their sights to the dorms last week at Wayne State in Detroit. We wanted to bring the campaign's message door-to-door and asked if the students are interested in pledging to vote for a clean and just energy future for the country.

Our purpose was clear: to get our fellow students to pledge to vote with clean and just energy on their minds in this election. Power Vote is a campaign with the goal to engage 1,000,000 youth-voters across the nation by November 4th, showing the candidates that Americans care deeply about the planet and are ready to create millions of good, green jobs with a clean energy economy.

The team split up to cover as much ground as possible. After a little over an hour passed by, we congregated to the second floor hallway to count the pledges. We gathered a total of 120 pledges in less than an hour! That averages out to more than twenty-five per person!

Going door-to-door in the dorms was an effective way to spread the word about our campaign and events. Sometimes news does not always reach everyone. Face-to-face encounters are excellent ways to get students more involved. Most students proved interested in Power Vote and willingly signed the pledge. Personally, I had no issues with students refusing to sign. Many students even invited us into their dorm rooms to talk and explain more about Power Vote!

This was also a great opportunity for others to practice and work on the way they address others. Perhaps if the leader did not properly explain the point of Power Vote, the student would ask them to elaborate on that particular point. When they knocked on the next door, they could use their experience from the previous room to explain themselves more thoroughly.

Wayne State’s campus in Detroit, Michigan was rocked this past weekend when bold student leaders from across the state came together for the Power Vote Campus Storm! Anybody who took part would tell you that it was quite the adventure both to attend and throw together the training crunch that drew in students from as far as Kalamzoo College on the other side of the state!

One of the most exciting things about this training was that it got us out practicing our skills as we learned them. After learning effective skills for getting out and pledging folks, we went out to Detroit’s Eastern Market, the country’s largest historic market district and got over 220 pledges signed!

Global warming is “a total crock of shit” wrote the Vice President of General Motors Corp in a company blog entry titled “Talk About a Crock.” According to Reuters, the GM Veep wrote this as a response to recent pressure he’s been getting from bloggers (I wonder if they could be talking about this?).

There’s no spin or clever corporate greenwashing here.

I feel like I want to write a rant, but words can’t explain the monumental absurdity of this. He wrote that his personal feelings concerning global warming have “no bearing on GM’s commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles.” So, the corporate head of product development thinking that global warming is bunk has nothing to do with GM’s refusal to take leadership in meeting consumer demands for more efficient, oil-free transportation?

Strange coincidence than, no?

I would rant, but I’m afraid if I think any more about it I’m going to suffer an aneurysm.

I would really like those of us concerned with the auto-industries role in driving the climate chaos can find a way to take hold of this as an opportunity to push these corporate heads into a corner on this issue.

I feel like this guy just flipped the bird to every driver between 16 - 32.

Climate chaos is a generational issue. We’re inheriting the planet. Students. Youngsters. Yung’ns. The planet we will inherit will either be healthy and hospitable, or it will be burnt asunder. That’s why students have taken this on as our generation’s mission to fulfill (see: Campus Climate Challenge).

Now, I’d like to have a sidebar here with Mr. Lutz.

We’ve all had to do this before: get up and drag ourselves to the next, seemingly pointless weekly 3-hour meeting of Students for this-or-that-Cause. In fact, this may be so familiar that what I’m about to say will seem shocking.

Meetings do not have to be a dreadful experience! For example, think of the best meeting you’ve ever been to. I’ll wait …

Done? Great! How did you feel when you left the meeting? Did you feel rejuvenated? Excited?

Alright, now for the scary part. Think of the worst meeting you’ve ever had. How did you feel then? Burned out? Disempowered?

What was the big difference in the two meetings?: In one, stuff got done. In the other:

a. Endless off topic conversations.
b. Lasting three to four hours with no clear decisions or outcome.
c. Leaving with no clear sense of what’s happening next.
d. Soliloquies.
e. Any, all or part of the above.

Thankfully, we aren’t doomed to meetings like this for all eternity. But our groups will continue to have these kinds of interactions until we seriously commit to having good meetings!

Meetings are where our groups come together to get stuff done. All those big actions we think about having aren’t going to be planned in thin air; they are going to be planned at meetings! If we want fun, exciting things to happen in our movement, we need to have good, well-facilitated meetings that can foster accountability, strong relationships and support amongst the members of the group.