Organized Labor Ends Association With Occupy Duluth Over Anti-Mining Plank

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Thursday December 15, 2011 · 6:54 AM PST

2011/12/15 · 06:54

Organized labor has been an integral part of the Occupy movement nationwide, but that relationship now appears to be over in northeastern Minnesota. Early Wednesday, the Duluth Central Labor Body held a special meeting to discuss their association with Occupy Duluth, the catalyst being an interview in Business North in which two Occupy members discussed the plank in the group's platform that opposes both ferrous (iron ore) and non-ferrous (copper-nickel) mining.

Dan O'Neill, President of the Duluth Central Labor Body, stated:

The Executive Board of the Duluth Central Labor Body today voted by a strong majority to disassociate itself from Occupy Duluth. We are very disappointed by their policy to oppose mining in northeastern Minnesota.

O'Neill says Occupy Duluth was given notice of the special meeting and had an opportunity to address the Board before the vote. Some members called before the meeting, each having differing stories, he said.

There does indeed seem to be a great deal of confusion within Occupy Duluth. While none dispute the platform outlined in the interview, some state the two quoted in Business North had no authority to speak on behalf of the group (hence their request to not be quoted for this story) and disagree the group is anti-mining. Yet they all agree that Occupy Duluth opposes non-ferrous mining projects such as PolyMet and supports Protect our Manoomin (plank number 4 in their platform), a group created ostensibly to protect wild rice but decidedly anti-mining in focus.

Some Occupy Duluth members would have one believe that Protect our Manoomin (POM) opposes non-ferrous mining only, but that just isn't true. In fact, the battle waged during the last legislative session centered around safe sulfate standards surrounding current and proposed ferrous mining operations. Indeed, POM's own website indicates that half of its fight is over legislation regarding sulfate standards for wild rice from iron ore mining:

Although part of POM’s work is tied to legislative issues that affect manoomin, another part of our struggle is tied into the larger issue of sulfide mining.

That POM opposes ferrous mining is clearly understood by Occupy Duluth participant Robert Lillegard, who stated the following to Business North:

We support Protect Our Manoomin, which is really concerned about wild rice and water. There’s a lot of pollution associated with iron ore mining. We just have to stop this development. Foreign and/or multinational companies are coming into our land, polluting it a lot, getting money out of it and then leaving. We oppose that.

And Lillegard's response to the potential loss of thousands of good-paying union mining jobs was also quite clear:

Obviously, there’s a lot of 99 percenters who work for the mining industry. All I can say is we’ve agreed to support Protect Our Manoomin, so if they oppose mining, we oppose mining. There are always tradeoffs.

The economic collapse of an entire region an acceptable trade-off? I doubt the thousands of workers in northeastern Minnesota who directly or indirectly rely on the mining industry to support themselves and their families would agree.

Thankfully, the only trade off thus far is no more support for Occupy Duluth from the Duluth Central Labor Body. Let's hope their members follow suit.

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