Does alliance formation between national labor unions and national environmental organizations exist

Does alliance formation between national labor unions and national environmental organizations exist? Seven national labor unions and seven national environmental organizations that are representative of the two movements are selected for examination by this study to address this question. The project gathers and analyzes three types of data: documents on the web sites of the selected organizations, interviews with high ranking officials from many of the organizations examined and the hyperlinks or web links from each organization's web page. An analysis of the documents of the web sites and interviews with high ranking officials identifies three issues that national labor unions and national environmental organizations share: global trade/globalization, corporate accountability and human exposure to toxic chemicals. Next, the study found minimal direct web links between national labor unions and national environmental organizations. From the document analysis of the web sites and the interviews conducted with high ranking officials, Warren's (1967) typology of coalitional (temporary coalitions) and federative (permanent coalitions) arrangements is used to order the efforts of national labor unions and environmental organizations to work together. The AFL-CIO is included among the assessment of organizations participating in coalitional and federative arrangements. Twenty-one coalitional arrangements and 6 federative arrangements are discovered by this study. The majority of coalitional arrangements and 3 of the 6 federative arrangements are associated with the issue of global trade/globalization. The other coalitional and federative arrangements are associated with the issues of corporate accountability, human exposure to toxic chemicals and energy. The issue of energy as a cooperative issue emerged from the discovered coalitional arrangements. The findings of the study indicate that among national labor unions and national environmental organizations, industrial labor unions and environmental lobbying organizations have the greatest success in working together. Overall, the ability of national labor unions and national environmental organizations to work together appears to be limited by their lack of shared issues and their difficulty in aligning their frames on the issues they do share. Many indicators suggest that national labor unions and national environmental organizations are moving farther away from working together.