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Large, organized, public demonstrations recently confronted meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, the World Bank in Washington, and the Organization of American States in Ottawa. Thousands of activists used the meetings as a platform for articulating critiques of neoliberal social policies, environmental degradation, and rising global inequities. They also used the meetings as a possible springboard for building progressive, international collaborative efforts between environmental, labor, and peace organizations. Receiving less attention, but important nonetheless, similar collaborations are currently being negotiated every day in communities across the United States in “living wage.” Jobs with Justice, and environmental justice campaigns. As indicated by these recent collaborative efforts, it appears that progressives are increasingly aware that they need to work together to have any hope to challenge emergent free trade policies and stem the tide of increasing corporate control of the social and the environment. That is precisely the thesis of Fred Rose’s Coalitions Across the Class Divide. As Rose argues, “the major crises that each movement faces are inherent in the emergent free trade regime. Global corporate mobility has shifted the balance of power away from workers and unions. National sovereignty over environmental regulations is being ceded to international trade tribunals” (112). He suggests that the primary political challenge for progressives today is to foster a more inclusive politics to effectively resist the increasing corporate and elite control over the political, economic, and environmental landscape of the nation. However, Rose does much more in this timely and important new book than simply call for collaborative efforts between labor and environmental movements. As Rose points out, significant barriers continue to foster possible divisions between peace, labor, and environmental activists despite the recent nascent efforts. He analyzes both the potentiality of such coalitions and the complex set of barriers serving as obstacles to be overcome. Rose argues that one of the major barriers to effective collaborative resistance occurs when labor and environmental movements remain entrenched in “identity” or “interest group” politics, thus creating a political choice between jobs or a healthy environment. He suggests that within the framework of the United States, political and economic elites need to craft alliances with other social groups to advance their goals. This is made much easier when environmental, labor, and peace movements see their agendas as being in conflict with one another. Rose thus suggests that “powerful interests are served by pitting citizens and their legitimate issues against each other” (8) in such ways. He discusses how this occurs by examining recent struggles in the forest of the Pacific Northwest as well as economic restructuring and military conversion efforts in Maine, Washington, and Minnesota. Through his ethnographic case studies, Rose suggests that a primary barrier to effective collaborative resistance is that single interest group movements (such as labor, peace, environmental, racial justice, feminist, and so forth) tend to attract members who are very similar in terms of class, race, educational level, and other indicators of social background. Very often Reviews

journal of political ecology

Coalitions Across the Class Divide: Lessons from the Labor, Peace, and Environmental Movements, by Fred Rose. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (2000). Reviewed by Vincent Lyon-Callo