Over the last two decades the labor and environmental movements have frequently clashed. But today, originating from northern California's redwood protests and the picket lines at Kaiser Aluminum's Pacific Northwest smelters, a new alliance has emerged with a vision of ecological and economic justice.

Two weeks ago [April 1999], hand over hand, I struggled to pull myself 180 feet up the trunk of America's most famous redwood to meet Julia Hill, environmental activist and organizer who, for the last fourteen months, has lived alone atop the 1000 year-old tree.

What was the fifty-one year old District #11 Director of the United Steelworkers' union, a resident of Minneapolis, doing in this extraordinary spot?

There are reasons for all of us to examine the grim legacy of America's cowboy economy of the 1990's. But for the 3000 families locked out of Kaiser Aluminum there are truly an Annual Report's worth of reasons to wonder about the ruination of this once proud company.

Kaiser Aluminum is named for the famous American industrialist Henry Kaiser, whose enterprises built the Grand Coulee, Boulder and Bonneville Dams and churned out the Victory Ships that saved the U.S. after Pearl Harbor.

Today the steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum tell a troubling story of sacrifice without redemption. Plunged into the economic maelstrom of the early 1980's, Kaiser steelworkers negotiated massive concessions to prevent the company from going into bankruptcy--$150 million to be exact.

But when the good times came, Kaiser was purchased by Charles Hurwitz, the infamous junk bond king whose Maxxam, Inc. had earlier engineered a hostile takeover of the Pacific Lumber Company, the nation's owner of the largest remaining stands of old growth redwoods.

After a decade of Hurwitz, on September 30, 1998, frustrated by years of fruitless pleading and angered by Kaiser's unlawful behavior at the bargaining table, the 3000 workers struck in protest. Kaiser negotiators had arrogantly insisted on eliminating 700-900 of the remaining jobs and wouldn't even explain who would be left working in the down-sized plants as the jobs were turned over to lesser paid, contractor employees.

On January 14, 1999 Kaiser officially converted the strike to a lock out, refusing the workers' unconditional offer to return to work.

Thus was born the unusual alliance between environmental activists protesting the clear cutting of Maxxam's Pacific Lumber and the United Steelworkers of America, fighting against the job cutting at Maxxam's Kaiser Aluminum. On Sunday, April 11 as chairperson of the USWA negotiating committee, I led a delegation of steelworkers on a difficult 45 minute climb through rugged Humboldt County terrain to reach the site of Julia (Butterfly) Hill's famous protest.

The tree itself, while impressive as all old growth redwoods are, stands alone among downed firs and redwoods where Pacific Lumber attempted to log them by helicopter. While beautiful in its desolation, the area has none of the cathedral quality of the ancient redwood groves protected in California's series of state and national parks. The hillside drops away at a 70% grade from the base of the tree, its inaccessibility making it that much more a symbol of human destructiveness.

Julia is a slight woman, sharp features with pale skin, surrounded by a mass of black wavy hair. She is dressed in ski pants and polar fleece. She goes barefoot and has the roughness in her hands of steelworkers. I am struck at once by her liveliness, wit, and earthiness.

And so we sat 180 feet above the forest floor and discussed our common cause to bring the voice of human dignity and respect for the earth to a Fortune 500 company whose CEO once told the workers of Pacific Lumber, "Let me tell you about the Golden Rule. He, who has the gold, rules."

In my 25 years of negotiating with companies, encompassing many contentious labor disputes, I have disagreed passionately with many a corporate CEO. Our ethics may have been diverged, but I always felt there was a common source from which they sprang.

Today, I find myself in the presence of evil: 3000 families locked out from their jobs at Kaiser Aluminum; a hundred years of timber clear cut in a decade by Pacific Lumber; pension funds pillaged; taxpayers "contributing" a billion and a half dollars to Maxxam's failed Texas savings and loan. What is so chilling and powerful about evil is not its wealth, its well-heeled lobbyists or its intelligence. The power of evil comes from its determination.

Julia Hill and I talked for an hour about our shared vision of an economy that responds to the democracy of its citizenry. I explained the reasons why the USWA had filed suit in California court challenging Pacific Lumber's Sustainable Yield Plan since it would ultimately strip Humboldt County of its logging and sawmill jobs just as quickly as it clear cut its timber.

Chaired by David Brower, father of the modern environmental movement, and David Foster, the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, was born that weekend at a day-long strategy session of environmental organizations and steelworkers in Eureka, California.

Two movements who have long shared common enemies are now embracing a common cause. In an era of globalization, the concentration of economic power that threatens both family-supporting jobs and our environment cannot be fought alone.

And I left Julia Hill reaffirmed with that greater determination of Dr. Martin Luther King, "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."