Labor Union Blog

Lauren Asplen and Rita Bugzavich, IUE-CWA delegates to the U.N. Conference on Climate Change.

More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference from Dec. 3-14. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America, including Lauren Asplen, communications director of IUE-CWA, who sent us the following post. Delegates sent us a series of posts from Bali: here, here, here, here and here.

Our experience here has been both exhilarating and exhausting. Exhausting not (only) because of jet lag and the oppressive heat and humidity. But exhausting because of the complexity of the climate change issue and the intricacies of the U.N. process.

IUE-CWA entered the climate change debate through the rather narrow issue of job loss as the market shifts away from incandescent bulbs in favor of compact fluorescents light bulbs (CFLs)—a move soon to be mandated by the federal government. Our campaign, Screw That Bulb, isn’t about impeding the easy consumer action of using a more efficient light bulb. We are raising the critical question of why can’t they be manufactured in the United States.