CEP President to Oppose Keystone XL in New York City

OTTAWA – The National President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) Dave Coles will be in New York City to oppose the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and call on US President Barack Obama to reject the project. President Coles will be part of a panel discussion on the role of trade unions in confronting the climate crisis organized by the Worker Institute at Cornell and the Joseph S. Murphy Institute at CUNY.

"As Canada's largest energy union, CEP has always believed strongly that the climate crisis must be addressed in the most pressing terms," said Coles. "It is why we oppose export pipelines such as Keystone XL that sell off our oil resources and kill jobs in the process."

CEP believes that it is necessary to transition away from fossil energies by reducing emissions and investing in green energies while ensuring a just transition for energy workers and their communities. President Dave Coles will represent Canada's energy workers and share this vision during the event in New York.

What: Labor Breakfast titled "Confronting the Climate Crisis: Can Labor Help Shape an Effective Strategy"

Who:

• Dave Coles, President, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Canada
• Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director, New York Taxi Workers Alliance
• Hector Figueroa, President, Local 32BJ, Service Employees International Union
• Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Where: City University of New York (CUNY), New York

When: Thursday, January 17, 2013 from 8:30am to 10:15am

Dave Coles will be available for comment before or after the speaking event. Full event details available here.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada is the largest union in several key sectors of Canada's economy, including forestry, energy, telecommunications and media. CEP represents some 35,000 members employed in oil and gas extraction, transportation, refining, and conversion in the petrochemical and plastics sectors, and 120,000 members in total.