The battle over the tar sands pipeline among unions has been XL on drama. "For too long we have allowed some corporations to hold a gun to our heads and demand that we choose jobs or choose the earth.†That’s what Terry O’Sullivan, the general president of the Laborers International Union of North America, told green groups and fellow unions at a green-jobs conference in February 2009, just a few months after the union—one of the largest in the country—joined the Blue-Green Alliance, a group organized to advocate for a “clean economy.â€
