Labor & Employment Law

Union Support Helped Win ?Open Fields? Hunting and Fishing Access

By Mike Hall

Union sportsmen and all hunters and fishing enthusiasts will soon find tens of thousands of new acres of land to explore, thanks to a new Open Fields program that union support on Capitol Hill helped push to the finish line.

Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the release of $50 million for the Open Fields program, which provides states with federal funding to create or enhance voluntary hunter-access programs that encourage private landowners to open their lands to the public for hunting and fishing. Says Vilsack:

This program will not only help achieve conservation goals, but also increase opportunities for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation by providing greater access to privately held lands for wildlife-dependent recreation.

The unions in the Union Sportsmen?s Alliance (USA) threw their support behind the agricultural bill (AKA the farm bill) reauthorization. Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) President William Hite and United Union of Roofers and Waterproofers President Kinsey Robinson testified before congressional committees. In an op-ed in the Des Moines Register, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote:

Why is the AFL-CIO, the federation representing 10 million working men and women, worried about conservation in the farm bill? Because working people across the country hunt and fish, including roughly 70 percent of union members in the building and construction trades. The farm bill has a huge impact on the quality of life of working people when they’re away from work. The AFL-CIO is joining the nation’s leading sportsmen and conservation organizations to make conservation a national priority. As a nation, we value our wide-open-spaces and time spent outside.

Whit Fosburgh, president of the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), says union support played a major role in winning funds in the farm bill for Open Fields program

Many national unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO joined together to push for Open Fields, as did scores of rank-and-file union members from across the country. They have seen the declines in sporting opportunities in their backyards and did something about it.

USA Executive Director Fred Myers says the next step is to make sure that Open Fields

is fully funded and effectively implemented to improve access to quality places to hunt and fish for all sportsmen and women.

The official name of the program is the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP). For more information click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on July 18, 2010 (boomark / email).