-By Andrew Langer, Originally Published in the Washington Examiner

For most Americans, Labor Day will mean a much deserved day of rest, some time with family or friends, and maybe a parade here or hot dog there. Still, there’s the ‘labor’ in Labor Day to remember.

Beware, though, for those who take a closer look at today’s U.S. labor organizations may not like what they find. Instead of working honestly and aggressively on behalf of workers, they are actually working with a few companies to cut corners and diminish competition.

Here’s the deal. Labor groups and a few scheming companies — tired of the rigors of a competitive marketplace — have increasingly been turning to green groups for cover and to push overlapping agendas.

The end goal of each group is to make foreign products based on natural resources so expensive (through tariffs, taxes, subsidies, and regulation) that consumers will be driven to stick with the groups’ costlier alternatives.

Of course, that’s a tough sell, which is why they need the cover of environmentalism.

This is not a tactic unique to the United States. A recent report from Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs explained, “using environmental justifications to propose trade restrictions is now commonplace” in that country, and it appears the playbook of collusion has been imported to America.

An upcoming U.S. International Trade Commission hearing will be the latest shot in the growing global battle over green protectionism, and if defenders of free enterprise do not reply with intellectual ammunition, it is consumers and the world’s poor who will pay the price.

In September, the relatively obscure ITC will be asked to decide whether to impose massive tariffs on paper from foreign producers. Not surprisingly, it is a handful of floundering companies (Sappi, NewPage, and Appleton) and the United Steelworkers who pushed a repeat of an unsuccessful 2007 attempt for similar protectionist policies.

In the previous case, the government found that the domestic industry had not been harmed. It is hard to imagine a different outcome this year after those very companies like Sappi, NewPage, and Appleton received billions of dollars worth of refundable renewable-resource tax credits.

That included dollars out of the U.S. Treasury sent to for-profit companies for burning a combination of diesel and a “black liquor” wood byproduct, making a joke out of any environmental goal originally intended. (To his credit, President Obama struck out the offensive credit but lobbyists continue to seek its resurrection.)

Unfortunately, this issue is just a paper cut in the larger fight.

As The Wall Street Journal noted, the paper issue was just one of four protectionist complaints filed within a single, 10-day period. The bailout babies and unions have sought favorable treatment on tires and chemicals, too. But it doesn’t stop there.

On “green jobs” training, union bosses appear to have pushed for government funding for only those programs run through union halls. There was the disgraceful attachment of Davis-Bacon wage and work rules on weatherization funds through the stimulus plan.

Much larger green protectionism looms. In the name of combating climate change, greens and their allies have announced their goal for carbon tariffs. And, of course, the grand prize is the mother of all green/corporate boondoggles, cap and trade, the energy tax increase estimated to drain as much as $10 trillion out of the U.S. economy, according to the non-profit Heritage Foundation, for virtually no environmental benefit.

The core problem is that whether it is cap and trade’s havoc or the paper cuts of tariff wars, all are dangerous to the economy and the world’s people for a very simple reason: the economy is a geometric function of time and activity, and if an opportunity is lost due to protectionism, that growth cannot be “found” again later.

Domestically, that means a working mother trying to buy back-to-school supplies and books and feed and clothe her kids is going to find each step of the way that much more difficult. It also means workers in developing nations get less work, which reduces their long-term potential to defeat poverty.

In short, it means that organized labor’s efforts, in combination with green groups and a few corporate honchos, will mean a more expensive Labor Day in the U.S. and a much bleaker one on faraway shores.

Andrew Langer is president of the Institute for Liberty, which recently launched the Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity.

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