When we hear politicians and gas companies extoll the virtues of fracking, jobs created by drilling is usually high on their list of talking points. But the jobs created by fracking are not the kind of quality jobs American workers deserve.

They are not the kind of jobs American laborers have fought and died for throughout our country's history.

They are extremely dangerous, exposing workers to chemicals whose long-term impacts on human health are yet unknown. In fact, the fatality rate of oil field jobs is seven times greater than the national average.

In our new short film, GASWORK: The Fight for C.J.'s Law, we conduct an investigation into worker safety and chemical risk. We follow Charlotte Bevins as she fights for CJ's law—a bill to protect workers named for her brother CJ Bevins, who died at an unsafe drilling site.

We interview many workers who have been asked to clean drill sites, transport radioactive and carcinogenic chemicals, steam-clean the inside of condensate tanks which contain harmful volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other chemicals, and have been told to do so with no safety equipment.

A lot of reporting has been done on the health impacts fracking and drilling have on local communities, but often the story of the workers, the folks who are exposed to fracking chemicals and unsafe working conditions around the clock, goes untold.

GASWORK has rare interviews with oil and gas workers who have come forward to speak out about the unsafe conditions.

One worker from western Pennsylvania told us he was hired by the fracking industry in the early days of the rush to drill the Marcellus Shale to cover up toxic spills in his own community, near the forests and streams where he would hunt and fish, near the front yard where his children play.

The industry won't tell you that the "good" jobs created by fracking are paying men to poison their own communities in order to feed their families. They won't tell you that those jobs are not union jobs and if you get hurt, you are on your own. And they won't tell you that the transition to 100 percent renewables will create hundreds of thousands of safer jobs.

That is one reason we joined workers from the renewable energy industry in an act of civil disobedience on the banks of Seneca Lake in May. Along with 19 others, we blockaded the gates of Crestwood Midstream, a Houston based company whose plan to turn the Finger Lakes into the gas storage and transportation hub for the northeast includes storing gas in rickety salt caverns under Seneca Lake.

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One of the men we were arrested with was Joe Sliker, CEO of Renovus Energy, a local renewable energy company. As he stood in front of a large truck being driven by a fossil fuel industry employee, Joe offered the workers at Crestwood a chance to join the energy revolution American workers deserve.

“I'm here to offer them a choice. I'm here to offer all of those people a better job. Today. Right now. Solar is rapidly expanding. These are real, good jobs. We pay better wages. It's safer. We offer full benefits and paid time off and we respect our team," says Sliker.

It was an amazing thing to witness, a table full of job applications, ready for workers who want to switch employers. The solar revolution is ready to build a new workforce right now.

According to a study done by Professor Mark Jacobson at Stanford University, transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy would create 174,775 construction jobs and 94,644 operation jobs in New York state alone. The state where Crestwood wants to turn a rural wine making region into a fossil fuel energy hub. The state where C.J. Bevins was killed at an oilrig site.

We know many of the labor laws we have today we're won by fossil fuel industry workers. They risked everything, often facing violent retribution from their own government, because they dared to believe they deserved safe working conditions and fair compensation.

We know we stand on the shoulders of those great men and women and that we must continue the fight for safe, good paying jobs in this country. We must have a fair and just transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and support the workers and communities that have for so long powered our lives.

The industry doesn't want you to know that we care deeply about its workers. That we thought about them this past Labor Day Weekend, knowing people are still working unsafe jobs in America today, all the while feeling the warm summer sun and cool breezes that could be powering our country and a new revolution of safe jobs.

We thought about them and all those who came before. The coalminers, the steel workers, the men and women who worked in the factories, they taught us a very important lesson, one that has echoed throughout history only gaining strength as it has been proven to be true again and again.

They taught us that to challenge the powers at be, we must unite.

A new study shows that GASLAND screenings played a pivotal role in growing the anti-fracking movement and passing fracking bans. We believe the number one reason that is true is because those screenings brought people together.

That is why we are asking you to host a watch party of our new short, GASWORK: The Fight for C.J.'s Law.

GASWORK, The Fight for C.J.'s Law, is a new short film by Josh Fox.

Stand with us against jobs that poison workers and communities. Stand with us for safe, clean energy jobs. Stand with us for the energy revolution American labor deserves.

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In a draft report five years in the making, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that fracking does indeed contaminate drinking water, a fact the oil and gas industry has vehemently denied.

But instead of dismantling the industry's "not one single case of groundwater contamination caused by fracking" refrain, the EPA decided to go with the misleading headline "there is no evidence fracking has led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources."

It's a puzzling conclusion since their study was conspicuously narrow (they did no new case studies, dropped three marquee cases that proved water contamination and dropped all air quality studies from the report).

Our Map of the Week shows 313 cases where families reported water contamination due to drilling in just six counties in North Eastern, Pennsylvania. Seems pretty widespread to me for a fracking and drilling campaign that's still in its infancy. So far there's been around 9,000 wells drilled in Pennsylvania. One report showed the potential for 200,000 - 600,000 fracked wells in the state.

If the EPA is looking for proof of "widespread" contamination before declaring fracking unsafe, they may not have to wait long. The industry's own data shows that 5 percent of fracking wells leak upon drilling and that number only grows over time.

What the EPA presented to the public yesterday was PR, not science and proof of the widespread, systemic contamination of our regulatory bodies by the oil and gas industry.

This isn't the first time the EPA has released a report burying the science with a misleading headline that supports the Obama Administration's pro-fracking policies rather than reveal the true dangers of fracking. It's a disturbing trend we reported on extensively in GASLAND Part II with cases in Dimock, Pennsylvania; Parker County, Texas; and Pavilion, Wyoming.

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In Dimock, Parker Country and Pavilion the EPA suddenly dropped water contamination cases when the science proved that fracking was the cause, going as far as slapping a press release claiming Dimock's water was safe on a report that proved fracking had contaminated the water.

The EPA did this, conveniently, around the same time that President Obama was touting fracking as part of his All-of-the-Above energy policy on the campaign trail.

And President Obama has not backed off in his support for natural gas despite mounting evidence that fracking is a climate change disaster. His administration is opening up huge swaths of BLM land for drilling and has even gone so far as to allow fracking offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

He's not the only one. As Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton sold fracking to the rest of the world and has said nothing to indicate she will do any differently as President, despite claiming that addressing climate change is a pillar of her campaign.

If President Obama and Hilary Clinton want to know what a fracking legacy looks like they should take a look at the pictures coming from Little Rock, Arkansas where a fracked-gas pipeline ruptured in the Arkansas River within view of Bill Clinton's Presidential Library.

Millions of Americans know that fracking contaminates ground water and for the EPA to report any differently only proves that the greatest contamination from the industry comes from its influence and ownership of our government.

It's clear there is no action coming from our politicians to protect our public health and safety from fracking. They will stick with the industry till all our water is contaminated, our air polluted and climate change has made our planet unlivable.

It's up to us to get the truth out.

If you want to educate your community on the dangers of fracking and the incredible influence of the industry on our government, email us to host a screening of GASLAND Part II.

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