Latest paper from Trade Unions for Energy Democracy ( TUED ) by Sean Sweeney and John Treat
"In late 2015, after more than a decade of tenacious lobbying of
government negotiators, union representatives led by the International Trade
Union Confederation (ITUC) succeeded in getting the phrase “Just Transition”
into the preamble to the Paris Climate Agreement negotiated at COP21. The text
affirmed “the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the
creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined
development priorities.”
More than two years have passed since COP21, and calls for a Just
Transition have emerged from all corners of the global progressive community.
Once more or less exclusively a trade union priority, calls for a Just
Transition increasingly appear, in varying forms, in the campaigns of major environmental
organizations, climate justice and green NGOs, and indigenous and farmers’
movements. However unevenly, Just Transition has begun to feature in
discussions around national politics and policy, and unions increasingly refer
to the current period as Just Transition’s “implementation phase.”
The Need
for an Integrated and Transformative Politics
Unions for the most part understand that they must strive to
develop a Just Transition politics that somehow addresses the immediate
concerns of workers while keeping the need for a transition of the entire
economy in view. A transition that is “just” from the perspective of workers or
“the workforce,” but which fails to help achieve the needed socioeconomic
transformation, will ultimately accomplish little to address pressing
climate-related and broader ecological concerns. Alternatively, policies aimed at
driving a socioeconomic transformation that are robust enough to achieve
climate and environmental targets, but which ignore the impact on workers in
specific locations or industries, risk being unable to secure the support from
workers that such a transformation requires in order to be successful.
“Social Dialogue” or
“Social Power”?
In this eleventh TUED Working Paper, we argue that, in order to
effectively achieve this full range of aims, the international trade union
movement must collectively formulate and pursue a comprehensive, integrated
approach. Doing so requires a sober examination of the origins and current
state of debates over Just Transition.
Unions at all levels of the international trade union movement
recognize that a broad transformation of our economy and society is urgently
necessary. But the insistence on keeping “Social Dialogue” at the center of
such discussions holds trade union debates captive to the narrative of the
liberal business establishment, and to a very narrow and de-mobilizing
interpretation of Just Transition. Anchored in the particular realities of
post-war Europe, Social Dialogue has been effectively elevated to the status of
an official ideology in recent years–one that is increasingly out of step with
both the challenges facing workers and their organizations, and the pressing
demands for action posed by the climate and ecological crisis more broadly.
This paper makes the case for a different and more expansive trade
union conversation-one that can address worker-focused concerns while advancing
deeper socioeconomic transformation. We call this the “Social Power” approach.
This approach is guided by the belief that a Just Transition cannot be
accomplished without a deep restructuring of the global political economy. Existing
power and ownership relations must be challenged and changed. This is, of
course, an extremely difficult task. But if this does not occur, then the vast
majority of the world’s working people will never see anything vaguely
resembling a Just Transition. We can at least begin by openly acknowledging
that this needs to be our movement’s long term goal and then organize
accordingly.
The paper offers examples from around the world that illustrate
how this new approach is cohering within day-to-day trade union struggles, as
well as at the level of ideas across the political left. "
Above Introduction from TUED
Above Introduction from TUED
