Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Trade Unions and the Jobs Versus Environment Dilemma

Project Information

Eco-Unions

Grant agreement ID: 101032969

DOI

10.3030/101032969

Project closed

EC signature date 20 April 2021

Start date 15 September 2021

End date 6 July 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 219 312,00

EU contribution

€ 219 312,00

Coordinated by

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Eco-Unions (Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Trade Unions and the Jobs Versus Environment Dilemma)

Reporting period: 2021-09-15 to 2023-09-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Tackling the global crisis of human-induced climate change is the most urgent challenge of the 21st century. To help surmount this challenge the European Union has subscribed to the Paris Agreement and the seventeen goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Transitioning to a low carbon economy requires a broad coalition of government’s, supranational institutions, corporations, and civil society actors. Among these, trade unions have a crucial role to play because the most significant path to decarbonization will be through a transformation of industrial production. While trade unions have a demonstrated capacity to help make industrial processes more sustainable, their action is limited by a constant “jobs versus environment’ dilemma between protecting the environment and protecting jobs in polluting industries.

‘Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Trade Unions and the Jobs versus Environment Dilemma’ (EcoUnions) is a project aimed at producing much-needed new knowledge on how trade unions are navigating the “jobs versus environment” dilemma. More specifically, it focuses on two new labour-environmental coalitions comprising trade unions, environmental organisations, and social justice organisations. Theoretically, the goal of Eco-Unions is to develop a multi-level analytical framework that can help guide future enquiry and allow for a holistic understanding of the interconnected arenas in which trade unions are navigating the “jobs versus environment” dilemma: internal union strategizing, climate policy-making, and public debate. Empirically, Eco-Unions is conceived as a comparative, interdisciplinary, and multi-method project that a) examines and compares the approach of labour-environmental coalitions in Denmark and the United Kingdom, b) explores how internal and external dynamics shape trade union action, and c) determines what role trade unions play in public debate on the green transition.

The first part of the research programme involved the semi-systematic and interdisciplinary review of the existing literature according to the three levels of the research design and drawing on the fields of employment relations, environmental sociology, and environmental labour studies. The empirical part focused on the organizational questions of union strategy, institutional questions of union involvement in climate-policy-making, and societal questions of union involvement in public debates. The review of the literature and the empirical work were then deployed to develop an analytical framework centered on the concept of discursive power that can guide future research in this flourishing new area of scholarship.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project analyzed qualitative empirical material gathered from a variety of sources such as websites, position papers, secondary literature, trade union documents, newspaper articles, Twitter data, non-participant observation during coalition meetings and national conferences, and interviews that I conducted with prominent coalition board members and affiliates (i.e. trade unions, environmental organisations, and social justice organisations such as Greenpeace and Oxfam).

The main results achieved so far are:

- A state-of-the review article of research on the role of trade unions in the green transition. Titled “There are No Jobs on a Dead Planet: Exploring the Trade union movement’s Discursive Power in Just Transitions”, the article is in the process of being submitted to the high-impact journal Work, Employment, and Society. It draws on employment relations, environmental sociology, and environmental labour studies, and demonstrates the value of applying a discursive approach to this flourishing new area of scholarship. To date this result has been disseminated to academics at five international conferences.

- Two detailed case studies of new labour-environmental coalitions: The Bridge to the Future coalition in Denmark and the Climate Justice Coalition in the United Kingdom. The former, titled “Constructing a Just and Sustainable Bridge to the Future: Embryonic Counter-Hegemonic Coalitions on the Terrain of the Eco-Modernist Danish State”, is in the process of being submitted to Environmental Sociology. Whereas the latter is delayed but when it is finished it will form an integral part of a book proposal for the new Labor and Technology series at MIT Press.

- A range of dissemination activities within and outside the academy including invited talks at seminars, research centres, trade unions, and labour-environmental coalitions in Denmark and the United Kingdom as well as an interview with Foresight magazine, titled “Companies Face Growing Employee Climate Activism”, that explores the risks of corporate greenwashing. Available open access at: https://foresightmedia.com/story/swp199834-aeRpzz76-4ccf8

- Consolidating the vibrant international research network on just and sustainable transformations of economies and societies that I co-chair at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) and publishing several books as co-editor of a Bristol University Press book series on topics ranging from: remaking money for a sustainable future to living and working in utopian communities in India and the United States. Available at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/alternatives-to-capitalism-in-the-21st-century

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

My fellowship and the scientific output of Eco-Unions have contributed to the cutting-edge debate on trade unions, just transitions and the future of work – both within the trade union movement and the fields of employment relations, environmental sociology, and environmental labour studies. Theoretically, I moved beyond the state-of-the-art by introducing the concept of discursive power to this flourishing area of scholarship, which until now has almost entirely overlooked the significance of the media for trade union movements navigating the jobs versus environment binary. In doing so, I bridge the literature on workers, trade unions and the media with the emerging debate on the role of unions in transforming global capitalism to tackle the climate crisis. This helps scholars grasp not just the range of environmental discourses that trade union movements are producing, but also what happens as these circulate internally among union officials, shop stewards, and the rank-and-file, and externally through the political system and into wider society.

Finally, in terms of the wider societal implications of the project so far, Eco-Unions demonstrates that labour-environmental coalitions are developing a powerful range of truly just and sustainable climate policies across a range of policy areas such as education, healthcare, transport, food and agriculture, pensions, and heat-related stress at work. These coalitions have the potential to generate a substantial ecological shift in the strategies of British and Danish trade union movement through mobilization, knowledge exchange and media activities. But this potential has yet to be fully realized due to a mix of organizational issues, communication issues, an inhospitable media landscape, and limited uptake among private sector trade unions. As the publications come to fruition, Eco-Unions may help inspire trade unions unaffiliated to labour-environmental coalitions in Denmark and the United Kingdom to adopt ambitious climate action policies by disseminating well-laid blueprints for best practice.

Attending the bi-monthly meeting of the Bridge to the Future Coalition in Copenhagen, Denmark