An inopportune moment: trade unions, climate crisis and the collapse of labour education in England

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A growing number of climate activists and scholars argue that an effective climate movement needs the involvement of the trade union movement, to be able to push forward the radical social transformations required to address the global climate crisis. If workers are to be able to play this kind of role in a global climate movement, a sustained and transformative programme of labour education on the climate crisis will be essential. In England, however, the climate crisis has arrived at a particularly inopportune moment for the trade union movement, when labour education has virtually collapsed – a state of labour education decline that has echoes elsewhere in the world. This article argues that in order to build a labour education programme that can help workers fight effectively against the climate crisis – or, indeed, any other challenge of worker and social injustice – it will be essential to understand and address the root causes of the decline and collapse of labour education more generally. For the union movement in England, this involves attending to three key issues, in particular: the relationship of labour education to the state, to the formal education sector, and to broader labour movement organising strategies and agendas.