Australian workers' climate action: Constraints and opportunities

Abstract

10 | International Union Rights | 26/4 FOCUS | CLIMATE CHANGE & TRADE UNIONS Australian workers’ climate action: Constraints and opportunities Workers’ voice in the development of climate change strategies is both necessary for implementation and a right. At the workplace workers may exercise this voice collectively through union or non-union forms of representation. They may also act politically to influence government policy. In Australia all these forms of worker voice over climate change are evident, notwithstanding major political constraints. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) The national peak union body has played a policy leadership role since 1991, when it adopted a policy advocating regulatory action to reduce greenhouse gases and government leadership in international negotiations over climate change. In 1992 it published a policy booklet emphasising the importance of workers and unions becoming active in the transition process to a carbon neutral economy, since they would bear many of the costs and much of the responsibility for implementing changes, highlighting the associated issues of employment, industry development and social equity. In 2007 the ACTU linked climate change with creation of decent jobs and raising living standards. It also created a subcommittee on climate change and jobs, providing website resources for union climate activists. The ACTU has also developed climate action coalitions with other community and business groups. In 1993 the ACTU and Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) established a program promoting ‘green jobs’, funded by the federal Labor government. In 2008 they produced a report predicting that, with the right policy settings, substantial numbers of new jobs could be created by 2030, and launched Union Climate Connectors, an accessible online forum providing training and resources for union members. The ACF joined the ACTU and other community and business organisations in the Southern Cross Climate Coalition to promote a policy of a targeted economic stimulus and ‘green jobs’ growth in the wake of the global financial crisis. Additionally the ACTU participated in International Trade Union Confederation and ILO activities to develop ‘just transition’ policy and gain acceptance for unions as stakeholders in the Conferences of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Just transition links sustainable development with rights at work, decent work, green jobs and social protection. This policy includes a role for participation by workers and unions in developing climate mitigation policy and practices through social dialogue at the national level and collective bargaining at sectoral and workplace levels. Union divisions The concept of ‘just transition’ has varied in emphasis between unions, largely reflecting different employment circumstances for the industries of their membership. The Amalgamated Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) has advocated carbon pricing, state assistance for industry development, income support for displaced workers and inclusion of environmental policies in collective enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs). However, the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) supports compensation and protection for highly pollutive industries such as mining, with its support for climate action dependent on no job losses. The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) is internally divided: Its Forestry Division has opposed policies to mitigate climate change, whilst the Mining and Energy Division has supported such policies. Yet, in the 2019 federal elections when the Liberal/National Party Coalition promised to support new coalmines in the state of Queensland, CFMMEU mining members helped the Coalition win marginal seats and re-election to government. Some of the most proactive unions for climate action are in the education and public administration sectors. The most prominent example is the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which has developed a range of strategies, including creation of university workplace environmental committees, bargaining for environmental clauses in EBAs, and reduction of its own energy usage. Political environment The current political environment denies the critical elements for just transition: strong climate policy and opportunities for significant workers’ voice. The Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard prioritised climate action, culminating in the 2011 carbon price. However a concerted anticarbon price campaign by business and the Liberal/ National Coalition helped the latter to victory in 2013, leading to the abolition of carbon pricing and substantial winding back of climate policy. The government’s expressly pro-carbon, anti-climate action political stance recently led the Prime Minister to speculate...