Managing change to a zero-carbon economy in Europe

Abstract

12 | International Union Rights | 26/4 FOCUS | CLIMATE CHANGE & TRADE UNIONS Managing change to a zero-carbon economy in Europe Both climate change mitigation and adaptation to a warming world are now primary policy objectives. For mitigation, the objective is to get to a net-zero carbon economy in the second half of this century at global level and by 2050 for developed economies. A carbon neutral European Union by 2050 is now the official target of the European Commission with the flagship initiative of the European Green Deal to implement it. To achieve these objectives a fundamental revision of our production and consumption model is necessary with far-reaching distributional effects and with a massive impact on the world of work. Managing this epochal transformation in a socially balanced way is key to its success. The concept of just transition, a longterm trade union demand has now become an integral part of a complex climate policy framework. It should not remain an abstract concept however, but a real practice in real societies and workplaces. This article focuses on the role of trade unions, their approaches and practices to put `just transition` into practice under real life circumstances. The historical capital-labour deal According to the critical environmentalist approach the historical basis for the social reconciliation between capital and labour emerged on the basis of a (partial) redistribution of the wealth established through ever increasing material flows and the depletion of natural resources1. Environmental movements have often criticised trade unions of defending jobs at any cost to nature2. Labour and capital were thus perceived as two sides of an (unsustainable) modern industrial capitalist production model. An emerging body of literature distinguishes between ‘business’ and ‘social’ unionism, where the latter goes beyond the workplace perspective and the membership focus and embraces wider issues3. Does this mean that trade unions are ‘locked into the traditional capital-labour deal’ and would struggle to develop new strategies for moving beyond the established production model? It is true that the constituency of trade unions (employees) as consumers is an integral part of the capitalist production-consumption model. At the same time, trade unions as longstanding opponents of capital are, precisely, in a position to address the exploitative logic of capital not just towards labour but also in context of natural resources. Indeed, viewed in historical perspective, trade unions have long realised that a consistent defence of their members’ interests demands a long-term struggle for a social and political context at national and international levels that is favourable to the wellbeing of people and society as a whole and took up broader ‘civil issues’ such as rights of women and vulnerable groups in society, environmental protection and sustainable development. Trade unions have also shown readiness to expand their scope and to recognise the limits of material and resource exploitation. Environmental issues have become a major topic for trade unions, and they often argued for a rebalancing of market- and capital-based approaches through consideration of social and environmental aspects. Managing change Another prejudice often applied to trade unions in the past was that they were predominantly interested in preserving the status quo. However, not least because of the structural pressures induced by globalisation and technological change in recent decades, trade unions (together with works councils) have become important agents in the management of change. In this role they learned to manage change in society or at the workplace, where change was driven by the profit motive of capital. In these cases (like downsizing, flexibilisation or relocations), they also rightly questioned the legitimacy of the change and at least one way of fending off its effects on employees was also to try to keep the change itself at bay. Decarbonisation is a commonly shared objective in the interest of humanity. At the same time meeting this objective poses a huge challenge on the world of work and workplace level employment transitions appear within the framework of the traditional capital-labour nexus. These transitions often result in similar patterns of reorganisation of work that had been the case in business restructuring cases, which trade unions were fighting against. There is thus an apparent contradiction between the main competence...