The structural power of workers in influencing energy transitions: Examples of the Green Bans (Australia) and the Lucas Plan (United Kingdom)

Abstract

Energy transitions represent a process of economic restructuring that will change regional economies and patterns of employment. In many countries, this process is occurring in a context of industrial action, cost-of-living crises, and concerns about jobs being left ‘stranded’ by decarbonisation. This commentary piece follows recent scholarship to illuminate the importance of work and workers in contemporary energy transitions. There is a need to make space for those pushing for better working conditions and to find new areas of overlap between such demands and wider policies of decarbonisation. To do so, this piece stresses the importance of the structural power of workers in building links between the labour movement and those calling for energy transitions. It details two historical cases of worker action in the 1970s. First, the Green Bans movement in New South Wales, Australia, demonstrates how labour might be withdrawn at key points of pollution or environmental destruction. Second, the Lucas Plan in the United Kingdom, illustrates how workers can devise new forms of work. Whilst grounded in specific historical contexts, such episodes provide important examples of how those calling for energy transitions might amplify the narratives and role of workers in decarbonisation.