A small-N cross-sectional study of British unions' environmental attitudes and activism - and the prospect of a green-led renewal

Unions understand the environmental agenda as a technocentric one but also believe it can function as a vehicle for renewal. It is developing slowly, with unions behaving cautiously—resources are scarce. Although popular with members, there is limited evidence that it is effective as a recruitment tool and whilst employers are willing to work in partnership with unions on it, this may confer only phony insider status. Overall, the agenda has limited appeal to the types of employees and employers unions must recruit in order to grow. Identifying a clear environmental premium for members may help

Environmental Labour Studies: tackling the job-environment, north-south contradictions

Environmental degradation and Climate change is rarely a subject of labour studies. Likewise, environmental studies limit themselves mostly to CSR and to changing consumption, without taking the work process and workers’ rights into account. Our research project conducts an investigation of the relationship between labour and the environment and environmental policies in a north-south perspective. The proposed paper presents first results from an investigation of the ways in which trade unions in the Global North and South are developing policies towards environmental degradation and Climate Change. The paper will focus on what we see as the two main contradictions facing trade union policies globally: 1. The way in which workers of the South and the North are set against each other as competitors for jobs through the relocation processes of Transnational Corporations, 2. The apparent contradiction between protecting jobs and protecting the environment with which trade unions are confronted when environmental measures are not accompanied by social measures. We will discuss the barriers unions face in overcoming these contradictions and analyse the policies they are developing to combine social and environmental sustainability: ‘Green Jobs’ and ‘Just Transition’. The empirical bases are 32 semi-structured interviews with unionists in international, regional, national and local trade unions from Sweden, the UK, Brazil, South Africa, and Malaysia, participant observation in several Trade Union conferences and policy documents of unions internationally and nationally