‘Just Transition’: More than Buzz Words

Lauren Asplen, IUE-CWA Assistant to the President

Lauren Asplen, assistant to the president for IUE-CWA, is among union delegates taking part in the 12-day United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) in Poznan, Poland. The meeting is building upon the framework negotiated last year in Bali, Indonesia. Of the nearly 100 union delegates, Asplen is among the more than 20 from North America and sends us this report.

The tug of war in the climate change debate is between how and how fast to mitigate the impact of global warming—i.e., between potential energy sources and emission reduction targets. However, within that overarching question, there are a myriad of issues that brought some 8,000 delegates and observers to the United Nations climate meeting in Poznan, Poland. One stands out as critical to union members, yet it has not received much attention. That issue is what’s termed a “just transition” for workers.

In trade union policy meetings and in the U.N. conference, it is clear that few agree on what a just transition encompasses. Among those who even discuss the concept, the debate often focuses on how much money should go into a fund to help workers in developing countries achieve a sustainable economy and adapt to the impact of climate change.

But for the nearly 100 trade union delegates—the largest and one of the most diverse delegations ever to attend the framework meeting—the concept is much broader. That’s because of a growing realization that a global agreement on climate change will significantly impact economies, trade and jobs. Add in a worldwide recession and it’s easy to understand the urgent concern of unions about the decisions being made here.

For the U.S. labor delegation, just transition is about making sure workers have opportunities for good, union jobs in a green economy. It means, first, that workers need to be free to organize and bargain. Can anyone say Employee Free Choice Act? 

Next, it means that if some industries are lost, we need to guarantee that new ones, with jobs that pay union wages and benefits, are created. It means giving workers a choice of what they want to do. It means treating those near retirement fairly and with compassion.  It means recognition that workers, and in particular manufacturing workers, in developed countries already have had their jobs decimated and cannot stand to have any more jobs exported.

Many in this process seem to have an assumption that developed nations have policies and a safety net to take care of their workers. As millions of U.S. workers know, that is simply untrue. 

The buzz in the convention hallways is about what role the United States will play going forward to Copenhagen, Denmark, next year, where the goal is to reach a final agreement to replace Kyoto. With Barack Obama’s election, there is much hope that our nation will not only become engaged in the climate change debate, but take the lead.

If so, we have much work to do. Our U.S. trade delegation met with Harlan Watson, the top U.S. negotiator, who stated that just transition has never been a topic of discussion. When it was suggested by the delegation that it was the responsibility of U.S. negotiators to raise the issue and demand that it is included as official policy in the U.N. framework, he looked momentarily dumbfounded. But, being the professional that he is, Watson quickly responded:

Oh, I’ve been arguing for years that we can’t act because of the job losses.

Deliberately or not, he was being obtuse. Trade unions are not here to be obstructionists. We, too, agree that the world must act before our planet is destroyed by global warming. But those actions must be carried out fairly and thoughtfully. 

This environmental crisis presents an opportunity to make massive changes that could benefit working families, not harm them. But it is just as true that the opposite could occur. That is why we are here, in a growing force: to demand that just transition is a reality, not buzz words.

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