‘Just Transition’: Putting Meaning to the Words

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, is in Bonn, Germany, for meetings to ensure that labor’s input contributes to larger United Nations climate change discussions later this year. This report follows up on his first two blogs from Bonn here and here.

The 30 international trade unionists here in Bonn, under the umbrella of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), are redoubling efforts to ensure that language calling for a “just transition” to a global green economy is included in the outline of a new climate agreement we’ll discuss at a larger U.N. climate change conference this December in Copenhagen.

In short, the ITUC is calling for commitments to a “just transition” for “sustainable, low-carbon economies as the key to guarantee a socially sustainable outcome.”

The ITUC states that we need to achieve these goals: 

through socially responsible and green investment, low-carbon development strategies and by providing decent work and social protection for those whose livelihoods, incomes and employment are affected by the need to adapt to climate change and by the need to reduce emissions to levels that avert dangerous climate change.  

Since this is the first time the “just transition” language has appeared in the official documents, we have had a lot of explaining to do. One of the problems we encountered is that most people assume the language is only about job loss. It is much more than that. What the trade union movement wants is an industrial and environmental policy that delivers a good, just transition for a world moving to a greener economy. You can’t have a just transition without workers and their communities having a voice. Also, a just transition requires investments to retain and create good jobs, modernize industry, education and training, and provide assistance for any workers and their families who may be adversely affected.

At an ITUC event June 8, a panel of speakers described their discussions about the issue of a just transition.

Angela Anderson, representing Climate Action Network, a coalition of  460 organizations, said the ITUC’s proposal is:

a really exciting development that also reflects the new era in American politics around the climate change opportunities agenda for investment in the green economy.

Poormina Chikarmane from the Wastepickers Union of India applauded the ITUC’s efforts to put “workers’ interests in a larger framework of sustainable development.” But she also reminded us of the challenges we all face. For example, members of her union whose livelihood is based on recycling are losing jobs. New technology, waste incineration plants, now stand where the workers once collected, sorted and sold waste. Now, investors make money with their new plant, which employ few and displace many, and they no longer recycle waste, but burn it. 

The next morning we met with Michael Zammit Cutajar, who will craft the draft of the official text of the long-term agreement from the statements of the official parties. He really sobered our group when he told us the language had little chance of making the draft unless the governments of some of the countries represented at the conference spoke for it.

Taking Cutajar at his word, delegates scheduled meetings with their governments and potential allies, including one meeting with the Climate Action Network. They were interested in the “just transition”  message because it complements their efforts to challenge the dominant theme that a climate agreement is only about burden sharing. They understand what an aggressive and concerted pattern of investments can mean and the importance of good jobs. 

In a critical meeting between ITUC European unions and representatives of the European Union, government officials invited the U.S. trade union representative to address developments in the U.S. I used the opportunity to draw parallels among the investments in the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Waxman-Markey bill and the concept of just transition.

The reception to our argument has been friendly and open, but cautious. No surprise. These are negotiators who scrutinize every word of an agreement. It’s our job to get them to understand that we do have a choice about the type of transition this agreement will represent.

Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation, says “this is a positive message, one that is needed.”  We think so, too.  Now we need commitments by the U.S and other governments to work with us to put meaning to the words.

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