U.S. Voices Support for Just Transition to Green Economy

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, sends us this report from the second day at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate change talks here, here, here and here.

Today, union delegates to the climate change talks received good news. For the first time since we arrived in Copenhagen, a U.S. negotiator said publicly that the Obama administration will propose language to support a “just transition” to a new green economy. Under a just transition program, workers have the right to a voice at their workplace, the right to form a union and bargain collectively and the right to have access to training on the latest technology.

At the morning meeting of the working group on a shared vision, U.S. negotiators for the first time spoke out in favor of just transition. One of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s first official letters following his election was to Special Envoy Todd Stern in support of the having just translation language in a climate agreement.

The news that the United States supports the concept of just transition and wants to suggest language for it got everyone’s attention. But there still are procedural and other questions to be answered before it is a done deal. Specifically, what was the language the U.S. government wants to add or change? 

The U.S. labor delegation met with Trigg Talley, the lead U.S. negotiator on this section of the agreement. He told us the United States is “concerned about the long preamble of the shared vision statement, but they liked the positive ideas that our just transition language conveyed.” He said he wanted to make sure the concept was preserved as the document was shortened and to submit some language. 

We suggested he include language about quality jobs and decent work. As this blog is written, nothing is a done deal and we still do not know the end of the story but the beginning has certainly been encouraging.

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