“Green Unions in a Grey World”

Abstract

International labor environmentalism, a significant innovation in global politics, centers on the role of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions at the United Nations'Commission on Sustainable Development and other bodies. Unions face multiple challenges in international institutions, for example, from partnerships that privatize government functions and from disagreements within unions. Nonetheless, this article finds that environmentalism arising from the character of trade unions and the ideology of leaders has great potential.L abor environmentalism is one of the most important global political developments of recent history. Behind this movement lie critical ideas about work, labor, and the environment. These ideas have animated union participation in powerful new political alignments that manifest in street-level mobilization against neo-liberal globalization, newly victorious electoral coalitions, and effective participation in world institutions. Labor has been particularly important in pushing international institutions, particularly the United Nations, to adopt prolabor and/or proenvironment positions. Green unionism holds the promise of a new political synthesis that can revitalize the international Left. Yet fulfilling this promise is not a simple thing. The contradictory impulses of the labor movement itself, the problems of maintaining coalitions with other progressive groups, the powerful sway capitalist market ideas and probusiness groups hold over international bureaucracies, and the nature of international institutions themselves all threaten to derail this transformation. Green unionism faces an intense challenge in a world political system where workplace issues are suppressed or ignored, trade unions split over basic goals and methods, and global institutions are designed to contain workers' power, not enable it.

A just transition: Insights from the labour unions of a steel locality (Taranto, Italy)

“…This article contributes to the increasing body of literature on just transition (Bailey and Caprotti, 2014; Clarke and Lipsig-Mummé, 2020; Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen, 2020; Cock, 2014; Felli, 2014; Galgoczi, 2014, 2020; Hampton, 2015, 2018; Hoffer, 2020; Morena et al., 2019; Normann and Tellmann, 2021; Räthzel and Uzzell, 2013a, 2013b; Räthzel et al., 2021; Silverman, 2006; Stevis, 2011; Stevis and Felli, 2015; Sweeney, 2009; Wang and Lo, 2021). Specifically it interrogates the way in which TUs thematize and engage with the challenge of transition in a specific locality – Taranto, Southern Italy – and in one of the most carbon-intensive sectors – the steel industry.…”

“…Recent research concerning employment has sought to go beyond discourses on job losses and reflect also on the quality and/or qualifications of the labour needed (Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen, 2020;Lundstrom, 2018;Snell, 2018) following Biernacki's distinction (1995) between 'embodied labour', as output in a given work process, and 'labour power', linked to the development of labour capacity/potential. This article contributes to the increasing body of literature on just transition (Bailey and Caprotti, 2014;Clarke and Lipsig-Mummé, 2020;Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen, 2020;Cock, 2014;Felli, 2014;Galgoczi, 2014Galgoczi, , 2020Hampton, 2015Hampton, , 2018Hoffer, 2020;Morena et al, 2019;Normann and Tellmann, 2021;Uzzell, 2013a, 2013b;Räthzel et al, 2021;Silverman, 2006;Stevis, 2011;Stevis and Felli, 2015;Sweeney, 2009;Wang and Lo, 2021). Specifically it interrogates the way in which TUs thematize and engage with the challenge of transition in a specific locality -Taranto, Southern Italy -and in one of the most carbon-intensive sectors -the steel industry.…”

Metabolic politics: Industrial relations as if nature mattered

“…The main proponents of this sub-field define its objective as "studying the environmental politics of trade unions" (Räthzel et al, 2021, p. 2). Thus, they mainly try to establish unions as a central actor of the "just transition" toward a green economy (Abraham, 2017;Clarke and Lipsig-Mummé, 2020;Hampton, 2015;Silverman, 2006;Räthzel and Uzzell, 2012;Tomassetti, 2020). Such approaches mainly demonstrate the ways in which environmental issues are or can be included into collective bargaining.…”

Timing of environmental technological choice and trade unions' climate solidarity

“…8 For details on the environmental movement see Rome (2003). 9 See, among others, Truax (1992), Gordon (1998), Dewey (1998), Obach (1999Obach ( , 2002Obach ( , 2004, Bonanno and Blome (2001), Silverman (2004Silverman ( , 2006, Mayer (2009), Snell and Fairbrother (2010). 10 According to Silverman (2004)…”