Nothing about us without us!

By staff - IndustriALL, May 18, 2022

Today, manufacturing, mining and energy trade unions, under the umbrella of industriAll European Trade Union, are launching their Just Transition Manifesto.

As Europe gets ready to implement the Green Deal and the measures agreed in the Fit for 55 package, 25 million industrial workers in Europe potentially face restructuring and job losses due to the green transformation of our industries - exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, digitalisation, trade and market developments and a volatile geopolitical situation.

The manifesto is industrial workers’ call to policymakers across Europe to ensure a transition to a green economy that is fair to ALL workers, and that does not destroy but preserves and creates good quality jobs. They want a transition that is anticipated, managed and negotiated with workers for every aspect that concerns them.

To achieve this, we need a comprehensive Just Transition framework that provides guarantees for adequate resources, is based on effective policy planning, promoting and strengthening workers’ rights, and involves trade unions through intense social dialogue.

Our manifesto therefore calls for:

1. An industrial policy fit for ambitious climate goals and good quality jobs.
2. Adequate resources to fund the transition.
3. Stronger collective bargaining and social dialogue to negotiate the transitions.
4. A toolbox of workers’ rights and companies’ duties to anticipate and shape the change.
5. Tackling new skills needs and a right to quality training and life-long learning for every worker to support the Just Transition.

Michael Vassiliadis, President of industriAll Europe:

"Trade unions have a double responsibility: to stand by their members in many industries as they transition to low-carbon production, and to promote innovative solutions to combat climate change.

It is up to us unions, to ensure that affected workers do not fall behind. We will hold politics and business to account and demand solutions for further education, a sustainable industrial policy and sufficient jobs. We will offer our cooperation in this, and will defend our positions loud and clearly.’’

Luc Triangle, General Secretary of industriAll Europe:

“Today we launch our Just Transition Manifesto because our calls for urgent action have not been heeded. We are very concerned about the lack of recognition from political decision makers of the importance of listening, speaking and planning the transition together with the impacted workers and their trade unions.

Dramatic change is happening and the current situation is intensifying the pressure on working people. Workers want to shape the change in their workplaces and communities, but they need a supportive and comprehensive Just Transition framework to do so. They need more than rhetoric - they need legislation that guarantees decent jobs in future and a perspective for all regions in Europe!”

Our Just Transition Manifesto is an urgent call for social policies that are as ambitious as our current climate policies, because the European Green Deal will only succeed if it is a social deal and has workers at its heart!

Download a copy of this publication here (Link).

Other language versions available at the original site.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.