labor

By Julian Vigo - The Ecologist, July 30, 2018

In the summer of 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes gave a lecture in Madrid entitled “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” in which he predicted that humans, a century later, would undertake a fifteen-hour work week.  

Today, the reality of work sharing is far from a reality, as is the  shorter work week. But there are many reasons we should set our sights on working fewer hours, not least of which is the environment. 

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, it is estimated that by 2030, as many as 800 million jobs worldwide could be lost to automation. The fallout from this will have a drastic effect on humans, comparable to the shift away from agricultural societies during the Industrial Revolution.

Environmental impact

In the US it is estimated that between 39 and 73 million jobs will  be automated. Computers and robots would comprise one-third of the total workforce. As other jobs stand to be created from AI, it's likely that only five percent of current occupations stand to be eliminated. 

If you are part of the one percent, the owner of these machines, you are in a great position economically. But if you are not, there could be a crisis looming that reaches far beyond the economy, and permeates the communal, the psychological, and the physical. 

The ecological impacts of labour are part of the larger equation here that must be taken into account. For instance, the commute of Americans to and from work is on average 52 minutes each day with over 80 percent of Americans commuting by automobile.

David Rosnick from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington DC has devoted much of his career to the relationship between the work week and its ecological impact.

In 2006, along with Mark Weisbrot, Rosnick studied the effects of a shorter work week on the environment and the myths surrounding the economic potential for the American work week as opposed to the European work week. Their conclusion was that climate change can be mitigated through reduced work hours. 

By Kwasi Frimpong - HSOA Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Care, January 30, 2018

Extreme temperatures due to global warming are impacting negatively on the general population in many regions of the world, yet heat-related illnesses remain largely overlooked. Heat-related morbidity and mortality is predicted to increase because of climate change. Environmental heat is emerging as a key public health issue, particularly amongst poor and vulnerable sectors of society in developing countries. This study assessed the exposure of outdoor street vendors in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to extreme heat whilst working between seven-and thirteen-hour shifts per day and mostly in direct sunlight during summer months. This group of workers is particularly vulnerable to heat-related and other health problems as they are deemed to be illegal traders and operate without the support of a legislative framework to monitor their health and well-being. With the current political upheaval in Zimbabwe there is an urgent need for government to develop heat prevention policies, heat prevention guidance measures and extensive programs for outdoor workers to increase their knowledge and awareness of the issue. It is also necessary to develop adaptation and coping mechanisms amongst this vulnerable sector of society, while also exploring other preventive measures that could reduce heat exposure more broadly.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Anthony Kelly - Waging Nonviolence, March 23, 2017

Whistleblowers from within institutions, corporations, government departments, police or military can be critical to movement success, and their testimony is often the key to exposing and resisting injustice and creating change.

Institutions clamp down on and deter whistleblowing for good reason. Whistleblowers can shake major institutions. They can feed vital information to movements, can warn activists about impending threats, can expose corruption, public health dangers and reduce the power of governments and deep state agencies. Disclosing secrets and releasing information poses high risks and personal costs and always takes a fair degree of courage. To expose an injustice, whistleblowers will have to trust who they are communicating with.

Nonviolent politics has long recognized that societal institutions, even rigid hierarchies such as the police or military, are not monolithic, but are in fact riddled with dissent. Institutions are made up of individual human beings. Despite well-developed cultural, legal and bureaucratic mechanisms used to enforce internal obedience and discipline, whistleblowing and other forms of internal resistance are surprisingly common.

So, what can activists, organizers and movements do to encourage and support whistleblowers?

By Carol Zabin, Abigail Martin, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Manuel Pastor and Jim Sadd - UC Berkeley Labor Center, September 13, 2016

California’s leadership role in climate policy has once again been confirmed by the passage of Senate Bill 32 (Pavley, 2016), which commits the state to the ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030—staying the course to an 80-percent reduction by 2050. A central issue in the SB 32 political debate, as well as the many related policies that preceded it, is the impact of climate policy on equity: how to ensure that low-income and working-class Californians do not dis-proportionately bear the costs and are included in the benefits of California’s transition to a low-carbon economy. This report presents a Climate Policy Equity Framework to assist California decision-makers interested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in ways that promote economic, social, and environmental equity. We suggest that policymakers, regulators, community groups, advocacy organizations, and business interests should develop a “social contract” to manage a transition to a low-carbon economy that both maximizes the benefits of low-carbon economic development and minimizes the risks to working people and disadvantaged communities. This social contract can strengthen the broad political coalition needed to stay the course on the state’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals, particularly in the face of accelerating greenhouse gas emission reductions and a legal challenge to the constitutionality of California’s cap-and-trade system. The Climate Policy Equity Framework can then guide policy development and program implementation to reflect and support the social contract.

But what is climate equity? How can it be defined in a way that promotes both good jobs and prioritizes those communities that are hardest hit by climate change, multiple environmental hazards, and socio-economic stressors? What key criteria can then be used to develop and assess policies such as renewable portfolio standards, incentives for energy retrofits, cap and trade, transit-oriented development, low-carbon fuels and vehicle deployment, and much more? And finally, when faced with trade-offs between different equity criteria or tensions between environmental justice and labor interests, how can decision-makers maximize equity outcomes?

To answer these questions, this report proposes a “Climate Policy Equity Framework” that operates at three levels to:

• Articulate equity principles and goals to guide policy design;
• Present key criteria to analyze how close a particular climate policy or program comes to meeting these equity goals; and
• Propose indicators that point the way to mechanisms and strategies to advance climate equity.

We then apply these equity criteria to assess progress on environmental justice, economic equity, and public accountability goals, using the limited data currently available. Our assessment highlights positive developments, remaining challenges, and the data gaps that must be filled to facilitate more complete assessments in the future. We also apply the criteria and indicators to two specific climate policy arenas—energy efficiency and renewable energy—to illustrate how to improve the equity outcomes of specific climate policies and programs. Finally, we present a preliminary set of recommendations to illustrate some concrete opportunities for equitable climate initiatives.

Read the report (PDF).

By Béla Galgóczi - European Trade Union Institute, 2015

Our planetary limits demand a radical transition from the energy-intensive economic model based on the extraction of finite resources, which has been dominant since the first industrial revolution, to a model that is both sustainable and equitable.

Unfortunately however, energy transformation in Europe has, after a promising start, fallen hostage to austerity and to the main philosophy underpinning the crisis management policies in which overall competitiveness is reduced to the much narrower concept of cost-competitiveness. Regulatory uncertainty, design failures built into incentive systems, and unjust distribution of the costs, have also contributed to the reversal of progress in energy transformation currently observable across Europe.

In this book three country case studies highlight the different facets of these conflicts, while additional light is thrown on the situation by an account of the lack of progress in achieving energy efficiency.

By way of conclusion, a mapping of the main conflicts and obstacles to progress will be of help in formulating policy recommendations. Ambitious climate and energy policy targets should be regarded not as a burden on the economy but rather as investment targets able to pave the way to higher employment and sustainable growth. It is high time for this perception to be recognised and implemented in the context of Europe’s new Investment Plan, thereby enabling clean energy investment to come to form its central pillar. A shift in this direction will require an overhaul of the regulatory and incentive systems to ensure that the need for just burden-sharing is adequately taken into account.

Read the report (Link).

By staff - International Labour Organization, 2015

At its 102nd Session (2013), the International Labour Conference adopted a resolution and a set of conclusions, hereafter referred to as the conclusions, concerning sustainable development, decent work and green jobs putting forward a policy framework for a just transition.

At its 321st Session (June 2014), the Governing Body of the ILO endorsed the proposal to hold a tripartite meeting of experts in 2015 as a follow-up to the Conference conclusions.

The following guidelines as agreed by the Experts are meant to provide non-binding practical orientation to Governments and social partners with some specific options on how to formulate, implement and monitor the policy framework, in accordance with national circumstances and priorities. The guidelines are anchored in the vision, opportunities and challenges, guiding principles and the type of policies to implement, as contained in the conclusions.

The guidelines also incorporate the International Labour Standards listed in the appendix to the conclusions across policy areas. The following text reproduces verbatim parts of the text of the conclusions which provide the basis for the present policy guidelines. These parts include the vision, the opportunities and challenges identified, as well as guiding principles.

It also reproduces the introduction to the key policy areas and institutional arrangements framework and the paragraph concerning rights. The latter includes a reference to the appendix of the conclusions with some international labour standards and resolutions that may be relevant to the just transition framework.

Read the report (English PDF). (Link Only)

By Sydney Baldwin, Ryanne Waters and Katherine Cirullo - Food and Water Watch, August 28, 2014

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’s.

Is there a salary worth risking your health or even your life? Big Oil and Gas might think so, but the ex-industry workers with whom we spoke aren’t so convinced.

Today, Food & Water Watch released Toxic Workplace: Fracking Hazards on the Job, a research brief that exposes the dangers of working in the fracking industry. Subject to long hours on the job, sloppy safety regulations and reporting, lack of injury compensation and close contact with hazardous chemicals, former industry laborers agree that the fracking workplace is a toxic one. As we reflect on the social and economic successes of the labor movement over this holiday weekend, it becomes more evident that the fracking industry may have missed the memo.

The practice of hydraulic fracturing involves drilling down to a targeted rock formation and injecting large volumes of water, sand and toxic chemicals at extreme pressure to create fractures in the rock and release tightly held oil and gas. The chemicals used in the fracking process can cause cancer and damage the nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems and upset the endocrine system.

At the site, workers can be exposed to volatile organic compounds, including benzene and toluene, as well as fugitive methane, which are often released during fracking and can mix with nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel-fueled vehicles and stationary equipment to form ground-level ozone. Workers can also be exposed to silica sand, which is often used in the fracking process, and is a known human carcinogen. Long term exposure to silica, a component that makes up as much as 99 percent of frac sand, increases the likelihood of developing silicosis, which damages lung tissue and inhibits lungs function. Breathing it can make a person more susceptible to tuberculosis and is also associated with autoimmune disorders and kidney disease.

By Joe Romm - Think Progress, September 1, 2014

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’s.

Global warming is projected to have a serious negative impact on labor productivity this century. Here is a look at what we know.

In 2013, a NOAA study projected that “heat-stress related labor capacity losses will double globally by 2050 with a warming climate.” If we stay near our current greenhouse gas emissions pathway, then we face a potential 50 percent drop in labor capacity in peak months by century’s end.

Many recent studies project a collapse in labor productivity from business-as-usual carbon emissions and warming, with a cost to society that may well exceed that of all other costs of climate change combined. And, as one expert reviewing recent studies put it, “national output in several [non-agricultural] industries seemed to decline with temperature in a nonlinear way, declining more rapidly at very high daily temperatures.”

By Jonathan Neale - European Transport Workers Federation (ETF), October 2011

This is a report for the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) on the implications of climate change for transport workers and their unions. This report tries to do four things:

• Start the debate on climate change.
• Prepare unions to act on climate change, not only react to the agendas of employers and governments.
• Offer realistic transport solutions that meet the needs of transport workers and all humanity.
• Propose ideas for what transport unions can do next.

This report is part of a process that began with a report by the ETF on Trade Union Vision and Sustainable Transport. In 2011, this was followed by a report for the International Transport Federation. Unions write many reports to explain our case to governments and the media. This report is not like that. This one is for union members and leaders. Climate change is new, and union activists need to understand it ourselves. So this report tries to explain
complex scientific, technical and political matters in clear language.

Read the report (PDF).