United Kingdom (UK)

By Tahir Latif Secretary, Greener Jobs Alliance - Greener Jobs Alliance, June 23, 2022

The industrial action currently being taken by the RMT is a source of hope and inspiration for workers across the country. But it is also action aimed at a more sustainable transport system that works for people and planet. The Greener Jobs Alliance fully endorses the statement set out here, produced by the Climate Justice Coalition.

“The Climate Justice Coalition stands in solidarity with RMT members taking industrial action to protect their pay, jobs and working conditions, and the wider fight to protect a public transport system for people – social need – not private greed. Billions are being cut from our transport system at a time when we should be increasing investment to ensure a fully public, affordable, and integrated transport system. Rail is critical to decarbonising the transport sector; £27 billion for more new roads and cutting duty on domestic aviation is the wrong way round.

Our railways are already being impacted by the effects of climate change, putting additional demands on a stretched workforce providing an essential public service. This action by the Government is symptomatic of their disregard for the concerns of climate, environment and workers.

As a coalition representing groups within climate and environmental campaigns, faith, race and social justice groups, and trade unions, we call on you all to support this struggle. This includes adding our voices to resist the anti-trade union and worker narrative being driven by the Government in the mainstream media and publicise that it is their inaction and behaviour that is detrimental to people, not workers seeking justice.

Inaction on climate change is harming innocent people across the globe. Protecting the rights of workers and living standards must be a priority for the climate justice movement in fighting for a Just Transition to a zero-carbon economy.

We stand with the RMT to fight for their aims, and to campaign for a better deal for workers and a fairer, climate just, society.”

By Zoë Garbett - Bright Green, June 17, 2022

I was recently elected as a Green Party Councillor for Dalston. One of the first things I did in this new role, just over a week after the election (14 May), was respond to a call to help couriers in my ward in response to police presence. That evening, the police attended Ashwin Street to conduct “Operation Vespa” using vehicle checks to conduct immigration raids, which led to a clash between the police and the community – a community which responded to a call to protect delivery riders. You can read more about the events of that evening in this article and in a statement I made the next day.

This act of solidarity didn’t come from nowhere. There has been a strengthening of community response around the delivery drivers in Hackney over the years which the Hackney Green Party has played an active role in.

The Hackney Green Party has been supporting the local riders and working with their union (Independent Workers of Great Britain, IWGB) for years. The heart of Dalston, in and around Kingsland High Street, is packed with restaurants and, with the rise of home delivery apps, riders park in Ashwin Street to pick up food or to have a break.

IWGB have been holding stalls in Ashwin Street to chat to riders about what they need and encourage people to join the union since around 2017. Green Party members in Dalston have got to know riders from regularly walking through Ashwin Street and by speaking to the Union about how the Party could help. In 2019, the Dalston Green Party Newsletter, going to around 4000 homes, included four tear-off slips for residents to give to couriers when they came to their door with a delivery. The slips, two in English and two in Portuguese (the most commonly spoken language of the Ashwin Street couriers), promoted the union and had a QR code to take them to a page about joining the union. This received a great response from couriers. Local Green Party members also handed out the slips in Ashwin Street, the couriers were cautious at first – as they experience a high level of abuse and people trying to order from them on the street, but regularly attending and identifying couriers in the union to translate and promote was really successful.

By staff - IndustriALL, June 16, 2022

On 7 June, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), LO Norway and IndustriALL held a second workshop on wind technology as part of the Just Transition and the energy sector initiative. The initiative provides a platform for unions around the world to exchange information on energy transition technologies and the jobs, skills, markets, investments, and emissions related to them.

Workers want good jobs and just transition in the energy sector. This workshop looked at offshore and onshore wind technology, which employers and government see as a potential pathway for oil and gas companies to diversify their assets and bring down emissions. The information is not always easy to get but unions want to see how many jobs there are, when they will come, what kind of jobs they will be, what kinds of skills workers will need for these jobs, and the transition that workers will be faced with.

To get a better view of what the future holds, participants looked at the value chains of oil and gas, and onshore and offshore wind, breaking both value chains down to production, processing, distribution, and end-use (upstream, midstream, downstream).