just transition

By staff - Trade Unions Energy Democracy, July 28, 2017

In recent months a number of key unions representing workers in energy and transportation have joined TUED.

At its 5th Congress on May 22nd in Barcelona, the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) Executive Committee voted to join TUED. According to ETF’s General Secretary, Eduardo Chagas,

“TUED takes the same approach to energy as did the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) at its World Congress in 2010.  I was on the climate change committee that helped develop the ‘Reduce, Shift, Improve’ approach to fighting transport-related emissions and pollution. But without controlling the energy sector, it will be impossible to make transport truly low-carbon, healthy, and sustainable. ETF’s joining TUED affirms the ITF’s ‘economy wide approach’ to climate-related concerns.”

The ETF represents more than 3.5 million transport workers from more than 230 transport unions and 41 European countries, in the following sectors: railways, road transport and logistics, maritime transport, inland waterways, civil aviation, ports & docks, tourism and fisheries.

In the US energy sector, Local 11 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) joined TUED in late May 2017.  The Los Angeles based local represents 12,000 workers in the Electrical Construction Industry.

Local 11 sees itself as part of a broader movement  for “social justice, safe jobsites, training, green jobs and opportunity for all.” The IBEW represents more than 700,000 workers, and seeks to organize all workers in the entire electrical industry in the United States and Canada, including all those in public utilities and electrical manufacturing, into local unions. Local 11’s Business Manager Marvin Kropke said the local union’s decision to join TUED came after the 2-day leadership retreat organized by TUED at Local 3 IBEW’s Education and Cultural Center in Long Island. “Local 11 is progressive on energy issues, and the local has been pushing solar by way of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) in the Los Angeles area,” said Kropke. We are doing what we can, but we wanted to connect with others in progressive labor in the US and internationally.”

From Norway, the 37,000 member Electricians and IT workers union EL og IT Forbundet  also joined TUED and sent two national officers to TUED’s first Europe-wide meeting in Geneva in June (report to follow).

The union represents electricians, workers in telecommunications, electrical engineering, hydroelectric power and IT.  According to the union’s president, Jan Olav Andersen:

“Norway’s power system is mainly generated by large hydroelectric dams. Norway both exports and imports power, and there is increasing interdependence between European countries in regards to power exchange. Norway’s export capacity of green hydro-electric power is increasing and can be important in the transition to a less fossil-based energy dependence in Europe. But we follow closely the export of Norwegian hydroelectric power and the increasing centralization following the Commission’s energy packages. The latter can challenge the national sovereignty over the hydro-electric power. This sovereignty has played a crucial role in Norway’s use of national resources in building a green industry for over a century. Another important issue for our union is the Arctic exploration for oil, which can undermine the work for a greener world. We joined TUED in order to be better connected to the Europe-wide and international debates on the future of energy and a just transition to clean energy.”

By staff - Trade Unions For Energy Democracy, April 23, 2017

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) has been born. We have passed a milestone in the history of the South African trade union movement at this Launching Congress held in Boksburg from 21-23 April 2017.

700,000 workers represented by 1,384 voting delegates from 24 unions and other non-voting unions have taken the first decisive step to building a new, vibrant, independent, and democratic workers’ federation, leading the struggle against exploitation, mass unemployment, poverty, inequality and corruption and taking up the struggle for the total emancipation of the working class from the chains of its capitalist oppressors.

Delegates formally adopted the name, logo and colours of red, black and gold. A constitution was adopted and a Report from the Steering Committee which  spelt out the way forward for the coming period, and endorsed the principles adopted by the Workers Summit on 30 April 2016.

We are building a fundamentally different type of workers’ organisation – independent of political parties and employers but not apolitical, democratic, worker-controlled, militant, socialist-orientated, internationalist, Pan Africanist from a Marxist perspective and inspired by the principles of Marxism-Leninism. 

Our historic mission is to rapidly build a united mass force of workers, which will transform their lives and pave the way for the transformation of society as a whole from one based on the greed of a rapacious capitalist elite to one run for the benefit of the working class and all the people of South Africa and the world.

But time is not on our side. Unless we urgently mobilize our forces to confront the quadruple challenge of unemployment, poverty, inequality and corruption and revive the trade union movement, turn the tide and fight back against their appalling conditions of life, we shall slide into a new age of barbarism, and even worse exploitation of the working class and the poor. 

By Sean Sweeney and John Treat - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, June 2, 2017

Discussion document submitted to Labor for Our Revolution (LFOR):

This memorandum proposes an analysis and provisional framework around which to construct an ambitious and effective agenda for progressive labor to respond to the converging environmental crises, and to pursue a rapid, inclusive approach to energy transition and social justice.

Such an agenda could serve to bring a much-needed independent union voice to policy and programmatic debates on climate change and energy within Our Revolution spaces and processes. Labor’s voice in these debates frequently echoes the large energy companies on one side, or the large mainstream environmental NGOs on the other.

Unions that supported Bernie, alongside other union locals and individual leaders and activists who participate in Labor for Our Revolution (LFOR), understand that we cannot afford to regard environmental issues and climate change as peripheral concerns situated outside of labor’s “core agenda.” This is not the place to review the science, but recent assessments from climate scientists, already sobering, have become increasingly grave. The health impacts of rising airborne pollution and warming temperatures already cut short the lives of millions on an annual basis, and will increasingly do so without a major change in direction.

Importantly, a global movement has emerged that today challenges the destructive trajectory of “business as usual.” This is a movement that progressive labor in the US can work with and should support.

Progressive labor can and should articulate a clear alternative to the anti-scientific, “energy superpower” agenda being advanced by Trump—an alternative that can help build and strengthen alliances with the climate and environmental justice movements. Progressive unions are already involved in Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) and / or Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED); both LNS and TUED bring significant experience and capacity, and can serve as platforms for expanded and accelerated collaboration and programmatic work.

Many would agree that progressive labor’s approach must be science-based and internationalist. It must aspire to be socially and economically transformative, and must be able simultaneously to inspire and mobilize union members, and provide a basis for durable, effective alliances with other social movements. This, then, is our starting point.

At the same time, progressive labor’s approach must recognize that incremental efforts to “move the needle” are no longer sufficient. For this reason, such an approach must also be built around clear programmatic commitments that are evidence-based, grounded in a realistic assessment of the urgency, and commensurate to the task.

By Sean Sweeney - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, May 12, 2016

By Naomi Klein, September 3, 2013. Source: Naomi Klein

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.

Naomi delivered the following speech on September 1, 2013 at the founding convention of UNIFOR, a new mega union created by the Canadian Autoworkers and the Canadian Energy and Paper Workers Union.

I’m so very happy and honoured to be able to share this historic day with you.

The energy in this room – and the hope the founding of this new union has inspired across the country – is contagious.

It feels like this could be the beginning of the fight back we have all been waiting for, the one that will chase Harper from power and restore the power of working people in Canada.

So welcome to the world UNIFOR.

A lot of your media coverage so far has focused on how big UNIFOR is – the biggest private sector union in Canada. And when you are facing as many attacks as workers are in this country, being big can be very helpful. But big is not a victory in itself.

The victory comes when this giant platform you have just created becomes a place to think big, to dream big, to make big demands and take big actions. The kind of actions that will shift the public imagination and change our sense of what is possible.

And it’s that kind of “big” that I want to talk to you about today.