‘When temperatures rise, workers do too!’ How labour movements are responding to climate change and emerging environmental hazards

Session Submission Type: Invited Session (90 minute)

Description

What role are contemporary trade unions playing in building an economy that provides good jobs and a healthy environment?

Social movement scholars have theorized that because trade unions can legitimately claim to represent working-class interests, they are the most potent vehicle to compel government and industry to meaningfully respond to the climate crisis. Unlike mainstream environmental groups, trade unions are designed in principle with democratic channels for workers to voice their concerns, contribute to broader policy change, and significantly disrupt the status quo through actions such as general strikes. Yet significant barriers exist to this equation, including declining unionization rates, political polarization, the legal repression of labour militancy, and longstanding tensions between environmentalists and workers in extractive industries.
In this thematic session, we present emerging research on how workers and their institutions (including trade unions and ‘alt-labour’ groups) are responding to environmental threats such as climate change, extreme heat, and toxic exposures.

What social movement tactics have workers across the world drawn upon to confront environmental hazards in the workplace and beyond? How have they addressed barriers to solidarity, including limited class consciousness and the politicization of differences across race, gender, ethnicity, and immigration status?

We anticipate that this session will advance innovative empirical and theoretical contributions on the intersection of efforts to address workers’ material needs on a changing planet.

Sub Unit

• Special Session

Presider

• Anelyse Weiler, University of Victoria

Individual Presentations

• When identity and material needs clash: extreme weather as a site of labour solidarity - Angeline Letourneau, Colorado School of Mines

• Death as a driver of structural change: How social movements have won extreme heat protections for workers - Anelyse Weiler, University of Victoria

• 'Even if I won the lottery, I'd still work in solar': Why green jobs appeal to workers who are not passionate environmentalists - Jen Kostuchuk, University of Victoria

• Imaginaries of Change: Media Framing of Workers, the Environment, and Energy Transition in the Canadian Petroleum Industry - Kristen Bass, University of Toronto

Session Organizers

• Angeline Letourneau, Colorado School of Mines

• Anelyse Weiler, University of Victoria