Working for Climate Justice: trade unions in the front line against climate change

About the event

The Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice is collaborating with the Institute of Employment Rights to organise a conference on ‘green bargaining’ strategies that will bring together trade union organisers, academics and campaigners. The starting point for this conference is that the trade unions must develop a collective bargaining approach to climate change and environmental degradation; climate and environmental issues cannot be understood as an ‘add-on’ to traditional bargaining agendas, but rather must be understood as fundamental to these aims. The trade union movement has been generally slow to accept the need for a bargaining approach to the greening of the economy and the aim of the conference is to discuss how the British trade union movement can play a leading role in workplace struggles for climate justice.

Registration will take place from 9:30am. The event will start at 10:00am.

Speakers

Linda Clarke, Professor of European Industrial Relations, University of Westminster

Zak Coleman, Students Organizing for Sustainability UK

Ben Crawford, University of Liverpool

Rosemary Harris, Platform

Wolfgang Kuchler, Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group

Sam Mason, PCS

Chris McLachlan, Queen Mary University of London

Jake Molloy, RMT

John Moloney, PCS

Georgia Montague-Nelson, Co-Director, Global Labour Institute

Tonia Novitz, Professor of Labour Law, University of Bristol

Declan Owens, Greener Jobs Alliance

Janet Newsham , Hazards and Trade Union Clean Air Network (TUCAN)

Sam Perry, Green Bargaining Officer for Yorkshire and the Humber TUC

Marie Petersmann, London School of Economics

Marianne Quick, UCU

Chris Saltmarsh, Labour for a Green New Deal

UNITE speaker (tbc)

Hilary Wainwright, Red Pepper

Andrew Watterson, University of Stirling

David Whyte, Queen Mary University London

Sarah Woolley, General Secretary, BFAWU

The conference is supported by UCU, BFAWU, PCS, the Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust and by QMUL UCU branch.