ILPC 2027

 The role of education and training in climate/environmental literacy for the future of work in a climate-changing world, is of enormous latent importance, but a late entry in the debate about union and state response to climate change. It would not be an exaggeration to say that providing environmental literacy for the workforce as a whole would help to dissolve worker opposition in some key sectors to greening their work.

Fundamentally, greening work--adapting work to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions--is a labour process issue. Given the reality of the climate revolution, how we work, where we work, who gets the jobs,how industries and services transition their products and labour processes to lower-carbon production, have been surprisingly underdeveloped issues. Equally surprising is the slow spread of environmental literacy within labour unions, and the slow growth of a sense of urgency among them as well.

This paper draws on research on Canada with input from Australia, the US and the UK. The paper draws as well on two new international databases--on Green Training, and Green Collective Bargaining Initiatives.

The questions the paper explores are:

1. What role does/can climate/environmental literacy for workers play in green transitions for key industries and professions?

2.How do industrial and service unions see the role of environmental literacy in the union mandate?

3.How do key professions see their role in educating for environmental literacy?

4. Obstacles and incentives

The paper is part of the research  programme  " Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change: Canada in International Perspectives" (ACW), a 7 year research project co-governed with Canadian unions. ACW's research focuses on  labour leadership in low-carbon transitions. The paper therefore fits well into Stream I: A Volatile Political Economy: Work, Climate Change and Labour: Labour Process Perspectives.