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TUC supports push for one million green jobs

This bit of good news comes from the Morning Star. TUC delegates have set out a working-class agenda to tackle the dual scourge of unemployment and climate change by investing in high-quality green jobs. Congress threw its weight behind the One Million Green Jobs campaign already supported by a range of unions including the CWU,…

Liam
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This bit of good news comes from the Morning Star.

imageTUC delegates have set out a working-class agenda to tackle the dual scourge of unemployment and climate change by investing in high-quality green jobs.

Congress threw its weight behind the One Million Green Jobs campaign already supported by a range of unions including the CWU, RMT, TSSA, NUT and UCU as well as the Vestas workers and several NGOs.

The campaign, launched last year, details how a million public-sector jobs can be created through investment in green manufacturing, energy-efficient house-building and a fully integrated public transport system.

By putting sustainability and the planet’s health before profits Britain could grow its way out of the economic crisis without punishing the poor, delegates argued.

CWU delegate Tony Kearns said that the ambitious goals outlined in the campaign pamphlet were not a "flight of fancy" but could be achieved if Britain was serious about tackling rising unemployment and led the fight against climate change.

"These are jobs that actually need doing today – investing in alternative energy, building homes, reopening rail networks and developing safe cycle lanes," he told delegates in Manchester.

PCS delegate Adam Khalif said that his union planned to create a network of green branch reps to encourage activism among members.

"We must build on the magnificent Vestas workers’ struggle and start a debate about how we can defend members’ jobs and conditions while protecting the planet we live in," he urged.

"The fight for jobs is the same fight against climate change."

The government was accused of failing to address the pressing issue by delaying key decisions that would ensure "a secure and balanced" low-carbon economy for Britain.

Prospect delegate Sue Ferns, who moved the unanimously passed motion on climate change, said: "We can’t simply rely on the market to cut CO2 emissions."

National Union of Mineworkers vice-president Nicky Wilson moved a motion on green coal.

He called for immediate plans to replace coal-fired power stations with new carbon capture and storage plants.

"It is a scandal that Britain, despite capability of being self-sufficient, imports 60 per cent of its coal consumption," he said.

"With the right technology and investment, Britain’s coal can be the most efficient, productive and safe industry in the world – and the greenest."

14 responses to “TUC supports push for one million green jobs”

  1. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    “With the right technology and investment, Britain’s coal can be the most efficient, productive and safe industry in the world – and the greenest.”

    Do you go along with this?

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  2. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    No. The carbon capture technology is untested and the idea of “green coal” is very controversial among trade unionists who are not in the NUM. Coal is carbon stored in the ground and that’s the best place for it.

    However the motion shows that the idea of large scale creation of environmentally sustainable jobs is now becoming mainstream.

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  3. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    Two different motions. Did the ‘green coal’ motion pass or fall?

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  4. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    i still think there’s a huge problem with the 1million green jobs demand. it’s premised on the idea that we can build our way out of carbon emissions, and doesn’t bring in the long standing criticisms of ‘green capitalism’, etc. http://climateactioncafe.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/20-theses-against-green-capitalism/

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  5. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    Richard, I think that’s mistaken. A million green jobs would reduce carbon emissions, and reduce unemployment. That’s progressive but not enough to save the planet by itself. In fact, there’s no single action which will save the planet. It will take the combination of numerous progressive actions.It’s thus ineffective to criticise a progressive solution because it’s not a complete solution. No-one argues that a million green jobs will stop carbon emmissions. The premise behind a million green jobs is that it’s part of the solution, not that it is the solution in itself. No is the value of a million green jobs reduced by the fact that people who raise the demand are not all supporters of the theses you pose. The task of ecosocialists is to build broader unity to make change, not just to make political critique. If’s actually progressive if people without a comprehensive socialist outlook can agree with us on some of our demands.

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  6. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    A million green jobs!!! Wow. When do we start? What do we do? Who is going to provide them?

    A socialist policy should reject this demagoguery. A carbon neutral, sustainable economy requires the overturn of capitalism first and foremost. Creating a million `green’ jobs under capitalism is bogus keynesiamism. A transitional policy is about mobilisation, not promises made on behalf of others, its about stopping treating the class like some kind of bovine audience, some stupid subs paying cash cow. This is not even a policy that creates good propaganda in regard of environmentalism. It simply creates complacency and alienation.

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  7. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    Hi David,

    You can download the million green jobs pamphlet from the PCS here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/resources/green_workplaces/green_campaigns/one-million-climate-jobs-now.cfm It explains the need for a mass mobilisation led by the unions to build political campaigns, support industrial action, national demonstrations and workplace occupations. These are forms of mobilisation.

    I don’t think you’re against the struggle for other reforms, are you? Here’s a comparison: Elimninating inequality requires the overturn of capitalism. However, welfare rights help to reduce inequality. We can campaign for the NHS, for pensions and benefits without contraducting the struggle for socialism. In the same way, we can also campaign for climate action today.

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  8. Alf Avatar
    Alf

    David ,green jobs is not demagoguery, it is identifying a way forward that links the fight against unemployment and the issues regarding the environmental together in raising alternative solutions. It also links two key movements together and directs them to campaign together in the interests of the working class and the planet.

    Yes let us call now for the end of Capitalism. Great. However how are you to mobilise? How are you going to link the forces together to achieve this?

    It is only Keynsian if you suggest that such a campaign is limited to reforming capitalism and accepting a few concessions only. Yet if this captures peoples’ imagination, enables them to identify solutions which go beyond narrow syndicalist approaches and takes on a global perspective, then it opens doors to questioning if the solution is possible under the present economic system.

    We know it isnt, now we have to win people over to that point and provide arguements which mobilises the movement.. Or are you saying that all these issues will be sorted out simply after the revolution left to the central cttee to deal with as an agenda item?

    Alienation is when people feel helpless and seperated out from being able to take control of their own environment. In fighting for jobs and the planet, challenging the status quo and mobilising for an alternative is neither complacency or alienating.

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  9. shug Avatar
    shug

    Alf,if i can offer a example in defence of David,mind you he may not like that.Anyway,some months ago where i reside the government, right as right can be had decided to mine certain protected areas for the mineral wealth,most mines would have been open cast.So the Greens, who like all green political parties are ridiculed, not only by their political opponents,but also by the public,for various reasons,got on their high horse and rightly so.The outcome was a demonstration of some 35 thousand,and the government backed down in part to their proposals,great result.

    At the same time the Government, are introducing further draconian employment legislation,the unions representatives have been crying foul,and have staged protest,sadly the turn out was 2 thousand.

    What im getting at here, is that the government mining legislation in some areas, would have impacted on some very affluent secluded areas were the property values would have depreciated.The Greens had some very influential speakers at their protest, mainly of the thespian type.Talking about the irreversible scaring to the scenery the beauty of the land that we, our children and gran-children enjoy,and also the damage to tourists, and so forth.Yet not fronting for those workers who if this proposed legislation is passed, will not be able to afford as their children and gran-children ever to enjoy.

    David, is correct as are the Greens, our planet as we are all aware is fucked without intervention in the profit system that exploits it.But as David, says, we have to dump the means that does create the scaring the profit and self interest.

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  10. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    `David ,green jobs is not demagoguery…’

    No but a million green jobs is especially when baldly and crudely stated. In any case nothing less than `full employment’ and a serious struggle for a carbon neutral economy are worthy of being considered serious demands whether full employment it to be achieved by creating `green jobs’, and we should say how the investment will be found and what the jobs will be, or by sharing the available productive work. None of this kind be achieved without the consolidation and nationalisation of the banks and the socialisation of the property of monopoly capital and we must say that.

    Alf, maybe its time for the USFI to dig out its founding document The Transitional Program and have a discussion about it.

    `Yes let us call now for the end of Capitalism. Great.’

    Socialists that don’t mention socialism are not much point.

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  11. shug Avatar
    shug

    Cyber revolution.At times you want to cry,you know that age tempers the knowing,but still the horror to change is still the same.Who are we going to point this at.

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  12. Alf Avatar
    Alf

    ok so I call for the end of capitalism, for a socialist revolution, for the transitional programme. Now what?
    Or perhaps it is for us to translate it so that it can relate to working people and the oppressed so we can help arm them to liberate themselves.
    so now yes 1 million green jobs enables us to open up a dialogue and draw the links between the struggle for eco-socialism, defending jobs, mobilising against cuts and raising issues which have an anti-capitalist dynamic.
    Or do we stand in empty rooms talking to ourselves, or as before arguing against each other and getting nowhere whilst people ask for answers. Socialism is not a religion.

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  13. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    David, I know and respect a lot of what you’re written in the past. I cannot think that you seriously think that “nothing less than `full employment’ and a serious struggle for a carbon neutral economy are worthy of being considered serious demands”. I am sure you supported the Vestas struggle, even if that aimed for just one factory to remain open.

    Read again the booklet on the PCS website )and, indeed,, the Respect manifesto from 2005). It’s very radical, calling for grass roots mobilisation to force a switch in resources from the needs of profit to the needs of society.

    If there’s only a maximum programme, with no support for struggles on the demands that working people and their organisations are current raising, then socialism becomes the messanaic work of the SPGB rather than a living movement.

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  14. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    Duncan: Couldn’t agree with you more and I’m all for that approach but 1 million green jobs is neither a maximum nor a transitional demand. It is not even a reformist demand. It is asking capitalism for something and creating the illusion that it can or will provide it. Where is the investment money coming from, what will the jobs be, are they one-off annual contracts or permanent? In the current climate that is mere demagoguery. Why not two million or three? It’s a kind of disarming pacifism designed to lull us all to sleep but perhaps as you say we can use it as a launch pad for a different point of departure and not uncritically embrace it. To `open up a dialogue’ as Alf says.

    A reformist demand we could support would be the consolidation and nationalisation of all the banks so that investment can be directed towards the creation of a sustainable, carbon neutral economy with full employment. A transitional demand re jobs might be that the available productive work be shared to prevent the division of the employed and unemployed i.e. the immediate use of the unemployed to undermine wages and unions or create social breakdown or of the employed to isolate and demonise the unemployed. Another transitional demand might be work place committees covering all workers in an enterprise or state department or hospital or school that expresses the interest of all the workers employed in it over and above those of the shareholder or state imposed managements or the government. Another is community based anti-cuts committees encompassing all community interests to fight the Coalition. Occupations, strikes (the Vestas dispute was very important) and so on. These are mobilising demands and more must be developed and fleshed out. They are aimed at the formation of alternative governmental centers that pose the question of power and which can in due course realise the maximum demands of socialism achieved by the working class itself. Demands that culminate in the dispropriation of monopoly capitalism and the socialisation of its property, the same monopoly capitalism whose program the coalition is enacting, under workers control protected by a workers state.

    Look, I’ll agree with you and Alf, and I certainly don’t want to come over all sectarian, that it is good that the trade unions are at least talking green and we can use that but we need more than anything, as you say, the three Ms. Mobilisation, mobilisation, mobilisation and that requires transitional demands.

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