Engaging the environment

Occupational health and safety (OHS) has been central to labour since the 19^th century (Gottlieb Reference Gottlieb2005; Sellers and Melling Reference Sellers and Melling2011; Turk Reference Turk2018). As Gereluk and Royer (Reference Gereluk and Royer2001, 3) argued, trade union achievements in the field of health and safety demonstrate how ‘the fight for sustainable forms of production has been central to workers’ historical struggles against unjust conditions of work and community life’. However, labour environmentalists have long also engaged in environmental politics other than OHS. They have often been pioneers in protecting nature and fighting against contaminations of their communities, as environmental historians are showing (Barca Reference Barca2012; Becot Reference Becot2015; Brown and Klubock Reference Brown and Klubock2014; Dewey Reference Dewey1998; Gordon Reference Gordon2004; Loomis Reference Loomis, Räthzel, Stevis and David Uzzell2021; Montrie Reference Montrie2018). In short, they have contributed to the growth of social environmentalism.

As Dewey (Reference Dewey1998) notes with respect to US environmentalism, until the 1980s, ‘Many workers viewed environmentalists as elitist and aloof, as “extremists” who were callously indifferent to the economic growth and job opportunities essential to the well-being of ordinary working people’ (Dewey Reference Dewey1998, 45). This perception of antagonism, mistrust, and hostility was shared with others, including the public, politicians, and the media. Dewey and other US environmental historians (e.g. Gordon Reference Gordon2004; Loomis Reference Loomis, Räthzel, Stevis and David Uzzell2021; Van Alstyne Reference Van Alstyne2015; White Reference White and Cronon1996) argue that organised labour has supported environmental initiatives since at least the 1940s, and their collaboration was one reason for the rise of a more socially oriented environmental movement in the 1960s (see also Gottlieb Reference Gottlieb2005; Hultgren Reference Hultgren2025; Rome Reference Rome2003).

Economic crises and the reemergence of neoliberalism, starting with the USA, made workers susceptible to job blackmail by employers if they supported environmental regulations. This was particularly the case for workers in manufacturing industries (Kazis and Grossman Reference Kazis and Grossman1991[1982]). These same forces also shifted the balance within the environmental movement, giving more prominence to insider strategies such as lawsuits and lobbying, and less to political mobilisations (Loomis Reference Loomis, Räthzel, Stevis and David Uzzell2021, 128; also Gottlieb Reference Gottlieb2005).

During the late 1980s and early 1990s the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW) in the USA developed a full-scale ecosocial platform (Leopold Reference Leopold2007; OCAW 1991) that included the explicit Footnote ² strategy of just transition from chemicals and dangerous and polluting energy sources. As decarbonisation grew in significance, the resistance of fossil energy unions – as well as opposition to the democratic socialist approach of the OCAW – led to the defeat of the just transition strategy in the USA (Stevis Reference Stevis2021). Despite its ambition, the just transition strategy also contributed to the hegemony of ‘job blackmail’.Footnote ³

US labour environmentalism is not unique. During the early 1970s, Australian unions came out against a uranium mine and against building in natural areas. The New South Wales Builders Labourers’ Federation did not simply oppose new construction but called upon its members to refuse to work on projects deemed environmentally and socially harmful. The union challenged developers over what ought to be built and where. This series of actions, known as the Green Ban movement, advocated for socially and environmentally sound projects (Burgmann and Burgmann Reference Burgmann and Burgmann1998).

In 1972, IG Metall, the world’s largest single-sector union, organised a conference entitled ‘Quality of Life’, signalling its intention to go beyond the improvement of working conditions. This initiative was partly inspired by the debates around the environment emerging from the Club of Rome and the Stockholm Conference (Siegmann Reference Siegmann1985). This approach sought to reconcile the protection of work with the protection of the environment, questioning the need for growing production and consumption (Eppler Reference Eppler1972). These early insights were recently resuscitated in a conference commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the original one. However, these insights were not integrated into the climate policies of the union. Providing another example, in 1990, the German Union for Chemicals created the Foundation for Work and Environment (Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau, Chemie und Energie 2020), which dealt predominantly with problems of waste and the circular economy, an issue of continuing relevance (Guillibert et al Reference Guillibert, Barca and Leonardi2023).

An iconic example of labour environmentalism took place in the UK during the mid-1970s (and again in the early 1980s), in response to the closure of the Lucas Combine, within Lucas Aerospace, a manufacturer of military equipment (Cooley Reference Cooley1987; Wainwright and Elliott Reference Wainwright and Elliott1982). Rather than accepting the decision passively or going on strike, blue- and white-collar workers pooled their skills to propose alternative, ‘socially useful’ products that could be made with the tools and skills existing in the company. These included a number of products designed to combat climate change, such as heat pumps, solar cell technology, wind turbines, and fuel cell technology. The Lucas workers demonstrated that giving workers a voice in production processes can make them socially and environmentally just, making the plan a valuable model even today.

In 1991, Joaquín Nieto of the Spanish Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) became the first European trade union leader with an environmental portfolio. Nieto argued that the climate crisis was a trade union issue (Räthzel Reference Räthzel, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021; Trade Union Confederation of Comisiones Obreras 2006). The CCOOs have played a central role in the promotion of a robust version of labour environmentalism ever since.

It is tempting to conclude that labour environmentalism is exclusively a product of the North, but that is not the case – even though it is fair to say that Northern views often obscure the wealth of Southern views (Rodriguez et al Reference Rodriguez-Pose and Bartalucci2024; Satgar Reference Satgar2018; Sikwebu and Aroun Reference Sikwebu and Aroun2025; Trade Union Confederation of the Americas 2020). Liberation theology, especially the work of Leonardo Boff, influenced Latin American social activists during the 1960s and 1970s and continues to do so today (Boff Reference Boff1997; Reference Boff2015). Boff emphasised an understanding of the plundering of the earth and the creation of poverty as one and the same process. The Rubber Tappers’ Union in Brazil is another important example of trade union environmentalism. This union was cofounded by Chico Mendes in 1975, who described his journey from local to global environmentalism: ‘At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity’. This ecosocial approach continues to influence unions today (Anigstein and Wyczykier Reference Anigstein and Wyczykier2019; Barca and Milanez Reference Barca, Milanez, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021; Leandro et al Reference Leandro, Trópia, Räthzel, Räthzel, Stevis and David Uzzell2021).

Just transition as climate politics: Narrowing while deepening

During the 1990s and early 2000s, global unions and labour environmentalists became more involved in global fora, especially in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (Alberta Union of Provincial Employees 2009; Gereluk and Royer Reference Gereluk and Royer2001; Silverman Reference Silverman2004; Reference Silverman2006). Unsurprisingly, the primary focus was sustainable development, although occupational health and safety were also key concerns.

However, an important shift towards a broader approach to environmental politics and more attention to climate change was taking root – a shift for which the CCOO played a central role (Sustainlabour and UNEP 2008). This shift grew after the first global trade union conference on the climate crisis in Nairobi in 2006 (UNEP 2007) and continued with the more prominent presence of labour in the United Nations environmental decision-making body, the COPs (Conference of the Parties), starting in 2007 (Rosemberg Reference Rosemberg, Räthzel and Uzzell2013; Reference Rosemberg, Morena, Krause and Stevis2020; Stevis Reference Stevis2021; Thomas Reference Thomas2021). Despite differences and disappointments, such as the failure of the COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009, the labour environmentalists associated with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) were able to organise a steady presence of workers at the subsequent COPs (Rosemberg Reference Rosemberg, Räthzel and Uzzell2013).

It is during these years that the just transition strategy reemerged and became the central union strategy with respect to climate change and decarbonisation (Felli Reference Felli2014; Hampton Reference Hampton2016; Morena Reference Morena, Duyck, Jodoin and Alyssa Johl2018; Rosemberg Reference Rosemberg, Morena, Krause and Stevis2020; Stevis Reference Stevis2021; Stevis and Felli Reference Stevis and Felli2015). The just transition strategy refers to the idea that environmental transitions should not take place at the expense of workers and communities working in and dependent on sunsetting industries. Since 2015, when the term was included in the Preamble to the Paris Agreement and the ILO published its just transition guidelines, the strategy has proliferated (e.g. JTRC 2018; Laurent Reference Laurent2024; Morena et al Reference Morena, Krause and Stevis2020; Stark et al Reference Stark, Gale and Murphy-Gregory2022; Stevis 2023; Reference Stevis, Bell, Foster and Satheesh2026; Wang and Lo Reference Wang and Lo2021) with an important thread dealing largely with energy rather than labour environmentalism (e.g., Heffron Reference Heffron2021; McCauley et al Reference McCauley, Field and Todd2024).

In what follows, we discuss a vision of labour environmentalism and just transitions that not only recognises the existential impacts of climate change and the need for decarbonisation but also proposes a more inclusive and ecosocial just transition strategy. We take seriously the argument that adding sectors and workers will complicate the task of a just transition. But, in our view, a more inclusive just transition is better suited to unite workers and communities, compared to a just transition strategy that is limited to particular transitions and particular workers. To exclude some workers and some communities from a just transition policy is similar to excluding some people from public healthcare, education, or work. The debate over the scope of just transition, like that over health or education or an ecosocial welfare state, is not about costs and complexity but about different kinds of politics.

Integrating labour and nature

Labour is always transforming nature, while without the resources that nature provides, labour cannot exist. As Marx noted:

Thus, environmental labour studies recognise the need to connect labour studies with environmental studies. In a special journal issue, environmental labour studies were defined as including

In this sense, the two kinds of environments are united: the directly experienced environments at work and in the everyday lives of communities, and the environment in the broader sense as the life-support system of humans and non-human species. This latter environment, encompassing climate, earth, groundwater, oceans, biodiversity, and more, may not always be directly experienced in everyday work and life.

The original explicit just transition strategy accepted environmental policies as necessary, although many unions rejected them. In that sense, it was an attempt to fuse labour and nature around ecosocial goals. We also noted that for strategic reasons, just transition was connected to global climate negotiations (for accounts see Rosemberg Reference Rosemberg, Räthzel and Uzzell2013, Reference Rosemberg, Morena, Krause and Stevis2020; Thomas Reference Thomas2021).

The research over the ecosocial priorities of just transition has grown (Cha Reference Cha2024; Felli Reference Felli2014; Galgóczi Reference Galgóczi, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021; Guillibert et al Reference Guillibert, Barca and Leonardi2023; JTRC 2018; Laurent Reference Laurent2024; Satgar Reference Satgar2018; Stevis Reference Stevis2023; Vachon Reference Vachon2023). At one extreme, just transitions refer to narrow policies within the parameters of neoliberalism and developmentalism – and mostly with respect to energy. In these cases, labour and nature are treated as separate domains, with ecological and even social priorities often serving a collateral role. At the other end, just transition is considered as a component of an ecosocial society and state – one that privileges the public sphere within the parameters of ecological values and parameters (Laurent Reference Laurent2024; Satheesh Reference Satheesh2025; Stevis Reference Stevis2023).

While work on just energy transitions continues to grow – in more and less ecosocial directions – there is now growing work on just transitions in other sectors of the political economy such as food (Tschersich and Kok Reference Tschersich and Kok2022), education (Vachon Reference Vachon2024), forestry (Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen Reference Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen2025), construction (Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen Reference Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen2020), the circular economy (Guillibert et al Reference Guillibert, Barca and Leonardi2023), and care work (Barca et al Reference Barca, Hidalgo, Krause, Piccardi and Stevis2025). This expansion necessarily brings in additional categories of workers and nature.

Broadening the world of labour

Just transitions are necessary across any sector. They can and should be justified not only in terms of their connection to climate change, but also in their own terms. Climate change can certainly affect the working conditions of teachers, but artificial intelligence and privatisation policies have their own impact. Here, we also want to bring in the vast numbers of working people who are often not recognised, whether we talk about climate, labour or environmental politics.

Labour environmentalism, whether dealing with directly tangible environments or with the climate/ecological crisis, has tended to focus on industrial production and related extraction. However, any kind of work is a mediator between human and non-human nature, acting always within specific ‘societal relations with nature’ (Iskander and Lowe Reference Iskander and Lowe2020). Barth and Littig (Reference Barth, Littig, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021) argue that in capitalist societies, only paid work is counted as work, while an environmentally sustainable society would have to include the largely unpaid care work, predominantly undertaken by women (72.6% globally according to the International Labour Office 2018). Feminist scholars have investigated this issue for decades, at times asking for ‘wages for housework’ (Federici Reference Federici, Gupta, Sharron, Thomsen and Weil1975) or, in Folbre’s language, the recognition of the ‘Reproduction of People by Means of People’ (Folbre Reference Folbre2014). While the feminist sociologist Frigga Haug (2011; Reference Haug2022) conceptualises both the production of the means of life and the production of life as processes of simultaneous production and reproduction, most feminists, including ecofeminists, define the latter as social reproduction (Barca Reference Barca2024; Bezuidenhout and Fakier Reference Bezuidenhout and Fakier2006; Luxton and Bezanson Reference Luxton and Bezanson2006). Analysing the role of labour in the degrowth community, Saave and Muraca (Reference Saave, Muraca, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021) maintain that it is only recently that degrowth scholarship has acknowledged the work of feminist scholars regarding social reproduction and the perspective it offers for a future, environmentally and socially caring society. In the context of the commons and commoning, García Lopez (Reference García-López, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021) uses the concept of social reproduction to mean all freely engaged activities performed outside waged labour without the aim of creating a profit. This includes, for example, the protection of forests and the production of food and housing. Salleh (Reference Salleh2009 and Reference Salleh2017) refers to the concept of social reproduction, expanding the concept of work to include unpaid care and subsistence work as essential dimensions of the labour-nature relationship.

Environmental labour studies not only propose to include paid and unpaid care work but also the work of subsistence peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous workers, and other non-industrial workers to create a space of synergy in which the concepts of work and workers can be reconsidered (Barca et al Reference Barca, Hidalgo, Krause, Piccardi and Stevis2025). For labour environmentalist practice and research to include unpaid domestic work, it would have to address gender relations as an integral part of climate policies. Broadening the concept of work, in fact, can support arguments in favour of reducing the hours of waged work. This would free men and women to better care for each other, develop their capabilities through education and regeneration, and contribute to a better society (Barca Reference Barca2024; Barca et al Reference Barca, Hidalgo, Krause, Piccardi and Stevis2025; Elliott Reference Elliott, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021; Haug Reference Haug2011; White Reference White, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021).

Since the climate crisis is global, it can only be halted if the divides between industrial workers, miners, agricultural workers, subsistence workers, care workers and unwaged workers are overcome. It is obvious that none of these sectors of production could exist without the others. However, workers in these different areas can become locked in fierce fights against each other, as Satheesh (Reference Satheesh, Räthzel, Stevis and David Uzzell2021; Reference Satheesh2025) shows in analysing the relations between industrial workers and peasants and fisherfolk in India.

García López (Reference García-López, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021) discusses how a just transition could be integrated into policies and practices of the commons, and Bell (Reference Bell, Räthzel, Stevis and David Uzzell2021) suggests that it might be used to overcome the boundaries between environmental struggles at work and environmental struggles of working-class communities in their living areas. Some indigenous organisations have adopted the concept of just transition, using it in a more radical, transformative way than most labour environmentalists (Stockholm Environment Institute (Indigenous Environmental Network 2025; SEI 2022).

Industrial workers may be oblivious to the living and working conditions of those who supply them with the necessary resources for their work and life. This is reflected in the divide between two areas of research. The study of the ‘environmentalism of the poor’, as Martínez-Alier (Reference Martinez-Alier2002) and others have coined, is concerned with the environmental struggles of workers in rural areas, predominantly in the Global South. In contrast, the study of ‘labour environmentalism’ is concerned mostly with the struggles of industrial workers, predominantly in the Global North. For instance, labour-environmentalism might analyse the fears of miners losing their jobs, while the environmentalism of the poor will analyse the devastating effects of mining on their communities and their resistance against this (Martinez-Alier Reference Martinez-Alier2021; Navas et al Reference Navas, D’Alisa and Martínez-Alier2022).

Accounting for global divisions of labour

In addition to being inclusive of all categories of working people, labour environmentalism and just transition should also be inclusive of all those affected along production networks and lifecycles (Buzarovski Reference Bouzarovski2022; Kleinheisterkamp-González Reference Kleinheisterkamp-González2023; Loomis Reference Loomis2015; Sellers and Milling Reference Sellers and Melling2011; Stevis Reference Stevis, Räthzel and Uzzell2013). With the climate crisis came two challenges. Firstly, the crisis itself, and secondly, the responses of governments and industries to it – each having a major impact on employment (Galgóczi Reference Galgóczi, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021). The national reduction of carbon emissions or the trading of embodied emissions will have a significant impact on jobs in all sectors of the global economy. This requires trade unions to think about the environment in a more comprehensive way, including global processes and phenomena, such as climate, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, acidification of the oceans, and the loss of arable land.

In addition to the impacts of global ecological processes, the environmental crises present important and divisive challenges for workers, such as the offshoring of jobs to countries with weaker labour and environmental standards. This is not a new phenomenon, since globalisation has set workers across global divisions of labour, including North and South, East and West, ‘core’ and ‘semi-peripheries’ (e.g. Brand and Wissen Reference Brand and Wissen2021; Zuk et al Reference Zuk, Buzogany, Misik, Osicka and Szulecki2023) in competition with each other.

The responses of unions can vary from internationalist to nationalist, albeit generally leaning in the latter direction. There are examples of unions in the industrial world that have advocated protectionist policies such as border adjustments. This means that goods imported from low-cost economies, such as steel, are heavily taxed in order to protect jobs, rather than create an equitable market. Dimitris Stevis has referred to this as ‘green nationalism’ (Stevis Reference Stevis, Räthzel and Uzzell2013), while trade unions in the Global South define this as eco-colonialism (Uzzell and Räthzel Reference Uzzell, Räthzel, Räthzel and Uzzell2013). Green nationalism is growing, sometimes under the umbrella of greening the economy and sometimes in stark geopolitical terms (Kolinjivadi and Kothari Reference Kolinjivadi and Kothari2020; Stevis Reference Stevis2022; Zografos Reference Zografos2022; Zuk et al Reference Zuk, Conversi and Zuk2024). Prominent environmental policies in the Global North aim at enhancing competitiveness at the expense of impacts on workers along the global divisions of labour (see e.g. Stevis Reference Stevis2022).

Under present conditions, unions find it difficult to develop joint strategies and actions that will benefit all workers. There has been resistance across the world to accepting climate change as a threat because of the potential impact on jobs and unemployment (Sikwebu and Aroun Reference Sikwebu, Aroun, Räthzel, Stevis and Uzzell2021). It is hardly surprising that workers in India, for instance, say: ‘I will die quicker from not having a job than from climate change’. Under such dire conditions, it is difficult for progressive unionists to put just transition strategies on their union’s agenda. On the other hand, the narrative of competitiveness in the new ‘green’ economy is a powerful one, as the geopolitics over critical minerals and metals, electric cars, weapons and AI show (on energy nationalism see Zuk et al Reference Zuk, Buzogany, Misik, Osicka and Szulecki2023).

The deep transformations needed to develop an egalitarian ecosocial political economy cannot be achieved without the active engagement of workers and their representatives. While union views and worker views are not always the same, the existence of unions is a profound example of democratisation at the level of the whole society. To that end, ecosocial labour environmentalists and environmentalists, in general, can be well served by exploring the rich repertoire of emancipatory and egalitarian politics to craft an internationalist counter-hegemonic strategy (e.g., Stevis Reference Stevis2023; Zuk et al Reference Żuk, Mazač, Muth and Tichý2025).