Based on our research with trade union organisers and climate justice activists we came up with 10 orientations for building alliances for a just transition:
1. Just Transition means changing the economy: Neoliberal common sense and a purported lack of economic alternatives need to be challenged to develop new and different paths for a viable economy considering ecological challenges and profound global inequalities.
2. Social and ecological conversion: Examples of social and ecological conversion, in which workers themselves develop socially useful and ecologically sound products and production processes should be discussed and experimented with: How does production, but also reproduction (care work) need to be transformed? How can workers struggle effectively to achieve more power to shape these processes?
3. Co-determination in the workplace: Environmental concerns should be made a central element of workplace co-determination and collective bargaining, including the ways that pollution and the effects of climate change affect workers health. This also includes developing instruments for shop stewards and trade union representatives to achieve sustainability goals.
4. Engaging with the ways that people are affected: Change can only be successful if fears and worries are taken seriously and people are assisted with addressing these fears and worries, while their knowledge and competences are included and respected in the concrete processes of just transition. These worries can be about climate change and the future of the planet but can also relate to fears of job loss or the loss of livelihood.
5. The need for a transformation infrastructure: Actively participating in social change is a lot easier if you feel safe. If people feel that certain changes will heighten inequality and/or have a negative effect on their lives in terms of income and material security, they will find it hard to get involved in processes of change. This means that we need transformation infrastructures: Reliable public services, adequate social security, affordable housing and access to affordable renewable energy, access to training for green jobs and the use of progressive taxation to steer ecological behaviour on behalf of companies and individuals, but that also has redistributive effects that tackle economic inequalities as opposed to entrenching them.
6. Strengthening eco-social literacy: It is necessary for people to understand how climate and ecosystems function, but also how relations of power and inequality in capitalist economies perpetuate climate change and environmental degradation, while also preventing change. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a combined focus on ecological and social literacy.
7. Establish a taskforce for social and ecological education: Bringing together actors across the trade union and climate movements, as well as academia, a taskforce for social and ecological education could pool expertise and develop joint educational materials, while also thinking how to embed sustainability and environmental justice as a core principle across education and training courses within the trade unions.
8. Developing common struggles: Rather than risk being played off against each other, trade union and climate movements should seek common ground and find effective levers for change so that the forces that currently profit from the given conditions and stand in the way of change have to give way.
9. Establishing spaces for permanent dialogue: Ongoing dialogue and continuous exchange is the basis for successful organising across our movements. A commitment to creating such spaces for discussion while not shying away from conflict can enable productive engagement towards common goals.
10. Allowing for the experience of change and making successes visible: Existing successes and promising approaches should be highlighted in order to inspire common visions and practices. This is why we have compiled an extensive catalogue of all sorts of different resources to be found at the end of this study. The resource catalogue includes links, texts, educational materials, methods, and lessons learned from various historical and current social movements and initiatives. Where relevant, these materials are also referenced throughout the study.