On Saturday 6th November a Global Day of Action For Climate Justice was held in Brighton. Crowds assembled at The Level for midday where a few speeches were made before the march to the Peace Stautue in Hove.
Brighton Hove & District Trades council were contacted by the organisers and asked to send a speaker. The General Secretary of the Trades Council, Matt Webb gave the following speech on
"Climate Justice and The Role of Trade Unions "
What place do trade unions have in averting climate breakdown and what can trade unions do?
Good question. On a base level, Trade union members are you and me. They are not part of the elite that are already practising their escape route into space.
They are you and me and they are comrades and working people in parts of the world that are already being devastated by flooding, drought, famine poisoned water, salinated farmland and the other hallmarks of the early on-set climate catastrophe.
We have a saying in the trade union movement – the motto of our trades council - “An Injury To One Is An Injury To All”. There are few greater injuries than famine, drought, losing your livelihood and being displaced from your home.
But what can trade unions do in your workplace? On a local level where workers are organised we can hold our employers, colleges, universities to account for the part they might be playing in failing to act. Recycling and green energy yes, but investments, contracts and pensions are often held with and in some of the world's worst polluters, climate change deniers and green-washers – oil companies, chemical companies, mining companies, arms companies and so forth...
But of course climate catastrophe will not be averted alone by recycling plastic bottles or like the recent government advice, convincing the elderly to “wear and extra layer of clothing and turn down their thermostats”. It is not the elderly trying to keep
warm that is destroying this planet. This is a nasty, vindictive and disingenous distortion of truth designed to outsource blame to the vulnerable.What is destroying this planet is not old people trying to keep warm, it is greed. It is the desire for infinite profit in a finite world. The destruction of our planet is not an unfortunate side effect of capitalism - capitalism demands it!
Whether you like it or not – climate change is political. Distrust anyone who tells you otherwise!
We need an extremely radical change to avert widespread environmental and climate collapse (in some places it is already happening right now as I speak). We need a radical new transport infrastructure which does not rely upon burning fossil fuels directly or indirectly. We need radical new infrastructure to power our national grid based upon renewable energy sources such as the sun, the sea and the wind. We need radical new means to package things such as food. We need to reuse and repurpose the resources we already have to build electronics! We need to build again from the ground up.
I say “radical” but the truth is that all of the technology to achieve all of this already exists. Some of it has existed for decades! We ask why are we not using it now? And I would say it is because the narrow interests of a few consider that it would inhibit their growth of capital/wealth.
So what is radical is not the tech, it is replacing a system that is built solely around profit that relies upon maintaining the status quo.
The one thing we have learnt from COP26 is that the political establishment (including our own blustering, misogynistic and imbecilic man-child of Prime Minister) has no intention of acting in good faith. Fake promises simply for headlines to get them through the next day's newspapers.
If we are waiting for them to act against their own interests we might as well start digging graves this afternoon here in The Level.
This radical change we need will mean the end of some industry and the emergence of new industry. That means whilst some jobs will be no more, new and arguably more highly skilled, environmentally responsible jobs will be created.
We need to migrate workers from the old into the new.
As trade unions we fight to keep people in secure jobs and retraining is an important part of that – we will need colleges and adult education centres to reskill these workers to move from old industries into the new.
One hurdle we have is that the last 15 years of Tory attacks on the working class have reduced Further Education, which would deliver such training, to barely a shadow of what it was. Even (and especially in) our own city of Brighton.
It will be adult education and skills training that will allow that change from the old to the new without creating the sort of mass unemployment that Thatcher orchestrated across mining towns and industrial cities.
Trade unions need to be part of that – in colleges, universities and all workplaces.
Are trade unions now talking about and campaigning on averting climate change? Yes to be fair.
Do I think that trade unions are doing enough right now? No, I do not. And one reason is perhaps the rising age of the average trade union member.
More younger workers are unionising and I think that is why climate change is now becoming more and more a trade union matter.
Would you like trade unions to be doing more?
Would you like to see trade unions campaigning to rebuild adult education and delivering these vital skills training for a better tomorrow?
Would you like to see trade unions holding employers to account for putting profit before responsibility, pension providers for funding oil companies and creating meaningful networks across workplaces and industries with common goals?
Well join a union and use the power that gives you. It is that simple. There are enough of you here!
Don't forget this – it is trade unions that have the power to walk out of workplaces where disagreements are not resolved
and it is trade unions that have the power to bring entire industries to a grinding halt where disagreements are not resolved.
If trade unions didn't have the power to be such an existential threat to the political and industrial establishment, they wouldn't do so much to try to legislate us out of existence over the last 40 years.
Organisation is everything; and if your not organising at work you are like a carpenter without a hammer and a hammer without a nail.
After the march today – go online, go to the TUC website – and join a trade union today.
Make the changes you want to see and use your Trade Union to achieve that.
Matt Webb
General Secretary
Brighton Hove & District Trades Council
