Thirty years ago, on this day, January 18, 1993
“A major new effort to develop jobs which protect the environment”, was how the January 18 joint statement by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Conservation Foundation described their joint Green Jobs in Industry Plan. The scheme was launched at the Visyboard Paper and Cardboard Recycling Plant in Melbourne by Peter Baldwin, minister for higher education and employment services.
Noakes, F. (1993) ACTU and ACF launch green jobs program. Green Left Weekly January 27th
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was this. The ACF had been at the forefront of “greenhouse effect” efforts, trying to shape policy in the period 1989 to 1992. By mid-1992 it was clear they’d been defeated in their intense and praiseworthy efforts to get anything meaningful. ‘Green Jobs’ was a kind of consolation prize, and a way of continuing dialogue with the union movement (relations were intermittently fraught, for the usual reasons).
What I think we can learn from this
“Green jobs” are a kind of boundary object, or a Rorschach Test, or a floating signifier, or whatever cool academic term is being used to mean “something various groups can emphatically agree on as a principle, and so defer awkward conversations about winners and losers.”
What happened next
It went nowhere – the Keating Government was not interested. The Howard government even less so. The ACF and ACTU released another report (yes, there may have been others in between) in 2008, spruiking a Green Jobs Bonanza.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Noakes, F. (1993) ACTU and ACF launch green jobs program. Green Left Weekly January 27th
See also
David Annandale,Angus Morrison‐saunders &Louise Duxbury (2004) Regional sustainability initiatives: the growth of green jobs in Australia.
Local Environment, Pages 81-87 https://doi.org/10.1080/1354983042000176610
Goods, C. 2020 Labour Unions, the Environment and Green Jobs.
https://www.ppesydney.net/content/uploads/2020/05/Labour-unions-the-environment-and-green-jobs.pdf