Tag: ACTU

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Australia

March 22, 2007 – Unions talk good game on climate

Seventeen years ago, on this day, March 22nd, 2007, all the right words get said by the Australian unions.

The ACTU has called for sweeping national reforms across transport, mining, agriculture, construction, education and public health to tackle climate change and generate new jobs. The comprehensive green action plan will increase pressure on federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd to adopt a more radical climate change policy as Labor prepares for next month’s national conference. Reforms outlined in the ACTU’s newly endorsed climate change strategy include government subsidies for energy efficient retrofitting of buildings, new mandatory green building codes for all commercial buildings, large-scale reuse of treated effluent, improved vehicle fuel efficiency and greater use of shipping to cut national transport emissions. ACTU secretary Greg Combet described climate change as ”the pre-eminent policy challenge of our time”, and urged industry to ”face up to global warming and be accountable for investing in sustainable jobs rather than raising the fear of job losses and expecting government handouts”.

Beeby, R. 2007. Union pressure on climate. Canberra Times, 22 March. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context is that everyone in Australia was being performatively concerned about climate change since about September of the previous year. To be fair, the ACTU had been wringing their hands on climate since 1989. But they had allowed – fatally – the mining union to be in charge of energy policy, which meant very weak climate policy, very pro-fossil fuels climate policy. And by now, the ACTU was messing around with the whole idea of carbon capture and storage, see Coal21, etc. And this was the latest iteration of that. 

What we learn is that trade unions are really good on workers rights, and essential in my opinion, and can be incredibly innovative, and be engines of democracy. But they can also be unhappily on climate, largely crap; not all of them all of the time, but too many of them most of the time. And the books I’ve read, and the articles I’ve read, are a little bit too hagiographic for my liking. 

What happened next? Kevin Rudd, once he became prime minister, threw insane quantities of taxpayers’ money at the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, for which there’s virtually nothing to show. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 22, 1960 – US Television warning of carbon dioxide build up, courtesy Athelstan Spilhaus…

March 22, 2012 – flash mobs and repertoire exhaustion

Categories
Australia Economics of mitigation Green Jobs

October 30, 2008 – a worker-greenie coalition? Maybe…

Fifteen years ago, on this day, October 30, 2008, the top Union body (ACTU) and Australian Conservation Foundation co-launched a report about a putative “Green Gold Rush” of jobs, an argument they’d also been making in the early 1990s.

It was good old-fashioned ecological modernisation and green Keynesianism

AND 

On the same day, the Treasury released modelling that had been commissioned to support the wretched “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. 

“Australia’s Low Pollution Future: The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation”:

Treasury modelling establishes that there are benefits to Australia acting early if other countries also adopt carbon pricing but that delaying action may lead to higher long-term costs (source).

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

In Australia everyone was talking about the climate, ahead of the long awaited launch of the CPRS White Paper in December.

Eco-modernist green jobs rhetoric was attempting to square the political circle, and at least reds and greens were talking to each other again (it had been rocky).

There was of course a history of this – see “Green Jobs Unit.”

What I think we can learn from this

We do like our stories of harmony and win-win. They soothe us. 

What happened next

The White Paper was shonky af (see Ross Garnaut’s op-ed ‘Oiling the Squeaks’). Rudd’s legislation attempts the following year were farcical giveaways. And then it fell apart… 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Categories
Australia

January 18, 1993 – Australian unions and greenies launch first “Green Jobs” campaign

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

Categories
Australia

September 26, 1989 – Australian Union body tries to add green to red…

On this day September 26, 1989, the Australian Trade Union movement tried to go green. The ACTU – the Australian Confederation of Trade Unions – released a report…

“The ACTU has signalled it is changing its colours and turning green by making its first major policy statement on environmental issues.

The statement – to be debated at the ACTU Congress this morning – represents a concerted attempt by the organisation to overcome public opinion that the union movement is full of pro-logging rednecks.

“The ACTU hopes that by tapping into the groundswell of concern over environmental matters it will prove its relevance to the community and boost its membership numbers.

1989 Moffet, L. 1989. ACTU turns a decided shade of green. The Australian Financial Review, 26 September.

The context is that everyone in Australia was running around proclaiming their green-ness at the time. In May 1989 there had been a public spat between the Australian Labor Party government’s Environment Minister, Graham Richardson, and a senior union official (see June 9 1989 post)

June 9, 1989 – the Australian Labor Party versus the unions versus the planet #climate

On this day the PPM was 350.09 ppm.

Now it is 420ish – but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

The need for red-green coalitions – and the difficulty of creating/maintaining these – have a very very long history.

What happened next?

Climate and energy policy got subcontracted/given to the coal-miners union within the ACTU.  And that did not go well.  More on this another time perhaps.

Categories
Australia Green Jobs

Jan 18 (1993) Job’s not a good un. “Green Jobs in Industry Plan” achieves … nothing. #auspol

On this day in 1993 the Australian Conservation Foundation (sort of akin to the UK version of Friends of the Earth) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions  (akin to the TUC) released a joint statement about the environment and employment.

As Noakes (1993) reports – 

“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.”

This came at the tail end of concern about “Ecologically Sustainable Development.” Its champion, Bob Hawke, had been toppled, the new Prime Minister (Paul Keating) was not – to put it mildly – a fan of environmentalists and their concerns. The whole thing must have seemed doomed (and it was).

What happened next? Well, does Australia have the environmental jobs sector it could/should have? Or the carbon tax (the ACTU had a role, in 1995, of scuppering one).

Why this matters – we need to realise that getting greenies and union types together is a lot harder than it looks/”should” be. We need to think about previous failed efforts, and why they failed. But we tend not to, because it would raise awkward questions and make us feel bad.

References

Noakes, F. (1993) ACTU and ACF launch green jobs program. Green Left Weekly January 27th