The Characteristics of UK Unions' Environmental Activism and the Agenda's Utility as a Vehicle for Union Renewal

Abstract

<p><em>A survey of 22 UK unions’ environmental activism suggests that it is generally unrelated to either membership trends or unions’ financial health, although large, multi-sector unions are generally the most active. Adequate resourcing, discussion of environmental matters at senior levels of the union and positive relations with external environmental organisations are all associated with environmental activism. Although the agenda appears popular with members and encounters little resistance from employers few unions currently evidence serious or regular engagement and it is largely confined to large and/or public sector workplaces where the union is already well-established. Limited adoption may be attributable to a combination of the absence of supportive legislation and public funding, the agenda’s inability to generate an attractive ‘product’ for members, and already crowded local agendas. However, most unions anticipate their environmental agenda expanding in the future. </em></p><p><strong>Key Words</strong>: unions; environment; labour-environment relationship; employee relations; union renewal</p>

Trade unions and climate politics: prisoners of neoliberalism or swords of climate justice?

“…This research contributes to an emerging literature on trade unions and climate change (Farnhill, 2016;Hampton, 2015;Räthzel & Uzzell, 2011;Snell & Fairbrother, 2011). There are further research possibilities worth exploring, including union members who are not currently part of the activist layer.…”

For a Red-and-Green Alliance in Europe

“…IG Metall even accepted a recent invitation for a high-level exchange of views from the School Strikes for Climate movement, and IG BAU encouraged its members to participate in a day of global climate strike action on 20 September 2019. British unions are also engaging more and more with environmental concerns (Farnhill, 2016), and the University and College Union (UCU) called for a thirty-minute solidarity stoppage in support of the global climate strike (UCU, 2019).…”

Trade union perceptions of the labour - nature relationship

“…A range of such processes and conditions of environmental union policies -or the lack of them -have been analysed. They include the economic sector in which unions operate, the societal, political and economic pressures they experience, the histories, which define their political ambitions (Felli 2014;Farnhill 2016;Snell and Fairbrother 2010;Vachon and Brecher 2016;Morena, Krause, and Stevis 2020). What has not been researched is whether, given the globalisation of environmental destruction, unionists' perceptions of the labour-nature relationship influence just transition policies.…”