Just Transitions in a Year of Climate Action
On the Sunday of BFAWU’s Annual Conference earlier in June, the Food and Work Network (FAWN) ran a fringe session on “just transitions”, in recognition of the union’s Year of Climate Action. Through a few short presentations and plenty of group discussion, we addressed questions concerning the climate impacts of food production, the effects of warmer temperatures on workplaces, and what a transition to cleaner forms of production might have to involve.
The idea of a “just transition” is a response to this last question. It asserts that justice must be at the heart of any major change to production systems. However, precisely what justice means is highly contested, raising further questions about who is served by a transition, what its goals are, and who gets to make the decisions. We presented a range of definitions of the concept, but emphasised its origins in the workers’ movement. A worker-led conception of a just transition positions workers not only as people whose livelihoods should be protected, but also as a key agent in the struggle against the climate crisis.
Indeed, food workers occupy a critical position in globalised supply chains that cause significant environmental harms. The UN’s FAO estimates that food production contributes up to a third of greenhouse gas emissions and BFAWU’s report, Climate Change and Sustainability of Food Commodities, highlights the deforestation caused by the production of commodities like soy and palm oil.
Global Heating is a Workplace Issue
We discussed various ways in which participants’ own workplaces contributed to climate change and pollution - from yeast production to lorry miles - as well as potential ways in which this could be addressed. The installation of solar panels, increased usage of electric vehicles, thermal energy recycling systems, and waste water recovery systems were all raised as potential solutions. Changes to farming practices further down supply chains did come up briefly, with the work of Solidarity Across Land Trades (SALT) highlighted as an exemplary campaign to put workers at the centre of an agroecological transition. However, we could have done more to broach the important question of how food workers in the UK can support changes to production in the Global South, where agricultural production is often at the sharp edge of deforestation, pollution, and exploitation.
Cool It!
We went on to discuss the other side of the relationship between climate change and food: as the climate crisis worsens, food production will become more difficult. Higher temperatures will make certain crops unviable, extreme weather events will wipe out harvests, and, as one participant remarked, even cake mixes behave differently in extreme heat! Food workers will be, and already are, affected by these changes. Increasing temperatures make workplaces unbearable and often dangerous, hence the importance of BFAWU’s current “Cool It” campaign for a legal maximum workplace temperature. Beyond the workplace, several participants pointed out that any costs from climate-related supply chain disruptions would be passed on to workers in the form of lower wages and higher food prices. Any transition with justice at its core will have to address these effects.
It was agreed amongst the group that the changes required to make food production more sustainable and better for the workers central to it will require significant amounts of investment and regulation. Pressure will have to be put upon employers to front the cash required for the installation of renewables, more energy-efficient plant, and cooling systems for workplaces. Likewise, governments will have to be forced to bring in a legal maximum workplace temperature, a higher living wage, and price controls for food items. This is why organised workers, as a force that can win against employers and governments, must be understood as central to any just transition.
We talked about some examples of campaigns of varying scope and ambition, from the lobbying work North Sea oil workers are doing with Friends of the Earth Scotland to factory occupations like those at GKN in Florence, Italy and SCOP-TI in Gémenos, France. There were, of course, some doubts expressed about the capability of British trade unions to face up to the enormity of such a task. But there was also optimism and a sense of urgency in the room, given the existential importance of organising around the climate crisis.
