UNIONS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Workers’ Climate Action were invited to speak at the RMT young members’ conference on 1 March. Bob Sutton went to made the case that young rail and maritime workers are in a position to make a massive difference on the issue of ecological damage both as an industrially strong and organised section of the working class but also as having a grip on the future of what is one of the key questions in any programme of transition to a low carbon economy, that of transport.
The conference responded well, especially to the idea that action on environmental issues was not counterposed to their activity as trade unionists. Their power to act is as working class activists in solidarity on the basis of an understanding that the exploitation faced by workers and degradation of the planet’s ecology are driven by the same logic of rampant capitalist accumulation at any cost.
WCA also took part in this year’s Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union conference on 7 March. WCA activists held a joint stall with the Camp for Climate Action and attended various workshops on coal, aviation and just transition.
A fuller report on both these events and a copy of the leaflets given out are available at www.workersclimateaction.co.uk
