Just Transition - an idea whose time has come

Just Transition and IndustriALL’s coal mining affiliates

IndustriALL’s global network of coal mining unions met in Delhi, India, in October 2018, to escalate efforts to achieve a Just Transition and defend coal miners’ interests in the face of challenges from climate change, Industry 4.0 and dangerous working conditions. IndustriALL coal mining affiliates from Australia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam emphasized that a Just Transition, with guarantees of strong social protection programmes and sustainable industrial policies, is the answer to ensuring coal workers’ jobs in the face of measures to meet carbon emissions targets.

Participants said governments and employers must invest and deploy adequate resources in research and development of clean coal technologies, considering the capabilities and vulnerabilities of countries with different levels of economic development. Unions also underlined the need to assess the impacts of the technological transformations that are underway.

Just Transition and IndustriALL’s energy affiliates

More than 200 representatives from 70 trade unions and 50 countries expressed their united determination to demand a Just Transition to protect the rights and living standards of workers as the energy industry undergoes massive changes. Meeting at IndustriALL’s World Conference for the Energy Sector in July 2018, and facing changes, not only as the result of climate change emissions targets, but also due to technological changes, privatization, precarization, and rising energy demand, delegates concluded that trade unions are energy workers’ best protection.

“We must build union power, so we can have a seat at the table with governments and companies to create sustainable industry policies at the national level that guarantee Just Transition.”

Valter Sanches, IndustriALL General Secretary

Just Transition and the ITUC

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) unites national trade union central organizations under a single umbrella, and through them represents some 107 million workers in 163 countries. In 2018, at its fourth World Congress, the ITUC endorsed several references to the need for a Just Transition:

• Congress deplores the massive and growing global inequality, and demands a Just Transition to a digitalized and low carbon economy
• The ITUC demands that all transformations in the world of work take place in the framework of Just Transitions
• Governments must raise their ambition and ensure investment in jobs and Just Transition
• The fight against climate change requires investments in sustainable and low carbon technologies

Just Transition gaining traction in Canada

Canada’s clean growth and climate action plan has a goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, beginning with a phase out of emissions from coal-fired electricity generation by 2030.

Trade unions advocated for, and lead, the Just Transition Task Force for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities. Members are union and local government representatives, civil society and experts. Among other things, the Task Force will make recommendations to government on the fate of 3,500 workers in the coal-fired electricity generation sector.

The Canadian Just Transition process envisions expanding employment insurance, bridging to pensions for older workers, vouchers for training and education and an agreement from employers to retain, re-skill and redeploy workers, and grants to communities to help them develop new jobs.

Implementing Just Transition in Germany

Germany’s ambitious climate targets require 65 per cent of its energy to be supplied by renewable energy by 2030, with a reduction in emissions of more than 60 per cent in its energy sector by 2030, compared to levels in the1990s. Currently, coal-fired electricity generation produces about 40 per cent of Germany’s electricity but accounts for over 80 per cent of the CO2 emissions from Germany’s energy sector. Further complicating Germany’s plan is that it also intends to phase out nuclear power, which continues to supply about 10 per cent of Germany’s generation capacity, by 2022.

German trade unions advocated for a Commission on “Growth, structural change and employment” to design a plan to advise this process. As a result, €40 billion will be allocated over 20 years for regional development, including infrastructure. The goal is to ensure that for each direct job loss, a new and decent job is created; and that as coal fired power leaves the grid it is replaced with renewable energy (along with the necessary energy storage technologies and energy efficiency improvements). There will be a plan and a pathway for every single directly employed worker in coal-fired power plants and lignite mines, including employment in new jobs with new skills, income bridging, and bridging to pensions for older workers.

A feature of the German plan is a “no redundancies” commitment, meaning no dismissals of workers in power plants and opencast mines for operational reasons. If a job disappears, the affected worker will be placed in a new, decent job, and will be compensated in a lump sum payment for any difference in salary between the old and the new job. The package also addresses reclamation of mining areas and plants. Parts of the deal remain to be negotiated. The German state will guarantee the financial obligations of companies towards their workers, so that if companies go bankrupt the state will pay.

German unions have a long history of delivering a Just Transition to their members.

The IG BCE and its predecessor organizations have played an essential role in ensuring a Just Transition over the last 25 years, as the workforce in the mining industry has been greatly reduced. The collective bargaining process has seen innovative agreements with new workforce adjustment models.

“The Just Transition model used in the German mining industry is a great example of how such a process can be handled by unions. We commend the work done by the social partners, particularly IG BCE, during this transformation.”

Kemal Özkan IndustriALL assistant general secretary

Just Transition demanded by unions in South Africa

On 17 November 2018, workers from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) took to the streets of Pretoria. Angered by government plans to close coal-fired power plants, privatize energy, and award renewable energy contracts to independent power producers without a Just Transition plan, they marched to government offices where they read out their grievances.

Irvin Jim, general secretary of NUMSA, said:

“We demand a Just Transition, which will ensure that workers at coal-fired power plants who may lose their jobs as a result of the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, will be trained and absorbed into the renewable energy sector.”

David Sipunzi, the general secretary of the NUM, added:

“We call on the government to refrain from biting the hand that feeds the state. Scrap the power purchase agreement that favour private capital at the expense of Eskom.”

Just Transition agreement reached in Spain

Spain’s draft climate law seeks to achieve a 100 per cent renewable energy supply by 2050, with 70 per cent renewables achieved by 2030. Coal and nuclear power stations are to be phased out by 2030.

Spain has developed a three-part plan in agreement with the mining and energy unions, consisting of

• a Just Transition for coal miners and communities
• a regional redevelopment programme
• a national observatory

Many of the workers are over 48 years of age or with over 26 years of service and will be offered early retirement. Younger workers will receive a redundancy payment of €10,000, as well as 35 days’ pay for every year of service. Additional funds will be available to restore and environmentally regenerate former mining sites; and jobs created in that remediation effort will preferentially be given to former miners. Money will be set aside to upgrade infrastructure in the mining communities, including waste management, recycling facilities and water treatment plants, utilities (gas, lighting), forest recovery, atmospheric cleansing and reducing noise pollution.

Each mining community will have a specific action plan, including plans for developing renewable energy and improving energy efficiency, and investing in and developing new industries.

Just Transition and the Australian Council of Trade Unions

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has published its proposal for a Just Transition for coal-fired electricity sector workers, and the communities that rely on them. Australia has not managed past transitions in a socially responsible manner. The aim is to avoid repeating that history. By committing to the Paris Agreement on climate change, Australia is committed to ensure a Just Transition as it decides on its Nationally Determined Contributions.

The ACTU framework, yet to be adopted by the Australian government, identifies three main elements:

• A transition plan – ensuring that Australia’s transition is managed in a fair and just manner, where affected workers and communities are supported to find secure and decent jobs in a clean energy economy
• A jobs plan – focusing on creating new jobs in a clean energy economy
• An energy plan – setting out a sustainable future energy mix that ensures the affordable and secure supply of electricity