Category: Climate Change

Online Reps Conference: Thursday 17 November 2022, via Zoom

COP27 – trade unions and the climate and economic crises

A TUC conference on bold solutions to the energy, climate, and economic crises 

This is the TUC’s online event during COP27, to discuss what trade unions can and should be doing to win a rapid and just transition to a safe climate future.

With speakers Shavanah Taj (General Secretary, Wales TUC), Camille Barbagallo (Climate Justice Coalition), Caitlin Lee (Unite Hospitality workers’ branch, TBC), and more TBC.

Both our economy and our planet are in crisis.  

Bills, temperatures, and sea levels are rising at an unprecedented rate. Nationally, the cost-of-living scandal is driving absolute poverty and forcing millions into increasingly desperate conditions. Globally, climate change is threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of workers. These crises are parallel and interlinked. 

We urgently need politics that builds a safe climate for future generations, a rapid and just transition with quality jobs, and an economy that rewards work, not wealth. The TUC is convening a conference: two events, one in person and one online, that will coincide with COP 27 and bring trade unions and climate activists together to gather solutions. 

How do we combine our struggles for an equitable cost of living, workers’ rights, and a just transition to climate safety? 

Online Reps Conference: Thursday 17 November 2022, via Zoom

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cop27-trade-unions-and-the-climate-and-economic-crises-tickets-440371291387

Information about the mobilisations on Saturday 12 November in solidarity with the Global Day of Action called by Egyptian groups at COP27.

Details of the Edinburgh march on 12 November are in the picture and here, with registration here. It starts at 12noon in St Andrew Square and goes around several themed ‘stations’ finishing at the Scottish Parliament, where the theme is End the Cost of Living Scandal, Just Transition now.

Further details of all marches across the UK are being added to this Climate Justice Coalition (the successor to last year’s COP26 Coalition) list on the UNISON UK website.

As General Secretary Christina McAnea said in the discussion at her recent Jimmy Reid lecture, action on climate is up there in the union’s overarching top three priorities, along of course with key work to improve pay, particularly tackling low pay and our equalities work. She said climate change is intrinsically linked to poverty, with those who have least here and worldwide most affected. And she emphasised that young people, when asked why they want to join a union, refer to climate change and housing as important to them.

We know everyone has been overloaded more with work on pay and ballots but would encourage branches to support the Edinburgh demo, or one nearer you if more are organised. A lot of trade unions have made efforts during pay disputes to link the cost of living and fuel bill crises with the climate crisis and climate campaigners have been supporting pay strikes. The Just Transition Partnership has a statement-making the links between the climate crisis and cost of living and industrial disputes – Living Wages on a Living Planet.  

Understandably there was more attention on the UN talks themselves when they were in Glasgow, but the fuel bills crisis and soaring profits of Shell and other oil companies, show that we are right to call for windfall taxes on those companies and a system focused on people, not profit. Report after report highlights the climate harm and dangers, including to health. And to infrastructure and life without sufficient adaptation planning. (Remember we have the excellent climate hazards workbook and handbook and other resources branches can use with employers.) Yet the new Prime Minister isn’t going to Egypt, even though the UK still has the presidency.

Yesterday’s UN environment agency report put the urgency in the strongest possible terms: Inger Anderson, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said: “We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.”

Our Depute Convener Stephen Smellie will be at COP27 as part of the ITUC delegation. He will send updates from there and you can find regular updates on events and info on this page on the UNISON Scotland website https://unison-scotland.org/tus-at-cop27-climate-conf-sat-12-nov-demos-green-unison/  Do please sign the petition in solidarity with Egypt’s prisoners of conscience https://copcivicspace.net/petition/

Anyone who would like to be kept in touch through our Green Network mailings can let me know at f.montgomery@unison.co.uk

The COP27 UN Climate Conference takes place in Egypt next month and there will be mass climate justice mobilisations across the UK on Sat 12 Nov in solidarity with protests at the COP.

The African COP27 coalition, the UK Climate Justice Coalition (CJC – the org following on from the COP26 Coalition) and other climate justice organisations have come together and announced a Global Day of Action on 12 November.

Green UNISON activists across the UK are organising to support demonstrations being planned on Sat 12 Nov, including in Edinburgh and possibly some other cities in Scotland.

The 27th United Nations climate conference will be held from 7 to 18 November, with over 198 countries invited to take part. World leaders will make key decisions on how countries will commit to tackle the climate emergency.

Trade unions also take part as observers and use their collective voice to influence decisions, put forward demands for a just transition to a low-carbon economy and hold governments to account.

UNISON Scotland’s Depute Convener Stephen Smellie, a UNISON NEC member, will be on the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) delegation on behalf of UNISON.

As members here know, Stephen represented the union at COP26 last year in numerous ways including through the ITUC. He was also on the COP26 Coalition co-ordinating group that organised the mass demonstrations in Glasgow last November.

UNISON is holding one of only two TUC places within the ITUC delegation, and is working hard to promote public services as key models of green transition and to ensure that the voices of public service workers are heard in Egypt.

Our General Secretary Christina McAnea, speaking after this year’s UNISON Green Week at the end of September, as the world prepares for COP27, said:

“The devastating impacts of the climate emergency are being felt across every part of the globe, but they fall heaviest on the disadvantaged.

“We are determined to be part of the necessary change – trade unions have a vital role to ensure urgent policies and measures deliver a fair transition to a greener planet.”

See the UNISON UK website page urging branches and members to get involved in the run-up to COP27, including by signing up to the UK green network and to sign a petition in solidarity with Egypt’s prisoners of conscience.  There is a range of useful resources there, including a video of the annual Green UNISON webinar.

UNISON Scotland’s Green Network members were active during Green UNISON Week and have an online lunchtime meeting tomorrow, Thurs 13 Oct, to discuss green workplace action, including on climate hazards and adaptation and in bargaining work, as well as COP27 demos planning and the connections between the cost of living, industrial disputes and strikes and climate justice.

We have stood in solidarity for some time now with the youth climate strikes campaigners Fridays for Futures after Greta Thunberg inspired so many school pupils, students and young people worldwide with her weekly school climate strike. The next Scottish Fridays for Future Climate March is in Glasgow on Friday 28 Oct 11am, Kelvingrove Park. https://twitter.com/FFF_Scotland/status/1577685042003861515?s=20&t=e42QayUw8zHfUPovH20u_g

You can find out more about our Green Network on the Facebook page and there are news updates, such as this one, on our Green Workplace page on this website. The UNISON report Getting to Net Zero in UK public services, launched at COP26, is there too.

UNISON is mobilising for the day of action, organised by the COP26 Coalition, on Saturday 6 November, when civil society and trade unions will assemble in cities and towns all over the UK.

Look out for UNISON and TUC regional information about the day. You can also find out where your nearest assembly point is at the COP26 Coalition website.

If you can’t join the Day of Action in person, then watch it live on YouTube from noon on the 6 November.

Join the COP26 Peoples Summit debates 

As world leaders meet to discuss our planet’s future, the COP26 Coalition will host The People’s Summit for Climate Justice, from 7-10 November. There will be daily debates, events and webinars – both in-person and online.

At the end of every day, there will also be a live stream commenting on what decisions were made at the COP26 conference.

You can sign up for virtual events here:

Be part of Green UNISON

• Use hashtags #GreenUnison and #COP26 in Twitter and Facebook events, photographs and solidarity messages from your branch or as an individual;
• Use UNISON’s Greening of Public services logo in your green work;
• Join the Green UNISON network to keep up to date with UNISON Green news, events and resources to help with your branch green activities.

for all information see the UNISON Scotalnd Website