to download the 20-page study "Climate Change and the Great Inaction," September 2014, click on

http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/tue...

New Trade Union Perspectives

This paper has been written for unions and

unionists who are perhaps in the early stages

of their engagement with climate change

and who feel they might benefit from knowing

“the story so far” in terms of trade union involvement.

But it is also being written with an

eye to the future, to generate discussion that

may help unions develop the kind of compelling

ideas and proposals that can lead to an

increase in membership engagement and climate

activism. A global movement demanding

immediate and effective action on climate

change is urgently needed, and unions can

play an important and potentially decisive role.

However, part of the process of building such

a movement will require taking stock, in broad

terms, of what has been learned with regard to

past efforts both practically and at the level of

ideas and core theoretical assumptions.

This paper focuses mainly on the UN level,

where the level of union activity has been very

significant and worthy of examination. It will be

clear from what follows that the climate politics

of the international trade union movement has

reached an impasse–the same is also true of

other movements who have fought for a global

climate agreement and have seen their hopes

shattered. But this is more than a problem of

barking up the wrong tree, or of the wrong

set of persons sitting in the seats of power at

the wrong time.