Industrial Labour and the Environment

Industrial Labour and the Environment
Author: Federico Paolini
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781527548916

This volume brings the history of the environment together with that of work. Faced with the "great acceleration��? of the second half of the twentieth century--characterized by the crisis of the relationship between economic development and civil progress--the history of the environment has tended to separate itself from the history of work. The idea behind this book is to bridge this cultural divide, because human work is one of the main parameters of the anthropic footprint left on ecosystems and social spaces. The dimension of work is--even in a dramatically lacerating form, as shown by the events of environmental and work conflicts in the 21st century--the mirror of the impact that human activities have on the environment. From a transnational perspective, this book points out some issues of future significance: the impact of production activities on the territory and forms of environmental protection; the fractures that the environmental issue generates in the disputed spaces between groups of workers and local communities; and the problems related to the processes of reclamation and redevelopment of dismantled industrial areas.

Industrial Labour and the Environment

Industrial Labour and the Environment
Author: Federico Paolini
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2020-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1527549968

This volume brings the history of the environment together with that of work. Faced with the “great acceleration” of the second half of the twentieth century—characterized by the crisis of the relationship between economic development and civil progress—the history of the environment has tended to separate itself from the history of work. The idea behind this book is to bridge this cultural divide, because human work is one of the main parameters of the anthropic footprint left on ecosystems and social spaces. The dimension of work is—even in a dramatically lacerating form, as shown by the events of environmental and work conflicts in the 21st century—the mirror of the impact that human activities have on the environment. From a transnational perspective, this book points out some issues of future significance: the impact of production activities on the territory and forms of environmental protection; the fractures that the environmental issue generates in the disputed spaces between groups of workers and local communities; and the problems related to the processes of reclamation and redevelopment of dismantled industrial areas.

Labor and the Environmental Movement

Labor and the Environmental Movement
Author: Brian K. Obach
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2004-02-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780262263993

Relations between organized labor and environmental groups are typically characterized as adversarial, most often because of the specter of job loss invoked by industries facing environmental regulation. But, as Brian Obach shows, the two largest and most powerful social movements in the United States actually share a great deal of common ground. Unions and environmentalists have worked together on a number of issues, including workplace health and safety, environmental restoration, and globalization (as in the surprising solidarity of "Teamsters and Turtles" in the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle). Labor and the Environmental Movement examines why, when, and how labor unions and environmental organizations either cooperate or come into conflict. By exploring the interorganizational dynamics that are crucial to cooperative efforts and presenting detailed studies of labor-environmental group coalition building from around the country (examining in detail examples from Maine, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin), it provides insight into how these movements can be brought together to promote a just and sustainable society. Obach gives a brief history of relations between organized labor and environmental groups in the United States, explores how organizational learning can increase organizations' ability to work with others, and examines the crucial role played by "coalition brokers" who maintain links to both movements. He challenges research that attempts to explain inter-movement conflict on the basis of cultural distinctions between blue-collar workers and middle-class environmentalists, providing evidence of legal and structural constraints that better explain the organizational differences class-culture and new-social-movement theorists identify. The final chapter includes a model of the crucial determinants of cooperation and conflict that can serve as the basis for further study of inter-movement relations.

Trade Unions in the Green Economy

Trade Unions in the Green Economy
Author: Nora Räthzel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849714649

Combating climate change will increasingly impact on production industries and the workers they employ as production changes and consumption is targeted. Yet research has largely ignored labour and its responses. This book brings together sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, historians, economists, and representatives from international and local unions based in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Together they open up a new area of research: Environmental Labour Studies. The authors ask what kind of environmental policies are unions in different countries and sectors developing. How do they aim to reconcile the protection of jobs with the protection of the environment? What are the forms of cooperation developing between trade unions and environmental movements, especially the so-called Red-Green alliances? Under what conditions are unions striving to create climate change policies that transcend the economic system? Where are they trying to find solutions that they see as possible within the present socio-economic conditions? What are the theoretical and practical implications of trade unions' "Just Transition", and the problems and perspectives of "Green Jobs"? The authors also explore how food workers' rights would contribute to low carbon agriculture, the role workers' identities play in union climate change policies, and the difficulties of creating solidarity between unions across the global North and South. Trade Unions in the Green Economy opens the climate change debate to academics and trade unionists from a range of disciplines in the fields of labour studies, environmental politics, environmental management, and climate change policy. It will also be useful for environmental organisations, trade unions, business, and politicians.

Labour Law and Climate Change

Labour Law and Climate Change
Author: Tiziano Treu
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2023-09-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9403508876

Although the existential threat of climate change has at last been generally acknowledged, its influence on the labour market and the regulation of labour relations remains ambivalent at best. This supremely important volume, with contributions by thirteen prominent labour law practitioners and academics, shows how labour law not only can but absolutely must assume a greater role in the debate on the climate crisis and move towards a new eco-friendly labour paradigm. Committed to the proposition that employment must come to terms with the natural environment and open a new chapter in the relationship between human work and the Earth, the authors examine critical issues and perspectives on the role of labour law in a just ecological transition, focusing on such aspects as the following: negative externalities associated with the value chains production model; (in)effectiveness of corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives; protection of human rights from violations attributable to private sector activities; protection of whistleblowers; need for professional training in new occupations; environmental migrants; reskilling and active inclusion of workers and jobseekers; role of remote work and flexible working time; and evaluation and reward of employees. The impact of the green transition on industrial activities is already creating strong tensions among the social parties, leading inevitably to massive restructuring of enterprises and relocation of thousands of workers. This detailed analysis of the implications of climate change for the labour contract and the industrial relations system provides appropriate tools to understand trends and possible solutions for the future. It will be welcomed by managers, consultants, corporate lawyers, judges, human rights experts, trade unionists, researchers, and professors placed at the nexus of labour, industrial relations, and social rights in Europe and worldwide.

Environmental Unions

Environmental Unions
Author: Craig Slatin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2017-03-02
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1351868012

During the 1970s and 1980s, a hazardous waste management industry emerged in the U.S., driven by government and polluting industry responses to a hazardous waste crisis. In 1979, labor unions began to seek federal health and safety protections for workers in that industry and for firefighters responding to hazardous materials fires. Those efforts led to a worker health and safety section in the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. The legislation mandated regulation of hazardous waste operations and emergency response worker protection, and establishment of a national health and safety training grant program - which became the Worker Education and Training Program (WETP).Craig Slatin provides a history of labor's success on the coattails of the environmental movement and in the middle of a rightward shift in American politics. He explores how the WETP established a national worker training effort across industrial sectors, with case studies on the health and safety training programs of two unions in the WETP - the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers and the Laborers' Union. Lessons can be learned from one of the last major worker health and safety/environmental protection victories of the 1960s-1980s reform era, coming at the end of the golden age of regulation and just before the new era of deregulation and market dominance. Slatin's analysis calls for a critical survey of the social and political tasks facing those concerned about worker and community health and environmental protection in order to make a transition toward just and sustainable production.

The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies

The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies
Author: Nora Räthzel
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 896
Release: 2021-08-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 303071909X

In this comprehensive Handbook, scholars from across the globe explore the relationships between workers and nature in the context of the environmental crises. They provide an invaluable overview of a fast-growing research field that bridges the social and natural sciences. Chapters provide detailed perspectives of environmental labour studies, environmental struggles of workers, indigenous peoples, farmers and commoners in the Global South and North. The relations within and between organisations that hinder or promote environmental strategies are analysed, including the relations between workers and environmental organisations, NGOs, feminist and community movements.