Just Transition means more than simply retraining or skills programmes. We need a comprehensive framework ensuring meaningful social dialogue and worker participation, industrial policies creating new jobs, active labour market policies to support individual workers, and guaranteed social protection to avoid human casualties of this necessary economic change.
Today, industriAll Europe trade union welcomes the launch of the new Just Transition Platform. It is the beginning of a week of events focused on how Europe can help manage the transformation of our coal- and carbon-intensive regions, through territorial Just Transition Plans and funding from the over €150 billion Just Transition Mechanism. The aim is that this Commission-organised online Platform will provide technical and advisory support for public and private stakeholders in coal and other carbon-intensive regions. If adopted, the EU recovery plan foresees an increase in resources for Just Transition actions as industriAll Europe has long demanded.
“It is crucial to recognise the scale of the challenge and urgency for many workers and their workplaces which underpin the regional economies of these areas. The active involvement of workers and trade unions in the anticipation, planning and governance of the transition is a key element for the success of the transition. There is no Just Transition if there are no jobs to transition from and to. There is no justice if the quality of work is not guaranteed”, stated industriAll Europe’s General Secretary Luc Triangle at the launch of the week.
The EU’s spring forecast 2020 and figures emerging from different sectors and countries suggest that we’re on the brink of an economic crisis as deep as the 1930s, with the danger of losing 5 million jobs this year.
At the same time, we are collectively committed to the decarbonisation of our economies and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. Around 11 million European jobs are exposed in the decarbonisation of our economies. The crisis will exacerbate the situation in many regions that are set to reform with restructurings affecting the workforce even earlier than anticipated. It is important that we step up our collective efforts to support these workers and define comprehensive strategies to improve the anticipation of change for all affected sectors and companies.
“Let’s be clear, many of these jobs in carbon-intensive industries will be needed in the future but they will change and that’s where a programme of anticipation and management of change is necessary to avoid unnecessary damage. For trade unions, Just Transition has always meant more than simply retraining or skills programmes. We need a comprehensive framework ensuring meaningful social dialogue and worker participation, industrial policies creating new jobs, active labour market policies to support individual workers, and guaranteed social protection to avoid human casualties of this necessary economic change”,stated Luc Triangle, “workers must be seen as actors in their regions’ future not as recipients of these policies if we are to guarantee social acceptance and a truly just transition in Europe”.
IndustriAll Europe will be directly intervening at the launch of the carbon-intensive regions network on Wednesday 1 July.
Contact: Andrea Husen-Bradley, press and communication