Comment: Unions can play a leading role in tackling the climate crisis Published on: 8 October 2019 Writing for The Conversation, Matt Perry discusses how trade unions could have an indispensable role in responding to the climate crisis. , How did a billionaire win over and to become president? Three words: 鈥溾��. By linking deindustrialisation and the decline of working communities in America鈥檚 鈥渞ust belt鈥� to environmental regulation, Donald Trump could paint his greener rivals as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans. Never mind that climate change and pollution will 鈥� when it鈥檚 鈥渏obs or the planet鈥�, the former will always be a more immediate worry for the precarious and impoverished. It needn鈥檛 be that way though. The campaign for , organised by the , has put workers at the forefront of its vision for tackling the climate crisis. The proposals for a Green New Deal in the US and the UK are supported by trade unions which represent millions of workers. Both projects demand jobs are protected and new ones created as part of a 鈥渏ust transition鈥� from the carbon economy. Read more: The Trade Union Congress (TUC) backed the September 20 day of international climate strikes and millions of workers joined the protests that school students had launched. This kind of mass mobilisation will be crucial to climate action and the role trade unions play will be indispensable. But worker-led environmentalism isn鈥檛 a recent phenomenon 鈥� the history of labour and green movements are intertwined. You have nothing to lose but your planet Trump鈥檚 鈥渨orkers-versus-the-planet鈥� framing misunderstands , which go back to the private enclosure of common land in the UK. This forced people from rural areas and into crowded urban slums, creating the first proletariat. Once there, industrialists switched from water-powered mills to coal-powered factories to intensify the work routines of these new urban workers. Coal powered travel helped bosses find cheaper labour overseas and strengthened their authority over an insurgent working class. At every step, workers resisted this transition. The high point of this long battle was the English plug riots of 1842 鈥� viewed as the world鈥檚 first general strike 鈥� when textile workers literally pulled the plug on the coal-fired boilers of their factories. In their new urban grimescapes, workers suffered from the toxic raw materials and effluence of the factories they worked in. Class determined whether city dwellers lived in the smog around chimneys or with clean air in leafy suburbs, . The 鈥榙ark satanic mills鈥� of 鈥楥ottonopolis鈥�: Manchester, England in 1840 during the height of its cotton industry. Born out of the acute stress of living in polluted and disease-ridden slums, working class movements won public health reforms that have became the standard, such as . Working class people have always in leisure time too, whether it鈥檚 cycling, fishing, pigeon-fancying, dog walking or tending allotments. Unions have long campaigned against workplace hazards, and it鈥檚 workers who fight the impacts of climate change every day. Firefighters risk their lives to rescue people from more frequent flooding and wildfires and has against staff cuts, inadequate levels of equipment and a lack of training to deal with hazards like polluted floodwater. A world to win Environmental struggles litter labour history, but they鈥檙e not always the stories you read about. The modern environmental movement emerged, , from Rachael Carson鈥檚 brilliant Silent Spring 鈥� a book published in 1962 which revealed the devastating ecological consequences of pesticides in post-war America. But the book overlooked the acute burden on vulnerable agricultural workers who are forced to use these chemicals. Read more: During a spectacular organising drive and protests by the United Farm Workers in the 1960s, union leader exposed the damage these toxins caused to Latino labourers, winning concessions from their employers and standing up for them against anti-migrant racism. Today, the shipyard that built the Titanic 鈥� Harland and Wolff in Belfast 鈥� is , but its workers are defiant. They demand that the shipyards be nationalised and used to create . This offers an exciting glimpse of the leading role that workers can take in the enfolding response to the climate crisis. Belfast, July 30 2019: Workers from the Harland and Wolff shipyard, where the Titanic was built, protest against the potential closure of the yard. Elsewhere in the world, labour organisations have allied with indigenous people against developments that threaten their lands and destroy the local environment. In British Columbia, to pipelines and tar sands oil extraction, while the demonstrated against destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Such a broad alliance is needed to tackle climate change, and that means mobilising labour in its widest sense 鈥� women in the household economy, the rural poor, indigenous people, fishing communities, the unemployed and school students. Equally, understanding the configuration of power and ideology that drives the fossil fuel economy 鈥� big businesses, geopolitical rivalry over oil and gas resources, nationalistic buck-passing, corporate PR and those who blame overpopulation. With CO鈧� emissions rising, there鈥檚 little time to waste. Working class environmentalism is part of the solution to the climate crisis. If successful, the movement will give new meaning to the old maxim: 鈥渢he cause of labour is the hope of the world鈥�. , Reader in Labour History, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . 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