TULE’s Research
TULE is a research network by and for early-career researchers who study the role of labour and the trade union movement in addressing the ecological crisis.
Our membership is made up of scholars from across the world, engaged in recent debates in the area of labour environmentalism.
RECENT WORK BY TULE MEMBERS:
Collins, Vinnie. “Labor’s Climate Fight Requires Public Ownership.” Jacobin, November 9, 2025. https://jacobin.com/2025/11/climate-labor-unions-democracy-public-ownership.
Kleinheisterkamp-González, Nicole. “Panzer sind nicht die Antwort auf die Wirtschaftsflaute.” Jacobin Germany, December 1, 2025. https://jacobin.de/artikel/industrie-arbeitsplaetze-aufruestung-klimastrategie.
Davidson, Brendan (2023). “Labour on the leading edge: A critical review of labour rights and standards in renewable energy.” Energy research and Social Science 97. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629622004315.
McIlroy, D., McGeown, C. & Park, J., (2022), A cost of living: dialectics of the Necrocene and securing the means of resistance, Journal of Class and Culture, 1 (2), pp. 195-215. https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/jclc_00015_1
McIlroy, D., Brennan, S. & Barry, J., (2022) ‘Just transition: a conflict transformation approach’, Pellizzoni, L., Leonard, E. & Asara, V. (eds.), Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, pp. 416-430. Download Here.
Mercier, S., Bresnihan, P., McIlroy, D. & Barry, J., (2020), ‘Climate Action via Just Transitions Across the Island of Ireland: Labour, Land and the Low-Carbon Transition’, Robbins, D., Torney, D., Brereton, P., in Ireland and the Climate Crisis, (Cham-Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 249-268.
Paul, Franziska Christina (2024). “Demanding ownership: Energy democracy and environmental labour geographies.” https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12987.
Thornley, Isaac. “Ring of Fire Conflict Reveals Gaps in Ontario’s Economic Nationalist EV Battery Fantasy.” Energy Humanities, April 1, 2025. https://www.energyhumanities.ca/news/ring-of-fire-conflict-reveals-gaps-in-ontarios-economic-nationalist-ev-battery-fantasy.
Trade Unions and Labour Environmentalism Network (2024). “Founding Document”. https://tulelabour.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/TULE-Founding-Document-August-2024.pdf.
Velasco, Benjamin (2025). “Worker-Driven Social Responsibility as an Alternative: Interrogating Export Zone Workers’ Struggles in the Philippines.” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-9140-8_21.
Westgard-Cruice, W., Davidson, B., Collins, V., and Neal. L. (Forthcoming). “Labour, Place, and Competition: A Value-Theoretical Perspective on Global Production Networks in the Wind Energy Industry.” Work in the Global Economy.
INFLUENTIAL & RECENT LABOUR ENVIRONMENTALISM RESEARCH:
Barry, John. 2025. “A Tale of Carbon and Economic Unicorns: Techno-Optimism and Dangerous Mythic Thinking.” Capitalism Nature Socialism, July 28.
Campling, Liam, and Hyunjung Kim. 2025. “Labour Regimes in Industrial Tuna Fisheries: Exploitation, Ecology and Global Production Networks.” Journal of Economic Geography, April 22, lbaf018. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbaf018.
Cha, J. M. (2024). A just transition for all: workers and communities for a carbon-free future. MIT Press.
Harry, S. J., Maltby, T., & Szulecki, K. (2024). Contesting just transitions: Climate delay and the contradictions of labour environmentalism. Political Geography, 112, 103114.
MacDonald, Ian. 2025. “Québec Labour Confronts the Climate Crisis.” Labor Studies Journal 50 (3): 193–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X251356491.
Price, Vivian, Todd E. Vachon, Dimitris Stevis, and J. Mijin Cha. 2025. “Negotiating Just Transitions: Power and Interest Dynamics in Insurgent Sustainability Coalitions.” Environmental Politics 34 (6): 959–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2024.2419801.
Riofrancos, T. (2025). The ‘critical minerals’ rush could result in a resource war. Financial Times. www.ft.com/content/b3709429-a99b-4105-afa5-001d08a3fd80 (2023). The security–sustainability nexus: Lithium onshoring in the Global North. Global Environmental Politics, 23(1), 20-41.
Räthzel, N., & Uzzell, D. (2019). The future of work defines the future of humanity and all living species. International Journal of Labour Research, 9(1/2), 145-171.
Stevis, D. (2021). Embedding Just Transition in the US: The Long Ambivalence. In N. Räthzel, D. Stevis, and D. Uzzell (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies (pp. 591-620). Palgrave: Macmillan.
The Transnational Institute. (2024). Climate in the Crosshairs: The planetary impact of NATO’s spending increases. https://www.tni.org/en/publication/climate-in-the-crosshairs.
Wilgosh, B., Sorman, A. H., & Barcena, I. (2022). When two movements collide: Learning from labour and environmental struggles for future Just Transitions. Futures, 137, 102903.
Get in Touch!
Have questions or ideas? We’d love to hear from you! Reach out and let’s discuss labour environmentalism and the role of trade unions.