Trade Unions and Labour Environmentalism Network (TULE)

The Just Transition as a worker-driven movement was articulated in the 1990s by Tony Mazzochi of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union. Searching for an alternative to the narratives of inevitable job losses and downward social mobility, Mazzochi sought to reframe the relationship between environmental regulation and the working class as an opportunity to reimagine what socially and ecologically meaningful labour could look like (Mazzochi, 1993). The Just Transition is not just a transition away from fossil fuels and high-emitting industries, but it is fundamentally a question of a “just transition for whom?” (Cha, 2024). Transitions have historically produced greater socio-economic inequalities, leading to great wealth and prosperity for a few while leaving workers and communities behind. The potential of a Just Transition will be determined by the capacity of union organizations to mobilize workers, both in the workplace and public arena, in support of the necessary policies (Stevis, 2021; MacDonald, 2025). This challenge remains formidable.

The pursuit of such a Just Transition is confronted with new challenges amidst competing and entangled nationalist agendas, heightened by stalled “green” capitalism, far right petro-nationalism and rising militarism. Following Trump’s reelection, the reversal of state support for a “green” capitalist transition has thrown industries such as offshore wind into a panic, with the very future of the industry in doubt. Driven by a so-called “America First” agenda, the Trump administration has launched waves of tariff wars that, through re-organizing supply chains, indirectly disrupt and delay global green transition efforts. In this context, workers confront unjust transitions as “green” sectors slow down and promises of the revival of manufacturing jobs fail to materialize amidst growing uncertainty. Also, as Thea Riofrancos (2023) observes, a “security–sustainability nexus” underlies emergent “green” industrial policies. By tracing how the geopolitical race for critical minerals for the energy transition is supplanted by a race for minerals to fuel the war machine (Riofrancos, 2025), militarism rises as a central concern in just transition discussions (Ismail, 2025). Amidst this new conjuncture, calls for workers to reimagine the conditions of ecological production away from war and climate destruction and towards a just future is more urgent than ever (Räthzel & Uzzell, 2019).

Possible themes include (not exhaustive):

• Different conceptions and policies of Just Transitions;
• Different union and organized labour strategies vis-à-vis the ecological transition;
• Working conditions in emergent “green” economies;
• The role of the state and industrial policies in advancing Just Transition(s);
• The relationship between unjust transitions and the rise of far-right petro-nationalism;
• The challenges of international worker solidarity amidst green industrial policies and militarism;
• Variety of methods to study labour environmentalism in comparative and global contexts.