Tag: climate

REELNews Xmas appeal

Crunch time for GKN, the most advanced worker led transition struggle in history 

XMAS APPEAL: Crunch time for GKN, the most advanced worker led transition struggle in history 

The battle by ex-GKN workers in Florence to convert their autoparts factory to zero carbon production under workers control is at a critical stage – and you can help. Find out how below and watch a video of the story of this historic struggle so far – PLUS the latest from the most important strike in Britain, a siginificant victory for education workers in Bristol, and what you can do to help prisoners on hunger strike for Palestine
GKN: Cash urgently needed to start production under workers control

Click here to watch video of the story so far (30 min version)
Click here to watch 5 min version

Those of you who have been following the incredible just transition struggle of ex-GKN workers in Florence (and if you haven’t, you can catch up by watching the video above) will know that the regional council have been stalling on their commitment to put together a consortium to buy the factory off the current owners and hand it to the workers to produce cargo bikes and solar panels – all under workers control, and for the benefit of communities, not for profit.

Now, after delaying the process for months – increasing the suffering of the workers who have now had no wages for 15 months – it’s fallen apart.

The main reason seems to be the drive to war and the increase of arms spending across Europe, with most of the banks who agreed to fund the project now demanding that the workers produce weapons rather than zero carbon products based on equality and social justice. And as the workers point out, “the former GKN is an example they can’t afford. Because a conscious community, insurgent, through the convergence of social and climate justice shows that an alternative would be possible.”

So now the workers have made the decision to go it alone and do everything themselves. Which means raising substantial sums of money from our own workers organisations, social movements and civil society.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL STATEMENT AND EXPLANATION BY THE WORKERS


WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

1) Make a donation to the workers’ crowdfunder, which has a target of 2 million euros. You can make a donation by clicking here. So if you were looking for somewhere to donate to for Xmas, this is the place!

2) If your trade union branch or organisation, or a collection of individuals can afford 500 euros, that’ll buy you a share in the workers cooperative and be part of the assembly that will collectively run the factory if the workers win.
CLICK HERE TO BUY A SHARE

IMPORTANT: IF YOUR GROUP HAS ALREADY PLEDGED TO BUY A SHARE, CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE TO PAY THE 500 EUROS FOR IT

And a warning: the form to buy shares is not easy to fill in. Having just done it to buy the share for the UK rank and file workers delegation that visited Florence last year, we can give you some help below; if you’re still having trouble, please feel free to email us at info@reelnews.co uk and we can talk you through it.

If you’re not in Italy, fill it in as an individual, not as an organisation. If you try to do it as, for example, a trade union branch, you’ll get a load of questions that are impossible to answer because our union branches are not set up in the same way legally as Italian union branches. So you’ll have to pick a trusted individual who doesn’t mind paying the 500 euros out of their personal bank account and then getting it back from the branch.

Most of the questions are meaningless – but what you answer doesn’t matter. The questions are obiously geared to a generic shareholder issue for companies – but don’t worry about the fact that none of the answer choices fit your situation, just pick anything – the answers seem to be completely irrelevant, so for example there’s no need to reveal your financial circumstances.

When you get to the page that says “send link to continue on your phone, or scroll down to continue, choose the phone option. You’ll findthat it’s actually impossible to scroll down, so in fact you have to continue you on your phone – which is actually just to take a picture of your passport as proof of identity. Once you’ve done that, it’ll return you to your computer.

Once you’ve finished this part, you’ll have to wait for another email to set up payment. This comes in a few minutes, but then once you’ve set up payment (bank transfer seems to be easiest), you’ll have to wait for up to 48 hours for it all to be cleared to actually transfer the 500 euros.

Hopefully that hasn’t put any of you off! But if it feels daunting, please get in touch – we’ve done it and can help you do it very quickly. 

We’ll leave the last word to the workers: “After 4 years of struggle, 15 months without a salary, and 8 months of unemployment, all may seem lost. But at the same time, it may all be enough to claim that, “after all, we won”. The lessons we can learn from this struggle are enormous, its historical legacy will not fade away, and its example will speak for years to come. Then, why insist (on continuing the struggle)? Because we cannot afford to lose this fight and “they” cannot afford to let us win. Because it started with the “simple” aim to keep the factory open, but ended up exposing every “systemic” issue that is dragging us towards the catastrophe today.”

Making just transition possible

We were invited to contribute to a workshop on fossil fuels and developing a workers’ plan for just transition held in London on 13 April 2024 by the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group. This is a summary of the contribution made by Pete Cannell – responses to this piece would be very welcome.

Dundee Harbour – image by Pete Cannell CC0

The previous speakers have talked about some of the very important practical issues that are central to enabling a transition to a sustainable zero carbon economy. There’s plenty of evidence to show that phasing out oil and gas combined with serious investment in renewables creates more jobs.  The Sea Change report, published in 2019, shows how switching from oil and gas to wind and solar would create a big net increase in jobs and how failing to make this transition would mean that targets to cut carbon emissions would not be met.

Similarly, home insulation, retrofitting and replacing gas with electricity for heating and cooking is essential, but critically dependent on a skilled workforce. 

This workshop is framed around developing a workers plan for just transition. I would argue that the main elements of such a plan are in place.  That being the case in the rest of this contribution I’d like to talk about why there’s not yet a simple consensus about a plan.  Having a plan is clearly necessary, and critical to being credible in the eyes of working people who are not yet convinced.  

In one sense we’ve made serious progress in the last five or so years, it’s now common sense in the climate movement to talk about the role of workers and the need for a just transition.  I think in this respect COP26 in Glasgow was a watershed moment.  But ironically in practical terms, in terms of action I think we’ve gone backwards in the same period.  So, for example, the number of workers in renewables in Scotland is about the same now as it was in 2014.  In the eyes of many workers talk of just transition looks like hot air.  And in the hands of right-wing populist politicians, it fuels arguments that the climate crisis is not a problem and climate action is a threat.  So, there’s a real danger that repetition of just transition, in the absence tangible steps that improve lives and livelihoods, becomes a form of greenwashing. 

So, while we need consensus on what to do for me the 64,000-dollar question is 

How do we build a mass movement with powerful roots in every workplace and working-class community that has the power to make the necessary changes happen?

I think the climate movement often underestimates the extent to which commitment to the North Sea and to the interests of the big oil and gas companies shapes and directs climate policy.  Westminster, Holyrood, the energy sector trade unions and the oil and gas industry work in partnership through what used to be called Oil and Gas UK and has now been rebranded as Offshore Energies UK.  They are all signed up to the North Sea Transition Deal and it essentially guides their actions.  So, for example it’s hard to find a serious analyst who things hydrogen for domestic heating and cooking makes sense but using hydrogen in this way remains a key plank of policy for both Westminster and Holyrood.  And while it does other options are not pursued.  Why?  Because hydrogen together with Carbon Capture and Storage is the best option for Fossil Capital that wants to maintain existing market dominance, infrastructure and (not least) profits.

For more than fifty years the big oil and gas companies have used their operations in the UK sector of the North Sea to blaze a trail for what we have come to know as neoliberalism; establishing practices that have been copied and taken up internationally. Outsourcing, multiple layers of subcontracting, vicious anti-union policies and the use of blacklists.  At the same time the so-called free ‘market’ has been featherbedded by massive state subsidies which have exceeded taxation revenue.  

In the old saying – if we had a choice – we wouldn’t start from here.  All the evidence is that we are just going past the 1.5degree threshold and the scientific evidence is that change is taking place more rapidly than anticipated.  This while the Scottish government which has been strong on rhetoric but feebly reliant on the market for action is judged to be a long way for reaching its targets and Westminster gives the green light for maintaining oil and gas production.  And the most important unions remain wedded to a policy of partnership with the energy industry. To answer my earlier question, that partnership, is why we don’t have consensus about a plan.  It’s the partnership that pulls in Unite, RMT and GMB behind CCS, Hydrogen and Nuclear.

In this context I think it’s legitimate to ask whether just transition is any longer the right framing for what we want or need.  

We need to be clear about what we want to happen and largely that thinking is in place.  But to make it happen – perhaps what we should now be talking about is rupture rather than transition. And the power to make that rupture resides within the working class.

North Sea workers are key, but the oil industry has been successful at keeping their organisation fractured and largely ineffective.  I think it’s most likely that oil workers will become active participants in the rupture we need only if the mass movement we need is built across all sectors and in working class communities.  

And if we are to win that mass participation then there’s no place for partnership with Fossil capital – and that means some very sharp arguments within our movement.