PCS Climate change motion debated at Congress
Our motion centred on climate change, a transition away from fossils fuels and the need for a national climate service to co-ordinate and plan a decarbonised economy.
PCS submitted Motion 18 on Climate Change which was composited into motion C18, Climate Emergency the next steps along with motion 17 from Unison.
The motion acknowledged that “the climate emergency will affect all jobs and all workers adversely. This is a key trade union issue for us all.”
Moving the motion for Unison, Dawn Wainwright referred to the number of deaths caused each year by pollution and heat waves. She said: “we can’t put off action until it’s more convenient, until there is a perfect plan. It will cost us much more in lives as well as financially to wait and to act.”
Seconding the motion, and challenging opposition to it, PCS assistant general secretary John Moloney said: “This government claims it’s going to create 675,000 green jobs. We have to press the government immediately to say, what those jobs are, to make sure that they’re put in the right places to help people who are impacted by climate change and the move to net zero, with a guaranteed right that those jobs are reserved for people impacted in transitional industries.”
He also said “If we pass this motion, we can work jointly together to produce a plan that we can put forward to the government.”
John referred to how during Covid, the civil service created the furlough system, and said that the DWP, HMRC and other government departments have the capability to produce an income support system for all affected workers in this country and to deliver the plans.
He said “That’s why we need a national climate service, so that the civil service is properly organised…..If we pass this motion then we can seize the opportunity to go to the government with a united voice, a united voice that demands proper transitional changes, changes that are planned, not delivered by the chaos of the market.”
The motion called for the General Council to campaign for:
- negotiated transition plans that guarantee protection for all workers
- statutory just transition commissions for each nation
- public ownership of key sectors such as energy, water, and transport
- a national climate service to plan, coordinate and fund education and training for the workforce and a wide scale transformation to a decarbonised economy
- unions to co-operate in negotiating industrial strategies for decarbonisation,
- mandatory environmental impact assessments on all proposals and decisions
- a year of green trade union activity including engagement with community and climate justice groups
Unite and the General Council supported the motion with reservations relating to job protection in a just transition process. Despite abstentions from GMB and Prospect, the motion was carried.