Ahead of next week’s spending review, leaders of the UK’s biggest trade unions are calling on the Prime Minister to prioritise nature, the environment and employment.
Bosses from the Fire Brigades’ Union, British Medical Association, Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association and University and College Union have issued an open letter through Zero Hour to Labour leader Keir Starmer. This is backed by a number of other organisations, including the General Federation of Trade Unions and Public and Commercial Services Union.
A number of party members have also backed the call, including MP Clive Lewis. Labelling the current failure to properly tackle the climate and nature crises as ‘short-sighted’, he warned that ‘future generations will never forgive us’ if these issues are not fully addressed.
Labour MPs Olivia Blake, Simon Opher, Richard Burgon and Ian Byrne, Liberal Democrat Roz Savage, and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer have also voiced support. You can read the full letter here.
‘Environmental and economic justice are inseparable’, the letter stated. Those behind the document have also raised red flags over increasingly extreme conditions facing UK workers as temperatures rise and extreme flooding incidents become more commonplace.
‘I am deeply concerned by the fracturing of political consensus on net zero and the continued mixed messaging that it sends to the public,’ said Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South. ‘The Government would be right to heed the calls of their trade union colleagues today, or risk further alienating the public who overwhelmingly back bold responses to the challenges we face.’
Workers from the fossil fuel industry should be re-skilled and retrained to avoid a repeat of the generational fallout from Britain’s closure of coal mines.
This recommendation comes just after research from Robert Gordon University which suggests 29,000 offshore jobs could disappear from the North Sea sector by 2030 with no robust plan to safeguard livelihoods.
Beyond this, the Climate and Nature Bill should urgently be brought back to Parliamentary sessions, and a new cross-government approach to engage supporters needs to be developed.
‘Our members understand that the transition to a green economy must be a just transition. One that creates secure jobs and protects our planet,’ said Jo Grady, General Secretary of the University & College Union. ‘The Government must redouble its efforts to provide skills training in the jobs of the future to guarantee decent livelihoods for the next generation.
‘With the Trumpian climate denialists of Reform UK on the march in the polls, next week’s Spending Review is a vital opportunity to commit to expanding well-paid green jobs across the country and open up a range of reskilling programmes to help these opportunities reach every community,’ they added.
Image: Deniz Fuchidzhiev / Unsplash
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