The commission for auto-industry workers at the ISA cadre school offered a concrete next step in developing and sharpening our program for the just transition of the fossil fuel and auto industries. Contributions from comrades from ten countries in three continents highlighted the necessity to continue sharpening our program through experience within our workplaces and within the climate movement. Taking place just days after record temperatures all across Europe, participants were feeling the heat — and the ruling class’s inability to offer any solutions to the ever-worsening climate crisis.
Capitalism’s inability to solve the climate crisis opens up opportunities for struggle
Capitalism’s inability to even remotely deal with the climate crisis can be best seen in the automobile industry. Although the industry is currently transitioning to electric cars, this transition has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with profit. On top of opening up new profitable markets (especially in China) it allows manufacturers to greenwash their image. Although they don’t use gas, electric cars often require a much more carbon intensive process of production. They are individual “solutions” only available to people who can afford to buy an electric car, which costs on average $18,000 more than a new gas car. Battery-electric vehicles don’t solve the problems of individual transportation. A massive expansion of public transportation and free fares are the solutions that we actually need. If not integrated into a public transport system with trains, electric or hydrogen buses and e-bikes, electric cars by themselves are not about helping the planet, they’re about helping the profits of Elon Musk and co.
Because electric cars have many fewer moving parts than classic gas cars, many factories within this industry have been deemed unnecessary and are being threatened with shutdowns, offshoring and layoffs. According to Germany’s National Platform Future of Mobility, 400,000 workers could be laid off within the industry by 2030, up to one million in the EU. In the US it is 75,000. This will lead to poverty and pain for the workers and offer no solutions for the climate. We need a just transition in polluting industries. Instead of transitioning the factories to the production necessary for a green society — trains, solar panels and wind turbines — the bosses pit the climate against jobs for their own profits.
Although capitalism is unable to transition to a green economy, the workers who create its polluting products can. Due to their role within the production process, workers are capable of striking to concretely disturb capitalism’s endless drive for profit and build a movement that challenges the capitalist system: The fight for job protection, higher wages and better working conditions can be combined with demands for production conversion and democratic public ownership. Students and the larger climate movement must link up with this idea. As workers in polluting industries move into struggle to fight for their future and livelihood, the idea of green transitions of production will come up. It already has at one Bosch factory in Munich. It is our task as socialists to link this idea with concrete demands, correct methods and next steps. In this workshop, we discussed how to approach this.
Lessons from the Lucas Plan
As part of her introduction, Martina from Austria drew out the lessons from the movement around the Lucas Plan, which was a fight for a just transition. In 1976, the British manufacturer, Lucas Aerospace was threatened to close shop because it wasn’t included in a movement of top-down nationalizations in the aerospace industry. 16,000 workers were set to lose their jobs. The Lucas Plan was a response to management announcements that thousands of jobs were to be cut in the face of industrial restructuring, international competition, and technological change. Instead of redundancy, workers argued their right to socially useful production. For the first time, a union struggle to save jobs was linked to a struggle to develop a new product range.
Encouraged by left-wing labor leader, Tony Benn, to come up with alternative production in order to be included in the nationalization, rank and file workers, shop stewards and radical scientists created a catalog of over 150 socially-useful products. With their mechanical know-how, creativity and drive to produce useful products, these included solar panels, heat pumps, wind turbines, dialysis machines, and many other products that have yet to be fully explored even after fifty years. The working class‘s creativity was on full show here. Such a plan offers a sneak peak into what could be possible in a fully worker-run democratic planned economy.
Key to the plan was 1) the linkup of keeping production with socially useful production, 2) bringing together the struggle in multiple factories and workplaces 3) the demand of nationalization under worker’s democratic ownership and 4) the plan was created by the rank and file themselves and not trade union bureaucrats, the bosses or outside forces. Unfortunately the plan was betrayed by the right wing Labor leadership and trade union bureaucrats. Nevertheless, this plan offers a concrete example, methods and lessons that all workers and socialists looking to transition to green production within the threatened auto or fossil fuel industry can point to.
Climate Struggle is Class Struggle vs. Siemens’ Greenwashing
In Nuremberg, Germany, the comrades from Sozialistische Alternative (ISA in Germany) have been putting these methods into practice in order to bring the climate movement and industry workers together. In his introduction, Sammy analyzed trends within the German climate movement and explained their campaign Klimaschutz heißt Klassenkampf (climate struggle is class struggle).
In the Large Drive Applications section of a Siemens factory in Nuremberg, large electric motors are produced for oil-rigs, heavy mining and cruise ships. The Siemens management uses this fact to justify and greenwash carving out the large drives section. “Carving out” means the factory will cease to be part of Siemens and then will be sold to new investors. This is Siemens’ way of saying they don’t make enough profit in the industry. They carve sections out to wash their hands from the coming job-cuts and factory shutdowns and to preserve their highly innovative, clean image. In Nuremberg, the factory is set to be officially sold to new investors in 2023, which will lead to 260 workers losing their jobs and longterm to 900.
Part of the larger trend of factory shutdowns and job-cuts within the heavy machinery industry in Germany, Siemens’ carving out of its “Large Drives Applications” factory in Nuremberg offered the comrades an opportunity to 1) bring together Fridays for Future and industrial workers and 2) bring up the demand of a worker-led just transition.
The comrades used their position within Fridays for Future (FFF) to create the “climate struggle is class struggle” alliance. With this, they use FFF’s larger societal influence to call out Siemens’ greenwashing, stand on the side of the workers and bring up the demand of a rank and file led just transition. They have met somewhat regularly with shop stewards from the IG Metall trade union to discuss demands and tactics. The comrades table with the alliance in front of the factory door to talk about their ideas with workers. Through these discussions, they came up with demands to link keeping jobs with the climate. They have collected 70 signatures from workers in agreement with the demands so far and 250 from other workers and young people in Nuremberg.
The alliance’s main demands are: that all jobs should be kept, that strikes and demonstrations should be linked up with the three other Siemens LDA factories in Germany, that the factory should be nationalized to stop it from being closed and that workers, shop stewards and climate activists should come up with a plan for green production — our suggestions being train motors and motors for geothermal heating pumps — along with demands for rank and file democracy within the union, an index wage and a 12% wage increase.
Harland and Wolfe
In his contribution, Connor from Ireland explained the role the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland) played in the strikes to keep jobs at the Belfast shipyard, Harland and Wolfe in 2019. Threatened with redundancy, 150 skilled shipbuilders were set to be laid off. When no buyer was found for the yard, workers occupied it and brought up the demand for nationalization. A central leader and regional organizer within the representative union, UNITE, was our comrade Susan Fitzgerald. She went further by demanding the shipyard be put under workers’ control. Instead of ships, workers could produce off-shore wind turbines because they had already been developing prototypes. This received mass support from the climate movement, other trade unions and working-class people generally. Due to the militant occupations, a buyer was found at the last minute and the workers kept their jobs. This was a massive victory. Although the transition and nationalization did not take place, the workers proved that a fighting strategy is not to be stopped.
We need strong, democratic unions to fight for climate justice
In order to demand nationalization and transitions of production, we need strong unions and workforces. As the organizations of the working class, unions can demand and organize the struggle for a just transition and nationalization. A fighting rank and file is a necessity for this. Our fight for a just transition can therefore not be separate from our attempts to fight for democratic, militant unions.
We have to lead with concrete demands for just transitions in our unions. To be able to do so, some steps can be helpful: we primarily need to 1) politicize our workplaces by talking about the impacts of climate change on our jobs and livelihoods with coworkers and 2) formulate and submit positive proposals connecting demands for better working conditions with nationalization/green transitions of production within our unions and calls for actions/strikes. These actions expose the trade union bureaucracy’s inaction to the rank and file, and prove that demands can only be won through workers’ mobilization and action.
Comrades in Austria attempted to do just that with their “Workers for Future” campaign. Following the explosive climate protests in 2019, the comrades took up the initiative to bring this fervor into their workplaces. They organized workshops among the rank and file, discussed with co-workers about workers’ power within the climate movement, and organized blocks at FFF demos. While the trade union bureaucracy tried to use “Workers for Future” as a green fig-leaf, they tried to block the group from talking to the rank and file wherever they could.
The trade union bureaucracy enjoys material privileges lended to them from the bosses. To insure their privileges, they promote calm between the classes and sell miniscule reforms as victories. They therefore need excuses for their lack of action. In polluting industries such as the automobile and fossil fuel industry, that means blaming the climate movement for job cuts and factory closures instead of mobilizing workers to fight for green production. Nevertheless, even the trade union bureaucracy can be forced into action. But that requires the rank and file adopting a militant class-struggle based strategy.
Transitional demands for a just transition
We must create a program bridging the immediate needs of workers and youth, and the necessity for socialism. We have been developing and sharpening our climate program through local interventions in climate strikes and our international interventions at COP26 and the UN Stockholm +50 conference. We must adapt these demands to reach out to auto and fossil fuel workers, who are in a position to demand a just transition through strikes.
An important first step is climate activists building solidarity with striking workers. Demonstrations and protests against price increases and inflation are popping up everywhere and one of the main demands is a price control over skyrocketing gas prices. In order to bring together the climate struggle and the fight back against the cost of living crisis, we must raise the widely discussed demand for nationalization of the energy sector. As unions and the class begin to mobilize against inflation, this demand will become more concrete for many. Yet we have to bring it further: it must be nationalization of oil and gas companies forced from below under the control of workers and environmental organizations. Not the bourgeois Uniper nationalization, carried out in the interests of German capitalism to prop up failing energy companies. Only with this addition, can we be sure that gas prices will be capped and renewable energy expanded.
As Philipp from Austria mentioned in his contribution, correct transitional demands can only be put forward through struggle and intervention. They must connect the current consciousness of workers and youth with the necessity of workers’ control over production. That requires having a correct gauge of consciousness. The point of this workshop was not to philosophize about a just transition; it was to sharpen our demands that we then put into action. The comrades’ experience in Nuremberg, Belfast and in many other places taught us more about just transition than 1000 hours of discussion. We are currently working on creating a “how to guide” for a just transition.
In the current situation, we need to formulate and fight for demands that tackle runaway inflation and exploding energy prices and are addressed against the climate crisis. Nationalization of the energy and transport sector under workers’ control coupled with free public transport is one possible example of this. We should strive to include concrete climate demands in all labor struggles where possible. That is how the ISA will further develop its transitional program for a just transition and the fight for a democratic socialist society.
Only workers can win a just transition
In his sumup, Marc from Germany highlighted this fact that our climate work in practice must always be aimed at workers. The weakness of the workers’ movement since the 1980s has led to many workers and youth looking to other groups for change. As the head of his works-council at an electric car factory, he made this clear. Threatened by closure during covid in mid 2020 and a lack of investment, his colleagues were looking for an answer. Marc put forward nationalization of the plant. He got a meeting of the works-council to discuss this and a large majority agreed to send a letter out to the government. He then got a call with the German Finance Minister about potential nationalization. After 20 minutes of explanation why the company should be supported — for the 400 jobs, the relatively sustainable small car and the work put into research and development — Marc asked whether nationalization would be possible. The finance minister gave them a classic “we do not have the necessary resources”. Bear in mind the Finance Minister of finances as current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who was very ready to spend 100 billion on weapons. The point of this act was not to chat with Scholz, it was to show his coworkers that change does not come from above.
A just transition to secure green productions and jobs will not come from establishment politicians like Olaf Scholz, trade union bureaucrats or entrepreneurs; no, it will only come from workers’ struggle, armed with a socialist program and class-struggle strategy outlined above.
