Environment activists at the recent Students of Sustainability conference made a solidarity trip to visit workers on strike at the Hazelwood power station in Victoria.
As Dave Kerin, of the CFMEU mining division told Solidarity “They brought their solidarity greetings and agreed with us that on climate change we are looking to build an alliance.” Links between climate activists and unions, especially those in the fossil fuel industry, will be vital in breaking down the myths that action on climate must come at the expense of workers’ jobs and living standards. Taking this argument into the working class is going to be necessary to mobilise both the numbers—as well as the power organised workers have—that the climate movement needs.
Kerin noted “The employers have been getting in the ear of our workers for years on what a green is and when they hear Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that’s code for enemy. But I think it’s around the question of the new green collar jobs that we will build unity.”
Climate activists build links with Hazelwood workers
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