Representatives of two key blue collar unions were featured panel members at a 1 August film screening on Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide to build this year’s Rising Tide blockade of the Newcastle coal port. The blockade will occur on 19-26 November.
“Climate activism and union activism is basically the same thing. It’s people versus profit. It’s labour versus capital. It’s about people standing up. There is more common ground than not,” John Adley, SA Branch Secretary of the Communications, Electrical, Energy and Plumbing Union (CEPU), told the meeting.
SA Organiser for the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), Campbell Duignan, acknowledged, “It’s our gang that are loading coal ships so I don’t want to skirt around that. The climate crisis is a major challenge for our union. ‘Just transition’ for us is more than a slogan.” He called for “honest discussions” to build genuine alliances between the movements.
Local unions in Newcastle have worked to address climate change through groups like the Hunter Jobs Alliance and have supported protests including the climate school strikes.
But protests targeting the coal port are not going to win workers’ support—with real fears in the coal-dependent area about where alternative, well-paid jobs will come from. Unions in the port, including the MUA, opposed the Rising Tide blockade last year on the grounds it appeared to call for immediate closure of the port without adequately addressing displaced workers’ need for job security.
Three demands
Rising Tide has three demands, which include ceasing all coal exports from Newcastle by 2030 and an immediate end to new fossil fuel projects. “Community and industry transition” is addressed in the other demand, for a 75 per cent tax on fossil fuel export profits, which would also be used to address climate damage.
Unfortunately, this demand, and the particular needs of current fossil fuel workers, have not been prominent in Rising Tide’s campaigning, including the Climate Defence Pledge that supporters are asked to sign.
Adley drew on his experience supporting workers through the 2016 closure of South Australia’s only coal power station, in Port Augusta, and the current winding down of the Torrens Island gas plant.
“The people that work in the fossil fuel industry understand the need to change and they’re actually on board. What we need to do as a society is make sure that those people don’t suffer from the necessary change that we are going through.
“Skills Australia says that we need 27,000 extra electricians by 2030 to help us reach the renewable energy targets because we need to build more transmission infrastructure, we need to build more renewable energy generation. We need to build more renewable energy storage. One of the big impediments we face is the people to build it, because we’re running out of time.
“There is absolutely no reason that people get left behind and lose jobs because they move out of coal-fired power stations. There are huge opportunities that are just growing in scale.”
Public investment
Duignan echoed this, pointing to the potential of offshore wind power generation to provide good jobs using the skills of the current maritime workforce.
“We want to see massive public investment in renewables,” he said. “We want to see the federal government require good union agreements on those projects. We want job guarantees for fossil fuel workers and government and industry funding training and support for workers to facilitate their transition.”
But making this a reality will require a concerted campaign to ensure workers are not left behind. The government should guarantee public funding to guarantee workers’ jobs as part of the transition.
The MUA is calling for a 78 per cent tax on offshore oil and gas profits, based on the existing tax charged by the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. Rising Tide also supports this idea. Duignan also called for a “substantial increase in the PRRT [Petroleum Resource Rent Tax] and the coal royalties charged by Australian states as Queensland implemented in 2022”.
Climate change is an existential threat that requires us to mobilise our full strength as workers and unionists, against the deeply entrenched power of the fossil fuel industry. It’s essential we win over union support if the movement is going to have the power to win.
This means taking workers’ concerns and the fight for jobs seriously. As Duignan concluded, “In terms of dare to struggle, dare to win: we’ve got to win this one.”
By Robert Stainsby
