Josh's blog

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All too often you hear someone say: "What about all the workers that will lose their jobs if there were no short-haul flights" or "aviation expansion means more jobs". A new report from the Campaign against Climate Change, 'One Million Jobs Now', provides the answer. It shows how over 1,000,000 jobs could be created in 'climate jobs'.

These jobs would directly help to reduced the amount of greenhouse gases we're putting into the air - unlike the 'green jobs' the Goverment keeps supporting. The report suggests that new jobs could be created in all areas - including those in sustainable energies, homes and buildings and transport.

Providing this many new jobs is vital to tackling climate change and providing a transition for workers employed in polluting industries. It would also assist the two and a half million people currently unemployed in the UK. The report demonstrates how over half those people could be re-employed in new 'climate jobs'.

The report was partly inspired by the Vestas struggle, where a group of un-unionised workers on the Isle of Wight were given their marching orders when a factory manufacturing wind turbines was shut down. Work in sectors like the aviation industry is notoriously precarious, with boom and bust cycles creating little job security. The report argues for Government investment in genuinely sustainable employment, for work which will continue to be useful; regardless of the vagaries of the market.

This document is hugely important to climate change activists. It helps to highlight the compatibility of workers and climate activist's struggles and so helps to cement a crucial relationship in the fight against capitalism and climate change.

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Last night we saw what may turn out to be one of the crucial moments in the fight against climate change. Faced with closure and the loss of over 600 jobs, 25 workers from Britain’s only wind turbine factory occupied their workplace and vowed to remain in place until the government nationalises the factory.

The Government's reaction perfectly symbolises their refusal to take the environment or labour complaints seriously. Just days after Miliband and Brown promised to create a million green jobs comes an opportunity to demonstrate how serious they are. But instead of engaging in debate they sent in waves of riot cops while putting out press comments that lament the closure of the factory but do sweet f.a. about it.

The Vestas workers are spot on: the factory should be nationalised and turned into an icon of green employment. Don't forget that we just splashed out £400 billion on the bankers who are up to their old tricks again. Labour may bleat about the downturn, but in the real world this wind turbine factory is being closed and they are sitting on their hands. Why? Because saving jobs and preventing climate change are not the government’s priorities, no matter how much they talk about it.

That's what makes this occupation so important: workers coming together to solve their own problems. This country has a history of industrial disobedience and workers’ solidarity. Thatcher tried her hardest to bury this radicalism, but we've seen it returning to our factories and work-places as layoffs continue and bailouts go to those who can most afford a few months out of work (such as the majority of MPs, who are about to break for summer).

People are angry, taking action and getting results. Wildcat strikes in support of the Lindsey Oil Refinery got those workers re-employed. BA workers have firmly rejected their boss's suggestion that they might like to go without pay for a while, protesting outside the AGM and refusing to cave. With Ryanair cutting its Stansted flights by 40% (and already operating with as few staff as possible), how long will it be before we see workers taking over an airport to protest again job losses?

The environmental movement has started to engage in debate about what a low-carbon economy might look like, and - more crucially - how we get there. The Vestas occupation is the perfect tinderbox to ignite that discussion, take it out of the hands of Government and business and let us have a say in what our future will look like.