Environmentalism Arrives at the Factory

Some 300,000 workers are killed each year as a result of exposure to chemical agents. Trade union leaders from around the world have gathered in Kenya to discuss a new era of cooperation between organized labour and the global environment.

NAIROBI - In Nigeria, a campaign has been launched to consign health hazardous, outdated and obsolete chemicals to the history books. It should eventually benefit an estimated five million factory workers along with the wider West African environment.

A joint Norwegian and Russian programme is educating and training staff at Russian factories in areas such as health and safety and cleaner production techniques, with gains expected to include healthier working conditions and reduced emissions to land, water and air.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a project is underway to make 300,000 apartments energy efficient under a renovation scheme. It should generate 200,000 jobs while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by two million tonnes.

The common thread running through these and numerous other pilots in both the developed and developing world is organized labour. Indeed they underscore the growing enthusiasm and commitment of trade unions to embrace sustainable development for the benefit of the workplace, communities living nearby and the global environment as a whole.

A few decades ago the relationship between the environment and the trade union movement was characterized as one of suspicion.

Some in organized labour were concerned that environmental protection might jeopardize jobs by placing an undue burden on business and industry, while environmentalists suspected that trade unions were bent on defending the status quo of heavy, and in many cases, polluting industry.

Those days are gone and these cobwebs of suspicion have been blown away by the realities of a modern globalized world. Both sides now recognize the multiple benefits of reaching out in common cause.

This blossoming relationship has come into sharp focus as 150 trade union leaders representing millions of workers meet at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), January 15-17.

We are determined to make this first World Assembly on Labour and the Environment more than a mere talking fest.

A multi-pronged action plan, to be known as the Workers' Initiative for a Lasting Legacy or WILL2006, is set to be agreed in collaboration with UNEP, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the Sustainlabour Foundation.

There are obvious areas of mutual self interest, for example in the field of reducing exposure by workers and their families to harmful and dangerous substances. ILO estimates indicate that some 300,000 workers are killed each year as a result of exposure to chemical agents. This should and must be
dramatically reduced.

Workers and environmentalists alike recognize that fighting environmental degradation is a win-win battle. Take climate change: overcoming this most serious of serious threats will deliver not only a more stable and less wasteful world, but one in which new, cleaner and more sustainable jobs can be
generated in areas such as renewable energy systems and cleaner fossil fuel generation.

Organized labour can be a powerful catalyst for change, persuading employers and companies to be more environmentally responsible and resource-efficient.

The time for forging closer ties with trade unions has been long overdue. An estimated three billion people, or half those alive on the planet today, are classed as being in the global work force.

It is high time we made our manifest and mutual self interests work. Work for the man and women on the factory and office floor and in the fields of agriculture—and work for a cleaner, healthier and more dignified world for all.

* Klaus Toepfer is the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. To learn more about the World Assembly on Labour and the Environment, connect yourself to: www.will2006.org