green jobs now

Green Jobs Now | No Gas Led Recovery Green Jobs Now | No Gas Led Recovery

by James Sherriff and Ruby Pandolfi (NSW ASEN Convenors, 2021)

The climate crisis is a class issue. The Coalition government is pushing Scomo’s “gas-led recovery” as the solution to the COVID crisis. It consists of the fast-tracking and funding of new coal seam gas (CSG) fracking sites across Australia, the extraction of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG), and the development of infrastructure such as pipelines and railways to export LNG overseas.

It is a blatant example of how the government is using COVID as a cover to push the burdens of the economic recession onto the working class, at the expense of the planet. In the context of increasing unemployment, cuts to wages and benefits, and underfunded public services, governments and big business are continuing to put profits over the climate, First Nations sovereignty and the livelihoods of ordinary people.

shift, while workers are denied the opportunity and benefits of a just transition process. We should be building renewable energy infrastructure across the continent, whilst fighting for guaranteed jobs for displaced workers, democratic control of workplaces and industries, and justice for communities affected. Instead, the expansion of the CSG industry will line the pockets of executives and shareholders with public funding, tax write-offs, and the huge profits that will be made from exporting LNG overseas. ARCHIVALSAt the same time, the federal government has continued to erode worker rights and union protections, seeking to remove the “better off overall test” and cut rates and conditions. It is clear who is getting a better deal from this ‘recovery’. This is a rerun of past battles, not a new issue. The expansion of the fossil fuel industry has repeatedly been forced through by state and federal governments, while mass movements calling for genuine climate action and a worker-led transition to publicly owned renewable energy have been stifled. This is because the government is beholden to the interests of the coal, oil, and gas companies which fund both major parties, not the constituents it supposedly is elected to “represent”. The state

This ‘recovery plan’ follows a pattern of workers rights being eroded by successive Australian governments since the 1970s Accords, and demonstrates the link between the exploitation of workers and the intensification of the climate crisis. The contradictions inherent to capitalist development are clear: the very path proposed out of this crisis will only plunge us deeper into environmental disaster.

Pushing a gas-fired recovery only delays the inevitable shift towards renewables, and allows private companies to reap the benefits of this 18

is acting in the interests of capital to maintain class divisions, by shifting the cost of the crisis onto the working class and pitting workers’ interests against environmental justice and climate action.

Workers, including Indigenous peoples, students, and climate activists, must cut through this narrative and work together to fight for a just transition to renewable energy ourselves.

Just as we cannot rely on private corporations and capitalists to solve the climate crisis, nor can we rely on the state to win it for us.

What we need for the climate moveARCHIVALS ment to be successful is widespread industrial action: an alignment of social forces behind strong demands for climate action and a just transition, culminating in a general strike.

The urgency of the climate crisis is such that we cannot continue to fight against every new fossil fuel project as it arises. We cannot allow the state and private interests to dictate the terms of our struggle.

This means building strong political consensus around radical demands, which drag broad institutions along behind active grassroots rank and file movements of ordinary people. To win the argument for a just transition we must mobilise and fight for it, from the streets to the workplace.

We must bridge the gaps between atomised movements, such as the climate and labour movements, The fight for climate action will inevitably be toothless and ineffective if run by NGOs and think tanks who have little stake in provoking necessary radical changes, and without the backing of rank and file activity to bolster it. The labour movement can likewise benefit from the urgency and scope provided by the climate movement. If we are to identify and challenge the core causes of the climate crisis, we have to make apparent the link between the exploitation of workers and the exploitation of ecosystems and the environment.

It is apparent that capitalism is their common cause, and without decisive action from a clear revolutionary socialist perspective we will have little power to challenge it. By aligning social forces together, we can fight against corporate handouts and privatisation.

We must fight for more worker control over workplaces and industries, for a properly funded public sector, for publicly owned renewable energy, a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry, and First Nations sovereignty over land and water, by organising, mobilising and agitating in the here and now.

United we compound key struggles to create the necessary momentum to fight against the capitalist-colonial project promoting this ‘gas led recovery plan’, which is no true recovery at all, and win a better world for all. 19