Contribution short abstract

The presentation examines a German climate-labour coalition to show how alliances between unions and environmental groups can build power for a just green transition, to understand what factors support their success, and how they might affect the future of environmental struggle in Europe.

Contribution long abstract

My research contributes to the relatively recent call for a climate-labour turn. This turn positions the alliance building between the climate and labour movements as crucial for developing a strong counter-hegemonic movement with the power to push for a just green transition and confront the forces of capitalism. To understand the conditions and strategies necessary to foster such climate-labour coalitions, I investigated the case of “Wir Fahren Zusammen” (WFZ), a German alliance between the public transport department of the labour union ver.di and the German branch of Fridays for Future. Based in eco-Marxism and ideology theory, I analysed the ideological and material conditions that formed the coalition as well as how praxis affected coalition members’ ideology. This was done through interviews with 13 members of the coalition, as well as analysis of several documents that played a role in the coalition’s work. The findings demonstrated that a coalition needs (1) a unifying campaign set-up by centring working class conditions, (2) a material base for common goals, and (3) a strong interpersonal praxis of solidarity to successfully resist the hegemonic discourse of “jobs versus environment” (Räthzel & Uzzell, 2011). A central aspect of ideological transformation through praxis was the interpellation of public transport workers as active subjects of the green transition. My research can give a perspective on how climate-labour alliances function, how they might shape the future of environmental struggle, and what methodologies are suitable to research them.