Climate Change: Reshaping Jobs and Workspaces

Yewande Omotoso (00:00:02)

Welcome to SystemShift, a podcast from Greenpeace which explores how we can move from a world that serves the economy, to an economy that serves people and the planet.

The theme of this series is change and each episode we speak to guests across the world to hear how they're changing the planet for the better.

I am Yewande, I'm a novelist and I work with Greenpeace looking at the ways in which storytelling can bring the changes we are after in the climate and biodiversity crisis.

Carl Schlyter (00:00:34)

And I'm Carl Schlyter, your usual host from the earlier Seasons but also a campaigner for Greenpeace, mostly in Sweden, doing system change, forestry and climate campaigns.

For this episode we will ask the question:

"How could climate change reshape jobs and workspaces?".

We will explore how a shift to renewable energies and sustainable, equitable transition and transformation, creates decent jobs by addressing both environmental and social challenges.

We will look at what's needed to build a low carbon economy while prioritising the needs and wellbeing of people and planet. And we will do this focusing on the concept of just transition.

Yewande Omotoso (00:01:43)

We put a poll on our Instagram page where we asked: "Besides a fair salary, what else do you value in a job?". So Carl, do you want to hazard a guess.

Carl Schlyter (00:01:57)

I will go for the fact that I believe that our Instagram pollsters actually follow the general logic of what people think is important nowadays, especially Gen Z and Millennials and then the flexibility and work life balance comes top, and then a positive work environment where you respect the right for physical and mental health comes second, and then after that comes the purpose of the work and career and so on, because that's generally what we see in more and more countries now.

Yewande Omotoso (00:02:34)

And it's true, so 42% of respondents, people who responded, said that flexibility and work balance was in fact the top thing that they valued, and then 28% was positive work environment, 22% purpose and values alignment, and 8% said personal development. I'm surprised personal development is so low.

Carl Schlyter (00:02:57)

But maybe people think that's not going to happen at work, mostly, maybe happens outside.

We also asked on our Instagram page: "How do you think climate change will affect jobs and workplaces?", and this is what you said.

"Hopefully more jobs to fight climate change!"

"I think the jobs most affected will be those related to the land and which depend on the weather."

"Air quality is affected and can harm those who work outdoors."

I think the interesting thing here (is) how it's different in the global South and in the global North. I mean Africa is facing a youth quake, as they call it, with a lot of young people coming into the labour market, while middle-income countries, especially, are facing a lot of skilled and educated workers, but there are not enough workplaces that need skilled and educated work. So there are different kinds of demands and problems for young people. I think that's kind of interesting, that we are educating people for things where there will be fewer jobs, and other continents have a lot of young people needing jobs but they might not be available either for them, so that's a challenge.

Yewande Omotoso (00:04:16)

Yeah I see what you're saying, I'm particularly fascinated by the element of power here and the way it tracks back even to colonial structures because it is about this playing field and who has the materials and who's positioning, who's holding power in terms of those resources. I think you rightfully say the global North South distinction and what it means, but there's a power shift, because the transition can happen but it doesn't mean it'll be just, and the insistence on the just transition is about who holds power, who seeds power and I'm very fascinated by that.

In this episode we're joined by Rhoda Boateng. Rhoda is the Programme Coordinator of Climate Change Just Transition and Occupational Health and Safety for the International Trade Union Confederation.

Hello Rhoda, welcome to the podcast and thanks for joining us today.

Rhoda Boateng (00:05:19)

Thank you Yewande, it's a pleasure to be here.

Carl Schlyter (00:05:22)

Yeah it's really nice to have you here. And we normally start these podcast episodes with asking you the following question; do you have an expression or an idiom or anything like that in your native language that you would like to share with us, that you think is nice and thoughtful?

Rhoda Boateng (00:05:38)

Oh, that caught me off guard, let me have a think. Why not just greet in my dialect, "maakye" – "maakye" is what the Akan say, and Akan as you know is a big tribe in Ghana, the Ashantis are very well known in history to be warriors, they fought against colonisation and had brave women who led a fight. So I'm proud, I'm a proud Ashanti, and I think it's great to just say "maakye" to the beautiful audience we have listening in.

Yewande Omotoso (00:06:15)

Thank you and so you say "maakye"?

Rhoda Boateng (00:06:17)

"Maakye" - "maakye".

So "maakye" Yewande, "maakye" Carl.

Yewande Omotoso, Carl Schlyter (00:06:24

"Maakye" Rhoda.

Yewande Omotoso (00:06:26)

Lovely, thank you. Well with that as a start we can jump into the topic of discussion. Maybe a great way to start the conversation Rhoda is actually just to ask you to tell us what is just transition and why does it matter?

Rhoda Boateng (00:06:43)

So, just transition, I always say before we get into the technical explanation of just transition, I like to ask people to reflect on the two words. These are not complicated words, if you take the words individually: just transition. We are at the stage where we are transitioning to another world, so to speak, where we see that the current world or the forms, or the way we do things is no longer beneficial to humanity, and therefore there's a need for us to move away to another world. And so the transitioning to the low carbon economy, as we are calling it, has to be fair, has to be equitable, has to ensure that the populations or segments of people who are already marginalised in our current system are not disproportionately marginalised in this new system that we are creating.

And when we talk about marginalised populations, there are different groupings. Already in this current system we see a lot of prejudices and injustices against women for instance. We find workers already marginalised in this current system, we find communities in this current system – basically this current system is only serving a handful of people – and this is where we are saying that whilst we transition to this new system, we have to ensure that the needs of these marginalised populations are taken into account. And so women, workers, young people, communities, have to be at the centre of the transition process.

Carl Schlyter (00:08:37)

You actually covered our whole season in one single reply almost there, because you brought up things that we have been talking about earlier in this podcast, about how the economic injustice is ingrained in society and in our rules and regulations, you talked about how women are often exposed in the current system. We had one episode about transport policy and how free transport for women could improve public transport and transition in transport. You talked about the importance of community building and not only top-down change. So I think that was really interesting and just to go deeper into some of the things you mentioned.

Rhoda Boateng (00:09:15)

So the pathway presents a set number of principles that have to be taken into account in the transitioning process. And first and foremost the transition process has to deliver jobs. If you take Africa as a continent we have a huge number of the population unemployed. Several more are found in the informal sector which means that these people do not have adequate protection, or find themselves in precarious jobs. And so the move to a new, or the shift to a new system has to ensure that the new system is going to create and deliver jobs.

The second principle for us at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) when we talk about a just transition is a question around social dialogue, and here we are also looking at inclusivity. There's the old saying that "nothing for us, without us". How do we ensure that the shift to this economy is going to take into account the concerns of workers, of women, of youth, of communities. We can only do this if these people are at the centre or at the core of the defining policies for the transition. And so social dialogue is a tripartite system where you have workers, employers and governments coming together to shape policy.

The third principle for a just transition, we say, is social protection. Again if I take a continent such as Africa you see that we have very low social protection coverage, when you take health care, when you take education, etc. And so we are saying that the transition of the new economy has to ensure that there's adequate social protection for the otherwise marginalised populations, because when you have adequate social protection mechanisms in place this actually forms a cushion or a safety net for people who are marginalised. And so how do we ensure that if a sector such as fossil or coal mining is going to phase out or shut down, how do we ensure that the workers found in this sector are going to be adequately catered for. Social protection provides some buffer. So we talk here about rescaling, retooling, for such workers in these sectors who are going to be adversely impacted by the transition process.

Carl Schlyter (00:11:56)

In specifically a labour market, I mean you work for ITUC Africa, in a labour market what would you think is important to change in today's labour system in order to make people feel safe and (have) just jobs and have a transition that would work for them, what do you think needs to change there?

Rhoda Boateng (00:12:16)

I feel that in this new economy it's important that we ensure that people are adequately trained for the new jobs that we have, because in the current economy we actually see a mismatch between skills and jobs, where we have a lot of people coming out of education, formal education with the requisite skills and degrees and bachelor's, but are not finding space in the labour market. And this is because our educational system and policies are so old and are not really reflective of the current needs. And so a lot of research or studies would actually tell you that there are quite a huge number of people who are trained and educated but are still unemployed, and this is because of the mismatch between skills and the labour market. And so I think it's very important that whilst we transition and whilst we look at policy change generally we look at our educational policies. And we need to begin to train people for the jobs that are going to come up in this new economy. Vocational training is very important, till now a lot of people have shied away from vocational training because of how it's been perceived, but it's important that we begin to let people understand that this is where the jobs are going to be, and to place more value on this. We need to not only look at vocational training targeted at men, but we need to ensure that women are also being trained in these new fields.

Carl Schlyter (00:14:02)

When you talk about vocational training that's kind of interesting because we can see now, especially in middle income countries, you have a lot of highly skilled young people but they won't find jobs because they're skilled in something that nobody wants to pay for currently. So it's less and less likely we will do as our parents did, working with the same job for their whole life. So vocational training, what would you need to develop here so that that would become a norm and a help in assisting people in adapting to the changing labour market during the 50 years you might work, or 40 years you might work in your life. What could be done here to help people adapt, without putting pressure on people but rather changing the system so it helps people? What would you suggest?

Rhoda Boateng (00:14:51)

I think it's holistic, so it's about perception, it's also about policy and if you look at countries such as Germany, for instance, they have deliberate policy where young people at a very young age actually are geared towards apprenticeships, so there has to be deliberate policy that actually also works on the perceptions of people, for them to know that being a mechanic now is actually even high paying in the new economy that we're building, and it's a privilege, and we don't have to just look at jobs such as medicine, law, as it has traditionally been known. So it's a lot that has to do with perception, but then also very active labour policies by governments when it comes to rethinking the educational systems, to ensure that people actually are geared and guided into these things, where there's going to be a lot of high paying jobs in the near future.

Yewande Omotoso (00:15:51)

A key thing we are contemplating each time in this podcast is change, can change happen in our lifetime, and is change happening? You're talking about perception and the perceptions that have to change, and the ideas of what it is to work, and what work can look like and the role of that in achieving the just transition. I guess I'm saying to you, we're aware that we're in crisis, but what's your sense today about where we're at, and this change that we're after, how far away are we, how hopeful are you about what's possible and what can be achieved. If you had to speak to a generation of young people entering the workplace, what would you say to them? Because a big part of your work is advocating, is fighting, that's part of the just part, it has to be fought for, it's not just being handed.

Rhoda Boateng (00:16:46)

I feel there's a lot of talk and discussions happening at a global level at the top when it comes to policy processes, but then at the same time we're seeing very little action which is what is needed. The reports all show that we are in a crisis and that it's important for us to take urgent action. However if you follow policy discussions and policy processes that are taking place at different levels, you see very little progress. And this for me is very worrisome because I feel that there's a lot of talk but with very little action and commitments, which is what we need. I feel like we have very little time to take action because all the reports actually point to the fact that we are facing an existential crisis, which very soon would become irreversible if we do not take up action.

However, what I find a bit refreshing, is the fact that more than ever before we are seeing a mass movement building, where we have young people, we have women's groups, we have marginalised groups actually coming together to form a mass movement. And I think this is very important because if we are not getting the desired action or the desired outcomes from the political elite we need to mobilise power from below.

Carl Schlyter (00:18:32)

I come from Sweden and that's one of the most highly organised countries in the world, with a lot of power, formally and informally, in the labour unions, but even here you have this neoliberal total takeover of the economy, you have the new gig workers that are completely unorganised, they're not even workers ,they are "fake" self-employed and have no security whatsoever. So even in a super-unionised country with strong labour unions the gig economy is taking over. And in Africa many countries have a long tradition of having informal jobs, so not unionised and working for families or whatever. Are there any positive ways you can give examples from the African context on how to deal with this informal or non-regulated labour market, can we learn anything from here, are there any tools we can use to stop the negative effects of the gig economy and actually make it serve people and the society rather than just being pure exploitation. Do you have any ideas here?

Rhoda Boateng (00:19:31)

Well yeah, so it's interesting I mean the background you share because that's indeed the genesis of where the just transition concept comes from, and that's why we say just transition actually emanates from the Trade Union Movement. But again in Africa, there's a rise in outsourcing of jobs, so you no longer have the traditional forms of employment where you have a worker and an employer, which is what is needed in the traditional setting when we talk about unionisation. So it's very difficult then for collective bargaining processes to happen in these new forms of work. In informal work and again in platform work as we call it, that's a gig economy, it's becoming very rampant now in Africa, where we have a lot of people working - Uber drivers, various sectors - and it's become even more prominent after COVID-19.

And so whilst the labour market is changing very drastically, we cannot continue to deploy the same traditional systems that we have been deploying. And so the labour movement is really at a point where we are confronted with the need for us to revitalise, and for us to be able to revive the way we do things. And this is not easy, because we see in a lot of countries that more and more, trade unions are becoming irrelevant, because we're losing power, union density is on the decline, and we're losing representativity, because if you take Africa, as I rightly said, in a lot of African countries, about 80% of the population is found in the informal economy, and so the question is, who do we represent or who are we representing? And so it has become imperative that we revive our ways and how we do things, and as we are doing this there are a lot of discussions, specifically if you take the informal economy, for instance, at the at the level of the ILO which is the International Labour Organisation, there's a core question around formalising the informal economy. To what extent that is feasible, those are the questions we are asking ourselves. But I think the realisation is that it's important for us to begin to see how we can formalise these groups in order for us to be able to organise them and provide them with that representativity that we have.

Carl Schlyter (00:22:00)

And I think we need to talk about capitalist logic as such, because many of these platforms are based on offering something. And the person who offers the lowest offer gets the job, without any protection, without any maybe tax payments or social security, or worker safety involved at all. And you have zero control and zero responsibility; the platform doesn't take it, so these are the kind of things we need to be regulated. The platforms themselves can be regulated if we want to, because they use an exploitation model, they are reintroducing exploitative work, so I think we need to deal with it on the systemic level as well.

Rhoda Boateng (00:22:39)

Yeah, that's really interesting, when you put it that way, it's a race to the bottom as they say, and it's important that we see this as an outcome or a produce of the neoliberal system, and that's why we need to challenge this. And so yes, I think at the end of the day it's always important to build the connections and realise that the various, or the different forms of crisis and injustices we're seeing today is all as a result of the current neoliberal system that we are operating in, which is not sustainable. And this is why I was excited about this podcast when I heard of "SystemShift" because I think it is important for us to really see how we can change the narrative, how we can we can move towards a system that is not only sustainable but then also places people at the core of the transformation. It's a lot of work for us, but then I think discussion such as we're having now is important because it's not only helping us think about how to do it, but then it's also information for our audience, and I hope that a lot of people also go away with something, that we need to really mobilise widely and we need every hand on deck.

Yewande Omotoso (00:24:03)

You're talking about that awareness, and you talked about audience, and I think that awareness is there. We ran a poll and it was interesting to see the results, when we asked what matters to you about employment, apart from salary, and there is overridingly a demand for fairness and flexibility and there's a sense that this is what's deserved. So I think that awareness is there, and it's great that the awareness is there right, that's where it starts.

Carl Schlyter (00:24:34)

I do have one last question actually, and that is when you talk about climate change response and climate crisis response and how we can do a just transition, what kind of new labour standards or ways to work would you see in a more circular economy, where things last longer, where we share things rather than own everything ourselves, where we have a labour market that (is) inter human rather than corporations centrally distributing everything, and maybe countries are more focusing on the population's needs than just producing cash crops for the global economy. What kind of new jobs and job situations would you see when we did all this transition and we have transformed society to a sustainable one? What is your future vision of the labour market then, how would people live then?

Rhoda Boateng (00:25:27)

So the last and most difficult question, and that's interesting. I was in a discussion recently and we started off where they said we should do a "visioning", how do we perceive the new economy to look like. And it was very interesting because we were supposed to send pictures of what came to mind. And the outcome was very beautiful, we had a lot of very interesting images and some of the words that came out were wellbeing, sustainability, images of young people, happy playing, women – more empowered women. And I thought that was a very strong exercise, because first of all I think it's important that whatever economy we advocate for is one where we say we want decent and green jobs, when we say decent that means jobs that pay well, jobs that are fair, jobs that are not exploitative, jobs that are green, looking at jobs in sectors that are not heavily polluted. And so the labour market has to deliver jobs that are green and jobs that are decent, basically.

The new economy, for me, I think has to ensure that women are actually centred in this economy, and so we talk about questions around the recognition for unpaid work or care work. And so we want to see an economy where the needs or the specific needs of women are taken into account in the labour market. And so where you have women working in these sectors we want them to enjoy equal pay, equal wages, equal remuneration. We also want the recognition for unpaid work and we want investment into care work, because a lot of women are found in this sector and most of them are not considered as paid work. We have to see a shift in the labour market where we are also seeing more young people working in fulfilled jobs, so not working just for their income but then working in jobs that are satisfying and jobs that are fulfilled. And so wellbeing, recognition for the job that people are doing, fair wages for the jobs that people are doing, and accessibility to green and decent jobs, I think should be at the core of the transition and this would actually be the way I think the new labour market should look in this new transition process.

Carl Schlyter (00:28:20)

That sounds a lot better than colonialising capitalist neoliberalism, so thanks for that.

Rhoda Boateng (00:28:25)

Of course maybe just ending that it's also important the question around ownership, and so the circular economy yes is definitely key, we want to see economies where people are actually owning, so cooperatives where people are actually at the core of transformation and have ownership and control of what they produce. And I think this is very important when you go to sectors such as agriculture, informal sectors, etc and cooperatives are a way to really empower the people.

Carl Schlyter (00:28:57)

Thank you so much for bringing that in because I think cooperation, not only competition, as is today's mantra, is really needed for a just transition. So thank you for reminding us of that and let's end with a positive example. My first job was in Stockholm at the City Hall, I was an adviser there, and we pushed for reduced working time for healthcare workers, and the majority were women working there. We made an experiment where people got reduced working time, and we saw a huge shift in women's free time, like not working and not doing household work, unpaid work. So when we reduced the time, men's share of household work increased and women's completely free awake time was the biggest change. So they got more free hours than men because there was more equal distribution. So what we saw here was a very positive example of combining a feminist policy with something that is sustainable both from an environmental and health point of view. So very positive results from that example.

Rhoda Boateng (00:30:02)

Nice, we need more of this replicated across the world, and I think this can only be done through active policy engagement. And this is why we also need to be at the table.

Carl Schlyter and Yewande Omotoso (00:30:14)

Thank you very much Rhoda. Thank you so much.

Rhoda Boateng (00:30:16)

It's been such a pleasure thank you so much Carl and thank you so much Yewande.

Yewande Omotoso (00:30:23)

This thing of solutions I think was interesting for me in the discussion with Rhoda, we talked a lot and it came up at different times in the conversation, about the role of dialogue. So she was talking in terms of just transition, how important it is that we have these multiplatform spaces where government and business and the employee and the community are able to come in, and all the perspectives are prevalent, and that the solution lies somewhere in all these perspectives being heard and being implemented in the making of policy, so that it's not just the power held or these voices heard but not these. And that actually touched a lot on - I remember doing some research in Nigeria with a professor (at the time at least), Taibat Lawanson - she was looking at this idea of poverty studies and looking at this idea of how to be informed by informal workers and informal spaces. They were working in Lagos, this kind of metropolis, and she did this study where they went to start to talk to informal traders, particularly women, and try and find out how they were managing to survive the different crises, study the resilience that was evident.

I think we forget, people are surviving really dire conditions, well how are they surviving those dire conditions? We assume that it's just all a mess and it's awful, and informality, you know quickly formalize it, quickly fix it, quickly build something, and I really loved this different approach which was dialogue, as Rhoda was saying, but it was also, let's not assume that the informal solutions cannot be upscaled, cannot be you know used cannot be utilized, and that we cannot learn. And I just love that because I think crucial in this just transition is the fact that the power has to shift somewhat. The people that – as you say – those that have the mic, you know you've got to pass the mic to to others that might actually have something to teach that would bring a solution. I mean one thing that was clear for me, I don't know how you feel Carl from talking to Rhoda, is it's tough. We always ask, can change happen in our lifetime, and I think it can, but I did get a sense from her, somebody who's right at the coalface, that this is not straightforward. And so we have to really be open to solutions from I guess spaces that one might not, or the establishment might not, normally look to.

Carl Schlyter (00:33:05)

But I totally agree on this, that not a top-down approach on how this is solved, and then highlight a dialogue or trialogue or where many people who are stakeholders are involved, because in 29 countries, 27% - said the biggest concern the country faces – eg. South Africa, Colombia, South Korea, and Spain - was unemployment, and in others it came second, such as India. So unemployment is at the heart of people's concerns in many countries. But the solution is maybe not the traditional labour market, nor the gig economy. I think we need to move forward here, to study the informal work, and maybe not just having one single income. Sometimes when we talk about this kind of more informal work, we should upgrade it, as Rhoda mentioned here, it's not always bad, as you mentioned it's not always bad, you just need to make it safe and good for people who do it. And I think we consider too little of this, we should maybe be a bit more flexible, on what is a job, or what is a living, and how do you get by. Because if we do that and we do it under socially just conditions we can also maybe retake power from the traditional consumeristic and career based lifestyles, and maybe open up the labour market for more young people who have other needs and demands on how they should live their life. So I think that's really an interesting thing that we have underexplored.

We also don't talk enough about the transition that we need to do and all the people who have jobs that are unsustainable from an environmental point of view or a social point of view. You will resist change if you're stuck with this, because you have something, you can survive and you don't want to be thrown out into the unknown. So I think it was really interesting that she mentioned also the other transition tools that will help people feel safe in the transition. I think that's a discussion we need to have always when we talk about this because otherwise you will not only have the large corporations and vested interests, you will have normal people just wanting to live their life safely, and good. And if all these people who are affected by the change become negative to the change we will not have it.

Yewande Omotoso (00:35:21)

I also think of that in how we talk about what this is and the ways we … how to amplify these ideas, take them away from the purely technical realm and talk about what this is. She spoke about movements, the role of movements and how important that is, and that's about mass movements, mass information, easy information, really straightforward information, not a "technical" way of speaking. So I think that's another key thing, it's like the way in which we talk about what this is, it's basically about safety, I think she said decent and safe were the words she used for work, really simple ways to talk about how we want to do work and what people deserve.

Carl Schlyter (00:36:12)

Decent is a nice word I think.

Yewande Omotoso (00:36:14)

It is a nice word, I like that word.

Carl Schlyter (00:36:17)

But also not exaggerating the opposition, because there are so few people (in the) short term benefiting from this, nobody's benefiting from the current system, because even if you gather 2 billion or 200 billion dollars your children will not have a good planet to live on. So I think anytime you think about when old empires or logic collapsed, they were surprisingly easy when people just - no, we've had enough, we want to change. Imagine how many dictators you thought would stay there forever, and then suddenly something happened and it all toppled, or the ideology of a system, it suddenly toppled. So I think we shouldn't exaggerate the power of the people with a lot of power, because if people don't accept the current power structure, if people don't accept the current structures, if people have had enough and say so and show so, all systems change and it can go really quickly. So I think we shouldn't exaggerate how powerful the powerful are because their power is nothing if the people say no.

Yewande Omotoso (00:37:27)

That's the power of the people right and you're spot on because I think the thing is once, as a mass, we understand the power of that mass, then it's over. But it's really understanding that, and unfortunately part of the success of the system is in obfuscating and confusing – confusing people – and then times are desperate so people are in survival mode.

Carl Schlyter (00:37:49)

And before people become revolutionaries listening to this pod just remember a few things, remember Jean Sharp's work, on that peaceful transformation is twice as likely to be successful as a brutal one. And if it's not a revolution you can dance to, it's probably not your revolution. So remember those things before you take to the streets.

Yewande Omotoso (00:38:07)

And maybe also there are things that we can each do as individuals to actually begin and be in that mass movement and participate in that movement. Maybe an action one could take this very week is, read the report "Beyond Extractivism: towards a feminist and just economic transition in Morocco and Egypt", so it's a collaboration between MENA Fem and Greenpeace MENA,. Maybe you could join a union, you could participate in public consultations when available.

Carl Schlyter (00:38:37)

Yeah and advocate for nature-based solutions rather than fake tech solutions, I think that's also really important. And also we talked about the gig economy here, and to have transparent and inclusive processes so you know under which conditions the people doing the service are working under. Refuse to accept exploitative practices there. Call for regulation because we can't have 200 years of labour union struggle and then lose it because a new economy avoids the whole concept, so I think that's important as well.

Joycelyn London (00:39:17)

Thank you for listening to this episode of SystemShift. In our next episode we're asking the question:

"Does the colour of your skin make you more vulnerable to climate change?".

Subscribe to SystemShift wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode.