Labour Law And Climate Change

Although the existential threat of climate change has at last been generally acknowledged, its influence on the labour market and the regulation of labour relations remains ambivalent at best. This supremely important volume, with contributions by thirteen prominent labour law practitioners and academics, shows how labour law not only can but absolutely must assume a greater role in the debate on the climate crisis and move towards a new eco-friendly labour paradigm. Committed to the proposition that employment must come to terms with the natural environment and open a new chapter in the relationship between human work and the Earth, the authors examine critical issues and perspectives on the role of labour law in a just ecological transition, focusing on such aspects as the following: negative externalities associated with the value chains production model; (in)effectiveness of corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives; protection of human rights from violations attributable to private sector activities; protection of whistleblowers; need for professional training in new occupations; environmental migrants; reskilling and active inclusion of workers and jobseekers; role of remote work and flexible working time; and evaluation and reward of employees. The impact of the green transition on industrial activities is already creating strong tensions among the social parties, leading inevitably to massive restructuring of enterprises and relocation of thousands of workers. This detailed analysis of the implications of climate change for the labour contract and the industrial relations system provides appropriate tools to understand trends and possible solutions for the future. It will be welcomed by managers, consultants, corporate lawyers, judges, human rights experts, trade unionists, researchers, and professors placed at the nexus of labour, industrial relations, and social rights in Europe and worldwide.

This book offers a timely exploration of how climate change manifests in the global workplace. It draws together accounts of workers, their work, and the politics of resistance in order to enable us to better understand how the impacts of climate change are structured by the economic and social processes of labour. Focusing on nine empirically grounded cases of labour under climate change, this volume links the tools and methods of critical labour studies to key debates over climate change adaptation and mitigation in order to highlight the active nature of struggles in the climate-impacted workplace. Spanning cases including commercial agriculture in Turkey, labour unions in the UK, and brick kilns in Cambodia, this collection offers a novel lens on the changing climate, showing how both the impacts of climate change and adaptations to it emerge through the prism of working lives. Drawing together scholars from anthropology, political economy, geography, and development studies, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change adaptation, labour studies, and environmental justice. More generally, it will be of interest to anybody seeking to understand how the changing climate is changing the terms, conditions, and politics of the global workplace.

The editors’ substantive introduction and the specially commissioned chapters in the Handbook explore the emergence of transnational labour law as a field, along with its contested contours. The expansion of traditional legal methods, such as treaties, is juxtaposed with the proliferation of contemporary alternatives such as indicators, framework agreements and consumer-led initiatives. Key international and regional institutions are studied for their coverage of such classic topics as freedom of association, equality, and sectoral labour standard-setting, as well as for the space they provide for dialogue. The volume underscores transnational labour law’s capacity to build bridges, including on migration, climate change and development.

Labour Law and Sustainable Development is a detailed reconstruction of the regulatory framework and jurisprudential findings of sustainable development at the international, European and national level. The global crisis of the past decade has underlined the social unsustainability of the ultra-liberalistic theories through which the labour law deregulation represents the precondition for social and economic development coherent with the globalization imperatives. It is no exaggeration to assert that the existing foundations of labour law have been irreversibly compromised. It is essential to find a way out of the crisis, at the same time defining the founding values of new sustainable labour law. In linking labour law with the sustainability paradigm, this provocative book promises to widen the scope and terms of the reconciliation of interests, taking into account the multiplicity of the stakeholders interested in economic, social and environmental issues and, in particular, to practise an approach that achieves intergenerational equity. What’s in this book: In an unprecedented comparative study, including case law, of the network of principles, agreements, practices and norms concerning sustainable development and its different economic and social implications, the author examines such facets as the following: sustaining solidarity and equality of opportunity in current and emerging work situations; enhancing individual autonomy in the current world of (subordinate but independent) labour; reconciling personal needs, flexible organization of companies and reduction of external and internal costs to companies; collective action for the regulation of labour relations allowing for the exercise of individual autonomy; involving entire populations that have been so far excluded in the world scene; developing a sustainable pension system to promote intergenerational solidarity; implementing flexicurity policies positively; social clauses of international trade treaties; undoing the profound contradiction of gender and wage inequalities; and promoting corporate social responsibility. The objective of this book is to provide the reader with a reasoning basis to assess whether the choice to elect sustainable development as a new paradigm of reference for labour law is feasible, and if, in particular, this choice can be useful in order to define the founding values of a new ‘sustainable’ labour law. How this will help you: Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author emphasizes the need to consider the various dimensions of sustainability together, not only the original environmental but also the economic and social dimensions. This book offers a real strategic leap for both legislators and social actors, in particular leading the way to avoiding a fracture of the generational pact that has held together modern societies. Although the book presents a profound academic contribution to the analysis of labour law realities and trends, it will also be welcomed by corporate lawyers, judges, human rights experts, trade unionists, business managers, entrepreneurs and consultants interested in the issues of labour, sustainable development and social rights.

This volume analyses the most important problems and challenges that health, age and the environment introduce in the labour market, and how these factors affect both the way people work and their rights. The contributions here focus on the main challenges for social security systems, lawmakers and trade unions, and provide important solutions to improve workers’ rights and guarantee the viability of public social security systems. Other topics analysed here include dress-codes and whistleblowing in companies. From the labour point of view, workers’ representatives and trade unions must take action in collective bargaining to deal with these topics and adequately protect the workforce. The authors here are drawn from countries such as Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Poland, Brazil and Colombia, providing a global perspective. The book will appeal to lawyers, legal and human resources experts, economists, judges, academics and staff from trade unions and employers’ representation. The volume features insights and contributions in different languages, with chapters in Spanish (13), English (7) and Portuguese (2).

Labour research: International journal

The book discusses how labour law and welfare systems will be affected by the ongoing transformation of work. The first section considers demography from two different perspectives. On the one hand, it focuses on chronic diseases and their impact on work, emphasising the role and the regulation of welfare systems. On the other, attention is given to youth unemployment and to those forms of employment which might have an impact on young people. Section II touches upon the relationship between the environment and industrial relations, while the third part broaches the topic of the impact of technology in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. As such, this volume provides an exhaustive picture of the changes currently underway, considering all the aspects which will affect work now and in the future.