ON THE MORNING OF MAY DAY THIS YEAR IN DELHI, several informal sector unions gathered in a hall in central Delhi to declare “Labour Justice is Climate Justice”. They signed a Polluters Pay Pact demanding high taxes and penalties on oil and gas corporations, and demanded government action against heatwaves and other climate disasters which disproportionately affect the working classes.
Later in the day, the traditional joint march of trade unions from Ramlila Maidan to Chandni Chowk echoed with demands for adequate heatwave protection for workers and for strong policies against systemic inequalities to counteract climate change.
There is a long tradition in India of creative dialogues between labour movements and environmental movements. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (led by the charismatic trade unionist Shankar Guha Niyogi), and the Marxist Coordination Committee (led by Arun Kumar Roy) which played a key role in the Jharkhand agitation, are prominent flagbearers of red-green solidarity.
These organisations have always articulated environmental issues in terms of their impact on the working classes, and have sought to engage with environmental damage caused from advancing capitalism as a key concern of the labour movement.
The coming together of labour and environmental concerns in the urban context is relatively new, and is a product of the times, especially the ongoing heatwaves. It is necessitated by a severe paralysis of laws and policies dealing with both these concerns, and the lack of political will to bring about systemic changes that are necessary to check inequality, exploitation and climate disasters.
