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.
The dangers facing us
According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, India is included in the top 10 most climate change-affected countries. In 2020, the “Costs of Climate Inaction: Displacement and Distress Migration” report estimated that by 2050 over 4.5 crore Indians will be forced to migrate from their homes due to climate disasters, and at present, 1.4 crore people in India are displaced due to environmental disruptions.
Forced migration is just one of the many outcomes of climate disasters. Crores of people continue to suffer in the places where they live. Their lives, life-expectancy and livelihoods are at risk. A study of last year’s heatwaves by Greenpeace, in collaboration with the National Hawkers Federation, found that 49.27 percent of the street vendor respondents experienced a loss of income during heatwaves with 80.08 percent acknowledging a decline in customer numbers.
Whether it is heatwaves or pollution, outdoor workers are at great risk. Erratic but heavy showers flood working class slums before they affect second or third floor residents in gated communities. During the Bangalore floods in 2023, while high ranking company officials were brought out on boats, hundreds of working-class families effectively lost their entire lives – all their ration, clothes and belongings were lost, children lost their clothes, uniforms, books, bags and all that they required to go to school, and families had to reconstruct their homes themselves.
Heatwaves have emerged as a key cause of concern globally, and in Indian cities. According to the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, cities, which currently hold more than half the world’s population and will add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, will be exposed to double the level of heat stress compared to rural surroundings. India is rapidly urbanising too and is in grave danger from heatwaves.
Why workers are impacted by climate change
The impact of climate change reproduces the structural inequalities of caste, class, race and gender. Those that contribute the least to climate change – the socially and economically marginalised working-class communities, especially of the Global South – are the worst affected. Inequity and exclusion from basic services like the Public Distribution System and healthcare not only heighten sensitivity to hazards, but also constrain these communities’ ability to adapt to climatic changes. India is one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Oxfam India’s “Survival of the Richest: The India Supplement” 2023 report revealed that the top 30 percent own more than 90 percent of the total wealth. In contrast, the bottom 50 percent of the population (700 million) have around 3 percent of total wealth. A large number of people in the bottom 50 to 70 percent are deprived of access to basic needs and civic amenities such as homes and safe water. Large-scale privatisation of healthcare has made good quality medical facilities inaccessible to many.
Poor quality of employment is a key factor behind keeping the bottom 50 to 70 percent where they are at present. The “India Employment Report” of 2024 released by the Institute for Human Development and International Labour Organization pointed out that around half the jobs in the formal sector are of an informal nature. On the whole, almost 82 percent of the workforce is engaged in the informal sector, and nearly 90 percent is informally employed: victims of non-implementation of labour laws and violation of government advisories on disasters such as heatwaves by the employers.
Government inaction against heatwaves
During the 2024 heatwaves, the Labour Department in Delhi issued guidelines requiring all shops, factories, and construction sites to ensure access to clean drinking water, provide cooling equipment like fans and coolers, and modify work hours. The Lieutenant Governor mandated paid work breaks at government construction sites. However, the enforcement mechanisms remained weak. A joint memorandum by trade unions demanding strict implementation of the advisory went unheeded despite a workers’ demonstration outside the Labour Department.
The demonstrating workers were largely employed in the informal sector – gig workers, domestic workers, and scheme workers who are not even legally recognized as workers. What bargaining power do they have vis-à-vis the State? Construction workers often work for less than 500 rupees per day and are at the mercy of their employers. Their mobile nature makes unionisation challenging. Are they in a position to boycott work if the employers refuse to obey a government advisory?
Regular and strict inspection by the Labor Department alone could have ensured a positive impact of the heatwave advisory. But in a state where, as per the last official audit done in 2017, less than a quarter of the registered factories are inspected, the enforcement mechanism obviously fell way short of the required strength.
The 50 to 70 percent of Indian citizens who fall on the wrong side of the inequality pyramid constitute at least 60 percent of Delhi’s population. Yet the approach to countering the impact of heatwaves in 2024 was casual to say the least. Between March and June 2024, there were 110 confirmed heatstroke deaths and over 40,000 suspected cases. That number does not reflect the full picture because many heatwave related deaths and illnesses are products of long-term malnourishment and may not be identified medically as connected to the heatwaves.
Continuing shortfalls in policy and law
One year down the line, we find a different party ruling Delhi. The Heatwave Action Plan put in place in 2025 repeats many of the earlier measures such as paid work breaks, drinking water and medical kits at workplaces, but again refuses to outline a mechanism for strict implementation.
The Heatwave Action Plan for Delhi recognizes heatwaves as “silent disaster” and yet falls short of clear commitments regarding structural changes which have a direct impact on climate change and heat resilience, viz. public transport, public health, universal access to quality housing and potable drinking water, and living wages for all. Worryingly, the Yamuna floodplains are witnessing continuous demolitions of workers’ settlements in the peak of the summer season.
If heatwaves are notified as disasters under the National Disaster Management Act, 2005 (NDMA), it would enable formal recognition of their impact, unlocking national and state-level resources for relief, preparedness, and adaptation. Any such declaration, however, looks some way off. Recent amendments to the Disaster Management Act do not bring slow-onset disasters like droughts, heatwaves, and coastal erosion within the NDMA’s ambit.
If the government is saving money by restricting the extent of coverage under NDMA, we must ask in whose favour the money is being saved. In 2019, the central government reduced the corporate tax slabs from 30 to 22 percent, which resulted in a total loss of Rs 1.84 lakh crore. The tax break continues, despite the stagnation in employment generation. Far from holding corporations accountable for economic stagnation, schemes such as the Employment-Linked Incentives (ELI) are transferring more public money to corporations.
Emerging solidarity
For the labour rights movement and its allies, May Day commemorates the long-standing struggles against exploitation, inequality and exclusion under the profit-driven capitalist system; the system which is also responsible for climate change. A Carbon Majors Database report of 2017 found that just 100 corporations based out of the Global North have been the source of more than 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.
There is a long way to go before red-green solidarities emerge as a major force. However, the conversations in the May Day meetings and slogans in the marches reveal that potent solidarities between labour and climate justice movements are in the offing in urban India.
In December 2024, the All-India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) organised a demonstration demanding pollution allowance for construction workers. Trade unions and community organisations involved in the housing rights campaigns against ongoing demolition drives in the city have put forward the need for climate-sensitivity in conducting demolitions in case they are unavoidable and for climate-sensitive alternative housing schemes.
Trade unions in India are beginning to see climate change and its impact as universal concerns that can forge democratic solidarities between the labour movements and other social movements. Climate justice movements are acknowledging the potentiality of the organized power of the working classes in fighting climate change. This bodes well for the earth and for the workers whose labour makes it habitable.
