How do workers and their unions become climate actors? A research framework

Abstract

German

French

This article develops a research framework for understanding workers and their unions as strategic actors in the climate transition, emphasising the centrality of their agency. While climate change poses profound challenges such as job losses, work reorganisation, and health risks, workers are often described as passive recipients of state or employer-led decisions. We conceptualise union engagement along two dimensions: the strategies they pursue (‘what’) and the factors shaping these strategies (‘why’). Drawing on existing literature and empirical observations, we first identify five generic strategies: abstentionist, unconditionally supportive, conditionally supportive, oppositional, and transformative, mapped along two dimensions: agreement with climate policies and engagement in climate action. Then, we propose a framework integrating internal factors, including worker interests, union power resources, and strategic capabilities, with external influences such as structural power, institutional power, societal discourse, and employer strategies.

Keywords

Climate transition union strategies just transition trade unions low-carbon transition worker agency

Introduction

Climate change presents challenges for workers and unions. Mitigating its effects and adjusting to low-carbon emissions in the production of goods and services requires major restructuring likely to impact the livelihoods of workers and their communities. For unions representing these workers, climate change poses important strategic dilemmas. In addition to potential job losses, changes to work organisation, health and safety risks, and demands for concessions on working conditions are some of these challenges.

Can workers gain a real voice in shaping the climate transition, and can collective bargaining and social dialogue be mobilised to ensure worker input on strategic decisions? Does the climate crisis create an opportunity to expand democracy at work? Or, faced with internal fragmentation, populism and its discontents, and unilateral employer and state actions, are workers and their unions more likely to be passengers, obstacles, hostages or victims in climate adjustment? Worker agency, their capacity to act on climate change, is often overlooked as solutions tend to focus on public policies and firm adaptation and mitigation strategies. We believe that the exclusion of workers and their unions undermines the acceptability of the solutions most likely to address the urgency of climate change.

Work is at the epicentre of efforts to achieve a low-carbon economy (ILO, 2023; Stevis, 2023), but workers and unions are too often portrayed as passive recipients rather than as agents of change. Yet many unions are taking a more active role. While some unions oppose fossil fuel phase-outs and work with employers to delay implementation of climate targets (Kalt, 2022; Thomas, 2021), others partner with environmental groups and community organisations to advocate for a low-carbon economy (Doerflinger and Thomas, 2025). This can happen through collective bargaining, works councils or other forms of social dialogue, pressure on public policy for green industrial policy, income support for climate adjustment and retraining for skills development (Bosch, 2023; Dupuis et al., 2024; IndustriALL and Eurofer, 2025).

This article focuses on workers and their unions as strategic actors in the context of the climate crisis. Our goal is to recentre worker agency in the promotion of just transitions, an idea celebrated in international climate forums (e.g., the 2015 Paris Agreement), but too often a lofty objective rather than a practical strategic engagement. In seeking a more dynamic assessment of unions and workers as strategic actors who can influence (or oppose) restructuring, ‘green’ jobs, skills retraining, income support, public investment and industrial policy, we propose a framework that emphasises the (potential) centrality of workers and trade unions as climate actors. We first address how workers become climate actors by building on existing typologies of trade union strategies and our observation of these strategies to identify what strategies they pursue. We then explore why workers and unions become climate actors. To understand why workers and unions engage in climate action (or inaction), we highlight key internal factors in terms of interests, union resources and strategic capabilities and their interplay with a range of contextual/external factors.

What are the climate strategies of workers and their unions?

A first task in understanding how workers and their unions are – or are not – climate actors concerns the strategies being pursued. Various studies have proposed useful typologies linking union strategies and climate issues (Dupuy and Pasquier, 2024; Kalt, 2022; Stevis and Felli, 2015; Thomas, 2021; Thomas and Doerflinger, 2020). The literature on workers, unions and climate change is still at a stage of categorising and typologising workers’ and unions’ beliefs and actions. While drawing on these necessary efforts, it is important to push them further. Drawing on this literature and a range of empirical examples (including our own observations stemming from continuing research with various unions), we identify five generic strategies: 1) abstentionist, 2) unconditionally supportive, 3) conditionally supportive, 4) oppositional and 5) transformative.

Abstentionist

Drawing on studies of varieties of union involvement in workplace change (Frost, 2001; Lévesque and Murray, 2005), an abstentionist strategy sees workers and unions not engaging with climate change. This is not uncommon, especially if taking a position might compromise a leadership uncertain about how to handle this issue. Abstention can also reflect variations in strategic positioning within unions. Whereas national and international unions might espouse climate policies, lobby governments, and negotiate with employers on climate change, this does not necessarily entail active engagement of workers and their unions at the workplace level (Thomas and Pulignano, 2021). The absence of an explicit strategy at lower levels of unions can reflect internal tensions between different organisational levels and ways of framing the issues (Michaud and Laroche, 2024). It can also indicate the absence of adequate resources, capabilities and training. Worker interests may not align with official union positions. Some workers may believe that climate change is not their responsibility, or that a union climate policy is not necessary (for example, among rank-and-file unionised workers in Canada, see Hudson, 2024). They might also see employers and governments as the prime movers on this issue, so that abstention is a form of acquiescence to actions initiated by other parties.

Unconditionally supportive

A second strategic variation is unconditionally supportive of climate initiatives. This can apply to both employer and union initiatives. A union expressing support is perhaps not remarkably engaged in climate action, but neither is it abstentionist nor in opposition. A workplace union might agree with, rather than oppose, employer proposals, but not seek to modify or transform them or delay their implementation. In other words, that support is unconditional. In such cases, the power of initiative typically rests with the employer. A workplace union might also support national policy positions, without engaging significantly on climate issues. Such a union tends to agree with policies advanced by others.

Conditionally supportive

A third strategy, aptly identified as ‘hedging’ by Thomas and Doerflinger (2020), which we label conditionally supportive, sits somewhere between unconditional support and proactive engagement. Unions might acknowledge the importance of climate issues but seek to delay implementation by modifying the design, timing or scope of employer and government proposals. This strategy could be cultivated ambiguity where, in the absence of consensus, political calculations require equivocation. It could also reflect acceptance of climate policies at macro levels (e.g. national or international), but unions might then oppose, sometimes jointly with employers, specific manifestations of these policies at the level of industries or firms. Such strategies also involve calculations over time. A union may first express conditional support in response to broader pressures on industrial and workplace restructuring but later engage in climate-related debates concerning job loss, training, and public policies (Vachon, 2023). For example, the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the United States, while explicitly referring to the ‘just transition’ discourse in its policies, nevertheless aligned with North American automakers in lobbying to delay stricter emissions standards of new vehicles by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Dupuis et al., 2024).

Oppositional

Another strategy entails opposition to climate policies (Doerflinger and Thomas, 2025; Kalt, 2022). Fearing the impact on jobs, many unions oppose environmental regulation. In the fossil fuel industry, unions have joined employers to lobby for weaker environmental protections (Galgóczi, 2020; Sicotte et al., 2022; Vachon, 2023). Opposition might also entail a refusal to engage with firm strategies where, in a capitalist regime, the stakes are tilted in favour of capital and substantive engagement is unlikely to yield benefits for workers. As with abstentionist and conditionally supportive strategies, oppositional strategies might also reflect tensions across different levels of union organisations (Snell, 2018). Workplace unions may oppose the strategies advocated by their national union, whether they are favourable to climate change engagement or not. In multi-sector union organisations, tensions can also arise between sectors, with different interests and contrasting narratives (for an example of public and private sector conflicts, see MacDonald, 2025).

Transformative

Workers and unions can also engage in transformative strategies to address climate change. The iconic example of such a strategy dates from the late 1970s in the United Kingdom when, faced with closure in the production of armaments at Lucas Aerospace, shop stewards and community activists championed a plan to convert the facility to socially useful production (Räthzel et al., 2010; Wainwright, 2003). When employers reorganise plants and equipment to deal with climate change, the workers and unions affected might adopt more proactive, even transformative, strategies to influence implementation and address job loss or training. These strategies can take the form of enhanced social dialogue on new issues or entail an autonomous agenda for climate mitigation on the part of workers and their unions. Transformative strategies also emerge in response to health and safety and employment risks (Vachon, 2023). As governments develop policies to reduce carbon emissions or phase out carbon-intensive industries, workers can push employers and the state to set more ambitious targets (Brecher, 2024; Skinner, 2020). Workers can then help shape policies that go beyond what governments and employers are willing to do (Flanagan and Goods, 2022).

The emergence of transformative strategies in multiple contexts illustrates these possibilities. Climate Jobs New York, a coalition of labour unions in New York State, played a pivotal role in securing unionised employment through offshore wind projects, renewable energy initiatives, and school retrofitting (Peters, 2024). By connecting union efforts to broader narratives on the links between working conditions, economic and racial inequalities, and climate strategies, this coalition successfully advocated for policies on climate, energy, and building efficiency, along with guarantees for labour and training (Skinner, 2020). Unions in other US states have adopted similar ‘climate jobs’ coalition strategies (Brecher, 2024). In Germany’s automotive industry, facing significant risks of plant closures and job security, the IG Metall union has pursued a just transition strategy for automotive workers (Bosch, 2023; Dupuis et al., 2024). In Canada, although the project did not come to fruition, workers proposed the reconversion of an idled auto plant to the production of EV trucks (Fairweather, 2024). During the Biden administration in the US, new industrial policies (such as the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act) were predicated on rising awareness of the climate crisis. These public policy initiatives, in part spurred by union lobbying, prompted a shift towards more transformative strategies during the 2023 UAW strike against the Big 3 automakers (GM, Stellantis, and Ford) in the United States (Lichtenstein, 2024).

This overview of union positions on and engagement with climate policies has identified five generic strategies. Figure 1 seeks to map these strategies on a two-dimensional matrix: on the horizontal axis, the extent to which unions agree with climate policies; on the vertical axis, the extent of union engagement in climate action. Some strategies are distinguished by their pronounced disagreement (oppositional) or agreement (unconditionally supportive) with the need for union climate policies as opposed to more equivocal abstentionist or conditionally supportive strategies. Similarly, some strategies are characterised by their engagement in climate actions (transformative, conditionally supportive), whereas others avoid such engagement (abstentionist, oppositional). Unconditionally supportive strategies can be located in the middle of this configuration, distinguished neither by engagement in nor opposition to climate actions and policies.

Figure 1.

Generic worker and union strategies on climate action.

This conceptualisation provides a framework for understanding the variety of strategic positionings of workers and their unions regarding climate policies. Applicable across diverse contexts and disciplines, it seeks to capture some of the nuances observed in the way unions and workers develop and deploy their strategies on climate change.

It is also important to recognise the limits of such typologies, which are simplifications of complex realities. First, workers and unions must contend with diverse sets of issues. A union may be abstentionist or unconditionally supportive on one issue, oppositional or conditionally supportive on another, and transformative on another. These variations do not fit neatly into a single category and often translate the complexity and multi-tiered nature of union strategies.

Second, a single category is likely to cover a range of possible strategies. Supportive strategies may be more passive or active. Conditional support might border on the oppositional. Transformative strategies may involve new forms of social dialogue or autonomous agendas from union actors. The meaning of these strategies for the actors themselves is likely to vary.

Third, as complex organisations, there may be strategic discrepancies between national leaderships and workplaces, between different workplaces or between industries and sectors. Moreover, climate change and transition strategies might be framed differently within the same union organisation, as contradictory narratives emerge and compete.

Fourth, union strategies shift over time. In addition to combinations of strategies on different issues and frame misalignments between different parts of a union, close attention is required to track strategic movements over time. These are not easily captured by static typologies. Conditional support points to the possibility of subsequent movement. As workers and unions engage with new jobs, technologies and policy shifts, they are also likely to adapt and learn through experimentation, which can involve developing and monitoring new strategies, expanding and diversifying repertoires of action, and renewing narratives in response to climate challenges (Laroche and Murray, 2024). Nor should we discount regressions in strategic stances. Unions that were previously conditionally or unconditionally supportive of climate policies can shift towards opposition in the face of pressures coming externally from employers, the state and society and internally, from their own membership, including leadership changes.

Finally, the directionality of strategic discrepancies is of interest in understanding the genesis of union climate strategies. Some strategies may be bottom-up – a democratic impulsion driven by rank-and-file activists; others top-down from leaders or union staff to the workplace. Yet others might be ‘outside-in’, as the narratives and actions of social and political movements outside labour organisations permeate the imagination and objectives of union members.

Why are workers and their unions becoming climate actors?

Beyond identifying what strategies workers and their unions pursue on climate change, there is a need to understand why they adopt these strategies. While recent literature sheds much light on the range of strategies pursued, it is less persuasive on why particular strategies are adopted. This question is crucial for understanding whether workers and their unions become climate actors. Tables 1 and 2 propose a range of factors (i.e., independent variables) that may influence the strategies pursued by workers and unions (i.e., dependent variable). In so doing, the framework offers an agenda for future inquiry. It sets out preliminary expectations about their possible impact on the generic strategies identified in the previous section. Since the literature concerning workers, unions and climate change is developing, the anticipated impact of these factors is exploratory, but suggestive of avenues for further research.

Table 1.

Why are workers becoming climate actors? Internal dimensions.

Sub-dimension	Key constructs	Examples of indicators	Hypothetical outcomes
Worker interests	Impact of climate change on worker interests: sectoral exposure, job security, health and safety, worker and community well-being	Carbon intensity of sector, % jobs at risk, social protection, reskilling/mobility options, importance of sector/region	High threat → conditionally supportive, oppositional or transformative Low threat → abstentionist, unconditionally supportive
Union power resources	Internal solidarity: cohesive collective identities; deliberative vitality	Participation in the life of the union, density of internal networks (delegates, stewards)	Strong → conditionally supportive, oppositional or transformative Weak → abstentionist, unconditionally supportive or oppositional
	Network embeddedness: network diversity and density in links to unions and the community	Connection with larger union networks and community organisations	Strong → conditionally supportive or transformativeWeak → abstentionist, unconditionally supportive
	Narrative resources: interpretative and action frames that mobilise repertoires of action and a sense of efficacy	Legacy/efficacy of action frames	Strong → conditionally supportive, oppositional or transformativeWeak → abstentionist
	Infrastructural resources: material, human and organisational processes, policies and programmes	Climate expertise, climate policies, education programmes and training	Strong → conditionally supportive or transformativeWeak → abstentionist, unconditionally supportive
Union strategic capacity	Intermediating capabilities: mediating between contending interests and identities for a common purpose	Collaborative action within workplace, legitimacy of local leaders	Strong → conditionally supportive or transformativeWeak → abstentionist or unconditionally supportive
	Framing capabilities: managing meaning, providing an overarching narrative	Defining terms of debate, integrating climate issues into bargaining, developing new repertoires, mitigating frame misalignments	Strong → conditionally supportive, oppositional or transformativeWeak → abstentionist or unconditionally supportive
	Articulating capabilities: bridging actions over levels of action, time and space	Activating networks: relationships with other actors, NGO alliances, agility in up- and down-scaling issues	Strong → conditionally supportive or transformativeWeak → abstentionist or unconditionally supportive
	Learning: ability to learn and to act upon the union’s organisational self	Devising novel solutions, using teaching opportunities to draw lessons from climate actions	Strong → conditionally supportive or transformativeWeak → abstentionist or unconditionally supportive

Table 2.

Why are workers becoming climate actors? External dimensions.

Sub-dimension	Key constructs	Examples of indicators	Hypothetical outcomes
Structural Power	Ability to control or disrupt production	Key supply chain positions (e.g. upstream or hard to bypass), essential services role (e.g. energy, transportation)	Weak → abstentionist, unconditionally supportive, oppositionalStrong → conditionally supportive or transformative
Institutional power	Public policy support for labour market transitions and industrial strategies, societal role of collective bargaining, opportunity to exercise voice in governance	Robust social dialogue, transition framework, access to decision-making and influence on industrial strategies, training and income support, knowledge regime to share expertise	Weak → abstentionist, unconditionally supportive, oppositionalStrong → conditionally supportive or transformative
Societal discourse	Broader societal trends on climate change	Public opinion on climate change, support for populist anti-climate parties	Anti-climate → abstentionist, oppositionalPro-climate → conditionally supportive, unconditionally supportive or transformative
Employer strategies	Employer approaches to climate change	Unilateral, micro-corporatist, consultative, conflictual, joint regulation	Unilateral/conflictual → oppositionalMicro-corporatist → unconditionally supportiveJoint regulation → conditionally supportive, transformative
Management capabilities	Strategic capabilities	Ability to mediate conflict/cooperation, articulating different levels of the firm, managing meaning for cognitive and normative frames allied to firm interest	Weak → abstentionist, oppositionalStrong → unconditionally supportive, conditionally supportive or transformative

We begin with the differentiated impact of climate change on worker interests, then turn to union power resources and strategic capacity, before considering contextual and external factors such as the location of workers in the organisation of production and services, the resources provided by institutional context, societal discourse and employer strategies and capabilities. Tables 1 and 2 specify each sub-dimension and suggest hypothetical outcomes along a continuum, illustrating how relatively stronger or weaker expressions of a given dimension may shape a union’s strategic positioning.

Worker interests

The climate crisis directly affects workers and their communities. Increasing temperatures and extreme weather events negatively impact worker interests and well-being (Lee et al., 2023). Inaction represents a threat to economic growth, jobs, social cohesion, the quality of work and the stability of current economic models (Carrington, 2025; ILO, 2024). Higher temperatures also pose long-term health risks for workers, including heat stress and mental health issues (Clayton and Swim, 2015; Friedlingstein et al., 2024).

Although the climate crisis impacts the lives of workers, this does not necessarily translate into support for climate action (Cologna et al., 2025). For many workers living in economic insecurity, climate change is abstract, distant from more immediate concerns (Huber, 2022; Kulin and Johansson Sevä, 2021). Public scepticism about climate change is often driven by populist movements, questioning scientific evidence and portraying climate policies as a threat to jobs (Ringqvist, 2022).

Worker interests also vary by sector. Whether a sector is a high emitter can influence workers and unions strategies. Manufacturing unions facing significant job loss tend to emphasise the downside of ambitious climate policies (Kalt, 2022; Thomas and Pulignano, 2021). Vachon (2023) highlights the importance of sectoral belonging on strategic positioning along a ‘jobs versus environment’ continuum. The nature of work performed, job profiles and an industry’s exposure to climate change are all relevant (Vachon, 2023: 60). Where jobs are threatened, as in extractive industries, workers and their unions are less likely to be abstentionist or supportive and more likely to argue for the status quo through oppositional strategies. Workers in transportation, services, education, and health care are more likely to embrace climate action in an unconditionally supportive or transformative way, as their interests are less likely to be threatened.

Union power resources

Power resource theory has featured in recent decades in the industrial relations and comparative welfare state literatures (Arnholtz and Refslund, 2024). Union power resources provide a key to understanding how workers and unions respond to challenges such as economic restructuring and work reorganisation (Arnholtz and Refslund, 2024; Dupuis, 2018, 2020; Lévesque and Murray, 2005, 2010, 2013). As Doerflinger and Thomas (2025: 9) argue: ‘power could be an important concept to explain [actors’ responses to climate change], shedding light on the factors conducive to certain responses.’ For Kalt (2022), unions use different paths to engage strategically with green transitions, which reflect their power resources.

We draw on the four internal power resources identified by Lévesque and Murray (2010).

Internal solidarity

Two interrelated features characterise internal solidarity: first, cohesive collective identities as perceptions of shared status in relation to a broader community; second, deliberative vitality in terms of the participation of workers in the life of their union, notably the density of mechanisms to link union members with each other, and with their union and the extent of actual participation (Lévesque and Murray, 2010: 337–338). Worker interests provide the raw material from which collective identities are forged and translated into forms of agency. Hyman’s (2001) typology of market, society and class illustrates how collective identities might impact climate strategies. Class identities might lead to oppositional strategies (the dice are loaded in favour of capital), or conditionally supportive (negotiating the best deal we can) or even transformative (arguing for an entirely different vision). Concerning climate policies, collective identities are an internal factor likely to influence union strategies (Kalt, 2022; Thomas and Doerflinger, 2020). Deliberative vitality is arguably a mechanism through which workers can appropriate climate challenges (they need information and a chance to assess different strategies), and from such exchanges might emerge more robust strategies and worker ownership of climate action. It is predicted that stronger internal solidarity will be associated with transformative or conditionally supportive strategies, whereas weaker internal solidarity is more likely to be associated with abstentionist, or unconditionally supportive strategies. Oppositional strategies might be associated with either weak or strong internal solidarity.

Network embeddedness

Network embeddedness refers to the degree to which unions are linked to their larger union, to other unions, to community and social movements or other organisations (Lévesque and Murray, 2010: 339). This concerns how participation in larger union structures and activities is a resource for knowledge, expertise and solidarity with other workplaces. Doerflinger and Thomas (2025) point to the importance of interactions between world-of-work actors and civil society organisations in the development of climate strategies. How workers and their unions engage, or do not engage, with environmental campaigns translates some of the tensions underlying such coalitions (Vachon 2023). Tensions can arise between environmental groups and workers occupying jobs in industrial cities (Harter, 2022), sometimes leading to oppositional strategies, but also yielding new alliances for more proactive strategies (Peters, 2024; Vachon, 2023).

Narrative resources

Narrative resources refer to the values, shared understandings, stories and ideologies that aggregate interests and identities and inform motives (Lévesque and Murray, 2010: 339). Narrative resources constitute a legacy of interpretative and action frames that can be mobilised to explain new situations and point to consecrated repertoires of action in support of actions. Voss (1996: 253) refers to ‘fortifying myths’ that frame victories and defeats. Dupuis and Murray (2025) recount the case of a manufacturing union local in Canada that could draw on such a narrative resource to chart a path beyond abstention because it had previously waged a successful campaign against outsourcing and re-engaged itself in climate restructuring despite the prospect of job loss. Narratives of victories and defeats can expand or shrink the scope for climate action.

Infrastructural resources

Union organisations are also distinguished by the resources they can mobilise and the practices, policies and programmes they have developed over time (Lévesque and Murray, 2010: 340). A union that has developed specialists, detailed research, educational programmes and networks of activists on climate change is more likely to adopt proactive strategies. The directionality of this relationship is co-constructed, but greater infrastructural resources on climate issues are likely a necessary condition for transformative and even conditionally supportive strategies (Kalt, 2022).

Strategic capacity

For Ganz (2000), union leadership requires both resources and resourcefulness. Lévesque and Murray (2010) likewise emphasise how union actors rely on strategic capacity to mobilise their resources. Strategic capacity refers to the ability to evaluate opportunities, forecast changes, formulate appropriate strategies and policies, and implement them effectively (Laroche and Murray, 2024). In responding to government policies, employer initiatives, and evolving public discourse and in advocating for a just transition (Brecher, 2024; Dupuis et al., 2026; Vachon, 2023), workers and their unions must draw on such strategic capacity.

Intermediating capabilities

Allan and Robinson (2022) recount how, irrespective of the position taken by a national union on climate change, there is a multiplicity of interests and identities within the workforce. The ability to bridge between different identities might be key to charting a strategic climate path (Dufour and Hege, 2010; Ferns, 2019; Lewin, 2019). Weak intermediating capabilities might push a workplace union towards abstentionism or support, limiting its ability to pursue a proactive strategy. Doellgast et al. (2026: 22) highlight that resisting precarity in remote work requires intermediating capabilities in contending with divergent interests and fostering collaborative action. As remote work collapses the boundary between home life and work, climate change similarly reaches beyond the boundaries of the workplace, affecting spheres of reproduction and relations with nature.

Framing capabilities

The ability to provide overarching narratives for workers and union action is a key strategic capability (Ganz, 2000; Lévesque and Murray, 2010, 2013). Weak framing capabilities are more likely to translate into abstentionist strategies, whereas strong capabilities favour proactive strategies.

In fossil fuel-dependent industries, employers often portray climate action and carbon taxes as harmful to business and jobs and in conflict with worker well-being, the ‘national interest’ and the prosperity of regions (Eaton et al., 2024; Galgóczi, 2020; Goods and Ellem, 2024). Unions in Poland, the United States, Australia, and Germany have used this frame to defend fossil fuel industries and delay climate policies (Snell, 2018; Trachtman et al., 2025).

In contrast, social justice frames are likely to favour a transformative climate agenda (Kalt, 2022). The ability to shift debates from ‘jobs versus the environment’ to ‘good jobs and clean air’ helps build broader societal support for climate policies (Brecher, 2024; Vachon, 2023). Over the past decade, IG Metall in Germany has aimed to shape a ‘Just Transition For All’ agenda, favouring low-carbon shifts on its members’ terms, independent of employers, and securing union participation in company planning, long-term employment development and training (Bosch, 2023; Stroud et al., 2024).

There is also considerable potential for frame misalignment where different workplace unions, different levels of a union, or different sectoral groupings propose contrasting narratives about climate change (Michaud and Laroche, 2024). While a variety of interests are invariably at play, such misalignment is likely to limit the capacity to frame a climate narrative in the absence of strong bridging or intermediating capacity.

Articulating capabilities

In a multi-scalar context, workers must deal with different levels of firms, often in transnational production networks, located in different regions and countries, and requiring temporal trade-offs (shorter-term versus longer-term). Articulating between these different levels of action, over space and time, is a key capability (Lévesque and Murray, 2010: 343).

Unions also engage in broader coalitions to enhance their political influence, especially when they lack the requisite infrastructural resources to influence employers and governments. As environmental organisations have become stronger, new links have formed between unions, environmentalists, and local communities (Brecher, 2024; Doerflinger and Thomas, 2025). Examples include ‘Climate Jobs New York’ and the ‘Blue-Green Alliance’ in the US (Peters, 2024; Vachon, 2023). In Europe, unions have sought new expertise to develop their own bargaining and public policy campaigns related to industrial and training policies (Stroud et al., 2024).

Learning capabilities

A key strategic capability pertains to organisational learning, namely the ability for self-examination and for acting upon a union’s organisational self (Laroche and Murray, 2024: 233; Vandaele and Fabris, 2025: 9). One indicator is the degree to which unions educate and mobilise their members on climate, a challenge when workplace unions face many contrasting demands (MacDonald, 2025).

Beyond worker interests, union resources and strategic capabilities, union climate strategies must be understood in relation to various contextual and external factors.

Structural power

Structural power refers to the ability to control and disrupt production because of the location of work in a supply chain (Wright, 2000). While mobilising this power remains a challenge (Greer, 2024), workers in key locations within global production networks and critical infrastructure are likely to exert greater leverage. This structural power might favour proactive stances, such as conditionally supportive or even transformative strategies (Kalt, 2022). Conversely, weak structural power might more readily be associated with abstention or unconditional support.

Institutional power

Worker and union strategies are likely to be influenced by the institutional arrangements in which they are embedded (Arnholtz and Refslund, 2024; O’Brady, 2021). State policies are central to climate transitions. Many argue that climate transition requires a fundamental rethinking of the role of the state, be it in terms of economic growth and degrowth, welfare policies, industrial policy, labour markets and skills, or economic and social governance (Galgóczi and Pochet, 2022; Pochet, 2024).

Mazzucato and Macfarlane (2025) emphasise how market-shaping industrial policies are critical to this transition. For Mandelli (2022), welfare states should promote climate transitions through their policies on workers in terms of prevention (e.g. income support), reaction (e.g. unemployment benefits), protection (e.g. assistance for job search or reskilling) or investment (e.g. jobs creation, education and training). State policies supporting workers affected by decarbonisation are likely to reinforce the capacity of unions to engage in proactive strategies on climate change (Dupuis et al., 2024). Cha (2024) points to the crucial importance of government support and dedicated funding streams to reinforce climate transitions. Pochet (2024: 11) makes the case for EU-level support for and coordination of national experiments through job guarantees and eco-social income schemes. Governance arrangements are also likely to offer workers and unions a voice and facilitate their engagement on climate change.

In Germany, co-determination mechanisms, the involvement of workers and their unions in skill formation, and the influence of tripartite economic policies can be seen to favour union engagement and more consensual solutions to climate challenges (Bosch, 2023). The highly coordinated national and sectoral dialogue in Continental and Nordic European countries leads to greater emphasis on negotiation and consensual solutions (Busemeyer et al., 2025; Galgóczi, 2020). Likewise, in Denmark, unions are engaged in climate change through their role in tripartite social dialogue institutions, such as vocational education and training systems at national, sectoral and company levels (Pulignano et al., 2023). The United Federation of Danish Workers (3F) has actively led climate ‘partnerships’ with industry, invested in new policy development through a ‘Green Think Tank,’ and expanded national proposals for retrofitting buildings and upgrading district heating networks. Danish construction unions have also commissioned research to identify the skills needed for the green transition and are involved in planning stages of major energy infrastructure projects (Clarke et al., 2024).

Societal discourse

Beyond how unions frame and align their interests in workplaces and sectors, there are broader societal trends in which workers and unions are anchored and with which they may or may not be aligned (Tattersall, 2024). Swings in public support for or opposition to climate policies influence government policy (Gallagher and Oh, 2023). Workers and their unions may draw on public support for climate change policies to support their arguments with their employers. Or they may have to work against societal climate scepticism with the election of right-wing populist parties, economic uncertainty, inequality, and distrust in institutions (Ellem et al., 2020; Hacker et al., 2024).

Poland provides an intriguing case study. Polish unions have had to navigate among the workers they represent and with right-wing populist governments claiming that their anti-climate discourse better connects with worker interests (Czarzasty and Rogalewski, 2022; Żuk and Szulecki, 2020). Such cases highlight the discursive fluidity and potential misalignments between workers, unions, governments and civil society. There is, nonetheless, some support for a positive association between union membership and pro-climate positioning (Ringqvist, 2022, 2026), perhaps a basis on which to construct more proactive climate strategies.

Employer strategies

Relationships with employers are also crucial to understanding worker and union climate strategies (Markey et al., 2019). At the local level, some employer behaviours (unilateralism, micro-corporatism) may engender less proactive union strategies (abstentionist, unconditional support), whereas other behaviours (adversarialism, joint regulation) may be associated with opposition, conditional support or even transformative strategies (Lévesque and Murray, 2005). Employer influence at the national level is also relevant given the power of employers to shape climate policies in the industrial relations sphere (Goods and Ellem, 2023).

Management capabilities

The literature on the micro-politics of management practice in multinational firms has highlighted the importance of key management capabilities (Fenton-O’Creevy et al., 2011). Local managers seek to protect their discretion and mediate between local and transnational interests. Management capabilities play an important role in creating a space for climate dialogue with workers and their unions. In a study of the implementation of an international framework agreement by a French multinational company, Lévesque et al. (2018) point to the importance of bridging, framing and the capacity to engender collaborative action for the effective implementation of this framework agreement in its subsidiaries overseas. Managers must also balance different identities when implementing green policies in organisations (Wright et al., 2012). Alliances between management and local unions might be plausible in certain cases. Conversely, the capacity to reframe climate actions in their favour might undermine workers and unions interests (Wright and Nyberg, 2017).

Conclusion

Workers are too often excluded from climate conversations. Treated as victims of inevitable restructuring, they are not considered as subjects able to contribute to climate solutions in the world of work. Recent debates over a ‘just transition’ have emerged as a pathway to a socially equitable climate restructuring for workers and unions (Vachon, 2023). However, it falls short on practical guidelines as regards the conditions favourable to worker agency on climate change.

In delving into factors likely to influence worker and union environmental strategies, the framework presented in this article has sought to understand how workers and their unions become climate actors. We first identified what strategies are adopted. We identified five generic strategies along two dimensions – the extent of agreement with and of engagement in climate policies (Figure 1). We then asked why they adopt particular strategies. In a meso-level framework integrating agentic and structural, internal and external factors driving workers’ and unions’ climate action, we stressed the importance of assessing these factors and their anticipated outcomes. There is certainly a need to unpack their influence, in interaction with the various contextual factors identified in the framework (Tables 1 and 2).

Although employers and governments often possess a structural advantage, there is sufficient evidence to hypothesise that strong union power resources and strategic capacity are prerequisites to understand how workers and their unions can exercise their power as climate actors. They can mobilise their collective organisations, social dialogue institutions, and political and social influence to counter disparities in power. Nor is the distribution of power between workers, employers and the state fixed or static. It varies over time, across sectors and countries and in relation to a range of interests, resources and capabilities (Frege and Kelly, 2004; Lévesque and Murray, 2010) in quite variable contexts, which must be taken into consideration (Pasquier et al., 2025). This insight applies as much to worker climate strategies as to other issues. A compelling hypothesis suggests that the absence of a range of power resources and strategic capabilities is more readily associated with abstentionism or unconditional support (though see Dupuis et al., 2026). Stronger resources and capabilities are more likely to lead to proactive strategies, varying from opposition to conditionally supportive to transformative; the latter requiring a stronger bundle of resources and capabilities.

While researchers are working to identify these paths, more systematic analyses of the key factors likely to impact worker and union strategies are required to disentangle their relative influence and whether certain factors are not context-dependent. We hope that the framework offered here helps researchers in this endeavour.

Further research is dependent on the deployment of worker and union climate strategies. In examining how unions become climate actors by identifying their strategies (the what) and the factors that influence them (the why), we will better understand the factors – and the interaction of these factors – that shape workers’ and unions’ climate strategies in different contexts. We also hope that this article provides tools for workers and their unions to pursue their climate work and to assess the experimentation in which they are engaged.

The overarching message as regards whether they become climate actors concerns their power, notably, whether they can develop the resources and capabilities required to exercise worker and union voice on climate futures.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the many trade unionists with whom we collaborate for their contributions to ongoing discussions around workers, their unions and climate change. We also wish to thank Philippe Pochet, Transfer Co-editor, and anonymous referees for their insightful comments.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article and the thematic issue of Transfer in which it appears stem from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) partnership development grant project entitled What Can Unions Do About Climate Change? Union Strategies for a Just Transition. The project involves three partner unions in Canada: the Fédération de l’industrie manufacturière (FIM-CSN), Unifor and USW Canada/Métallos. This initiative is part of a larger CRIMT Partnership on Institutional Experimentation for Better Work research programme, which is supported by grants from the partnership programme of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Regroupements stratégiques programme of the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQ-SC).

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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