What is the course about?
This online course explores different aspects of the ‘jobs vs. environment dilemma’ through a lens of current struggles, as well as academic and policy debates. The different downloadable lectures, reading materials and zoom workshops discuss fundamental transformations in the ways we produce, consume and organise our economy and society.
Check out our webinar: "Labour and the Energy Crisis", which took place in September 2022, and webinar "From Victims to Actors of Just Transition: Lessons from the Lucas Aerospace Workers' Plan".
Key concepts
jobs vs. environment, green growth, de-growth, environmentalism, just transition, decarbonization, global labour transformation, natural resources, economic and ecological policies, working conditions
Course workload
The estimated workload is 6-7 hours per chapter if you read also the key reading for each unit.
Course certificates
You can also purchase a certifcate by the Global Labour University and iversity.
If you meet the course requirements, you can also obtain a scholarship from the Global Labour University. For details on the requirements, read carefully the information in Chapter 1, Unit 1.
Course content
Chapter
1
Course Introduction
Chapter
2
Setting the context: Why is the environment a lab…
Chapter
3
Responding to the environmental crisis and pushin…
Chapter
4
Theoretical and conceptual debates on labour and …
Chapter
5
Meeting the environmental challenge: labour polic…
Chapter
6
Energy crisis: questions, visions and strategies
What will you learn?
At the end of the course, the participants will be able to:
- state key facts related to the unequal distribution of greenhouse emissions as well as define and relate to key concepts in the environmental-labour debate;
- discuss the underlying issues of the jobs vs. environment dilemma and explain the limitations of this debate;
- analyse and compare the merits of different analytical approaches related to the labour-environment topic;
- assess related policy proposals and formulate proposals, which are relevant for their own context.
What is the target audience?
Trade unionists, and labour, environmental and community activists
What prior knowledge is required?
This is a multi-disciplinary course drawing on the fields of social, political and economic sciencescourse. It is at the level of a Masters’ programme, but the concepts are explained in an accessible and well-illustrated way, so it is also possible to participate in the course using skills and knowledge acquired outside formal education. The course requires a working level of English.
Course instructors
Markus Wissen
I am a professor of social sciences at Berlin School of Economics and Law. My main area of work is socio-ecological transformation. In particular, I am interested in the labour-environment relationship as well as in mobility and transport. More recently, I have conducted a reserch project on the role of workers in the transformation of the automotive industry, featuring issues of conversion and democracy.
Ông là giáo sư khoa học xã hội tại Trường Kinh tế và Luật Berlin. Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu chính của ông là chuyển đổi sinh thái xã hội. Đặc biệt, ông quan tâm đến mối quan hệ lao động - môi trường cũng như sự di chuyển và giao thông. Mới đây, ông đã thực hiện một dự án về vai trò của người lao động trong quá trình chuyển đổi của ngành công nghiệp ô tô, bao gồm các vấn đề về chuyển đổi và dân chủ.
Stefanie Lorenzen
Stefanie Lorenzen is a professor for business law, especially employment and labor law at the Berlin School of Economics and Law since 2009. She worked for two years at the Ministery of Justice in Windhoek, Namibia, where she supported a development aid study on legal reform after the country’s independence in 1994. From 1998 to 2009 she was an attorney-at-law specialised in employment and labor law, with an international law firm in Germany and in her own practice. At the Berlin School of Economics and Law she academically directs a Master programme in Business Law in an International Context, and lectures on International Labour Standards and working conditions along the global supply chain.
Edlira Xhafa
Edlira Xhafa is the Executive Director of the Online Academy of the Global Labour University. She has a master's degree in Labour Policies and Globalisation from the Global Labour University (Germany) and holds a PhD in Labour Studies from the University of Milan, Italy. Since 2000, she has been engaged with national trade unions in her home country Albania, as well as in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar. She has also worked for, and collaborated with Education International, Public Services International, Building and Wood Workers' International, International Labour Organisation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and others.
Dr Frank Hoffer
Dr Frank Hoffer is a research fellow of the Global Labour University. He studied in Bremen, London and Moscow. He holds a PhD in Economics. During his professional career, Frank Hoffer was a Labour Attache at the Germany Embassy in Moscow, worked as a senior research officer at the International Labour Organisation and served as the Executive Director of the ACT Foundation. His main areas of interest and research are social policy, wage policies and the application of international labour standards. He is a non-executive director of the GLU Online Academy board
Michael Stöckel
Based in Berlin, I graduated with a Master of International Economics from Berlin School of Economics and Law in 2019. Before studying economics I graduated from the Master of Public Administration (Verwaltungswissenschaft) from Universität Potsdam and the Bachelor of European Studies from Maastricht University.
Sống và làm việc tại Berlin, ông tốt nghiệp Thạc sĩ Kinh tế Quốc tế tại Trường Kinh tế và Luật Berlin năm 2019. Trước khi theo học kinh tế, ông đã tốt nghiệp Thạc sĩ Hành chính Công từ Đại học Potsdam và Cử nhân Nghiên cứu Châu Âu từ Đại học Maastricht.
Silpa Satheesh
Silpa is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India. Her research interests include social movements, labour-environmental relations, ethnography and political economy. She holds a PhD in Sociology from University of South Florida.
Silpa là Trợ lý Giáo sư tại Trường Phát triển tại Đại học Mahatma Gandhi. Các mối quan tâm nghiên cứu của bà bao gồm các phong trào xã hội, quan hệ lao động - môi trường, dân tộc học và kinh tế chính trị. Bà nhận bằng Tiến sĩ Xã hội học tại Đại học Nam Florida.
John Mark Mwanika
John Mark Mwanika is a Programs Officer at Amalgamated Transport and General Workers’ Union (ATGWU-Uganda). John Mark is passionate about workers issues and since 2010 picked special interest in designing innovative organising programs for his union ATGWU. Key among these is the use of HIV/AIDS and Climate Change in organising transport workers in Uganda. Perhaps the most significant is the organising of informal transport workers that has seen the drastic growth of ATGWU’s membership from less than 5,000 in 2012 to over 100,000 by the end of 2018. John Mark is currently working on strategies of building union influence and campaigning in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in Nairobi, Kenya and Dakar, Senegal under the ITF Our Public Transport (OPT) Program.
John Mark is a holder of a Master in Development Studies, Bachelor of Social Science and a Diploma in Education. He is the current Chair of the ITF Urban Transport Committee and a Co-Chair of ITF Sustainable Transport Working Group
Sam Mason
Hello. I am a Policy Officer covering sustainability and climate change at the Public & Commercial Services (PCS) Trade Union in the UK. My work covers supporting our workplace environmental represenstatives to build a sustainability agenda, to writing policy briefs and materials around a transformtive Just Transition. We work closely with campaign groups from Extinction Rebellion to Friends of the Earth. I represent the union within the global Trade Unions for Energy Democracy initiative and at the UK COP26 Coalition. I'm an activist in my own right and am a member of the New Lucas Plan (see Lucusplan.org.uk), the Campaign for nuclear disarmament with particular interest in defence diversification and a number of campaigns in my neighbourhood around housing, climate change and the environment.
Please feel free to contact me.
Nora Räthzel
I am senior professor at the University of Umeå, Sweden. I live in Spain, near Barcelona. Over the past 12 years I have been working on the perceptions, practices and policies of trade unions regarding the environment/nature. Before I did research on transnational corporations from the standpoint of workers and ethnic and gender relations in everyday life. If you are interested in my projects and publications you can visit my website at the University of Umeå, department of Sociology: https://www.umu.se/en/staff/nora-rathzel/
You can find most of my publications at research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nora_Raethzel
Bà là giáo sư danh dự tại Đại học Umeå, Thụy Điển. Bà sống ở Tây Ban Nha, gần Barcelona. Trong 12 năm qua, bà đã nghiên cứu về nhận thức, thực tiễn và chính sách của công đoàn về môi trường / thiên nhiên. Trước đó, bà đã nghiên cứu về các tập đoàn xuyên quốc gia từ quan điểm của người lao động và các mối quan hệ sắc tộc và giới tính trong cuộc sống hàng ngày. Nếu bạn quan tâm đến các dự án và ấn phẩm của bà, bạn có thể truy cập trang web tại Đại học Umeå, khoa Xã hội học: https://www.umu.se/en/staff/nora-rathzel/
Bạn cũng có thể tìm thấy hầu hết các ấn phẩm của Nora Räthzel tại Cổng nghiên cứu: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nora_Raethzel
Bela Galgoczi
Alana Dave
Alana Dave là Giám đốc Giao thông Đô thị tại Liên đoàn Công nhân Vận tải Quốc tế (ITF), có trụ sở tại London. Alana điều hành chương trình toàn cầu của ITF về giao thông công cộng, bao gồm một số dự án chiến lược về tác động tới lao động và các vấn đề của người lao động, bao gồm cả việc chuyển đổi từ việc làm phi chính thức sang chính thức. Bà đã đã điều hành việc phát triển chính sách giao thông công cộng của công đoàn toàn cầu nhằm thúc đẩy mạnh mẽ hơn việc làm bền vững, chính thức hóa, công bằng xã hội và khí hậu, và bình đẳng giới. Alana đại diện cho ITF trong các mối quan hệ đối ngoại với các nhà hoạch định chính sách và các nhà tuyển dụng của hệ thống phương tiện giao thông công cộng.
Mametlwe Sebei
Dimitris Stevis
I am on the faculty of the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University, USA and an officer of the local chapter of my union. In broad terms my research, teaching and practice are integrated around the social governance of the world political economy with particular attention to labor and the environment. I have recently coedited The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies (2021, with Nora Räthzel and David Uzzell). I serve as a joint coordinator of the Just Transition Research Collaborative (UNRISD) and was on the organizing committee of the Just Transition Listening Project and co-author of its report.
Patrick Bond
Selected Course Reviews
Overall Rating 4.4 (61 students)
Basic Understanding and Sharpen knowledge
Concrete Issues and Lectures. But time is short to learn for the best.
c'est un cours bien structuré
toutes les chapitres ont été contributive à mon édification. une bonne communication doit être fait autour de ce cours pour qu'il soit un élément pivot dans le processus de changement visais de l'environnement en tenant compte de l'importance de la préservation du travail .
Regarding course
Its best course
Meaningful
I like the course. It really provided material that we need for actions where we live in a world that requires radical changes to save our planet while maintaining equal distribution.
C'est la camarade Marie Soumaré THIAM qui m'intégrer dans le cercle d'étude pour participater à cette formation
Toutes les vidéos sont intéressantes . J'ai beaucoup appris sur la transition juste
The couse is very healthful and very informative
I liked everything about the cous it's very easy to understand and it's quez are very simple
very great and useful
really enjoyed this free and helpful course
i am copping with at least
the progression stage seem to be challenging and little bit confusing
Environmentalism and Just Transition Topic
I liked all topics because it was straight forward and relevant to my situation as an Activist
Helpful and Amazing Course
As the environmental activist and worker, this course was very helpful for me to understanding the issues on just transition.