Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change (ACW), 2014-2021
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The documents archived at this website are the result of research done under the direction of Principal Investigator Dr. Carla Lipsig-Mummé, Professor of Work and Labour Studies at York University, from 2014- 2022. This research was pioneering in its foresight about the problem of global heating and the potential role of workers to contribute to a cleaner economy. Building from What Do We Know? What Do We Need To Know? The state of research on work, employment and climate change in Canada (2010), one of the goals of the Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Climate Change (ACW) project was to produce practical tools for education and action – for example, through the Green Collective Agreements database (which was featured by the International Labour Organization in its 2018 publication, Greening With Jobs: World Employment and Social Outlook 2018), and by the W3/ACW Environmental Racism project, which produced, for example, the Environmental Racism Workshop Companion Guide to support the many labour-focused workshops it conducted. The Just Transition and Beyond Roundtable Summary Report documents the 2018 gathering of Canadian unionists that was part of a broader series of reports undertaken by the Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces research grant in cooperation with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The ACW research project was unique, not only in its subject area, but in how it was conducted. This was recognized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2018 when it awarded the SSHRC Impact Partnership Award to Professor Lipsig- Mummé for her accomplishment in building a unique, “community-university network partnership” which grew from five partners and eight researchers initially to 52 partners in seven countries. One of the rarest features of this collaborative approach was that it brought together researchers in academia with those in civil society organizations – especially labour unions. For many years, academics, environmental activists, and union leaders convened annually in informal, face-to-face meetings and discussions.
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Item Open Access ACW Baseline Report: Built Environment(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015) Calvert, JohnThis paper was presented at the Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW) International Workshop in Toronto, Canada, November 2015. The goals of the paper are: 1. To establish the current state of knowledge about the contribution of the workforce to ‘greening’ the construction industry; 2. To assess the potential of labour to shape the industry’s carbon footprint. 3. To identify barriers to the successful participation of the workforce in developing pathways to low carbon construction and develop strategies to circumvent these barriers. 4. To identify needed modifications to employment, employment conditions, working practices and the overall organization of construction work that will improve the capacity of the workforce to implement low carbon construction (effective health and safety provisions, integrated team‐based work practices, improved vocational education and training (VET), union representation and a greater say for the workforce in shaping the industry’s future). 5. To examine the current and potential role of unions and professional organizations in advancing this process. 6. To analyze the workforce implications of widely used policy tools, such as energy efficiency targets, building codes and contract procurement requirements in facilitating the transition to low carbon construction. 7. To carry out research on the role of workers and the organizations that represent them in implementing specific, innovative low carbon projects which can serve as models for wider application in the building industry.Item Open Access ACW Baseline Report: Domestic Policy(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015) Mertins-Kirkwood, HadrianPresented at the Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW) International Workshop in Toronto, Canada, November 2015. The paper presents an overview of Canadian policies and financing instruments, at the federal and provincial level, implemented to date to discourage greenhouse gas emissions and to encourage the adoption of green energy.Item Open Access ACW Baseline Report: Energy(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015) Wood, Trista; Mabee, WarrenPresented at the Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW) International Workshop in Toronto, Canada, November 2015. A review of all energy-related emissions is provided in this report, along with projections of future energy use. It is shown that oil and gas, transport, and buildings are the sectors most responsible for our increased emission profile. Growth in industrial and transport energy use will demand significantly more fossil fuel unless policy interventions push us towards ‘greener’ scenarios; using projections from the Trottier Energy Futures Project (TEFP 2016), two such scenarios are explored, one focused on sustainable urban development, and the other on a future where new electricity generation from nuclear sources is constrained. In both of these scenarios, the amount of electricity used in every sector increases dramatically. This suggests that a critical issue of the future will be designing new electricity generation in order to benefit both society and the workers who are engaged in the projectsItem Open Access ACW Baseline Report: Manufacturing - Auto(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2016-07) Goods, Caleb; Holmes, John; Robinson, Joanna; Chorostecki, JimThis research focuses on the GHG emissions of the Canadian automotive assembly and component industries, which are almost exclusively concentrated in the south west of Ontario, in close proximity to the large Michigan auto industry. It is critically important to understand the context of the broader North American auto industry – for example, in 2014, approximately 80 per cent of Canada’s total automotive export trade by value went to the U.S. Canadian auto is also interconnected with the U.S. and Mexican auto industries via political economic forces such as trade, government policy and labour relations. These contextual factors and the current state of the industry are discussed in the report, followed by an outline of the major research challenges of the industry, and a review of current greening actions in the Ontario auto industry. It concludes with a discussion of future research directions.Item Open Access ACW Baseline Report: Manufacturing - Forestry(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2016-07) Chorostecki, JimThis background paper explores the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in Canadian forestry, with a focus on the energy use and associated emissions related to the initial harvesting of trees, their processing into intermediate and/or finished products, and the reforestation efforts that are required for Canadian forests to remain a renewable resource. It is an interesting time to be looking at this topic as 2015 marks the target year, announced in 2007, by which the forest industry had targeted to achieve industry-wide carbon neutrality without the purchase of offsetting carbon credits Overall, the industry is found to have improved immensely in its emissions intensity. Three trends are highlighted: fuel switching, improved energy efficiency, and energy systems optimization. There are a variety of influences that have encouraged the continuous improvement of the industry. These incentives originate in public policy, economic incentives, and social pressure/responsibility.Item Open Access ACW Baseline Report: Manufacturing - Progress report(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015-11) Chorostecki, Jim; Goods, Caleb; Holmes, John; Robinson, JoannaThis workplan sets out a base of information concerning 3 manufacturing sectors: auto, forestry, and food processing.Item Open Access AdaptingCanadianWork.ca (ACW) website archive (WACZ)(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2022-02-15) Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW)Capture of the entire www.adaptingcanadianwork.ca website. Capture from 2022-02-15. A Web Archive Collection Zipped (WACZ) file can be opened with website-emulation software, so that the entire website can be viewed and interacted with as though it originally appeared online. Try the Web Recorder browser extension, or go to https://replayweb.page/ and upload the file. More information: https://webrecorder.github.io/wacz-spec/1.2.0/ WACZ (Web Archive Collection Zip) package created with the Web Recorder browser extension for Chrome, from ArchiveWeb.page.Item Open Access After Paris Conference Toronto 2015 - video 1 - Welcome and Introduction by Rafael Gomez and Chair, Carla Lipsig Mummé(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015) Gomez, Rafael; Lipsig-Mumme, CarlaWelcome and introduction by Rafael Gomez, University of Toronto, and Carla Lipsig Mummé, York University, to Adapting Canadians Work and Workplaces. International Panel: After Paris: Politics, Climate Change and Labour. Toronto, 2015. Canada’s surprise election of a majority government promising to return Canada to the world struggle to slow global warming, puts the state front and centre for the first time in years. Elsewhere, the political terrain for slowing global warming is also changing rapidly. Legal activism in the Netherlands and Pakistan challenges states to live up to their responsibility to protect their population from the devastation of global warming. Labour-environmental alliances are linking environment and labour law, and crafting collective bargaining ways to reduce GHGs at work. Order of Presentations: Welcome, Rafael Gomez, University of Toronto, and Carla Lipsig-Mummé, York University The Urgenda Climate Case and It’s Consequences, Roger Cox, Urgenda State of Federal and Provincial Climate Policy: Prospects for Paris and Beyond, Bruce Campbell, CCPA Characteristics of green jobs related to renewable energy deployment, Warren Mabee, Queen’s University COP 21, Canada’s Climate Commitment & Decarbonization, Josephine Yam, Environmental Law Centre (Alberta) Going Green at Work, Sarah Pearce, UNISON Green Unions at Work, Gordon Laxer, Parkland Institute Labour and Climate Change, Larry Brown, NUPGE Question & Answer – International Panel Full playlist on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLesjwzjIDTZAcuShRfo4L5yMTCAKJ-tqfItem Open Access After Paris Conference Toronto 2015 - video 7 - Labour and Climate Change(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015) Brown, LarryPresentation by Larry Brown, National president of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), to the Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces, and Work in a Warming World. International Panel: After Paris: Politics, Climate Change and Labour. Toronto, 2015.Item Open Access Archiving ACW: Preserving the work of ACW and related grants(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2022-04-30) Perry, ElizabethPresented at the ACW Team Meeting April 30 2022. Introduces the ACW collection on the YorkSpace platform and the ACW Digital Library in the York University Digital LibraryItem Open Access The BC Insulator Union’s Campaign to Promote Climate Literacy in Construction (Salamander Report): Documenting Its Efforts to "Green" The Industry's Culture(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2019-06-13) Calvert, JohnThe role of the labour movement in contributing to Canada’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy use has not been the subject of scholarly attention in much of the climate change literature in recent years. Unions have largely been ignored as the academic literature and popular media have focused on the role of climate scientists, environmental NGOs, governments, industry, and professionals in addressing Canada’s climate challenges. To the extent that union actions have been acknowledged, too often it has been in the context of construction unions supporting further fossil fuel developments or forestry unions clashing with the environmental movement – narratives that fit well with the neoliberal attack on the legitimacy and rights of the labour movement. However, there are good examples of unions exercising significant climate leadership in the industries employing their members. These merit much more attention than they have so far received and point to the potential of the labour movement to exercise leadership on this vital issue. The focus of this research paper is to document the efforts of a small British Columbia (BC) based union, the BC Insulators, to reduce energy use and GHG emissions in the work performed by its members while attempting to foster climate literacy in the broader construction industry. The union’s campaign has targeted its own members and apprentices, other construction trades, contractors, engineers, architects and industry professionals, developers, environmental NGOs, building owners and various levels of government. It has systematically expanded the focus of its campaign over the past decade, identifying new ways to promote its climate agenda and new target audiences, both in its home province of BC, nationally, and in the US insulation industry. The current paper builds on two previous studies, produced as part of the ‘Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change’ research program funded by the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada. (Calvert and Tallon 2016; Tallon and Calvert 2017).Item Open Access Canada Post and Environmental Leadership(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2016-10-31) Lipsig-Mummé, CarlaPresentation by Carla Lipsig-Mummé, Principal Investigator, ACW, York University, Canada. Submitted to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, Government of Canada. October 31, 2016Item Open Access Canadian Labour Unions and Climate Change: Selected Documents Published by Canadian Unions(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2022-05) Perry, ElizabethDocuments created & published by Canadian labour unions on the topic of climate change and labour.Item Open Access Chinodin Chigumi Nodin Kitagan: The Bow Lake Wind Project as an Exercise of Inherent Jurisdiction by Batchewana First Nation(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2017-11) Smith, Adrian A.; Scott, Dayna NadinePresentation by Dayna Nadine Scott and Adrian A. Smith, York University—Osgoode, at ACW All Team Meeting Researcher’s Workshop. Toronto November 2017Item Open Access City Building (Glasgow): An Inspirational Model of Low Energy Social Housing and Public Building Production(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2018) Clarke, Linda; Sahin-Dikmen, MelahatThe aim is to investigate trade union policies and engagement in initiatives in the area of sustainable construction. The research is comparative and identifies case studies illustrative of trade union involvement in four European countries (Denmark, Germany, Italy and UK/Scotland) as well as in Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Ontario). The concern, in particular, is to identify and promote ‘good practice’ examples and document, for instance, associated terms and conditions of employment for workers, vocational education and training (VET) programmes in low energy construction (LEC), and the extent that green transition pathways prioritise workers’ interests alongside the protection of the environment. City Building (Glasgow) in Scotland provides one such example, particularly in the context of a sector dominated in the United Kingdom (UK) by sub-contracting, self-employment, agency labour and a highly fragmented and restricted VET system.Item Open Access Climate Action in the Postal Sector(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2015) Hawley, KarenPresentation by Karen Hawley at the ACW-W3 Researchers’ Workshop. November, 2015. 12 slides. Toronto, 2015.Item Open Access Climate Change and Just Transition: What Will Workers Need?(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2018) United Steelworkers Canada; Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW)The United Steelworkers Union (USW) in Canada has produced a new workshop guide to educate workers about the impact of climate change on jobs, and to better prepare them to ensure that government policies promoting a just transition are put in place. The workshop and guide were piloted at the United Steelworkers National Health, Safety, Environment and Human Rights Conference that was held in Vancouver in 2017. The workshop guide leads union members through discussion topics and activities, such as asking participants to answer the question, “What can your workplace do to combat climate change?” A main focus of the workshop is the need for a just transition to a greener economy. The full list of topics covered includes: How Climate Change Connects Us, How Climate Change Contributes to the World of Work, Employment, Forestry, Mining, Transportation, Just Transition, What Does a Green Job Mean in Relation to the Environment?, Collective Agreements, Political Lobbying, Green Procurement, Training, Employment Insurance, National Concern for the Economic Growth of Canada.Item Open Access Climate Stability, Worker Stability: Are They Compatible?(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2018) Comeau, Louise; Luke, DevinThis report reviews the literature assessing the needs and requirements of workers affected by the low-carbon transition, and discusses the issues in the context of the New Brunswick power system. The goal is to better understand the training needs associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency job projections. The authors note however that there is a greater need to better integrate climate change and low-carbon economy discussions into a broader discourse on the nature of work. The paper concludes with recommendations for a low-carbon electricity system transition jobs plan for New Brunswick.Item Open Access CUPW Environmental Projects(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2022-04-30) Allen, SarahItem Open Access Dark Politics: Climate Change and Labour Transitions in an Unstable World - Brochure(Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), 2016-11-26) Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW)This brochure outlines the agenda of an International Panel held on Nov 26, 2016 in Vancouver, British Columbia. In the context of the Trump election in the U.S., Brexit, and a rise of right wing populism internationally, speakers from the EU, U.S. and Canada address the question – What future for progressive climate policy and modernised labour policy, in this darker world? Abstracts of their presentations are provided.