While environmental law scholars are concerned with climate change, labour law scholars have mostly ignored the effects climate change can have on the labour market. This even though the UNs environmental program from 2007 identified that promoting “green friendly” clauses to collective bargaining agreements, strengthening the link between OHS regulation and environmental concerns and CSR initiatives to promote better standards are main areas where environmental sustainability can be promoted whilst protecting workers.
The UN has provided a useful starting point, which in recent years has been substantiated by the concept of Just Transition for Workers (JTW) as an aspect of the response to climate change. JTW draws on the concept of Just Transition originally developed by the North American labour movement, but find its focus on labour law in international instruments including the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UNFCC and the Paris Agreements from 2015.
This is a question of upholding the balance between the transition towards a low carbon economy and JTW. The social partners have a major role to play in this regard, as involvement of employee representatives increases the chance of developing mutually accepted solutions. This paper aims to address this balancing act by analysing the above-mentioned legal framework and discuss how collective bargaining clauses, OHS regulation and CSR initiatives. Denmark will be used as an example, as collective bargaining and flexicurity (the danish model) are core aspects of danish labour and employment law as well as OHS law.
Firstly, the pros and cons of collective bargaining and the notion that there in fact is an equilibrium between employers and employees will be discussed. Specific collective bargaining agreements – especially recent ones from negotiations in the public sector from 2021 - will be scrutinized for “green friendly” clauses. Secondly, the role of OHS regulation in the fight against climate change will we analysed. Thirdly, the concept of CSR and the place of sustainability in a corporate context will be discussed.
Preliminary conclusions include the fact, that the equilibrium of the social partners in fact might be pushed in favour of the employer, taking into account that information can be withheld from the employees under certain circumstances. OHS regulation most likely need a reform, as it does not require an employer to take into account the impact the activity in a workplace has on the environment. Perhaps CSR holds a solution yet overlooked.
The paper aims to contribute with a de lege ferenda discussion aimed at addressing these challenges for both Danish but also European companies.