Renewable energy is being implemented worldwide in a context of strong inequalities. The current state of government and private investment widens existent gaps by favouring investments in the Global North, where already industrialised countries have pushed for electrifying their energy-intensive grids through green growth programs reliant on extractivism and dependence abroad. This context has led to workers’ scepticism about jobs and training in green industries, while decarbonisation plans for national electric grids do not necessarily offer the population the guarantee of reliable and affordable access to renewables. The effort to relocate the “just transition” debates within workers’ organisations while connecting their demands to international sectors and concerns requires social movements, unions, parties and scientists to join together in drafting comprehensive strategies for a just international energy transition based on principles of energy democracy and environmental and territorial justice.

Trade Unions for Energy Democracy emerged in 2012 to counter business-as-usual policies that had taken over climate and jobs debates, especially due to the strong influence of fossil fuel and the private sector in general. Today, TUED represents workers in 47 countries through 120 trade union bodies and 4 global union federations. By bridging Global North and Global South debates, TUED strives to build a common vision and strategy, even though workers’ situations and prospects differ from country to country. By promoting a public pathway for the energy transition, TUED handles difficult debates over energy ownership, technological development, the future of work and how to transform the energy sector when a few countries consume so much more than others. This interview with Lala Peñaranda, from TUED, was conducted in September 2024 and its content was edited for clarity.

Sabrina Fernandes: Much has been said, including in official government statements and in global convening spaces about climate change, such as the United Nations, about the importance of including workers in the energy transition debates. Is this a response to the criticism by just transition advocates that corporations and policymakers are considering decarbonisation and electrification, for instance, without taking workers into account? How does TUED ensure workers are meaningfully involved in the Just Transition beyond superficial participation? 

Lala Peñaranda: This is one of the most central questions in the Just Transition. I find it useful to employ the distinction made in a 2018 TUED Working Paper, “Trade Unions and Just Transition: The Search for a Transformative Politics”. There are “social dialogue” and “social power” approaches that trade unions are taking in Just Transition spaces – not as mutually exclusive, but still as distinctly different approaches. A social dialogue approach argues that a productive dialogue between governments, workers, and employers can lead to the “ultimate aim of a Just Transition”, as the ILO puts it, of providing decent work for all and leaving no one behind. Centring this approach pressures unions working at the international level to effectively endorse the main premises and perpetuate the main approach of the liberal business establishment and a market-based logic. Intentionally or not, this approach holds trade union debates and priorities captive to a very narrow and demobilising interpretation of Just Transition. Even more importantly, Social Dialogue will continue to fail in the delivery of a deep transformation because it fundamentally rejects any substantial challenge to current arrangements of power, ownership and profit, instead legitimising an uncritical endorsement of “win-win” solutions and “green growth” for all.
 

The Social Power approach is based on the analysis that power relations must be challenged and transformed within a Just Transition and that this requires a deep restructuring of the global political economy. While TUED no longer uses the “Social Power” terminology, the basic criteria around building worker power in the just transition includes similar elements: independent and democratic trade unions, sectoral bargaining, de-corporatising and democratising board of directors (including having workers on state company boards). The latter is not just about voting power but also about being up to date on high-level decisions and politicising these spaces. 

SF: Can you give us examples of this, of how to ensure that the energy just transition plans really involve workers’ organisations and movements, beyond institutional rhetoric and limited social participation spaces? There are definitely challenges when it comes to involving governments in this conversation, no?

LP: One example of this approach can be found in Gustavo Petro’s government in Colombia. Petro’s government has changed the power balance within the board of the majority state-owned oil company Ecopetrol by including political allies that could help implement the Just Transition agenda as well as the Deputy Minister of Labour. The most important union in the sector, La Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) members are demanding that the union get representation as well. A lead advisor to the Ministry of Finance suggested that trade unions include worker representation in the Holding of state companies in order to help shape public policy. 

Large global federations, such as our allied comrades at the International Transport Workers (ITF), are only as strong as the links between their affiliates. Building meaningful worker power would require playing a stronger coordinating role between affiliates, deepening coordination across the supply chains that the transport workers make possible. There are good examples of global federations doing this type of work: Industrial Global Union has held organising seminars for lithium workers across supply chains and Public Services International (PSI), one of TUED’s main global trade union federation allies,  has organised for better bargaining coordination among ENEL workers in Latin America and Italy. 

There are “no shortcuts” to building worker power, but there are some organising highways that supercharge trade union power. In the energy sector, coalition-building with energy users and housing organisations tends to be particularly effective. Organising outsourced workers across the energy sector, including the highly precarious renewables sector, into unions also has the potential to multiply membership and strategic power. 

SF: It is interesting that you bring up Colombia, since the Petro government has been very vocal about a fossil fuel phase-out, leading the region in this topic. But, of course, there is also criticism from below and conflicts inside the coalition. What are the challenges for the TUED in building relationships with leftist and progressive governments? 

Whether in progressive or reactionary governments, trade unions and social movements know they must sustain movement pressure and struggle. Otherwise, even the best-designed policies will be twisted, watered down, eliminated or distorted by entrenched interests and the status quo. 

In Latin America, labour and social movements work hard to get progressives into office, only to then find a lack of political infrastructure for streamlining union and movement demands into political programs and legislation. With some exceptions, trade unions globally lack permanent channels for discussing energy policy and demands with elected officials and public servants. In this context, Bolivia, Colombia, and Mexico offer limited but valuable experiences in creating semi-permanent channels. A particularly inspiring case is that of the Chilean labour movement’s creation last year of a Confederation of State Enterprise Workers. The Confederation is seeking to reach a membership of some 45,000 workers and includes representation of unions from the oil, metro, copper, and port sectors. Its goals include to reclaim and restore state enterprises that were privatised in the past and public ownership expansion into other areas of the economy. 

SF: Is there a risk of depoliticisation and the marginalisation of workers when dealing with the state though?

LP: It is true that the vision of the Just Transition has been subject to widespread depoliticisation and the marginalisation of workers, but I think that focusing instead on alternatives and positive examples helps to counter it. TUED’s involvement with progressive public servants in the energy sectors across Latin America has deeply informed how I see labour and climate strategy today.

SF: In the energy sector, it has become clear that it is important to involve both workers already working in renewables and those who might continue in the fossil fuel industry for longer. How can the workers in the fossil fuel sector help to push for the necessary fossil fuel phase out? Do you find that this is still a challenge with oil workers’ unions, especially in countries where oil production is heavily associated with sovereignty and development? 

LP: TUED supports unions in setting and meeting ambitious goals along a “Public Pathway” toward decarbonisation, demarketisation, democratic planning of the energy transition, and a broad societal transformation. Naturally, a particular country’s trajectory reflects the reality of their energy mix, economy, colonial history, and geography. 

From a strictly decarbonisation perspective, countries like Uruguay have achieved notable success by achieving a 95% renewable power sector for its 3.4 million people in just under 10 years. For the workers of the state-run utility, advancing along a public pathway requires challenging the privatisation that accompanied this rapid expansion. The public utility, UTE, absorbed the risks, private companies pocketed the benefits, energy users footed the bill, and grid stability was compromised. The decarbonisation transitioned from a state-owned power generation model to one where over 80% percent of the installed renewable capacity is in the hands of private companies. 

But the vast majority of energy unions that TUED works with in the Global South defend a ‘managed decline’ approach to decarbonisation and call on wealthier countries to accelerate their respective decarbonisation. This reflects an attempt to fight on several simultaneous fronts: social, economic, and debt justice, a planned climate and energy strategy, and opposing green energy liberalisation pressures and impositions.  

In 2021, the global demand for electricity generation rose by 5.4%, and 59% of the new demand rise was met by burning coal. Union-led Public Pathway organising in the Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for 82% of the world’s coal generation, has vastly different challenges and opportunities from South America, where hydropower provides 45% of its electricity supply. 

SF: In the Global South, this is a context of struggle to decarbonise while ideas of sovereignty and development continue to be quite associated with oil operations and revenue. Any insights on how to connect decarbonisation with other social priorities that help to build coalitions and a more systemic way of thinking about alternatives? 

LP: One notable example of a union fighting for phase out in a coal-reliant local economy is a coal workers union in Colombia, Sintracarbon. A confluence of factors contributed to this case, including a more trusting relationship with the Petro administration’s Just Transition agenda and widespread community support for their demands for ‘responsible mine closures’ in the context of sudden multinational mines closures and resulting layoffs. 

A robust and just energy grid requires planning and coordination across and between varying scales of generation. Trade unions have played a role in helping connect communities to the grid or to create their own communities. In Colombia, there is debate around the government’s program of “comunidades energéticas” and the vision of “energía comunitaria” led by social and environmental movements such as Rios Vivos. 

This cuts to the heart of coalition-building. I’m sympathetic to the argument that a transition exclusive to the energy sector is impossible due to the nature of energy which embeds it into all sectors and forms of social reproduction. As a movement dedicated to working class liberation, why would we miss the opportunity to widen the reach and scope of our demands? The labour movement rises and falls with the strength of the larger health of the left and broader working-class movements. 

On the surface, there are some urgent but more obvious and direct points of connection in struggle: organising outsourced and informal sector workers, building with energy users unions including neighbourhood and tenant associations.

While unions have a lot to gain from looking and building outward, in TUED we’ve really seen the dire need to also “return” to the basics of ‘organise, organise, organise’ through political education, direct action, rank-and-file mobilisation, and connecting with other unions within and across their sectors and borders. 

SF: Energy democracy is an important element of just transition and it orients how labour organisations and those working to involve them in transition programmes view gaps in energy access and energy production. What defines energy democracy in the work done by TUED and why is it so important for preventing a corporate approach to the energy transition?

LP: In TUED, we discuss the need for trade unions to develop a “comprehensive reclamation strategy”. This begins with reversing neoliberal energy policies. For example, the Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) administration seeks to reverse his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto’s energy reform. These are examples of energy democracy because they strengthen the public mandate of publicly owned companies. Enforcing a pro-public mandate includes having clear requirements for public power companies to meet the needs of the people and promote environmental justice within the energy transition. Another requirement of the pro-public mandate is to develop permanent dialogue tables with communities to obtain their consent for energy products, including free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous consent. TUED’s analysis and research, shares successful experiences between trade unions in these steps along the ‘public pathway’ towards energy democracy. 

Secondly, we need to prevent further neoliberalisation of the energy sector. This is achieved by stopping one of the main forces pushing for market solutions, those of multilateral lending institutions’ policies of green structural adjustment which have contributed to the corporatisation of energy across Global South countries. For example, ‘policy incentives’ for green energy project loans include the liberalisation of the energy market including ‘take or pay’ programs. TUED South, a platform within TUED that brings together Global South trade unions, holds regional policy meetings dedicated to building common policy programs that address the challenges and opportunities within a region. We’ve three regional policy meetings for the regions of Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, in which we’ve brought together trade unions as well as allied research centres and representatives from progressive governments in the region. 

SF: The involvement of broad communities and energy coalitions also help to denounce the current trend in state de-risking for corporations, on? We know that in many countries, a rising proportion of renewables in the energy, primarily electric matrix, has come through private investment. Corporations promote themselves as green providers, but their operations and infrastructure may also be silently subsidised and de-risked by the state. Could you explain why this model is so counterproductive to energy democracy and to effectively leading the energy transition in the pace and direction necessary?

LP: The marriage between the derisking state and private capital is one of the top enemies of the energy transition today. On the left, poorly designed policy results in disillusionment and disappointment. In the liberal sphere, market-driven policy disguised as progressive generates confusion and resentment. This model is counterproductive for many reasons, including because it delays real solutions. For example, the Feed-In-Tariff policy widely implemented across Europe involved governments investing highly in subsidising initial community energy projects to ‘get them started’. When the subsidies were removed, the projects faltered. This resulted in lost time, loss of public funds, and high ambitions for actions that proved misguided and unsustainable.  

The investment deficit in the Global South poses a major threat to the ability of countries to meet their climate goals. Today, developing countries receive less than one-fifth of global clean energy investments. The IMF’s “billions to trillions” initiative, intended to de-risk Global North investments in the Global South, has failed insofar as public funds have failed on their own terms in ‘catalysing’ private investment due to the latter perceiving unsatisfactory ‘returns’. In terms of climate action, the de-risking strategy has led to a slower build-out of decarbonisation infrastructure while syphoning public funds away from the very type of public programs most needed to fund a Public Pathway approach to a Just Transition. Rather than ‘complementing’ or ‘catalysing’ one another, private sector investment conditions continue to drain public funds that could be used more efficiently and responsibly otherwise.

SF: How do you see lessons and approaches in public energy connecting to other sectors in the economy, strengthening public services in general, in the effort to fund a Public Pathway approach?

LP: One of the most direct advantages to a pro-public energy transition is removing the private motive from the equation and guaranteeing just tariffs, eliminating energy poverty, and fulfilling energy as a human right. However, public funding and ownership, while requisites for a Just Transition, are insufficient alone. A common example is the suburbanisation of life in the United States, funded by public dollars and made possible by public highway infrastructure. To avoid the individualisation embodied by suburban living (but which could apply to other infrastructure such as energy sprawl), public investments and projects must socialise the benefits they provide. 

This lesson in public infrastructure can help inform the fight for strong public services in other sectors of the economy. Rather than legislating and funding public services in siloes, a bold vision understands how these services can collectively help transform the way we plan cities, organise land use, collect taxes, and progressively socialise benefits. A community’s experience with its local public hospital powered by public energy can be further bettered by the coordinated provision of quality public transportation, public housing, public parks, and so on. Some of the best trade union campaigns for public services reflect this interconnection and the ambitious political vision of a better society emboldens organisers, workers, and all who stand to benefit from it. For instance, The Oil Workers Union of Colombia have popular support due to their participation in the civic strikes which fought for access to water, tax justice, fair housing, and alongside teachers’ unions. There is a strategic component. But also, the reality that “there are no good jobs on a dying planet”. 

This is translated into the shared analysis we have with the Public Services International (PSI) on the notion that strong public services raise the bar for everyone and help coordinate the decarbonisation of our economy. We have also fought to create an intersectoral network, drawing from unions from the health, education, transport, retail and construction sectors precisely because the climate crisis is a cross-cutting issue for workers, and because trade unions are strategically positioned across sectors to pressure for decarbonization policies. 

SF: As part of this intersectoral vision, I think that a big challenge behind building and implementing renewables is ensuring a just process in the territories impacted, since a transition can’t be just if it creates green sacrifice zones. Because of this, communities impacted by wind and solar farms have shown their opposition to these projects, even if they agree with the necessity to expand renewables and phase out fossil fuel use in general. What are the various ways through which an energy democracy programme can help to reconcile demands for reducing the impacts of renewables while expanding the matrix?

LP: Around the world, indigenous groups and rural communities have clashed with green energy project developers who, they claim, have stolen land, misled local populations, and resorted to bribery and physical force to get their projects approved. Given the pressures to expand renewable energy infrastructure, it is very likely that conflicts between communities and projects will see a rapid increase in the coming years. For example, solar power requires far more space than wind to generate the same amount of power (approximately 1 hectare of land for 1MW of solar). In Latin America, indigenous groups and rural communities from Oaxaca in Mexico to Biobío in Chile have been mobilising against large wind and solar projects. Some have led to project cancellations, as in the case of the Italy-based energy multinational ENEL which called off a wind project after a three-year confrontation with local indigenous Wayuu communities in Northern Colombia.

However, this clearly does not mean that the well-being of communities or workers and decarbonisation is mutually exclusive. The fact that workers and communities often do share grievances and demands means that when they work together, they can inform more equitable forms of planning around renewable energy build-out. Investors and private developers are often the primary beneficiaries of projects while the social and ecological costs are absorbed by Indigenous and Black communities, workers, farmers, and the rural poor. Trade unions are strategically located to support the goal of expanding public renewables through equitable planning while reducing their worst impacts. 

To increase unionisation campaigns in the renewable energy sector is not only about workers’ rights but also about having potential allies in strategic positions within projects. The majority of trade unions in the TUED network are accountable to the social movements where workers’ rights and community rights overlap and coalesce. One such movement space is the Mesa Social Minero-energética y Ambiental por la Paz in Colombia, a national coalition space of labour, environmental, and other social movements founded by the oil workers union to find and build alternatives to the dominant pro-market extractivist model. Many other examples can be found in the trade unions that have signed on to TUED’s Trade Union Program, which commits to and calls for indigenous people to ensure their free, prior and informed consent in developing a vision and plan for their relationship to public energy systems that protect indigenous laws and treaties. 

In the end, the fight for public renewables is necessary not only for reaching decarbonisation goals, but also because it creates another layer of accountability for projects to serve a “public”, which includes Indigenous, Black, farmer, and worker communities as well as energy users more generally.  

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This article is part of the Energy Transition dossier to be launched in March 2025.