Motion no: 45
The escalating ecological crisis is becoming ever more of a threat to the security of life on this planet. Changing climates and extreme weather events are on the increase and have varying devastating effects on human life from reduction in food production to natural disasters. These events inevitably have a greater impact on poor and working class people across the globe who are vulnerable and less able to protect themselves by building infrastructure defences and being able to re-build after a natural disaster. Overcoming this global crisis will require a restructuring of our economy and a re-think in terms of how we utilize resources of our planet. We cannot continue an unplanned, unregulated global economy in a planet on finite resources. The devastating impact of these ecological developments will also clearly raise important questions for the labour and trade union movement. We cannot afford to ignore these issues or treat them as solely the responsibility of the environmental movement. Conference calls on ICTU to establish an Ecological Matters Advisory Committee along the same lines as the Women, Youth, LGBT committee. This committee will: Engage in outreach to organisations and campaigns finding areas of commonality for campaigning. Conduct research into how the ecological crisis will affect Ireland in general and the labour market in particular. Provide advice to affiliate unions in how to develop ecological policy and knowledge to identify areas where ecological campaigns could provide for job creation and campaigns.Develop model alternative economy policy that would help re-structure our economy to be more environmentally friendly and how jobs might be created through this process. Adopted
Belfast & District Trades Union Council
