Climate Change: The Challenges to Labor

We know that tackling climate change requires transitioning from old industrial policies to a green, sustainable economy. But what we don’t know is how this transition will affect workers. Will thousands of workers lose their jobs? Will workers receive training to switch from one sector to another? How are governments responding to balance the economy, workers, and climate?

Reiner Hoffmann heads the German Trade Union Confederation, representing almost 6 million workers in Germany, a country playing a leading role in making structural changes designed to lessen its environmental impact.

A long-time labor activist, Hoffmann is the chairman of the German Trade Union Confederation DGB, an umbrella organization for eight German trade unions and one of the largest national confederations of trade unions worldwide. From 2003 to 2009 he served as the Deputy Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation. His main areas of work at the ETUC were economic and employment policy, structural and industrial policy, co-determination and corporate social responsibility. In 2009, he became the Regional Director of the IG BCE, a German trade union representing workers in industries such as mining, recycling, and natural gas. He was appointed by overwhelming majority as the chairman of the German Trade Union Confederation in 2014 and re-appointed in May 2018.

Based on his experiences in Germany and the EU, Hoffmann will present a lecture on the past and future labor market challenges arising from structural economic changes in response to climate change. He will contrast industrial changes and the importance of structural and industrial policies in Europe and the United States and discuss the effects of the transition from “brown to green” jobs, how to ensure fair transitions with good jobs, the promise and pitfalls of green industrial policies, and the role of social welfare state buffers.

Wolff Conference Room, Room D1103, Albert and Vera List Academic Center
6 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003, Room D1103