Description
This paper examines the actual state of climate action and climate leadership in Denmark by studying how the green transition is negotiated, contested, and implemented in the pig meat sector. This industry represents a case of historical, cultural, and political-economic contestation over the implementation of radical green transformations within a sector that compromises the potential for climate action. The guiding question for the paper is whether and how organised labour positions itself as an advocate for climate action when its means of existence depends upon working in an emissions-intensive and unsustainable sector. In the Nordic context, the history of the cross-class alliance between organised labour and employers’ associations within the agricultural sector has shaped the way trade unions manoeuvre in conflicts. But there are indications that the climate crisis may represent a new wedge in the labour-capital relation, pushing trade unions to take on new strategies and to form new alliances. This paper thus looks at what radical climate leadership looks like within a sector trying to maintain a license to produce and examines whether its labour base is willing to challenge the current course of action.
