February 8, 2025

The coal industry is to Australia what the Second Amendment to the US Constitution (giving citizens the right to bear arms) is to the United States: it is hard to imagine the country without it. With fossil fuels still accounting for 92 per cent of Australia’s energy mix, including 29 per cent for coal by 2021, the industry is still strongly defended by lobbies, even in parliamentary circles and in the corridors of ministries.

Australia’s conservative former prime minister Scott Morrison famously held up a piece of coal in Parliament in 2017, when he was finance minister, warning his colleagues not to be intimidated by it. When he became prime minister, he also directly surrounded himself with lobbyists such as John Kunkel, former vice-chairman of the Minerals Council of Australia, whom he appointed as chief of staff in 2018.

In the Hunter Valley, a region north of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, the local economy is still dominated by coal. From mines to cargo ships leaving the port of Newcastle, the industry directly and indirectly employs more than 17,000 people. “Newcastle is the largest coal port in the world,” said Dr Liam Phelan, a researcher at the University of Newcastle (Australia) who specializes in the uncertainties and risks of climate change. “Coal mining has been a part of life here since white people came to Australia.”

For years, mining projects have been supported and still approved, at least by the Morrison government, which has been widely condemned in Australia and around the world for its inaction on climate change. But the tides are beginning to turn. In May 2022, voters ousted ‘ScoMo’ and returned Labor to power. New prime minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to make Australia a “renewable energy superpower” and reduce the country’s CO₂ emissions by 43 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 – a target considered by scientists in Climate Change Authority that is not enough. .

This raises the question of what role fossil fuels will play going forward and what will happen to the 50,000 direct jobs and 120,000 indirect jobs (figures from the Minerals Council of Australia) involved in Australia’s coal industry.

Leaving aside the energy transition, Australia’s coal industry has seen its exports slow in recent years, partly as a result of the trade war with China since 2020, while demand domestically switched to cleaner energy sources that gained ground. According to the Clean Energy Council’s 2022 energy report: “Australia’s renewable energy industry will account for 32.5 percent of Australia’s total electricity generation in 2021, representing an increase of nearly 5 percentage points compared to in 2020.”

The rapid pace of the transition worries workers

Despite their ‘windfall gains’ in recent months due to the European gas crisis caused by the conflict in Ukraine, which led to a sharp increase in global demand for coal, mining companies sees the writing on the wall and is already taking steps. in anticipation of changes in the industry. In June, BHP announced that its Mount Arthur mine in the Hunter Valley would close in 2030, 15 years ahead of schedule, while earlier in the year, it was revealed that the Eraring coal-fired power plant in Lake Macquarie would close in 2025. , seven years earlier than planned. This means New South Wales will see its largest mine and largest power station nearby within eight years.

Workers and unions prefer to stay ahead of this transition, which is already proving faster than expected. “I went back to university to study for a business degree,” said Nathan Clements, 27, a shop steward for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, which represents 4,000 workers in the Hunter Valley, most of whom work in companies involved in coal production.

For Nathan, who has spent the past seven years working for a company that “maintains machinery used in mines,” coal is a family affair.

“My father is still working on it. My brother and friends are working on it. If you come in, you are guaranteed a job, an income. It used to guarantee you a future,” he said. But for some time now, this future has felt even more uncertain.

Like Nathan, who tries to balance a 38-hour work week with his studies, many consider returning to university to begin the retraining process. “I know a man who juggles two and has six children,” he added.

As uncertainty over their future grows, workplace discussions among workers become more common. “Today, it’s easier to talk about the future of our professions,” said Nathan, who also saw “an increase in awareness about global warming since the fires” that occurred in Australia in 2019 and 2020. But while workers are increasingly talking about climate change, their main concern remains job prospects and pay.

Trade unions are leading the fight for a just transition

In November 2020, Steve Murphy, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), and several environmental collectives* founded the Hunter Jobs Alliance (HJA), a coalition of unions and environmental groups whose purpose is to to ensure a successful economic transformation for. the region. “We are working to ensure the Hunter Valley has support and programs in place to help employees affected by change, while also creating new industries and ensuring our region remains attractive,” said Warrick Jordan, coordinator of the Hunter Jobs Alliance. When it comes to job creation, HJA has no shortage of ideas: electric bus manufacturing, building renovation, green aluminum smelters, offshore wind power and mine rehabilitation are among the sectors the organization hopes to be funded by the government.

HJA’s goal is to move beyond the sometimes divisive debate over environmental action within the coal industry and act quickly to bring unions from multiple trades together to reimagine the future of the region. A total of nine unions representing teachers, nurses, administrative and public sector employees and workers currently make up the HJA. “A lot of time is spent discussing the reality of global warming that should be spent finding solutions to support employees and attract new industry,” added Warrick Jordan.

The Hunter Jobs Alliance collects worker feedback through its member unions and organizes workshops to better understand the fears and expectations of employees.

“Despite the diversity of the workers’ backgrounds and the differences of opinion on the subject, most people understand that change is coming,” said Newcastle University’s Phelan.

Unions representing workers in the coal industry are generally not opposed to the facts of climate change. They know the future energy transition is inevitable – they just want to make sure it makes sense. “We are working politically, at state and federal level, to ensure that only change is included in the legislation,” said Adrian Evans, deputy national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), a branch of the Construction, Forestry , Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) representing coal port workers and others.

All union representatives interviewed for this article agreed that a fair transition should include, among other things, increasing resources to retrain employees to find new jobs, especially in the sector of renewable energy. “We need to seize these opportunities and ensure that the benefits of renewable energy growth are available to everyone, especially those who will be affected by the end of old industries,” said Michael Wright, deputy national secretary of Electrical Trades Union (ETU). ), representing 60,000 workers in Australia’s electricity sector. According to Wright, “several thousand” of his union members already work in solar and wind power.

“We’re just at the beginning”

While the state agency TAFE (Technical and Further Education) already provides training for professionals in New South Wales, Phelan argues that this requires more government investment: “You don’t go and work on a wind farm throughout the night. We have the skills, but we need more training,” he added.

Another step that unions are fighting to see implemented is the creation of a local authority to coordinate transition efforts, which has already been established in many parts of Australia. “Last year the New South Wales government announced the creation of the Royalties for Rejuvenation fund, a body that will receive AU$25 million a year to support regeneration initiatives, including the Hunter Valley,” explained Liam. Phelan. A similar body, the Latrobe Valley Authority, was also created in the state of Victoria.

According to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Australia’s largest trade union centre, whose affiliates include many of the aforementioned unions, the transition is “completely predictable and it is critical that the government acts to support the workers and communities affected by the energy transition.” Unions and their workers assure us that it’s already started and, as Jordan of the Hunter Jobs Alliance says: “We’re still at the beginning.”

This article was translated from French.

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