Hi all, I took a hiatus from the blog through early 2025 because of a crushing workload, but plan to return with some analysis of important issues in the coming months. Lots going, as always, in our crazy world of work law and policy.
The fine folks at CRIMT, a huge research project out of HEC in Montreal that studies work and labour issues, has produced an incredible range of short videos arising from a big conference they held last fall. You can check out the program and links to videos here.
This is a topic I’ve written about in a few publications. The point I’m getting at is that initially “just transition” was a concept developed by the labour movement to advocate for policies that would support fossil fuel workers and communities throughout the transition away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner energy. When understood in this narrow manner, the policy prescriptions were relatively straightforward. However, over time, many other movements have coopted the language of “just transition” and assigned it to very different policy objectives. This has created a contested vision of “just transitions.” What do we make of this? If “just transition” means everything to everyone, does it still have any normative and descriptive value as a guiding concept?
Here’s a longer paper on this topic (with Professor Anne Eisenberg) and a blog I published on Law and Political Economy.