From Climate Crisis to Labor Control: Workers' Responses to Corporate Environmental Strategies

While there is growing academic interest in the impact of the climate crisis on workers, the question of how this phenomenon alters labor relations in the workplace remains largely unexplored. Using Labor Process Theory as a foundation, our research investigates how firms' strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change influence the control mechanisms over workers. We aim to understand how these corporate strategies, while not explicitly designed for this purpose, affect management's capacity for coercion and persuasion, as well as trade unions' practices of accommodation and resistance. At the conference, we will present preliminary findings from a case study conducted in a Chilean forestry company. This study involved analyzing corporate reports and conducting 25 interviews with managers, union leaders, and environmentalists in communities surrounding the company's operations. The case study reveals that companies have leveraged the climate crisis to increase control over workers and align them more closely with corporate interests. The presentation will examine the social fractures this situation creates in local territories and the challenges faced by trade unions in responding to these changes.