Workers, Communities and the Environment: The Struggles for Decarbonisation Around a Steel Plant in Ijmond (Netherlands)

The concept of a Just Transition has gained traction in policy circles as a framework to reconcile workers' material needs with the environmental transition. However, despite originating from trade unions, workers' roles as active ecological subjects remain under-theorized. Workers and their communities seen primarily as beneficiaries of just transition policies, rather than key actors in the transition. However, in the Dutch region of IJmond, workers of a steel plant led a strike to force the owners of the factory to take decarbonization seriously. This shows that workers not only have an history of resisting exploitation but they also embody the struggles of decarbonization. They are situated at the heart of industrial production. Much of the transition literature focuses on technocratic or normative approaches, with limited attention given to workers' agency and how their work shapes their relationship to the environment.

In this paper, I propose through a working-class ecology lens. I attach particular attention to understanding how these processes, relations, and positionalities are materiality embedded. I draw upon more than 20 interviews with trade unions, workers, residents, and environmental groups involved in the decarbonization of a steel plant in IJmond (Netherlands). The critical position of the steel plant as a key economic actor, despite its known detrimental impacts on the environment and public health, has become the focus of regional debates. This has generated tensions and conflicts among groups, but it also offers a space for envisioning and implementing alternative solutions.