Energy, Food & Fair Work: Putting People and the Planet Before Profit
February marks the fourth month of our Year of Climate Action and it’s clearer than ever that the climate crisis and the cost-of-living crisis are two sides of the same coin. Both are the result of a broken system that puts profit before people, and both hit working-class communities hardest.
Whether it’s skyrocketing energy bills, rising food prices, or unsafe working conditions caused by heat or flooding, working people are paying the price for decisions made in boardrooms. But as trade unionists, we also hold the key to change through our collective power, our organising, and our belief in fairness.
The Energy Crisis: Exploitation by Design
Energy is a basic human need, yet it’s treated as a commodity. While ordinary families have struggled to heat their homes and food workers have faced freezing or sweltering conditions on the job, energy giants have raked in record profits.
This isn’t an accident it’s a system built on exploitation. The same companies responsible for high bills and carbon pollution are the ones lobbying against workers’ rights and fair pay. Meanwhile, politicians talk about “green growth” while failing to confront corporate power or invest in publicly owned, renewable energy.
That’s why trade unions are demanding energy justice affordable, sustainable power in public hands, run for people not profit.
Food Production: Workers at the Heart of the System
Food is another basic necessity that’s been turned into a global business built on low pay and insecurity. Our members know better than anyone how climate breakdown is already disrupting production from supply chain issues to extreme temperatures and unpredictable harvests.
And yet, food industry employers still expect workers to absorb the cost: longer hours, tighter targets, and less security. They talk about sustainability while squeezing the people who make their profits possible.
The truth is simple: there can be no sustainable food system without fair work.
If we want to feed people and protect the planet, we must start by valuing the workers who do the job.
Fair Pay, Fair Work, Fair Planet
The fight for climate justice is the fight for fair work. That means secure jobs, decent wages, and a say in how our industries are run. It means recognising that the same power we use to win better pay is the power we can use to demand a greener, fairer economy.
From energy to food production, workers are already leading the way pushing back against corporate greed, demanding public ownership, and showing what justice looks like in practice. Every campaign for better wages, safer conditions, and respect at work is also a climate campaign, because it challenges the same profit-driven system that’s driving environmental destruction.
A Union Vision for Justice
The solutions are there but they won’t come from those who caused the problem. They’ll come from workers standing together. That’s why BFAWU’s role in the climate movement is so important: we understand that climate action is not just about cutting emissions it’s about transforming the way society works.
Energy, food, and fair work are the foundations of a just transition. And trade unions are the bridge between crisis and change.
This February, as we continue our Year of Climate Action, let’s keep building that bridge one workplace, one campaign, one act of solidarity at a time.
Because when workers fight for fairness, we’re not just protecting ourselves, we’re protecting our future, and our planet too