The Right to a Green Job?
Demand for wind turbine blades in Europe has slipped, apparently, so a British company that makes them, Vestas, has plans to let go 625 workers (or, in the formulaic language of British news reports, “axe 625 jobs“). So some of those being “axed” have decided to barricade themselves into the factory, in the unorthodox but apparent hope that this will stimulate demand.
What is perhaps most interesting about this story is not so much what it reveals about the impermanence of green jobs as the British labor unions’ attitude to them:
“The court has made its decision, but we will continue with our campaign and the right to work on green energy jobs.”
So it seems that on the British left there is now a substantive right to a green job. What a happy world this will be, when everyone is paid for saving the planet. Presumably this right will be secured by a tax on the productive workers, but one has to wonder, just who will they be in this world?