ETUI Massive Open Online Course: ‘Acquiring skills for labour and environmental justice’

While climate change is posing unprecedented challenges to existing socio-economic models in Europe and beyond, the crisis of welfare systems based on growth, consumption and redistribution calls for in-depth rethinking of the role of labour law and industrial relations institutions in current and future societies. In contrast to the siloed approaches that characterised the 20th-century industrial era, contemporary societal problems, such as the consequences of climate change and climate policies on the world of work, mean that the policy and regulation focus needs to be shifted from a linear to a systemic type of intervention, in which labour and environmental justice are pursued simultaneously.

Developing skills to address this challenge is the main concern of the very first ETUI Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), ‘Skills for labour and environmental justice’. This MOOC will bring together trade unionists, public opinion leaders, researchers and practitioners in the fields of labour law, industrial relations and environmental law to discover the synergy between work and nature, the balance of labour and environmental sustainability, the intersection between labour law and environmental law and much more.

At the end of the course, the participants are expected to have developed a deeper understanding of the links between two normative fields of law: labour law and environmental law. More precisely, they will learn how environmental concerns could be reconciled with the ideas of justice in the world of work.

The MOOC teaching faculty includes senior researchers of the ETUI research team, as well as scholars from leading universities worldwide. Video lectures and relevant learning activities will be shared on the dedicated MOOC electronic platform.

The MOOC is scheduled to begin on 8 January and run until 18 February 2024. Participation is free and will primarily consist of asynchronous interactions. We invite all interested readers of the ETUI Green New Deal newsletter to publicise this MOOC among their networks. Enrolment for the course will open on 23 October 2023 and will close on 3 December 2023. Please visit https://www.etui.org/events/skills-labour-and-environmental-justice at the beginning of the enrolment period for additional information.