The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) published guidance for workers and trade unions on Applying Human Rights Due Diligence in the Workplace to Achieve a Just Transition (February 2026).
Human Level’s Take:
- A just transition is a means of protecting workers’ rights while protecting the climate and the environment. The ITUC points out that climate change and fundamental labour rights are closely linked. For example, the rights to organise and collectively bargain can help workers ensure both labour and climate protections in their contracts and daily work. As another example, both occupational health and safety and workplace discrimination can be worsened by climate change.
- As employers and as purchasers of good and services, companies play an essential role in furthering a just transition. They are responsible for ensuring workers’ rights are respected and the environment is protected in their own operations and in the supply chain.
- This requires strong, climate- and transition-aware human rights due diligence (HRDD): clear policies on transition-related issues covering both direct and supply-chain workers; ongoing risk identification and assessment; decisive action to prevent or mitigate harm; and effective remedy, or enabling access to remedy, where the company is linked to impacts. Meaningful engagement with workers and trade unions is also essential.
- The ITUC also outlines an expectation for employers to support a just transition by providing training and re-skilling opportunities for workers, especially those who are most likely to be left behind in the transition. This is especially crucial for companies in sectors like carbon extraction, steel, cement, heavy manufacturing and chemicals, which face the highest job losses. Providing training can be seen as a part of HRDD, helping companies prevent, mitigate and remediate the impacts of the transition connected to their business.
- Beyond action in their own workplaces and supply chains, companies can play a major role in furthering policies, regulations and public opinion in favour of a just transition. This includes refraining from harmful lobbying (including indirectly through trade associations and political contributions) and proactively advocating for measures that protect workers, communities and the environment.
- The ITUC makes it clear: climate change and worker protection are not solely a matter for governments. The just transition is reliant on company support and activity to carry it through.
Some key takeaways:
- What is a just transition and how does it link to fundamental rights at work?: The ITUC defines a just transition as ensuring decent work and protecting livelihoods, in order to minimize the social and economic disruptions that climate policies can cause. It also entails addressing fundamental inequalities that undermine decent work and livelihoods. The just transition is relevant for workers in fossil fuel industries who are seeing their jobs transition away, as well as for workers in emerging green industries, which can come with their own human rights risks and impacts. The ITUC gives a number of examples of the ways in which climate change can dovetail with workers’ fundamental rights. For instance, the right to freedom of association (one of the most common labour violations) can be threatened in cases where employers dismiss union leaders under the pretext of restructuring to meet climate imperatives. Some companies have used environmental and climate policy requirements, especially in high-emitting industries, to retaliate against unions. In addition, the right to collective labour action (strikes and protests) could be impacted if workers are dismissed or retaliated against for participating in protests against high-emitting companies and governments. In other cases, companies have surveilled or cooperated in State surveillance of employee activists — a heightened risk in resource extraction, infrastructure and agriculture. The right to collective bargaining has been used by workers to further a just transition, as in cases where unions have negotiated ‘green’ clauses like training and education or the right to refuse work that is environmentally harmful. Yet the ILO has found that only 23% of collective agreements it reviewed include environmental clauses, and that these are more common in high-income countries, especially in Europe. In addition, unions report that some employers refuse to consider any climate-related issues in negotiations. The right to occupational health and safety are put at risk by climate change, including excessive heat and high UV radiation, poor air quality, severe weather, vector-borne and climate-sensitive diseases, mental health impacts, and gender-based violence and harassment (for example, women traveling to and from work in the dark to avoid the worst heat of the day could be put risk). Certain workers are more vulnerable to these impacts, including migrant workers, informal workers, women in some sectors, and people with health conditions, and lack of union representation can increase their vulnerability. Discrimination in the workplace can also be worsened by climate change. Vulnerable workers tend to be concentrated in precarious and informal work, which lacks safeguards in case of job loss. In addition, economic restructuring to meet climate imperatives can reinforce existing structural inequalities and cause certain groups to miss out on training and re-skilling opportunities.
- How HRDD supports a just transition: The report emphasises that companies have an obligation to address these risks and impacts to workers in both their own operations and value chains. This can be done through good human rights due diligence (HRDD) that is sensitive to climate and and transition-related dynamics: set policies covering these issues for both own workers and supplier workers; identify and assess risks on an ongoing basis; act to prevent or mitigate these risks; and provide remedy or enable remedy (depending on how the company is connected to the harm). Stakeholder engagement is also crucial, both with workers and with trade unions. The ITUC also explores how companies can act by providing training and upskilling. The ILO, through its Convention No. 142 and Recommendation No. 195, both on human resources development, has set the expectation for companies to provide access to training, especially in sectors experiencing structural transformation. In addition, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises both require companies to identify, prevent and mitigate negative human rights impacts, which ITUC notes could include loss of livelihoods due to the energy transition. This means that training and re-skilling are important components of HRDD and can be considered part of remediation and proactive risk prevention.
- Responsible corporate engagement in public policy: Companies can also have a significant impact to support or undermine the just transition through their public policy engagement, including via direct lobbying and indirect lobbying through industry associations, contributing to political campaigns, influencing academic and scientific research, and using public relations to shape public narratives. The ITUC reports that corporate lobbying in particular, even when legal, has chipped away at policies meant to protect the environment, health and workers. Additionally, company narratives against climate action reduce public support for the transition and delay a just transition. This creates hurdles for unions, workers and local communities, who often lack the financial resources and influence of large companies. The ITUC outlines an expectation for companies to not only refrain from lobbying against climate action but also proactively support public measures that protect workers and the environment. They can also use their leverage to counter harmful lobbying and ensure transparency on their public policy positions, including through trade associations they are a part of.
