Union reps from PCS and UNISON working for different organisations in the same building in Bristol have created a cross-union committee to advance their environmental and industrial agendas.

Horizon House is both the headquarters of the Environment Agency (organised by UNISON) and home to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), Natural England, the Animal & Plant Health Agency and the Rural Payments Agency – all represented by PCS.

Bristol Unions United, the cross-union committee covering the building, is pursuing a multi-stranded campaign that combines educational events on pressing environmental concerns with a negotiating agenda that encompasses climate justice and industrial issues.

The group kicked off its awareness-raising work with an event last autumn, held in the atrium on the ground floor of the building on the eve of the September 2019 international youth climate strike.

PCS green rep Tom Youngman, one of the linchpins of the cross-union committee, recalls,

We had around 40 colleagues listening attentively to a 14-yearold and a 15-year-old explaining what they thought needs to change in their city and in the UK to respond to the climate emergency.”

The event definitely made an impact, and it was young people in the city that had originally inspired Tom to take on the green rep role in addition to his workplace rep work.

Tom said,

Our office is three minutes’ walk from where the school children gather when they are out on strike.”

It really hit me that if they could be bold enough to organise in school, then we should be as bold as them in the workplace, as well.”

Since the that meeting, the committee has followed up with events examining the pros and cons of carbon offsetting and a packed event in February 2020, looking at how the council is addressing the urgent need to decrease air pollution in the city, which has been shown to cause 300 avoidable deaths every year.

Speakers included Councillor Kye Dudd, who is not only the city council’s cabinet member for transport and energy but also chair of the local Communication Workers Union (CWU) branch; Harriet Aughey from MedAct Bristol, who is a paediatric registrar at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust; and Stuart Phelps, from local campaign group Residents Against Dirty Energy (RADE).

The issue was so urgent and the speakers so gripping, that it was standing room only in the atrium and staff on the first floor were leaving their desks to listen to listen in from their vantage point overlooking the meeting.

In addition to helping colleagues work out what they can do collectively to combat climate change, the committee is also pursuing negotiations to improve the building’s response to the environmental crisis.

Tom said:

We’re planning a meeting with the canteen managers to understand what their sustainability policies are and to improve the number of meat-free options, given the high-carbon impact of meat production,”

And we’re talking about workers’ rights as well – whether workers are being paid the living wage and whether they have access to a union as well – because we’re always making sure we tie in green issues with workers’ issues, because that’s where we can be most powerful.”

For Tom himself, taking part in the annual PCS green forum in Leeds last year was an enormous help to him developing in his role as green rep.

Tom recalled:

Getting together with other reps around the country at the green forum was really key. Swapping notes on some of the organising challenges we’ve faced and the different events and tools we’d use to get people together more effectively – that was really vital.”

This case study first appeared in the unionlearn publication “Cutting Carbon, Growing Skills: green skills for a just transition”