The Paris Agreement calls a just transition of the workforce an “imperative” – and a new TUAC policy brief, Responsible Business Conduct for a Just Transition, published today, gives workers and their unions concrete guidance to negotiate one at company level. It shows how the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises can be used to secure negotiated transition plans, measurable targets and remedy when climate policies affect workers’ jobs.
It rests on three claims – a just transition is a right, it is an economic, social and environmental necessity, and it is achievable – and backs the last with evidence. Trade unions have already negotiated just transition provisions in collective and global framework agreements across various sectors and countries. The brief compiles these as reference points for negotiators everywhere.
The OECD published its own guidance on responsible business conduct for a just transition in May, setting out six Key Actions for multinationals. TUAC welcomes its recognition that engagement with legitimate trade unions cannot be replaced by other forms of consultation with workers, and that engaging workers is central to identifying and preventing the social impacts of the transition, including in the design of transition plans.
The brief turns the six Key Actions into a practical agenda for unions: a seat at the table when transition plans are drawn up, early adoption of those plans with detailed metrics, oversight of how they are built into companies’ due diligence, and prior consultation and a search for alternatives before any supplier is disengaged. In doing so, it provides a concrete tool to advance corporate accountability, accelerate climate action and uphold workers’ rights in the green transition.
This brief provides concrete guidance for workers and their unions to negotiate a truly just transition at company level. The OECD Guidelines are clear that a transition plan should not be drawn up without the workers it affects – and the agreements unions have already reached show that it can be done.
Corporate attention to the just transition has never been higher: references in listed companies’ reports rose from 16 in 2019 to 372 in 2023. Implementation has yet to catch up. The Net Zero Company Benchmark 2025 finds 1% of companies fully committed to just transition principles with disclosed plans to deliver and monitor them, and a 2024 assessment of 399 companies found 6% partially planning for one. That is the gap this guidance is designed to close – above all in global supply chains, where just 157 multinationals and their suppliers account for up to 60% of the world’s industrial emissions.
The brief also points unions to the OECD’s National Contact Points, which handle complaints under the Guidelines in every adhering country, for cases where labour rights are breached in the course of a transition, and offers a just transition reading of the six OECD due diligence steps, together with metrics to track a company’s progress.
TUAC will continue to engage at the OECD to promote a just transition through responsible business conduct, including with governments, National Contact Points, NGOs and business representatives. TUAC will support affiliates in putting the brief to work at the bargaining table through a series of capacity-building workshops.
Read the full policy brief, Responsible Business Conduct for a Just Transition, in English or Spanish.
