AIRAANZ 2024 presidential address: time for industrial relations to reconcile with the climate crisis

The stability of our collective climate, which has provided the background to our amazing human flourishing, is under an astonishing threat, and yet, to date, industrial relations scholarship, actors and institutions have not come to terms with this threat and what it means for work. Work is already starting to go through a process of climate induced adaptation and in the frontier carbon emission industries of coal and energy we are already seeing marked shifts in how and what work is done. This article argues that industrial relations must reconcile with the climate crisis and its implications for work and workers if we are to maintain and build strong social systems within ecological boundaries. A transformation that will shape and be shaped by core industrial relations issues, such as bargaining, wages, what is value and how is such value best distributed.