PMCJ on Labor Day 2025: A Just Transition by Workers, for Workers

Media Communications
Apr 30
2 min read

Updated: May 15

Quezon City, Philippines — The Philippine Movement for Climate Justice stands in solidarity with workers this International Labor Day as we recognize their crucial role in leading the charge for a just transition into a society with equal rights, social justice, and a liveable planet.

The work needed to build sustainable solutions to the climate crisis is exhaustive. Adding to that burden is our current system of labor and production, where workers are oppressed by unlivable wages, poor working conditions, rising inflation, an unsustainable world that relies on dirty and deadly energy and a neoliberal economic system that oppresses workers and exhausts the planet’s resources.

Even as we strive for climate justice, residents of communities near the coal-fired power plant in Mauban tell stories of poor working conditions inside these power plants. A former worker employed in the coal plant as a minor said the workers inhaled toxic carbon without proper protection. He also told of the horrific injuries and deaths inside the plant, and the coal company’s cover-ups and bribes to keep the story from leaking. These stories show how the Philippine fossil fuel industry exemplifies capitalists who treat workers inhumanely for profit’s sake.

For the workers, this is labor and lives wasted in a dying, planet-destroying industry kept afloat by capitalists who see only profits, even at the expense of the planet. Such an economic system founded on a business-as-usual scheme will not deliver the much-needed socio-economic transition into a real low-carbon economy. It only allows polluters to offset parts of their high-carbon-intensive industries to appear environmentally sustainable while still pursuing harmful and destructive projects.

But there is still hope in the workers' hands. This Labor Day, we affirm what history and the struggle of the working class have always shown: there is power to build a better world that centers on people’s interests. It is through workers’ hands that the solar panels and wind turbines of our future will be made, and through the wires they coil, our clean energy will flow. A worker-led just and fair transition can happen without sacrificing their rights or the well-being of communities.

All the more, it is urgent to emphasize the need for concrete support for workers disproportionately affected by the multiple crises of climate, ecological destruction, and unsustainable energy systems built on their suffering. It is the responsibility of both the government and the world’s rich, polluting nations to make resources work and available for the people and the planet, not for profit and power.

With workers at the foundation of our sustainable future and the front of our fight for climate justice, this Labor Day we give not just recognition but also our unrelenting support to their struggle for an equitable and liveable future for them and their families. There is no more time to waste; the time is now to demand a just transition – one that boldly transforms the current society towards a system where the workers, the people, and the planet are at the center of social progress. ###

#MayoUno2025 #LaborDay #JustTransition #ClimateJusticeNow