Programme Schedule

The Climate Crisis is a Working Class Issue

This session explores how the climate crisis disproportionately impacts working-class communities and argues that trade unions must lead the fight for climate justice by integrating environmental demands into their organising, bargaining, and public campaign.

Time: 11:00-12:30

Venue: The Old Court House, 118 Church St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 1UD

Speakers:

Sarah Woolley, General Secretary of Bakers Union (BFAWU)
Facilitated by Polly Smythe, Novara Media reporter
Andrea Gilbert, Chair GMB for a Green New Deal
Emma River-Roberts, Working Class Climate Alliance
Stu Bretherton, Fuel Poverty Action
Poppy Burt, Secretary of ACORN Brighton

Intersectional Climate Justice: How to deal with the Omnicrisis

This session will explore the connections between the national and international crises we are all facing and how we can build a mass movement to defeat those fundamental threats to humanity and a better world

Time: 13:00-14:30

Venue: The Old Court House, 118 Church St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 1UD

Speakers:

Introduced and facilitated by Zita Holbourne, Co-Chair of Artists Union England, Chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC), Author, Artist, Activist, Poet
Sashwati Sengupta, Musicians' Union, Manchester TUC GKN UK Solidarity Network and Banner Theatre
Tamsila Tauqir, UNISON, Trade Unionist and Palestine Activist
Zack Polanski, Deputy Leader of the Green Party
Kobina Amokwandoh, Planet Repairs Action Learning Educational Revolution (PRALER)
Jake Simms, London Mining Network

Nowhere Else to Go: How Trade Unions can reshape politics?

Traditional Labour Party voters now face a choice. Either continue as loyal foot soldiers in an increasingly narrow party project, or help build an alternative politics rooted in solidarity, community power, and working-class agency. This session will explore the options available to voters, with speakers from different poltiical parties.

Time: 15:00-16:30

Venue: The Old Court House, 118 Church St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 1UD

Speakers:

Facilitated by Jeremy Gilbert, Political Activist
Siân Berry, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion
Josh Berlyne, Unite for a Workers' Economy (Unite the Union)
Tanushka Marah, Independent Candidate for Hove

Pay Up: Who should pay for the crisis and how can we make them?

This session tackles the question of who should fund a green and just future, highlighting how wealth hoarding and climate injustice intensify the burden on working people. It calls on activists to confront economic inequality by shifting financial power from polluters and profiteers to communities fighting for survival and transformation.

Time: 17:00-18:30

Venue: The Old Court House, 118 Church St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 1UD

Speakers:

Chaired by Kate Anderson, Green New Deal Rising
Liz Wheatley, UNISON National Executive Committee
Nicholas Beuret, UCU union activist, academic, and author.
Megan De Meo, RMT Union Rep & Reparations Campaigner

Building a year of trade union climate action

A participatory workshop hosted by Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group. The commitment secured at TUC 24 to enacting a year of trade union climate action is founded on the recognition that the climate crisis is a working class issue. Several unions are building towards a national day of workplace actions on Friday 14th November, and mobilising for the Global Day of Action on 15th November, during COP30. Our workshop will focus on how trade unionists can use this opportunity to organise at a grassroots level, within their own workplaces and union branches and making connections in the wider community, where climate change links to other issues such as fuel prices, health, housing and food

Time: 15:00 - 16:30

Venue: Community Base, 113 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3XG