Heat strike!
Heat strike!
by Nuala Lam
Last Tuesday the TUC unanimously passed a motion to go on Heat Strike whenever temperatures rise above 36°C in the UK. The motion also made demands for a maximum working temperature (the UK currently has a legal maximum temperature for transporting livestock but not for workplaces), a heat furlow scheme so workers don’t pay to stay safe in extreme weather and a climate action plan. The Bakers Union (BFAWU), who have been campaigning for legislation on workplace temperature since 2008, brought the motion and representatives of the National Education Union, the Communication Workers Union, the Society of Radiographers, the Fire Brigades Union, the University and Colleges Union and Unite spoke in support.
The journey to the TUC passing this motion began on Tuesday 19th July 2022 when the temperature in Coningsby, Lincolnshire rose to 40.3°C, the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK. Over 600 people died as a result of the extreme heat that day. At the time I was working with the Extinction Rebellion media team. That summer we watched as people in their thousands flooded towards the movement, which had been struggling to regain its explosive pre-pandemic engagement. They were driven to action by the visceral reminder that the climate crisis had decisively arrived on our doorsteps. It became apparent that people are ready to step up and take action on climate change, but only when they can feel that the crisis has arrived. It was also clear that no one in the movement was organising specifically around the unpredictable trigger events of extreme weather.
A few of us who had cut our teeth organising in Extinction Rebellion decided it would be a good idea to design a rapid response plan for extreme heat in the UK. We called the plan Heat Strike. The action we set out in Heat Strike is not a balloted and legally sanctioned strike, but it is a way for workers and communities to engage in a refusal to work in extreme heat and use this refusal to show the government that the climate crisis does not exist in a parallel world to the economy. We met with climate groups, unions, big health NGOs, disability rights groups and anyone who could see what increasingly extreme heat spikes would mean for the people they represented. We got a pretty positive reception all round, but Heat Strike really took off amongst trade unions.
The much repeated story that pits climate activists and workers against each other in a battle over decarbonisation versus jobs would have people believe that we are not natural allies. There are obvious reasons why Heat Strike has had some success in bringing the two groups together—the name and the demands combining workers rights and climate action, for instance—but there is another perhaps less immediately apparent, but maybe more significant, reason. The trade union movement and the grass roots climate movement have something important in common: organising is our bread and butter.
So, while big environmental NGOs—who would perhaps be seen as our more natural allies—stalled on conversations concerning their brand and association with Heat Strike, unions got to work, helped by people from groups like Tipping Point UK who have dedicated time to nurturing relationships across the climate and union movements.
For roughly the last two years global weather patterns have been in the grip of El Niño, which has escalated already rising temperatures to unprecedented extremes around the world. For the UK, however, that has meant low pressure forced up to northern Europe, bringing relatively cool summers for the last two years. La Niña is predicted to begin as this year comes to an end though, meaning we could start to see extreme heat spikes in the UK again from next summer.
In the wake of a big vote of confidence from the TUC last week, the Heat Strike team are preparing for summer 2025. We have a flatpack of actions for anyone to take part from home or at work. From spring 2025 we’ll be organising Heat Strike events and things people can do in their local communities. We’re building a network of people who’ve decided they don’t want to face the heat alone, and when temperatures rise above 36°C we’ll come together in a national Heat Strike.