The heatwave brought about an unexpected red-green solidarity this May Day in Delhi
Climate and labour injustice in urban India are the product of the same framework of capitalist exploitation. Yet India’s law and policy approaches to the entangled issue of environmental and labour rights has consistently fallen short of clear committments.
Akash Bhattacharya
Published on: 6 May 2025, 03:04 pm
ON THE MORNING OF MAY DAY THIS YEAR IN DELHI, several informal sector unions gathered in a hall in central Delhi to declare “Labour Justice is Climate Justice”. They signed a Polluters Pay Pact demanding high taxes and penalties on oil and gas corporations, and demanded government action against heatwaves and other climate disasters which disproportionately affect the working classes.
Later in the day, the traditional joint march of trade unions from Ramlila Maidan to Chandni Chowk echoed with demands for adequate heatwave protection for workers and for strong policies against systemic inequalities to counteract climate change.
There is a long tradition in India of creative dialogues between labour movements and environmental movements. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (led by the charismatic trade unionist Shankar Guha Niyogi), and the Marxist Coordination Committee (led by Arun Kumar Roy) which played a key role in the Jharkhand agitation, are prominent flagbearers of red-green solidarity.
These organisations have always articulated environmental issues in terms of their impact on the working classes, and have sought to engage with environmental damage caused from advancing capitalism as a key concern of the labour movement.
The coming together of labour and environmental concerns in the urban context is relatively new, and is a product of the times, especially the ongoing heatwaves. It is necessitated by a severe paralysis of laws and policies dealing with both these concerns, and the lack of political will to bring about systemic changes that are necessary to check inequality, exploitation and climate disasters.
The coming together of labour and environmental concerns in the urban context is relatively new, and is a product of the times, especially the ongoing heatwaves.
The dangers facing us
According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, India is included in the top 10 most climate change-affected countries. In 2020, the “Costs of Climate Inaction: Displacement and Distress Migration” report estimated that by 2050 over 4.5 crore Indians will be forced to migrate from their homes due to climate disasters, and at present, 1.4 crore people in India are displaced due to environmental disruptions.
Forced migration is just one of the many outcomes of climate disasters. Crores of people continue to suffer in the places where they live. Their lives, life-expectancy and livelihoods are at risk. A study of last year’s heatwaves by Greenpeace, in collaboration with the National Hawkers Federation, found that 49.27 percent of the street vendor respondents experienced a loss of income during heatwaves with 80.08 percent acknowledging a decline in customer numbers.
Whether it is heatwaves or pollution, outdoor workers are at great risk. Erratic but heavy showers flood working class slums before they affect second or third floor residents in gated communities. During the Bangalore floods in 2023, while high ranking company officials were brought out on boats, hundreds of working-class families effectively lost their entire lives – all their ration, clothes and belongings were lost, children lost their clothes, uniforms, books, bags and all that they required to go to school, and families had to reconstruct their homes themselves.
