On the road to a better future? - A just transition for workers in the Swedish transport sector

The overarching aim of this project is to further our knowledge of how the low-carbon transition will impact workers in the transport sector in Sweden, and to support trade unions, government and businesses with designing policies and strategies to ensure a just transition for workers, in both process and outcome.Using qualitative scenario-based narratives, semi-structured interviews and a workshop, it investigates the potential implications of policies and strategies to decarbonize the transport sector in Sweden for transport workers’ working life, in terms of health, safety, job security, identity, skill requirements, work organization, and from a gender, age and geographical perspective.

It then explores transport workers’ fairness perspectives with regards to the sector’s transformation through a series of focus groups, as well as the ways in which transport workers have contributed to the development of existing decarbonisation policies in firms and government since 2010 through semi-structured interviews and a review of policy documents and academic literature.

Finally, building on an analysis of transitional assistance policies in Europe and the projects’ findings, it develops policy and strategy recommendations to support a just transition for workers in the transport sector, which will be discussed in a policy workshop with a wide range of relevant stakeholders.Communicative tools that engage stakeholders and decision makers are developed to visualise the potential implications of the transition on transport workers, through qualitative narratives, vignettes in art-form, participative methods and science-based non-academic outputs.