GED KEARNEY
President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
“Earthworker represents one practical way in which Australians can work collaboratively to respond to the challenge of climate change and achieve a low carbon economy.”
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
“I highly commend all the work the Earthworker Cooperative is undertaking to transition towards a low-carbon economy, and was especially delighted to read about the establishment of the first worker-owned renewable energy manufacturing plant. This Earthworker Cooperative project represents an innovative and practical way to address climate change whilst providing dignified, community-sustaining livelihoods — an exciting and tangible step in a ‘just transition’, and an inspiring example of cleaner, fairer economies”
ROSS GARNAUT
Professor of Economics, University of Melbourne and The Australian National University
Australian ingenuity can allow us to make the transition to a low-carbon employment with little short-term sacrifice of economic growth and no sacrifice of employment, with much less risk to prosperity and employment for those who come after us. In this innovation, the boundaries between manufacturing and services are not clearly drawn. If we make the transition well, we will find ways of supplying our own needs better and more cheaply, and opportunity in selling manufactures and services to others. I wish Earthworker Co-operative well as a focus for Australian innovation.
TROY GRAY
Assistant Secretary, Electrical Trades Union
Electricians understand the importance of the new green technologies and beginning the process of rolling them out. The question is ‘How does Australia achieve the new jobs in manufacturing, so that we are not only installers and maintainers in an economy which is already 80% service sector?’ Earthworker Cooperative provides an important part of the answer.
DON HENRY
Former Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation
Earthworker Co-operative is a true-blue initiative focused on creating local green jobs and a low carbon economy. We know that people want to be part of the solution to the climate crisis. Earthworker Co-operative is about giving people that opportunity.
LUKE VAN DER MEULEN
President, Victorian District Branch, Mining & Energy Division, CFMEU
The Victorian CFMEU Mining and Energy District has worked hard to help Earthworker because we must all take steps to reverse and stop global warming. Co-operatives building environmentally useful products; what right minded person would not support that?
COLIN LONG
Division Secretary, NTEU Victorian Division
Properly dealing with climate change will require a deep restructuring of the Australian economy, and unions need to be in the forefront to protect workers and to guide that restructuring in a way that leads to a better, more just and democratic economy. That’s why the NTEU proudly supports Earthworker. Earthworker is a practical, innovative and visionary attempt to begin the construction of a new economic system that respects the environment and workers at the same time. Our planet and our economic future depend on the success of such ventures.
LEN COOPER
State Secretary CEPU (Telecommunications)
Workers I represent work in telecommunications. It is an industry which is calling out for mass involvement and ownership by the people, if for no other reason than the participatory democratic nature of the technology. One of the things we like about Earthworker Cooperative is it involves worker-ownership by communities, manufacturing renewables needed by our communities, where the goods create green energy for the common good.
THE HONOURABLE DR. RACE MATHEWS
Great project, and deserving of the support of all Australians who have at heart our country’s economic, social and environmental well-being and the futures of our children.