Excerpted from an article by C L’Hirondelle:
One sign that a universal income benefit is on the horizon is the recent call from United Professionals for “Transition Rights” which parallels labor unions’ “Just Transition Fund” [1].
According to the UP article, Transition Rights are about “freedom to explore what [job] you want to do next, without financial devastation.” The principle of the “Just Transition Fund” is to ensure that workers who lose their jobs due to environmental policies are not forced to commit “economic suicide.” [2]
A Guaranteed Livable Income would universalize ‘Transition Fund’ principles to extend them to all people–especially those excluded from formal work [3].
Hand wringing about where the money would come from for a guaranteed income (since money is a human invention), or worrying “what if people won’t work,” are only worn-out excuses (going all the way back to Malthus!) that allow billions of people to live with the lethal pendulum of income insecurity dangling daily over their heads – depleting their health and needlessly shortening their lives. [4]
So … It should be simple and obvious for humanity to choose between the pathetic (because it is avoidable) nightmare of forcing everyone, including children, to compete for jobs and income, or the achievable goal of universal income security. [5]
References:
[1] Just Transition Fund
UK Trades Union Congress sponsored document “Green and Fair Future” documents the history of Just Transition and calls for a JTF in order to make sure that “all the conditions exist for a genuinely just transition to a low carbon economy” http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-14922-f0.cfm
Canadian Labour Congress 2008 convention: “In creating the legislative framework for investments and expenditures to deal with climate change, the Federal government should establish Just Transition Funds.” http://www.labourcouncil.ca/CLCgreen.pdf
[2] Tony Mazzocchi: “Workers Must Be Compensated Fully If Jobs Are Lost for Environmental Reasons — We Call This ‘A Just Transition’”, 2000,http://www.kclabor.org/mazzgreen.htm
Mazzocchi who coined the term “Just Transition” was called the “Rachel Carson of the American workplace” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Mazzocchi
C L’Hirondelle is a freelance worker in Victoria BC, Canada