HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ASPECT OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF LABOUR RIGHTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive historical and legal analysis of the transformation of labour rights under the influence of the development of green technologies and the energy transition in the context of the global environmental crisis. The starting point of the study is the thesis that the shift of the world economy towards a sustainable development model entails not only changes in technological and production processes, but also a profound transformation of social and labour relations, which requires an adequate legal response.

It is substantiated that green and resource-efficient technologies in contemporary developed economies are viewed not only as a tool for reducing adverse environmental impacts, but also as a factor of long-term economic growth and job creation. In this context, the issue of reconciling environmental priorities with the preservation and further development of labour rights becomes particularly relevant, which necessitates rethinking the role of labour law in the conditions of the green transformation of the economy.

The article analyses the current state of scholarly research on the interaction between environmental innovations and labour law. It is established that in Ukrainian legal scholarship, issues of green transformation have been examined mainly within environmental and commercial (economic) law, whereas the labour-law dimension remains fragmented and insufficiently systematised. Particular attention is devoted to the works of foreign authors, including Paolo Tomassetti and Stefan Bouzarovski, who reveal the historical relationship between energy regimes and the institutional development of labour law.

Based on a synthesis of domestic and foreign approaches, the article proposes an authorial view of the evolution of labour rights in the context of energy transitions and the development of green technologies. It is found that in the industrial era (the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century), the environmental factor was virtually not taken into account in shaping labour rights, which developed primarily as a response to labour exploitation and the hazards of factory production. The subsequent environmental crisis of the second half of the twentieth century led to the first steps towards the greening of labour law, in particular through the expansion of the concept of occupational safety and health and the recognition of workers’ right to refuse hazardous work. Special attention is paid to the period of the emergence of the sustainable development concept and the appearance of the category of “green jobs” in the early twenty-first century.

A separate section of the article is devoted to analysing the impact of green technologies on the content of labour rights. It is emphasised that the environmental benefits of production processes are not always identical to their social safety.

Keywords: labour law; workers’ labour rights; green technologies; green transformation; energy transition; just transition; green jobs; decent work; sustainable development; occupational safety and health.