INEQ Keynote, Film as dialogue: Sharing labor and environmental understandings of just transition in the Finnish coal phaseout

Image: Hanasaari Coal Terminal in Sörnäinen, Helsinki, Finland, 2008 (Kari Hakli, Wikimedia Commons). Helsinki City Museum Collection. CC BY 4.0.

Event description

End Coal! Growing awareness of climate change led to international efforts to phase out coal. In Finland,  the local branches of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others mobilized public support to shut down coal plants in the capitol. In 2021 the City of Helsinki announced the decision to end coal use and close the iconic Hanasaari power plant even earlier than originally planned. The municipal utility abruptly reduced the workforce, and unions were unprepared to respond, lacking preparation to make demands for a just transition. The workers resented the actions while the environmentalists were pleased with the cut in emissions. There had been no communication between them. What if there had been? This film project is a collaboration with the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors (JHL) and environmental groups to share perspectives and deepen reflection and consider future exchange and potential alliances.

Presenters

, PhD, Professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, UK Fulbright Scholar & union electrician, collaborates with US and international projects on labor and climate justice.   She directed Talking Union, Talking Climate with the WAGE team at the University of Oslo looking at the perspective of oil workers on their role in climate change,,  captured local views on South African coal and Chilean lithium extraction in Voices from the green transition  with the Leeds University Business School, and worked with the Canadian Building Trades Union on climate literacy. Currently a member of the Critical Minerals Just Transition Listening Project, she studies workers' experiences in lithium battery manufacturing plants.  Price received funding from 2035Legitimacy through the University of Eastern Finland to study labor and climate and is now a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki using film to promote exchange among unions, scientists, and environmentalists around just transition in various labor sectors.

Janette Kotivirta is a doctoral researcher in World Politics at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on the politics of the green transition through the case of the expansion and transformation of Finnish pulp industry in Uruguay and Latin America. She co-authored "Vesi, joka meiltä puuttuu, lahjoitetaan UPM: lle”–Uruguayn vesikriisi nostaa jännitteitä metsäyhtiöiden ympärillä", The Ulkopolitist, 2023.

Anna Korpikoski is a Special Advisor at the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors (JHL), where she coordinates JHL's work around large-scale trends and their effects on sectors represented by JHL. Climate change is one of the main themes in this work. She is also a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, focusing mainly on union organizing efforts and the so-called organizing model adopted by certain Finnish unions beginning in the 2010s. She is co-author of the article "Unions, fossil fuel workers, and the energy transition: learning from plant closures in Finland and the U.S." (2025) in which two cases of green transition, including that of Finnish energy company Helen, are examined from a just transition perspective. 
 

Date and Location (In person & online)

Faculty of Social Sciences (U37). Room 1066. 

Unioninkatu 37. 15 April 2026. 15h -17h. 

There will be a reception after the screening and discussion.

Registration

Please register in the following link by 10 April 2026: