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Just Transition Labour Centre: Interview with Rudi Dicks · TIPS Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so welcome to our TIFPS podcast, Rudy.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just please introduce yourself?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm Rudy Dix.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I work in the presidency.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the head of the project management office in the office of the president.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: My first question for you today is why do we have the Just Transition Labor Center and why is it important?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's such an important piece.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's an excellent question.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's an important part of building capacity within society.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in our society, democracy is such an important part of decision making.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't make decisions if you don't have evidence, if you don't have, you know, research work, if you don't have policy.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's always been the hallmark of the federations.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And where I come from historically, which is Kusatu, we pride ourselves on having a significant amount of policy work based on evidence.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the Just Labor Center is part of that story.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of that dynamic to ensure that we develop evidence-based work.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Transition are difficult.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, climate transitions are even more difficult.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important that workers have a voice to respond, that they are able to do research, that they understand and respond to, you know, questions that may impact on their lives.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the labor center has to play that pivotal role, providing that voice, providing evidence work, policy work.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so absolutely, I think it's an important time.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful thing that you put policy back on the union agenda through difficult transitions of the last few years, right?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um tend to pivot towards politics and less about back to roots, you know, back to this sort of stuff that is important for workers.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the center is quite critical for us on that matter.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: What are the key issues that you think it needs to focus on, though?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, lots of pressure around carbon and carbon emissions.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as you know, South Africa per capita is one of the highest in the world.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Our electricity system requires significant reform and transformation.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: 44% of all our electricity is coal-based, you know, so high emitting, high carbon intensity in everything we do in our entire life.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the challenge is going to be about how we deal with transitioning to cleaner technologies.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying necessarily only renewables.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are others: gas, nuclear, battery storage, for example, both wind and PV as well.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: But these are important choices.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So what does matter is that if we're doing energy transitions, there are impacts on people that have been dependent on coal production, that mine coal, that use coal in generation production.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Those are workers and ordinary people that may be affected.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important for us to think through these choices.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do we balance the environment and ecology and growing a more sustainable future for our kids versus being caught up in, you know, an industrial path that I think is not sustainable.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So those are important things.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to think about how we develop an ecologically sustainable country.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do we develop industrial policy using new and evolving energy, you know, production?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: These are all important things.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, what makes it more important, given that there are challenges, is also the fact that it creates more opportunities.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do we harness and build on those opportunities and put it in policy so that we can support those opportunities so there's a better future for our kids and for many of the thousand millions of young people out there that are unemployed?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: My question just regarding that, do you feel like we have intentions of perhaps creating our own energy that could assist us in transitioning?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we might be importing solar panels, and I always like to look at our level of intelligence by saying we have a space program.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the country has a certain level of intelligence.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: But are we in a space or do we have intentions of saying, let us create our own technology that we want to use to transition?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in that process, we are creating jobs for other people.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think we have that type of information?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we have a significant industrial capacity.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't make the choices now about transitioning, we lose that industrial capacity.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you're spot on.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, we're the largest producer of renewable energies, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, generation capacity.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, the week before, the Wind and Photovoltaic Association with ESCOM released a survey data on projects in development.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: When they released the first survey, which was in 2022, we had about 35 gigawatts of projects in development.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: 2023 was 133.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: 2024 showed that we had 220 gigawatts of projects in development.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's 220,000 megawatts, if you put it in simple terms.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: What does ESCOM produce?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe on a good day?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: 35,000 megawatts, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we are leaders in this field.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do we harness and tap into that potential to manufacture not just PV panels, to manufacture the rare earths, to produce it here, the wind turbines, the masks, all these things, battery technology.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think given the capacity and the ability for us to be an engine room for the African continent, I think we need to harness it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to get our policy stuff right.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here again, the labor center can play an important role of how do we harness that new development that's there.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's new, right?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not been there before 10 years ago, even five years ago.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if we have projects in development, which is 220 gigawatts over the next 10, 15 years, there's no rocket science in saying we should harness our industrial capacity to do that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we are leaders in this sphere.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, we have the best PV and wind resources globally.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, we always brag about that.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our worst PV resource in parts of the country is the best PV resource in Germany on the hottest day in Germany, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Germany has huge amounts of gigawatts of renewable energy.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're spot on.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need to harness that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the sort of conversation that where there are challenges, there are also opportunities, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we've got to harness.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do we take that latent potential and convert it into actual industrial capacity, jobs, services, and the kind of interventions that supports the rollout of 220 gigawatts of renewable energy, hybrid also, over the next 15 to 20 years?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Real opportunity there.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So my last question would be: we are here at this conference today.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see the future of the Just Transition Labor Center?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's going to be smackbang in the middle of everything.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it has to play that sort of seminal role of providing research and evidence.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it has to be that.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to capacitate it further, we've got to get the right skills, we've got to ensure that it's embedded in the thinking of the federations and the unions that are most impacted on this agriculture, uh, metal workers, coal workers, mine workers, you know, engineering workers.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think the labor center has to find itself and pervert itself into that, you know.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it has to be, for me, in the next five or ten years, has to be the leading think tank for workers and for labor.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that role it can play, definitely.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's showing that metal already.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, that's going to be the important thing.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to see a you know significant future of a labor center that's independent, that is able to churn out evidence-based work, respond to government, you know, provide research work, policy-based work.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the sort of thing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think right now we're having parts of labor retracting, they're going back to default positions.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: They want to defend, uh, which unfortunately I think is going to be challenging, but not see the future.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we've got to do, unpack that.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But unpack it in a way that is not just empty promises.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, I mean, and I say this also in government, we got lots of beautiful policies, but we're poor in implementation.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one thing that I think we've got to get right.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So smack bang in the center of policy development and work that are important, that would represent workers, the poor, and communities.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly where I think the labor center will be.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any final remarks on that?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'm just um congratulations to you guys on getting this inaugural you know policy conference here.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good start.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you for joining us today, Richard Dick.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.