Study title

The main strand of the project was a ‘workers' enquiry’ - a method that encourages workers to think about and articulate their situation in the productive process. Fifty-eight interviews were carried out with self-selected (i.e. they responded to announcements or other communications about the research) current and former defence sector workers in the US and the UK. The transcripts of those interviews make up this archive, only including those that agreed to have their anonymised transcripts made public in this way. There are 35 in total - 16 from the UK and and 19 from the US. The study indicates the range of opinion and attention to nuance and complexity among an occupationally and geographically diverse group of defence sector workers in the US and UK. Although it is a small study and generalisations cannot be made from the self-selecting sample, their statements provide helpful insights and highlight numerous issues that could be investigated further by researchers, companies, governments, and unions.Just Transition highlights the urgent need to transform our societies so as to avert irreversible environmental harm while also securing workers' rights and livelihoods. This project focuses on the transition of the defence sector as one of the most environmentally damaging spheres of the global economy. Many governments and defence companies now express a willingness to decarbonise and/or diversify this sector. Some also recognise that the views of the workers are important in this process so as to enable a rapid and effective transition. However, it appears that dialogue with defence sector workers has often been opaque, minimal or absent. We, therefore, undertook a workers’ enquiry to aid understanding of the needs, aspirations, concerns and ideas of the defence workforce for a Just Transition in this sector. The United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) were the geographical focus as the two largest defence exporters globally. We included...