TUC Congress in Brighton this year debated four separate motions on the climate crisis. All of the motions call for a just transition to make sure that workers in the energy, transport and manufacturing industries are not simply thrown on the dole.

Appeals to the new Labour government were aplenty, but what was absent from every motion was the need for industrial militancy to ensure that a just transition leading to a decarbonised economy does not result in working-class communities being decimated by long-term unemployment.

Some in our movement describe this as pie in the sky, but workers have taken the lead in defending the environment in the past, and it is essential that they do so again.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the Australian Builders Laborers Federation’s inspirational “green bans” were voted on at mass meetings of construction workers who refused to destroy the environment for profit.

Green bans were a seminal moment in environmental campaigning, and the areas the union protected have now been granted Unesco World Heritage status. Just transition activists also invoke the legacy of the Lucas Plan at British Aerospace, when stewards’ committees in high-skilled engineering plants actively involved the workforce in drawing up alternative, socially useful production plans. But these struggles took place decades ago.

Yet possibly the most important worker-led climate struggle of our times is taking place right now at the GKN automotive engineering plant in Florence, Italy.

The action seems to have been missed by most union activists in Britain, but fortunately, Jamie Newell from the Fire Brigades Union raised the GKN plant during the TUC debate.

Faced with mass redundancies and the closure of their factory, which manufactures components for BMW, Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini, GKN workers from the CGIL union took control of the plant. That was three years ago.

What started as a standard industrial dispute to save jobs has transformed into a rank-and-file worker-led movement for just transition. The GKN workers pooled their expertise to research carbon-zero, non-extractive forms of production and to implement a Lucas Plan-style alternative production model.

Instead of automotive car parts, they have already built prototype cargo bikes, which are being tested by various social movements in Italy, Germany and the Basque Country. Discussions are taking place about how the cargo bikes can be fed into networks of mutual aid drivers and those competing with the likes of Amazon.

Production is based on the needs of the community and in the most sustainable way, in stark contrast to the capitalist model, which is profit-driven and wasteful. Solidarity in the forms of mass protests, benefit gigs and financial donations from the workers’ movement in Florence has kept the GKN workers afloat.

Production of solar panels is also part of the GKN alternative plan, but this is reliant on investment. Incredibly, nearly €1 million has already been raised from across Italy via their popular shareholder scheme.

If they raise enough capital, public pressure could result in the regional government buying the factory from the previous owners and handing it to the workers to run as a co-operative.

The Italian government would then be forced to provide additional investment while the factory still operated on a co-operative basis under workers’ control.

But it also means that unions, climate groups, mutual aid organisations and social justice campaigns can become part of it. The potential to link-up with thousands of workers and communities internationally could provide fertile ground for other workers to replicate by taking control of production, our communities and our lives.

Through mass assemblies of workers, a movement has been built that is challenging the capitalist model in a country that has a far-right government. The occupied GKN factory is now acting as a focal point to support refugees and provide solidarity with anti-fascist campaigns.

The factory occupation and the subsequent movement did not simply fall from the sky. There is a long tradition of rank-and-file industrial militancy in the Italian movement going back as far as the Biennio Rosso, part of the left surge after the first world war.

Crucially, at the Florence GKN plant, a rank-and-file factory workers’ collective called Insorgiamo Soms had existed for a number of years, organising action outside of the formal union structures. Rank-and-file direct action is the key to the Florence dispute.

The GKN workers organise within a horizontal structure — everyone has a say, and no-one is above anyone else. There is no full-time trade union official telling workers what the negotiation agenda should be or whether they can take action or not.

When we look at the levels of inequality rife in society, it's refreshing to find an example of pulling together without corrupted hierarchical power structures which so often hold workers back.

As Insorgiamo Soms recently posted on their website: “This resistance has become a project. It has given birth to a reindustrialisation plan from below, with the aim of giving back to the territory the jobs that were destroyed, creating a socially integrated factory at the service of the community that defended it, and restarting with an ecologically advanced production. With a socially advanced co-operative structure, with a community based on mutual aid.”

Yet despite the GKN occupation becoming a militant social movement with mass community support in Florence and being the talk of the Italian union movement, few people in the British labour movement know anything about it.

That is why a British GKN factory occupation solidarity network has been set up, involving union activists from rail, education, construction and delivery unions. Our aim is to raise the profile of the GKN occupation.

More than 20 activists have already agreed to join a rank-and-file union delegation to Florence for the GKN mass assembly on October 13 in Florence. Be part of this historical struggle and help bring the spirit of Florence back to these shores.

Union branches and community activists in Britain can support the GKN occupation in many ways: send a message of support to the ex-GKN workers; share and show the Reel News videos about the GKN occupation at meetings; and buy shares in the popular share issue.

Visit the website of the occupation at Insorgiamo.org and donate to it at www.bit.ly/Insorgiamo.