When Ecology is Not on the Agenda: Ukrainian Trade Unions in the Light of Ecosocialist Ideas – A Corpus-Based Approach

This article presents the first investigation of Ukrainian trade unions in the context of ecosocialism. The study employs a corpus-based approach and was conducted in two stages. First, a reference corpus of ecosocialist writings was compiled and analysed to identify core ecosocialist principles and keywords linking ecological and class-based critique. These keywords were then used for examining the social media posts and web publications of five major Ukrainian trade unions representing construction and building materials, coal mining, nuclear power, railway and transport construction, and independent miners over the period 2021–2024. Analysis revealed a stark dominance of economic vocabulary, occurring on average over 13 times more often than ecological terms. Ecological discourse, when present, was predominantly worker-centred, focusing on occupational health and safety rather than systemic environmental concerns. Political vocabulary linked to class struggle or socialism was scarce. The findings suggest that Ukrainian trade unions currently approach the green transition defensively, prioritising job protection over systemic socio-ecological transformation, and rarely articulating even remotely ecosocialist perspectives.