Workers’ Assemblies - Safe Landing

Workers' Assemblies

While governments, policymakers, and large-scale operators shape the industrial strategy for aviation, a crucial dimension is missing: the voices of those who live and work within the system — aviation workers with deep operational insight. Their agency and engagement in decisions that influence the industry’s direction are minimal. Plans for decarbonisation, expansion and operational change are one‑sided: driven by institutional interests, rather than participatory processes that harness frontline expertise.

Safe Landing champions and implements participatory and democratic mechanisms that enable aviation workers to envision a sustainable future for their industry and use their deep operational insight to shape a just and sustainable transition. We are working with proven Citizens’ Assembly models — deliberative and participatory democratic processes — while adapting and refining them for our purpose: developing a robust framework for Workers’ Assemblies.

What is a Workers' Assembly?

Workers’ Assemblies provide a structured, inclusive space for the workforce to deliberate on key industry questions, such as how aviation can decarbonise while protecting jobs and communities. Participants are selected by sortition to reflect the diversity of the workforce, are presented with balanced evidence from experts and stakeholders, and work collaboratively to form practical, consensus-driven recommendations.

This process strengthens democratic participation within the sector, ensuring that the people most affected by industrial and environmental decisions can contribute meaningfully to shaping them. The model augments, rather than replaces, existing government and trade union processes — enriching them with grounded, representative insight from within the workforce itself.

Our Workers' Assemblies

Our approach has already proven its power. Early Safe Landing Workers’ Assemblies have demonstrated strong engagement, empowerment, and renewed optimism among participants, reigniting a sense of agency and collaboration within an industry often divided by hierarchy and uncertainty. Read more about our Bristol Workshop and Visioning Assembly below.

'Future of Aviation' Workshop in Bristol

In order to demonstrate the concept of Aviation Workers’ Assemblies, we applied for grant funding to commission a first of its kind workshop in Bristol which was independently facilitated by Involve. Participants included a range of aviation professionals from a variety of aerospace companies and aviation students in Bristol.

Participants heard from expert speakers from Airbus, AEF, and the Climate Change Committee and took part in a variety of interactive exercises. We ran a webinar to share the results and outline where we’d like to take this next.

'Creating the future of aviation': Visioning Assembly

The Visioning Assembly presented was delivered through our Workers’ Participation area, which develops and scales Workers’ Assemblies – industrial democratic models, based on proven Citizens’ Assembly frameworks. The report below summarises the outcomes of Safe Landing’s Visioning Assembly, which sought to enable aviation workers to co-create a positive, worker-led vision for the future of aviation. Our long-term objective is to demonstrate how these processes, when applied at a larger scale, can directly support aviation strategic planning and positively influence both industrial and environmental policymaking.

Supported by Mutual Gain – for process design and lead facilitation – and funded by Patagonia, Safe Landing convened the Visioning Assembly in London on Saturday 13 September 2025. Twenty-six aviation workers from a broad range of roles, ages, and ethnicities were selected from over 80 applicants. Participants were guided through structured deliberative exercises to co-create a shared vision for the future of aviation in 2050. This vision addressed five key areas of change: social responsibility, financial support, technical developments, political strategy, and environmental stewardship.

Join our Workers' Assembly working group

As part of our updated strategy we are setting up a working group for people who want to get involved in advocating for and running Workers’ Assemblies. We would love for volunteers from our community to get more active. There are no pre-requisites to join and don’t need any experience – just your passion!

Interested in joining our Workers’ Assembly working group? Fill out the form opposite and we will be in touch. You can also email george@safe-landing.org.