Welcome to the IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus

"Judi Bari did something that I believe is unparalleled in the history of the environmental movement. She is an Earth First! activist who took it upon herself to organize Georgia Pacific sawmill workers into the IWW…Well guess what friends, environmentalists and rank and file timber workers becoming allies is the most dangerous thing in the world to the timber industry!"

--Darryl Cherney, June 20, 1990.

After the People’s Climate March, Then What?

By Rachel Smolker - Counterpunch, September 18, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

This coming week in New York City promises to be interesting.  The UN Climate Summit will be convened by Ban Ki Moon. At the Summit, President Obama and other heads of state will likely call for voluntary measures and vague aspirations at the beck and call of the corporations that currently have a stranglehold on the global economy. A week of climate related events will be brought to the city by “The Climate Group”, courtesy of Duke Energy, Goldman Sachs, Swiss Re and others whose motives we must surely question!

The Peoples Climate March, neatly permitted and funded, is scheduled for the day prior to the summit. Chris Hedges refers to the march as “symbolic”. Quincy Saul referred to it as a “farce”, with “no politics”. Anne Petermann points to the lack of demands and “big umbrella” approach, as a recipe for false solutions. All true, but it can also be argued that such big umbrella symbolic actions have some merit here in the US where deniers have sown such a vast ocean of ignorance and confusion.

In any case, there is one rather clear advantage: many people, will be in NY.

Some will be content to call on “them” (congress, politicians, the UN, the Pope, Grandma…) to write a blank check for some unspecified “action on climate”.  They will play right into the hands of the corporate wolves in sheep’s clothing who peddle false solutions and have laid elaborate and deceiving plans for profiteering from the climate crisis.

But there are also many with a deep and abiding understanding of the depth and breadth of the climate, economic, ecological, social, political crisis we are facing and its’ common twisted roots. They will not just travel to NY, march in an orderly and permitted fashion, and then go quietly home afterwards feeling satisfied and personally redeemed.

They will be there, some long beforehand, doing the serious heavy lifting involved in building a real movement. They will be participating in the “Convergence for People, Planet and Peace Over Profit”, discussing strategy, sharing knowledge and forging plans for the future monumental task that is “System Change Not Climate Change”. They will link up to learn from and build solidarity with frontline communities and activists at The People’s Summit.  And they will stay on after the march to get on with the actual real and demanding work of building the “post-march world” which means moving mountains, confronting the criminal corporate behemoths, speaking truth to power, putting their hearts, souls and lives on the line to make and shape a just, peaceful, healthy and yes, even potentially beautiful, future.

What less can we aspire to?

Those who will take on this task are mothers and fathers who care for future generations. They are people who cannot simply accept the drowning of nations and starvation and violent obliteration of millions. They are people who cherish and understand the intricate grace of nature and mourn its brutally evident dying. They are those who can still hear the voices of their ancestors calling on them to live honorably as stewards on this earth.

They are people who understand that climate change is not just one among an army of “issues”, but rather it a “perfect storm” – a sum greater than all its parts, spawned by a convergence of abuses: from wars and genocides to drilling, pumping, burning and mining the place to ruins, from racism and sexism, to spewing toxic chemicals, mowing down ecosystems and poisoning the oceans.

It is not just an “inconvenience” to be resolved by plugging into some other currency of extraction (“sustainable, green and renewable” energy). It is the defining context of our lives and of this time in the history of life on earth.

To lessen the damages, push back the tides, and save what remains, including our own little skins, will require no small measure of change. No little tweakish reform here or there, a little money trickling down from the 1% over there, a green job for him and a solar panel for her will get us close to where we need to go. It will demand system change of a sort we can barely yet imagine.

Naomi Klein’s new book aptly titled “This Changes Everything: Climate vs Capitalism” is right on the money, starting with the straightforward statement that “the problem is not carbon, it is capitalism”.

And so, the first step following the march-of-mixed-blessings promises to be a bold one, aimed straight at the heart of the raging beast of capitalism: Wall Street.  On the morning of the 22nd, taking their cue from Occupy Wall Street, a flood of blue people will gather at Battery Park and then move on to the NY Stock Exchange, to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, directly confronting the system that both causes and profits from the crisis at the expense of life.

Here’s to a fierce, invigorating and boldly targeted step for the climate justice movement.  Let’s bring on that beautiful future!

Rachel Smolker is a codirector of Biofuelwatch.

Naomi Klein: ‘We Can’t Dodge This Fight’ Between Capitalism and Climate Change

Naomi Klein interviewed by Micah Utrecht - In These Times, September 18, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

That the clock on climate change is ticking—and louder by the day—is not news to anyone. Like many people, journalist Naomi Klein spent years feeling overwhelmed by scientists' increasingly apocalyptic pronouncements about impending planetary doom, and largely opted to ignore them. She had her hands full exposing the abuses of multinational corporations like Microsoft and Nike in her first book, No Logo (1999), and the imposition of free market policies and expanding inequality on unwilling populations around the globe in her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine.

But Klein came to realize not only that climate change was so all-encompassing and urgent that it couldn’t be ignored, but also that it creates a unique opportunity. Climate change “could be the best argument progressives have ever had,” she says, to create the kind of bottom-up mass movements that can not only force action on the environment, but fight economic inequality, create more democratic societies, rebuilding a strong public sector, addressing historical gender and racial injustices, and a litany of other issues.

Doing so, however, won't simply require changing a few lightbulbs. “We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism,” Klein writes. In This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, she explores the failures of “Big Green” environmental groups and supposedly benevolent CEOs, the right-wing climate deniers who actually understand the stakes of climate change better than many progressives, and the grassroots movements coalescing to fight climate change. Klein spoke with In These Times from her home in Toronto.

The rebellion to save planet Earth: Why civil disobedience could be our last, best hope

Jeremy Brecher interviewed by Ted Hamilton - Salon, September 7, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Traditional methods for fighting global warming have proven fruitless. It's time for the people to take a stand

The politics of climate change are shifting. After decades of halfhearted government efforts to stop global warming, and the failure of the “Big Green” NGOs to do much of anything about it, new voices — and new strategies — have taken the lead in the war against fossil fuels.

Jeremy Brecher, a freelance writer, historian, organizer and radio host based in Connecticut, has documented the environmental movement’s turn toward direct action and grass-roots activism. A scholar of American workers’ movements and author of the acclaimed labor history “Strike!,” Brecher argues that it’s time for green activists to address the social and economic impacts of climate change and for unions to start taking global warming seriously.

His latest book, “Climate Insurgency: A Strategy Against Doom,” which will be released early next year by Paradigm Publishers, examines the structural causes of our climate conundrum and calls for a “global nonviolent constitutional insurgency” to force environmental action from below. Brecher spoke to Salon about his vision for dealing with global warming, the changing face of environmental activism, and why he thinks the People’s Climate March in New York on Sep. 21 is so important.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

"Sharing economy" companies like Uber shift risk from corporations to workers, weaken labor protections, and drive down wages.

By Avi Asher-Schapiro - Jacobin, September 19, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Kazi drives a Toyota Prius for Uber in Los Angeles. He hates it. He barely makes minimum wage, and his back hurts after long shifts. But every time a passenger asks what it’s like working for Uber, he lies: “It’s like owning my own business; I love it.”

Kazi lies because his job depends on it. After passengers finish a ride, Uber asks them to rate their driver on a scale from one to five stars. Drivers with an average below 4.7 can be deactivated — tech-speak for fired.

Gabriele Lopez, an LA Uber driver, also lies. “We just sit there and smile, and tell everyone that the job’s awesome, because that’s what they want to hear,” said Lopez, who’s been driving for UberX, the company’s low-end car service, since it launched last summer.

In fact, if you ask Uber drivers off the clock what they think of the company, it often gets ugly fast. “Uber’s like an exploiting pimp,” said Arman, an Uber driver in LA who asked me to withhold his last name out of fear of retribution. “Uber takes 20 percent of my earnings, and they treat me like shit — they cut prices whenever they want. They can deactivate me whenever they feel like it, and if I complain, they tell me to fuck off.”

In LA, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York, tension between drivers and management has bubbled over in recent months. And even though Uber’s business model discourages collective action (each worker is technically in competition with each other), some drivers are banding together.

Event: Towards an Ecological General Strike: A Film Screening and Discussion about Revolutionary Ecology, Labor, and Anarchism.

By x363464 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 20, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Join us Saturday Night for a Movie, Presentation, and Discussion about Revolutionary Ecology, Green Anarchism, and Eco-Syndicalism! - 8:00 PM Saturday, September 20th @ The Base! 1302 Myrtle Ave.

The IWW Environmental Unionist Caucus will be presenting the film "Rocking The Foundations" which is about the Green Bans movement from 1971-1974 where Building Trades Workers halted $18 Billion in development projects to fight Gentrification, the destruction of the Earth, and displacement of Indigenous communities.

After, there will be a presentation about the historical and recent direct actions to unite the Labor movement and Radical Environmentalists towards revolutionary /insurrectionary ends.

Following that will be a discussion about our visions and strategies for Eco-revolution.

There will be relevant literature for free or donation.

Quarter Sheet Leaflet for the People's Climate Rally and other Events

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Click on the image for a downloadable, printable PDF (US Letter Size format):

Environmentalism as if Winning Mattered: A Self-Organization Strategy

By Stephen D’Arcy - The Public Autonomy Project, September 17, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

[Note: This article was first published on the internet as a contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by ZCommunications in 2009, where it seems no longer to be available. This version is substantially revised.]

Many people doubt that the environmental movement can actually defeat its adversaries and achieve its key aims. After all, it seems clear that winning would mean introducing sweeping social change and a new kind of sustainable and socially just economy. But the forces arrayed against this kind of change – including corporations, governments, and many affluent consumers hoping to raise their consumption levels – seem to represent too powerful a force to be overcome by a relatively small and seemingly powerless group of environmental activists.

These doubts about the capacity of environmentalists to win are confined neither to the movement’s self-serving and greed-motivated adversaries in business and government, nor to the many indifferent bystanders who cast an equally skeptical eye on all attempts to transform society by means of popular mobilization from below. As it happens, many environmental activists themselves are no less convinced that failure is all but inevitable.

When this sort of pessimism overtakes environmentalists, they tend to adopt one of several familiar responses. First, there is the response of those who retreat from the movement altogether in favor of “lifestyle” environmentalism, replacing their former activism with “conscious” shopping. Second, there are those who reject activism as naïve compared to their own approach of apocalyptic “survivalism” which leads them to prepare for the day when “civilization” collapses, such as by stockpiling food or learning how to hunt and gather. A third group responds to the apparently bleak outlook for environmental activism not by leaving the movement, but by remaining active while seeking to cultivate “friends in high places,” linking arms with Big Business or the capitalist state in a mode of “mainstream” environmentalism that tries to promote “environmentally friendly” capitalism and “socially responsible” corporations. A fourth group also remains active, but replaces the aim of winning with the more readily attainable aim of making a moral statement, by serving as a “moral witness” or by “speaking truth to power.” Finally, a fifth group also accepts the inevitability of failure but tries to seize every opportunity to put on public display the purity of their own uncompromising and self-righteous (albeit relentlessly impotent) radicalism, as a form of self-congratulatory “posturing.”

There is nothing to be gained by adopting a judgmental or holier-than-thou attitude toward people who adopt such responses. Why condemn such choices, which are all more or less understandable adaptations to the admittedly distressing predicament of contemporary environmentalism?

Nevertheless, we do need to see these stances for what they undoubtedly are: failures (in some cases) or refusals (in others) to develop a strategy for winning. Yet a strategy for winning is precisely what we need. The scale of the general environmental crisis is well known, and needs no special emphasis here: we are only too well-informed about the potentially catastrophic impact of plutogenic (caused-by-the-rich) climate change, the degradation of air quality, the erosion and poisoning of soil, the disappearance of forests and spreading of deserts, the despoliation of both fresh water sources and oceans, the historically unprecedented rates of species extinction, and so on. If nothing is done about any of this, it is not because there is any uncertainty about the gravity of these threats (notwithstanding cynical attempts by Big Business to fund “denial” research from “free market think tanks,” as a transparent ploy to muddy the waters of public discussion).

Something must be done, clearly. And most people certainly want more to be done. Globally, according to a survey of world opinion in 2010, “84 percent of those polled globally said the problem was serious, with 52 percent saying it was very serious. The number of people saying that it was not a problem averaged just 4 percent.” Even in the United States, where public awareness about environmental issues is lower than anywhere else on earth, “in 2010, 70 percent of US respondents described the problem as serious and 37 percent described it as very serious.” According to Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org (which conducted the poll), “most people around the world appear to be impatient that their government is not doing enough to address the problem of climate change.” Indeed, “on average across all nations polled, 60 percent want climate change to get a higher priority, 12 percent want a lower priority.”

Evidently, inaction on the part of governments does not reflect any pressing need to “change attitudes” or “educate the public.” If governments and corporations were even modestly responsive to public opinion, the prospects for implementing real change would be much more favorable for our side than they actually are at present.

The widespread pessimism about the movement’s prospects for success is impossible to explain without relating it to a widely understood insight registered in another recent opinion poll. According to a 2012 Harris Poll, 86% of Americans believe that “Big companies” have “too much power and influence in Washington.” An even higher percentage, 88% of Americans, believe that “political action committees that give money to political candidates” also have too much power and influence. Conversely, a full 78% of Americans believe that “public opinion” has “too little power and influence in Washington.” Americans, it seems, understand the workings of their political process rather better than many people give them credit for.

It should be clear, therefore, that we need a strategy for winning, and we need to develop it sooner rather than later. The approach that I pursue in this article will be to identify strategic objectives for weakening and ultimately defeating the adversaries that stand in the way of doing what science, morality, and good sense dictate must be done: transforming our destructive, unjust and unsustainable social order into a democratic, egalitarian and sustainable one.

"A Weekend to Change the Course of History"?

By David Osborn - Common Dreams, September 18, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Beyond appealing to powers-that-be, climate justice movements need to focus on creating systemic change to address the climate crisis

A Weekend to Change the Course of History. That is how the call-to-action for the People's Climate March taking place this coming Saturday, September 21, begins. The appeal goes on to suggest the weekend will be used “to bend the course of history.” This raises some questions critical to climate movements. How do we make that bend? And in what direction? In other words, what understandings and methods of social change inform the New York mobilization, and where do we want it to lead? These are urgent questions. The scale of the New York mobilization and the concentration of resources for the march demands that we put such questions firmly on the table.

The answers hinge on what we understand the nature of the problem to be. There are two general kinds of problems: surface and systemic. Imagine a house. Surface problems would include paint peeling, a leaky faucet or even flooring that needs replacement. All of those repairs can be done within the structure of a home. In the political realm, surface problems might include road decay, wasteful government spending or the lack of green spaces. Systemic problems go deeper. They would include a cracked foundation or rotted support beams that are so severe that fixing them would entail fixing the structure itself — or building an entirely new home. Racism and sexism are such problems. It isn’t enough (or even possible) to integrate schools or create policies for pay equity; the very structures that support these systems must be challenged for them to be addressed.

Climate change is also fundamentally a systemic problem. The climate crisis has emerged from the structures of our society, particularly capitalism, and their arrangement of values.

There are a wide variety of activities planned in New York and I know that many environmental and climate justice groups involved in the march understand the systemic nature of the climate crisis and are articulating community-based, power building strategies. I believe this approach is essential. However, I worry that the surface-level politics of the big environmental (and other) organizations and a march and rally to pressure heads of state focus on surface-level approaches, and could drown out those voices calling for systemic change.

Socialism And Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises

By Richard D Wolff - Monthly Review, September 14, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Global capitalism has huge problems coping with the second worst collapse in its history. Its extreme and deepening inequalities have provoked millions to question and challenge capitalism. Yet socialists of all sorts now find it more difficult than ever to make effective criticisms and offer alternatives that inspire.

Part of the problem lies with classic socialism as it evolved over the last 150 years. Positions and strategies that once mobilized the victims and critics of capitalism are no longer, by themselves, effective. Not only has capitalism changed, but its celebrants also developed powerful critiques of socialist theory and especially of actually existing socialisms such as the Soviet Union (USSR). Socialism has not responded well to capitalism’s changes nor to its critiques; it has not made the necessary strategic and tactical shifts. Nonetheless, socialism retains the means to overcome its problems with some long-overdue self-criticism and innovation.

By classic socialism I mean the tradition that differentiated itself from capitalism chiefly in terms of macro-economic institutions. Classic socialists defined capitalism as (1) private ownership of means of production and (2) distribution of resources and products by means of market exchanges. The socialist alternative entailed (1) socialized or public ownership of means of production (operated by the state as agent of the people as a whole) and (2) distribution of resources and products via state planning. Socialists attacked capitalism for the injustices, cyclical instability, and gross productive inefficiencies (e.g. unemployment, stagnation, etc.) that they traced to private enterprises and markets. In the socialists’ alternative, a workers’ state would control or own enterprises and plan the distribution of resources and products – in the democratically determined interests of the majority.

Such criticisms of capitalism and that transitional program to an alternative system rewarded socialists in their political, economic, and cultural work. Socialist movements spread across the countries of the world during the nineteenth and to the last third of the twentieth century. Socialists effectively challenged capitalism, often took and held political power, and influenced many academics, intellectuals, popular organizations, artistic projects, and so on. But now socialism’s growth in many places has stalled or reversed.

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