About the Environmental Unionist Caucus

The IWW Environmental Unionist Caucus seeks to unite the labor movement and the environmental movement to take action to transition unsafe and unsustainable industry to one that meets the best labor and environmental standards.

The Industrial Workers of the World Environmental Unionist Caucus argue class struggle and the environment are issues which share common causes and need common solutions to be solved in a decisive manner which is beneficial for the whole of society.

Does your workplace have health and safety issues or environmental issues?

Does your workplace falsely present themselves as "Green"?

Do you want to unionize your workplace to address your issues?

Do you agree that more needs to be done (within the IWW and the working class in general) to "live in harmony with the Earth?"

Do you agree that most environmental campaigns and protests, organizations and movements that call to "live in harmony with the Earth", while well intended, overlook or discount the principle that "the working class and the employing class have nothing in common (etc)"?

Do you agree that the fight for the abolition of wage slavery and the struggle to preserve our planet are one and the same, and that all forms of oppression stem from the centering of power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands?

If so, then the IWW and it's Environmental Unionism Caucus is for you!

The EUC focuses on the following (but is not limited to these actions):

IWW members in the EUC have done the following:

• Proactively strategizing the "live in harmony with the Earth" provision of the Preamble to the IWW Constitution;
• Harvesting and sharing news where the issues of class struggle and ecology overlap and intersect from various sources;
• Establishing dialog and organizing with environmental and labor organizations on intersecting issues;
• Facilitating Solidarity between grassroots environmental organizations and “rank and file” workers;
• Establishing a constructive (not dogmatic or sectarian) anti-capitalist critique of mainstream environmentalism;
• Establishing a constructive (not dogmatic or sectarian) class-struggle and ecological critique of business unionism;
• Developing a revolutionary Just Transition framework (and pushing the revolutionary envelope of existing mainstream "Just Transition" frameworks) to address the members of the working class who may be adversely affected by decarbonization, deindustrialization, and/or other transformations of collective human activity necessary to live in harmony with the Earth;
• Establishing a constructive anti-capitalist critique of so-called "green" capitalism, including the fast budding renewable energy sector;
• Participating in ecological struggles and offering a class struggle perspective;
• Raising awareness of class struggle environmental issues;
• Supporting "Just Recovery" and "Disaster Collectivism" (an anti-capitalist response to Disaster Capitalism) efforts, such as those organized by groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief;
• Assisting in the mediation and conflict resolution of opposing environmentalists and rank and file labor.

Work on specific projects and campaigns, so far:

Since its founding by three members of the Bay Area IWW in early 2013, members of the IWW Environmental Union Caucus have:

• Established and maintained our extensive and information rich website, ecology.iww.org: 2013-present
• Participated in the campaign against the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline: 2013-present
• Participated in the campaign against the Atlantic Coast (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipelines (MVP): 2013-present
• Participated in the campaign against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL): 2013-present
• Participated in the campaign against the Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL): 2013-present
• Participated in the campaign against the Trans Mountain Pipeline: 2013-present
• Worked closely with System Change not Climate Change: 2013-present
• Co-organized Railcon15 (in Richmond, CA; Olympia, WA; and St Louis, MO) with Railroad Workers United: 2015
• Worked in coalition with No Coal in Oakland: 2015- present
• Co-founded and organized with Labor for Standing Rock: 2016-17
• Participated in the campaign against Line 3 in Minnesota, 2017-present
• Drafted a Just Transition Resolution for the Inland Boatman's Union (an affiliate of the ILWU): 2017
• Worked closely with Local Clean Energy Alliance, in the San Francisco Bay Area: 2017-present
• Co-organized the labor contingent (which included at least 51 unions) at the March for Climate, Jobs, Justice, and Peace in San Francisco: 2018
• Participated in the organization of the Climate Strikes and Earth Strikes: 2019
• Drafted a resolution for the Inland Boatman's Union in support of the Green New Deal: 2019
• Worked in Coalition with No Coal in Richmond: 2019- present
• Completed a major update to the IWW EUC website, ecology.iww.org: 2020

It should also be noted that some of our members also worked with Judi Bari and envision this caucus as a continuation of the work she and her fellow Earth First! - IWW Local #1 members began in northwestern California and southern Oregon in 1988.

It is our goal to also engage in the following:

• Strategizing how to organize workers in resource extraction industries with a high impacts on the environment;
• Strategizing how to organize workers in renewable energy industries;
• Anti-fascism, including anti-eco-fascism;
• Abolishing prison slavery;
• Seeking organizing leads, such as rank and file workers in contact with environmental organizations, or situations where environmental groups are in dispute with the capitalist employers of rank and file workers; and

About the information featured on this site:

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