IWW WISERA

By ClydesideIWW - IWW Scotland, March 15, 2022

We organised this event so we could come together and categorically denounce the invasion of Ukraine by Russian imperialism and show our solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Today, we woke up to some promising news about a limited ceasefire, but this is not enough what is needed is a total ceasefire and for Russia to withdraw its troops immediately.

As someone who grew up in Lebanon, I know what it’s like to live in a country smack in the middle of two competing imperial powers. I’m familiar with the sounds of warplanes raining bombs. With hiding in hallways away from Windows just in case a bullet or rocket finds its way through them. I know what it’s like watching entire neighbourhoods bombed to ashes, with families trying to pull the mangled bodies of their relatives in the aftermath. These are experiences no one should have to go through and speak to the universal horrors of war.

Unfortunately, some reporters and politicians have resorted to racist comments to drum up more support for the Ukrainian people. They tell us we should care about Ukrainians because they are civilized, European, closer to home, or more like us. As if some lives are more valuable than others, or that war is natural and ok in certain parts of the world. But we care about the Ukrainian people not because we see them as closer to us, but because we oppose war no matter where it happens and no matter who is leading it.

We care about the Ukrainian people the same way we care about those in Russia bravely protesting against this war as they get beat and imprisoned. It’s the Russian worker who will feel the sting of our sanctions more than any oligarch or politician will. Because it’s always workers who suffer the most in war. They are the ones who cannot escape, who are sent to kill and die for their rulers. It’s them who are disposed of like pawns while being sold nationalist lies to enrich a few.

We should take our cue from those brave anti-war protestors in Russia and understand that the best way to fight against war is by fighting against it here at home. In the last week, we’ve heard our politicians talk a lot about sovereignty, democracy, and international law. But when have they really cared about that?

By IWW Ireland - IWW UK, November 7, 2021

World leaders gathering in Glasgow for COP26 are more concerned with the theatrics of playing to the media than the climate catastrophe.

The vocal pledges and emotive speeches hold little weight against the refusal to hold large corporations to account. Despite a planet which is slowly eating itself alive, world leaders repeatedly hold back when it comes to holding their profit driven capitalist projects to account. Instead, they are opting for wishful thinking as exemplified by the Trevi fountain stunt.

As members of the Industrial Workers of the World gather to protest in support of our earth, we do so knowingly that what is actually called for is the immediate end of capitalism and that of the power structures which keep it intact. Nothing short of the complete destruction of global capitalism, here and now, will prevent us from free-falling into an irreversible environmental catastrophe for the world and all its inhabitants.

Due to the unjust structures in our world, it is those at the lower ends of capitalist hierarchies that are most affected by climate distress. Those in lower-profit countries, people of colour, women, the trans community, those who are disabled and the working class have an increased chance of experiencing the negative impact of climate change.

Simultaneously, it is those least affected who cause the most damage to our planet. During the first lockdown, when everyone stopped, carbon emissions only decreased by 3%. 71% of global emissions are produced by 100 companies including Amazon and the US Military.

For ourselves, as revolutionary syndicalists, it is our belief that the working class ultimately has the power and strength to end this nightmare for all. From the outset as a revolutionary union, our principles and vision refuses to compromise.

“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

“Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organise as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.”

COP26 is a piece of theatre. As members mobilise on the streets of Glasgow, in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and across the world, we do so without hesitation at the importance of the challenges that lay ahead of our earth. There must be no ceasefire in the class war as our mission remains as important as it was back in 1905. Only organising industrially, within the workplace, within our communities, our streets and home can begin to form the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

You can play your part by joining the IWW today where you work or live and encourage others to do likewise.

From the words of James Connolly, founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, we echo today, “Our demands are most moderate, We only want the earth!”

By Earth Strike UK - Bristol Earth Strike, April 21, 2021

What is Earth Day?

Earth Day was started on 22nd April 1970 and has continued annually since then. Each year, on 22nd April, a wide range of events take place globally with the aims of enacting transformative changes to tackle environmental crises and build a sustainable future.

Why is this important?

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned us that we must cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, and reach carbon neutrality by 2050, or we risk the planet heating beyond 1.5 degrees. If we fail to curb our carbon emissions and the average global temperature continues to increase, we risk triggering a climate breakdown that we will have no hope of stopping, causing global devastation.

Despite this stark warning by the scientific community, many governments and employers continue to act as if there were no crisis at all.

To bring about the change needed will require holding all sectors of the global economy accountable for their role in the environmental crisis and calling for bold, creative, and impactful solutions. This will require action at all levels, and we as workers have a part to play in ensuring a global just transition, the sustainability of our workplaces, and the compliance of our industries with scientific climate targets.

Regardless of how important you feel the Climate and Ecological emergency is, changes to the economy to address these issues are already happening. We feel it is important that Workers are fully involved in how these changes happen so that they can secure the rights and livelihoods of themselves and future generations.

By Administration - IWW WISERA, August 2019

Note: this resolution was passed specifically by the IWW WISERA (UK).

The IWW supports the call for Earth Strike on September 20th 2019 and the international dimensions of the action. The IWW will mobilise its members to take action on the day and will support its members in taking strike action.

The IWW sees Earth Strike as an important contribution to the engagement of unions in the climate crisis and in particular it highlights the need for workers action to confront and destroy capitalism to avoid extinction.

To further these aims the IWW has voted to establish an Environmental Committee to develop the union's policy and educate, agitate and organise for a mass worker-led ecological movement.

A long standing aim of the IWW has been to abolish wage slavery and create a new world where we can live in harmony with the earth. With the climate crisis revolution is now more necessary than ever before. System Change not Climate Change!

In Solidarity
Russ Spring, IWW Secretary (WISE-RA)

By various - Earth Strike and IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, 2019

The scientific consensus is clear. Climate change is happening. It is happening now and it’s impacts are only going to get worse.

Climate change is not a stand alone issue, it affects and exacerbates all of the existing inequalities and exploitations within our society. In our struggle to fight against climate change we stand shoulder to shoulder with those fighting against racism, sexism and colonialism inherent within global capitalism.

Climate change will not be solved through individual lifestyle changes. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions. To tackle climate change therefore we must challenge the power of these companies and the governments that support them.

Simply shifting the concentration of wealth to other so-called “sustainable industries” will not change the over- consumptive and self destructive drive of capitalism that has caused climate change and the mass extinction of species. Nor will it remove the ability of those with wealth to buy political power and get away with their planet killing practices.

Whilst increasingly the global economy is becoming an automated and auto-managed machine, labour still has power. The current economic system depends on the participation of a large labour force for both the extraction of natural resources and to perpetuate the unsustainable cycle of global consumption.

History has demonstrated that when a significant amount of the labour force organises for industrial action they can bring the bosses to the negotiating table and extract real gains for the workers. Likewise the environmental movement has demonstrated that community-led organising and direct resistance to natural exploitation can successfully defend ecological and social justice.

By bringing these two movements together, ending our self-destructive participation in the techno-industrial complex and resisting the capitalist economics of infinite growth we can change the current system and prevent global environmental catastrophe.

Earth Strike is therefore uniting the green and red by building for a global general climate strike. The IWW Environmental Committee recognises the huge importance of this initiative and will play it’s part to support it.

Read the report (PDF).

By staff - IWW Ireland, May 11. 2019

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have issued a call for support and solidarity with communities in the heart of the Sperrin Mountains who continue object to the poisoning of our environment by Canadian based multinationals, Dalradian Gold Ltd.

A spokesperson for the IWW General Members Branch in Ireland said in a statement: “At a time when communities in lockdown are dealing with the Covid 19 crisis, some will intend to use such a period of uncertainty to deflect attention away from events happening elsewhere to shamelessly promote themselves and their own agenda.

"To date we have witnessed the behaviour of multinationals such as Dalradian Gold Limited attempting to use such a climate to befriend local community organisations with financial incentives and windfalls as advertised in the press. This is yet another under hand attempt by a tarnished company to embellish themselves as a type of 'saviours of the community' at a time of increasing hardship.

"Again for anyone approached by or offered to be garnished by financial rewards from multinational companies with an atrocious environmental legacy, we would urge them to firstly question their own conscious and of course their own ethical policies of the organisations to which they belong. Recent moves should be viewed as nothing shy of a community grooming exercise.

"Let's be clear, this is an attempt to sow seeds of division within and around the north west which will ultimately fail, like their ongoing plans to mine and destroy our environment in the pursuit of profit will fail.

"As an international union we would urge community and environmental groups both locally and internationally, as well as the wider trade union movement to acknowledge the many groups challenging the destructive consequences of gold mining within a location such as the Sperrins. An area of outstanding natural beauty.

"Any attempt to view Dalradian Gold Limited as a some type of 'financial saviour' much be challenged. A multinational gold company who plan to create a toxic gold mining plant, an act that will impact upon all our lives throughout the entire North West for future generations to come.

“It is vital at this time we remain vigilant and vocal about what is actually happening. We believe that it is up to all of us to protect and defend our environment and our rights as workers. The right to live in an environment free from toxic pollution and environmental destruction. Free from the greed of scrupulous multinational corporations who try to divide communities.

"Our message today as all ways remains, an injury to one is an injury to all!"