direct action

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, December 30, 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.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Did Somebody Say Direct Action? What’s Missing from the Victory Narrative - By Alexander Reid Ross, Earth First! Journal, December 22, 2014
• Everything’s Coming Together While Everything Falls Apart - By Rebecca Solnit, Tom Dispatch, December 23, 2014
• Protest too much? 2014 was a big year for rabblerousing - By Heather Smith, Grist, December 23, 2014

Other News of Interest:

• BHP, Rio, Anglo fear effects of Chile’s new labour bill - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, December 23, 2014
• Busting the Myth of “Job-Killing EPA Regulations” - By Ken Kimmell, President, Union of Concerned Scientists, Renewable Energy World, December 28, 2014
• Canadian Pension Funds To Invest In Renewables To The Tune Of $2 Billion - By Joshua S Hill, Clean Technica, December 24, 2014
• A Dollar a Day Keeps the Smokestacks Away [Fundraising appeal for a project involving IWW members] - By Josh, Energy Justice Network, December 23, 2014
• Electricity suppliers are shedding jobs, despite renewables growth - By Melissa C. Lott, Scientific American, December 23, 2014; [related]: Employment Drops in All Segments of the Power Sector—Except Renewables - By Julia Pyper, Greentech Media, December 24, 2014
• Environmentalists Are Gearing Up for the Next Phase of New York's Fracking Wars - By Peter Rugh, Vice, December 18, 2014
• The 4 Day Week? - By Tegan Tallulla, Earth Baby Blog, September 30, 2013
• Innovations or Hucksterism? Three Little-Known Infrastructure Privatization Problems - By Ellen Dannin, Truthout, December 22, 2014
• Marathon evacuates personnel from two North Sea platforms - By Robert Grattan, Fuel Fix, December 23, 2014
• Dave Kerin on Workers’ Cooperatives and the Climate Emergency - By Dave Kerin, Anarchist Affinity, November 12, 2014
• Phoenix warns of bus disruptions as union negotiates - By Brenna Goth, Arizona Republic, December 24, 2014
• Railroads seek permission to put a single person in charge of miles-long freight trains [Quotes IWW members] - By Josh Funk, Star Tribune, December 22, 2014
• Railroads, unions to begin collective bargaining talks next month - By Russell Hubbard, Omaha World-Herald, December 26, 2014
• Talcher workers up against coal mining privatization - Nyooz, December 2014
• TTIP: Chemical corporations against safety protections - By Patrick Gleeson, The Ecologist, December 24, 2014

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Seed Coalition - Seed Coalition; images by David Hardy, December 3, 2014

Two activists with We Are Cove Point locked themselves to the doors of the offices of IHI/Kiewit in Lusby, Maryland this morning. IHI/Kiewit is a joint venture that serves as the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the Dominion Cove Point LNG export terminal project. IHI E&C, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based company IHI Corporation, is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Kiewit is based in Omaha, Nebraska.

During the lockdown and extraction, other activists with We Are Cove Point held signs rejecting the project and IHI/Kiewit’s involvement. They attracted the attention of shoppers at stores located in the same strip mall and handed out several leaflets providing information about the project and the campaign against it.

Today’s action comes just a few days after seven people were arresting for blocking the entrance to a construction site in nearby Solomons, Maryland, where Dominion and IHI/Kiewit are building a pier to land equipment for the project too large to bring in by land. To date, twenty-two people have been arrested for protests in Solomons and Lusby. Earlier this year, fourteen people were arrested protesting at three courthouses across the state of Maryland. Their actions demonstrated the breadth of the opposition to Dominion’s terminal and highlighting the broad consequences the project will have if it is completed, included increased hydraulic fracturing for methane gas and the rapid construction of the dangerous infrastructure needed to transport it.

By Cascadia Earth First! - Earth First! Newswire, November 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.

So the Keystone XL bill failed to pass Congress. The Big Fail marks a huge success for groups who have been struggling to expose the KXL for the dirty policy it represents. The actions taken on the day of the vote, including the disruption in the Senate chamber and the blocking Senators Bennet (D-Col.) and Carper (D-Del.) from leaving their offices, speak to the dedication and tirelessness of the movement to stop the pipeline.

So we can all go home now, right? We won!

The problem is that the bill will be back in January, and the congress we’re dealing with right now is very different from the one we’ll see ushered into office at the beginning of 2015. Just because the lame-duck Congress voted against the bill (barely) with its Democratic Party majority does not mean that the Republicans will have any problem sweeping it through when they take the majority.

The Democratic Party’s vote does give Obama a mandate to veto the bill next year if and when it goes through, but the question remains as to whether or not he will use it. In short, the Big Fail and ensuing celebrations from the Environmental NGOs looks suspiciously like a setup. It’s definitely not time to demobilize.

By Alex Lubben - In These Times, November 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.

West Coast ports are stuck in gridlock. Earlier this week, truck drivers were waiting for as long as seven hours at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to try to retrieve single containers of cargo. The backup at these ports, which handle the majority of shipments from Asia, is threatening the timely delivery of billions of dollars’ worth of holiday goods.

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents the docking companies at ports along the West Coast, blamed the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) for the initial slowdown, accusing the union of refusing to dispatch skilled workers at the ports, creating backups that are part of an attempt to gain leverage in contract negotiations. The union—whose workers have been without a contract since July—has denied that they are intentionally clogging the port’s flow of goods.

The “orchestrated job actions,” as PMA refers to the alleged slowdown, began at ports in the Pacific Northwest and has since spread to the Los Angeles-Long Beach (LA-LB) ports. PMA claims that the ILWU informed them that they would stop dispatching qualified workers.

ILWU denied this in a press release issued on November 10:

Obscuring months of data regarding the non-labor related causes of the current crisis-level congestion problem, PMA’s Texas-based public relations firm announced that the ILWU was the cause bringing “the port complex to the brink of gridlock.” The public relations firm also propagandized about the ILWU, its leadership, and false claims of safety issues.

By Anonymous - Beating the Bounds, October 26, 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.

Sometimes the world narrows to a very fine point. A certain slant of light. The head of a needle you need to pass through. I don’t care right now about the National Energy Board of Canada (merely a corporate tool for shoehorning global energy projects into other people’s territories—a funnel for money from the public, to the private sector). I don’t care about this or that court of law, appeals and constitutional challenges. I don’t care about the drones, unmarked cars, or CSIS agents. I don’t even care that much about the rain.

I care about the people who have come together to stand in a forest, on a mountain, in the path of a pipeline. I care about them because of their passion and commitment, their awareness of the fact that they are standing at once against local destruction (a nature conservation area, the animals we meet here every day, right near the edge of a large city) and against global destruction (adding carbon to an already warming planet through new fossil fuel infrastructure—the last thing we should be doing, if we truly care about the continuation of life on this planet, in the near future). I care too, about the trees I can touch, the animals I can see, and the future commons we need to preserve for life to continue, for this planet to be a place of biological diversity and human sharing.

As has been our intention all along, we will occupy public land, a city park, and prevent Kinder Morgan from carrying out its destructive work—work opposed by local First Nations, opposed by the City of Burnaby, and opposed by the majority of Burnaby residents. While the case goes back and forth in the courts, out intention is to keep Kinder Morgan wrapped up dealing with us, either until a court somewhere sides with the people against this mega-corporation, or until the NEB’s December 1 deadline for KM’s complete application.

We are doing this to protect the local environment and people. And we are doing this because we know that people everywhere have to begin taking a stand against fossil fuel projects, and thus doing whatever we can to mitigate climate change. This is no time for new carbon projects. This is the time to build a new economy, based on new, renewable sources of energy, providing new, clean energy jobs. There is simply no benefit to the citizens of Burnaby to have this pipeline here—it benefits only the US-based Kinder Morgan, and the global market its oil will be sold on. And there is no benefit to our ailing global climate. The time to change course is now, and the many volunteers on Burnaby Mountain, and their many, many supporters in the community and around the world, have realized this, and they are taking direct action.

By Andres Willes Garcés - Waging Nonviolence, October 2, 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.

On an ordinary Tuesday evening in April 2007, dozens of union janitors gathered outside a downtown office building in Sydney, Australia, to celebrate a victory: After a long fight, another cleaning contractor had agreed to sign up with the janitors’ union. Singing “Don’t Stop the Cleaners” to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believin’” and pounding drums and shaking noisemakers, the assembled janitors listened to union leaders talk about their next target: the cleaning contractor of that very office building in front of them, which was still nonunion. After sending this message, cheering and chanting, the group marched back to the union office for a celebratory barbecue.

As this example shows, marches and rallies can be a great way to celebrate a big campaign victory (and gear up for the next one). They’re accessible, often relatively simple to plan, and can easily incorporate participation from many kinds of people. Good marches and rallies have a few functions. They can be a good place to announce you’ve reached a new stage, or otherwise serve as a movement’s marking point, such as the 1963 March on Washington. They can inspire your grassroots base with new energy. Or, ideally, they can move you past the finish line and into your campaign victory lap.

But too often we use marches and rallies in place of any other public action to put pressure on decision-makers and build support for our campaign. They’re good for partying or as a mass mobilization after grassroots support is built — but there are many more effective ways to create low-risk opportunities for gathering people together. On the heels of the People’s Climate March last weekend, where more than 300,000 people gathered to demand international action on climate change, it’s important to take the time to reflect on what marches can accomplish — and what other tactics can be used instead.

Press Release - Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, October 1, 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.

Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance interrupted Devon Energy board member and president of Oklahoma City University Robert Henry as Henry emceed a book review event for  The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman at Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City. Reasons cited for the disruption were Devon Energy’s role in the controversial tar sands in Alberta, tar sands extraction’s connection to the Keystone XL, fracking in Oklahoma and abroad, and Devon’s membership in American Legislative Exchange Committee (ALEC).

“No matter how many lies you tell, how many politicians you buy, how many skyscrapers you build, it will not wash away the oil you have spilled.” Local resident Jay Fowler said to Robert Henry.

Article and Image By Peter Rugh - Waging Nonviolence, September 29, 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.

The 400,000 people who packed Manhattan’s Central Park West for the People’s Climate March on September 21 have all gone home to their apartments, farms, cabins and lobster boats. They’ve returned to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia, to the Philippines and the Pacific Islands. The “U.N. Climate Summit” banner that, last week, formed the backdrop for the impassioned speeches of 120 heads of state — and Leonardo DiCaprio — has been taken down. Debate in the newly renovated General Assembly Hall has turned to terrorism — a different kind of security threat than that posed by drought and rising sea levels. The metal barricades erected against protesters who flooded the heart of global capitalism at last Monday’s Flood Wall Street demonstration have been cautiously removed by the New York Police Department. Frostpaw the polar bear has gone to jail.

The summit convened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which served as the inspiration for the People’s Climate March and Flood Wall Street, occurred ahead of conferences scheduled for Lima in December and Paris in 2015, where new long-term agreements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be hammered out. If we are to believe 98 percent of the world’s scientists, the future of human subsistence on this planet hinges on the strength of the pacts world governments will forge. Precious time will tell what the lasting impacts of the demonstrations will be, but already the protests that shook New York and much of the world (there were over 2,000 People’s Climate Marches globally) appear to have left their mark upon upper echelon spheres of power.

The day following the march, the heirs to John D. Rockefeller, the famed 20th century oil baron, announced they were divesting their $860 million charitable fund from fossil fuels. Addressing the United Nations last Tuesday, President Obama referenced the demonstration, stating, “Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them.”

While it might seem like another toothless remark from the president, it at the very least shows that the commotion two days earlier penetrated the inner sanctums of power.

“Often times, what we hear from politicians is that we don’t have the numbers, that people don’t care,” said Phil Aroneanu with 350.org, the environmental organization that helped spearhead the march with thousands of labor, faith and environmental justice groups. “With 400,000 people on the streets Sunday we really feel like we proved otherwise.”

The march was particularly a success, Aroneanu noted, in that it broke down color barriers for an environmental movement that for the past several decades has been highly segregated between white and wealthy and low-income racial minorities.

“Though we still have a long way to go, it was the most diverse of any march we’ve organized so far,” Aroneanu said. “Our partners in the climate justice movement really showed up and took on leadership roles. We have to make sure we are not leaving any of our brothers and sisters behind.”

The climate march, more than any other mass mobilization before it, reflected the faces of those who bear the brunt of climate change.

By Raphael Cordray - Utah Tar Sands Resistance, September 24, 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.

PR SPRINGS, Utah--Protesters again stopped work at the construction site of the first tar sands mine in the US. Five people were later arrested and jailed but the campaign to stop the mine said the resistance will not relent until all tar sands plans are canceled.

By moving quickly through the site to obstruct numerous construction vehicles, just a handful of speedy protesters were able to shut down the enormous construction project on a sprawling 213 acres in Utah's Book Cliffs.

The action took place Sept. 23.

"Direct, physical intervention is necessary to halt the completion of this toxic project," said one protester. "If just five percent of those people at the People's Climate March in New York City came to Utah, we could shut down tar sands construction for good--and probably get away with it."

A playful video of the action released by Utah Tar Sands Resistance shows protesters donning chipmunk masks, running, dancing and posing for pictures among the many halted machines.Despite the humor, protesters say Utah tar sands development threatens the safety of drinking water for 40 million people and would cause irreparable damage to the land, including clear-cutting of old-growth juniper, fir and pine forest.

US Oil Sands began major construction of their strip mine in 2014 and hopes for commercial sales beginning sometime in 2015. Hundreds of people have participated in actions disrupting construction work this year, vowing to prevent functioning of the mine.