green syndicalism

By Climate - Capitalism vs the Climate, November 16, 2015

There’s going to be a climate rally at the state Capitol soon about replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. That all sounds good, but we want to form a contingent that’s loud and clear about the need for systemic social change. We hope you’ll join.

Look for us with the banner that says ‘End capitalism’ at the bottom.

• Capitol Building Hartford CT
• Saturday, Nov 21st, at 12 PM
• https://www.facebook.com/events/1518104615179767/

“100% renewable energy” isn’t enough.

We need community control and a rejection of false solutions. Putting a wind turbine on top of a genocidal system doesn’t make it green. Did you know Solar City has been installing solar panels made by prisoners paid pennies to the dollar? That Malloy’s been counting renewable mega-hydro power as green despite its infringement on indigenous Innu land in Quebec? That Bridgeport takes trash from surrounding suburbs and burns it in a low-income neighborhood in order to produce so-called renewable energy? Sometimes renewable energy is just as socially and environmentally destructive as fossil fuels.

Rallies and lobbying aren’t enough

We need direct action. We don’t think the Keystone XL would have been (partially) stopped if it hadn’t been for the countless actions and arrests of the Texas tree-sitters, the Lakota spiritual campers, the White House protesters and others. We’d like to see climate campaigners in CT learn from the (partial) KXL victory and step it up a little bit.

Get Spectra out of Connecticut

Spectra Energy’s fracked gas pipeline expansion could endanger tens of millions of lives, due to its dangerous location near the Indian Point nuclear power plant and its contribution to global climate change. We see Spectra’s expansion as a symptom of the deadly grow-or-die system that’s squeezing the Earth and its inhabitants to extinction. Isn’t stopping Spectra one of the things we can unite around, or is naming it being too specific and divisive for those trying to play nice with Malloy?

By Arthur J Miller - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, November 17, 2015

Casting a stare of confusion out to the cosmos Why do things just get worse no matter how hard we work to make them better? We still labor to produce all needs and we can't even produce our own needs within this system of all possible wealth going to a few at the expense of the many. Food workers who produce the simple most important production of all (if we can't eat, nothing else matters) and yet they are the poorest paid workers around. Makes a lot of sense don't it?
Think about it, those who do the work to provide the needs of society only receive in payment as small of a return that the corporate system can get away with paying them.

This dirty rotten system, I call corporate fascism. It is 100% controlled by the corporations. They control the greatest part of the wealth produced directly. In order to advance their wealth and control, they created an institutionalization of policies that benefit them. Such policies as racism, sexism, nationalism, and so on, all benefit the rich, not the poor and cannot be reformed. How do you reform racism?, may I please ask?

We live under a military dictatorship. We are forced to fight other poor folks in wars that only benefit the rich. In these wars of conquest we defeat other poor people, we are then used to oppress those poor folks into submission to the compute state. How do you reform corporate wars? You can't. The dirty rotten system is meant to be just that, the dirty rotten system that steals from us all and that it uses us poor folks as their collateral damage in industry, in wars and political posturing.

The system uses tactics to get us thinking we have a say in things that we don't. Like the political parties. Both corporate political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, are equally the institutionalization of corporate fascism. They work hand in hand to deceive us into thinking we have a chose to choose from. Then we are told to pick the lesser of the two evils. And there you have it, the dirty rotten system cannot be reform to be anything other than what it is, an evil. You cannot reform that which is created to be evil. And when the liberals come up with the next new White Rich Savor to be that lesser evil that others should follow, we need to reject them outright.

When we understand that the system cannot be reform, then we must look at changing the social system ourselves. We can trust no one else to do it for us.

In my view Syndicalism is the most effective means of true social change and it has the most rank and file control that is possible. Part of this is that it came out of work place resistance and organization thus it was always organizing at the source of the problems. That meant those in control were that same as those with the need. That is the only way to get real working class unions. No so-called reform is possible in capitalism, the state or statist institutions they control like the business unions and political parties. Simple, we can let others from the outside organize us and tell us what to do. Or we can organize ourselves at the source of the problem by those in need and are most effected.

Fact is undeniable that the mayor cause of our problems comes directly out of industry. Given that, industry must change. And thus Syndicalism would say that we need to change at the point of production by those who do the work. We know how to make the changes but it has been these outside people who pay no attention to us. Simple example, after a major tanker oil spill, folks were meeting about what to do.

Many answers based upon outside ideas. I tried to explain what would make tankers much safer based upon my experience working on tankers.

That had no place in their discussion. Even when I advocate something so damn simple as to ask the question: Why don't tankers carry no oil spill equipment? Two small power boats and enough booms for two containment circles? Booming a ship is easy, I have done it a number of times. Rather when a spill happens everyone just sits around waiting for some oil spill ship to come in from some far away port.

Nearly every social struggle that starts from the people at the source comes into conflict with those. on the outside. Thus you have the basic Syndicalist organization at the point of production. This Syndicalists have been doing long before the term Syndicalism was ever used.

It has become much more than just about one expression of organization, but rather stands as an example for nearly all working class struggle. My class analysis is very simple. There are two classes, the rich and the poor. Between them is an area that gets rather foggy as some have a little money identify with the interests of the rich and thus should be seen as on that rich side. There are those that identify with the interests of the poor and are on our side. The rich try to exploit everything that can be exploited for profit and suppress those that resist. That includes develop social projects against about every one except what we think we are. Thus such issues as racism, sexism, and so on are based in the industrialized of class in the dirt rotten system. In my view we must organize around the complete oppress of poor folks and their needs, if for no other reason there are always connections to them in industry and must be changed.

By Tadzio Müller - Rosa Luxenbourg Stiftung , November 11, 2015

The UN climate summit in Paris is certainly important. But an agreement in Paris is unlikely to include a number of urgently needed policies, and may instead constitute a shift in a disastrous direction. What can we realistically expect from the Paris Agreement, and what would the Summit actually need to achieve?

On Saturday, 24 October 2015, two media reports were published that perfectly summarise the challenges we face from climate change:

The first report - "Yesterday, the final meeting in the run-up to the Paris Climate Change Conference took place in Bonn". After months of optimism ("This time we'll make it work - not like in Copenhagen", "We've learned from our mistakes", "This time it will be different"), our hopes were dashed when the report ended by stating, "Climate talks fail to break deadlock". But what is blocking the negotiations? The participants can't still be haggling over emission reductions, because this issue has already been settled (through voluntary commitments) and it's not even on the agenda. So what's the problem? As always, it's about the struggle over global resources. But it's not natural resources that are the focus here, because fossil fuels are not discussed at climate summits. The deadlock is not even about the climate as such. It's about the Northern states finally coughing up the agreed financial resources, despite numerous declarations of intent; financial resources that were to be made available to assist the South in adapting and mitigating the problems caused by climate change; financial resources that would help the North do justice to its historical responsibility for climate change.

The second report - This one reached us from Mexico; it's simple, clear and direct: "'Worst hurricane of all time' sweeps across Mexico". The President of Mexico, Peña Nieto, tweeted that this had been the most severe hurricane that had "ever occurred on the planet". More than 60,000 people had to be brought into safety. Fortunately, the hurricane weakened before striking the Mexican mainland, but it clearly demonstrates what we are up against. What would happen if the international community were to respond properly to the challenges demonstrated by these media reports? What would happen at the UN climate summit in December and what kind of resolutions would it pass?

By Eric Dirnbach - Waging Nonviolence, November 4, 2015

The debate on how to revive the troubled U.S. labor movement has been around for decades. Labor activists generally believe that much greater rank-and-file democracy and workplace militancy is the key to labor renewal. However, an essential perspective that is usually missing from the conversation is well represented by Staughton Lynd’s “Solidarity Unionism: Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below,” which was first published in 1992 and has been recently reissued.

Lynd is a legendary progressive lawyer and activist from Youngstown, Ohio. He is the coauthor with his wife Alice Lynd of the classic “Rank and File: Personal Histories by Working-Class Organizers,” a collection of oral histories of militant union organizers, which informs much of the framework of “Solidarity Unionism.” At around 100 pages, the book reads more like a summary of his organizing philosophy, and many readers will come away wanting a more extensive discussion. It should be read along with several other recent books which make similar arguments: Stanley Aronowitz’s “The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement,” and “New Forms of Worker Organization: The Syndicalist and Autonomist Restoration of Class-Struggle Unionism,” edited by Immanuel Ness, who also provided the introduction for “Solidarity Unionism.”

Lynd argues for a rethinking of the assumptions of the labor movement and for a revived version of labor organizing that was more prominent in the pre-New Deal era that he calls “solidarity unionism.” What may surprise most labor-oriented readers is that central to this kind of unionism is the absence of a contract between the union and the employer.

Isn’t the whole point of forming a union to get a written collective bargaining agreement? Lynd doesn’t think so and he argues that workers fighting together with direct action on the job to make improvements in the workplace do not need a contract and may be hurt by having one. He is critical of the “management rights” and “no-strike” clauses that are standard in almost all union contracts. He believes they reduce the power of workers to influence major decisions in how the workplace is run and to solve their problems at work immediately as they arise. Contracts tend to remove agency from the workers and place it in the hands of union staff who typically bargain and process grievances while the members may be uninvolved and cynical. Lynd is also skeptical of a union’s exclusive representation of all workers in the workplace and automatic dues check-off, preferring for workers to actively join the union and pay dues because they want to.

Lynd’s view of the prevailing “contract unionism” differs from standard labor history, which considers the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, or NLRA, labor reforms as a progressive advance for workers. In the mainstream view, workers organizing, with the support of President Roosevelt, finally won full government enforcement for the right to organize and bargain collectively. In exercising this right, unions typically hold workplace elections and then negotiate contracts with employers that set the conditions of employment and also guarantee labor peace (no strike/no lockout) for the term of the contract. This industrial relations framework led the way for millions of workers to organize and improve their wages and working conditions. This “class compromise” held for several decades until employers changed their mind and increased their opposition to unionization again.

By Dek Keenan - Union Solidarity International, November 5, 2015

In recent years, new or rediscovered forms of worker self-organisation have begun to appear – and often in the most unlikely of places.

Small independent unions, using a combination of often audacious direct action tactics combined with innovative campaign strategies are bringing victories to some of the most marginalised and precarious groups of workers. Punching way above their weight, these dynamic new (and some not so new) unions are fighting to win and organising with few or no full-time officials and on shoestring budgets.

Are they the work of anarchist wreckers, alien to the traditions of the labour movement, or do they offer a way out of the impasse that our movement finds itself in?

In London, new unions such as the United Voices of the World (UVW) and Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) have been at the forefront of precarious, out-sourced and greatly migrant labour struggles. Recent high profile fights for the Living Wage, for sick pay and the reinstatement of union activists at the Barbican and at Sotheby’s auction house have brought the UVW into the media spotlight.

The first signs in the UK of this ‘new unionism’ were seen in 2011 when the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the famous ‘Wobblies’, organised a Branch for cleaners in London, recruiting dissatisfied members of Unite associated with the Latin American Workers Association (LAWA).

This Branch built on the existing community of solidarity in the LAWA and, through the establishment of workers’ advice clinics, language classes and much aggressive outreach by unpaid activists, expanded beyond the Latin American community to other groups of cleaners searching for an effective voice at work. London Living Wage victories at Canary Wharf and elsewhere followed, heightening the profile of the IWW and paving the way for subsequent initiatives from the UVW and IWGB.

By Jeff Shantz - Anarcho Syndicalist Review, Summer 2015

IWW EUC note: This article was written before the results of the recent election in Canada, in which voters ousted the Conservative Party in favor of the (ostensibly centrist) Liberal Democrats.

On January 30, 2015 the ruling Conservative Party government of Canada introduced its most recent terror panic based legislation, in the form of Bill C-51 (the Anti-Terrorism Act). The Bill has now passed House of Commons vote, on May 6, and is in final approval steps at the Canadian Senate.  Under the guise of “fighting terrorism” (people in Canada are much more likely to be killed by a moose than by a terrorist) C-51 criminalizes not only specific actions (“illegal protests,” “unlawful assembly,” wildcat strikes) but symbolic (including online) expressions of support for things like “economic disruption” (choose what that means).

In many respects C-51 stands as an attack against rank and file mobilization and action, beyond legal collective bargaining contexts, and against working class organizing beyond legislative challenges (i.e. direct actions). The Bill would formalize Conservative Party opinion, as already stated by former Environment Minister and current Finance Minister Joe Oliver who identified environmental activists as radical and terrorists. It is introduced in a context of growing government and corporate concern over emerging alliances against extractives industries.

This is the most recent of Conservative Party attempts to target and criminalize direct action and more militant organizing. It comes at the same time as freedom of information requests unearthed an RCMP “Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Assessment” report on “Criminal Threats to the Canadian Petroleum Industry.” The RCMP document dedicates several sections to attempts to construct environmentalists and indigenous activists as threats to workers (and as terrorists). Clearly they see an important, and from their view necessary, wedge to drive between budding green syndicalist alliances, as between dockworkers and anarchists at some Westcoast ports and between rank and file resource workers and pipeline opponents.

The Bill contains a number of provisions that would explicitly target workers and workplace actions. These would focus on wildcat strikes, strikes of any kind that impact extractives industries or transport, and actions like slowdowns or disruptive job actions. Any workplace actions that occur outside of legally recognized union endeavors or collective agreement provisions could be targeted.