green syndicalism

By Jeffrey Free Luers - Strike for Climate Justice, March 20, 2009

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 that this call wasmade five years ago, but is still entirely relevant today.

Twenty years ago governments of the world met for the first ever climate talks. The talks, then, focused largely on the growing hole in the world’s ozone layer (a hole that still exists today) and the need to eliminate CFC emissions (which also still exist today though in much smaller amounts). The other climate item on the agenda was global warming. Scientists warned that there was growing evidence that the world was warming, possibly due to human activity much like the root cause of the ozone hole.

Unfortunately, in 1988 it was decided that global warming did not pose a significant threat to warrant action. The problem could wait to be addressed.

Nearly a decade later, in 1997, the governments of the world met for their annual climate talks in Kyoto, Japan. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a panel of the world’s leading scientists from countries around the globe, presented growing evidence that the world faced a severe threat from climate change. These scientists concluded that the single largest contributor to climate change were human greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide (CO2).

For the first time since the inception of the climate talks, world leaders agreed action was needed to combat climate change. The world took notice with a collective gasp as 180 governments pledged their support to a worldwide climate treaty to reduce CO2 emissions in an effort to conquer global warming.

In 2007, a decade after Kyoto and twenty years since the first climate talks, the IPCC declared in its strongest language yet that the world faced imminent global catastrophe unless immediate and drastic action was taken to reduce and then eliminate greenhouse emissions.

In the years following the Kyoto protocol, the United States – the highest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita in the world – pulled out of the treaty. CO2 emission around the world continued to rise. Governments that had promised to reduce emissions failed to impose strict limits, instead relying on voluntary cuts from industry. As industries refused to limit their emissions and governments balked at regulation, the Kyoto protocol collapsed.

The U.S. and numerous other countries with high greenhouse emissions have steadfastly refused to cut CO2 emissions, claiming that doing so would harm their ability remain economically competitive.

In the face of the largest economic collapse in world history, brought about by the very same green, deceit and malfeasance of the worlds most powerful multinational and government deregulation that has allowed CO2 emissions to go unchecked. Government and corporate claims that reducing emissions would create economic hard ring hollow.

People around the world put faith in our governments and institutions to act on our behalf and in our best interests. Our governments have had 20 years to act on global warming and climate change. 20 years to act on a threat that the world’s leading scientists say is the greatest threat to human kind the world has ever faced.

By Arthur J. Miller - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, December 12, 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.

1. ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED: There are many needed struggles, but they are all connected because in one way or another, we all struggle against the same oppressors and the same abusive system. In the natural world all life is connected.

2. LIFE IN BALANCE: Life out of balance with all is the greatest threat we face to our survival. Life out of balance, a violent world of pursuit of greed and power for some at the expense of the many is leaving our world a wasteland of human folly and suffering. Life in balance with all around us is our only means of survival.

3. HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL: The right to exist, the right to food, shelter and medical care, the right to dwell upon the land, the right of free speech, free assembly and the right to organizing for better conditions, the right to live without oppression, should be the rights of all of humankind.

4. DIVERSITY AWARENESSS AND RESPECT: Humankind is a great diversity of cultures. When we treat that diversity with acknowledgment and respect, that diversity becomes our strength and not our weakness.

5. INCLUSION: The oppressed and exploited are a great mass of people. But they are not all the same. Seeking to include all people and their concerns makes real social change possible. Seeking to exclude people makes real social change impossible. For in that you only change things for the better of some at the expense of the many.

6. SELF-DETERMINATION: The oppressed organizing against our oppressions and struggling to control our own fate.

7. SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES: The oppressed and exploited people need to be able to speak for ourselves by means of writing, speaking, art, music and so on, because we are the only ones that are truly able to understand what we are going through. And that understanding is necessary in order to free ourselves from the way things were not meant to be.

8. GENERATIONS IN BALANCE: Creating balance between the old and the new. What came before lays the foundation, the new adds to it and passes it on to the future generations.

9. THE 7TH GENERATION: Instant gratification of greed is a suicidal direction. In all things, look to the 7th Generation to come as to what we do now will effect the future, many Indigenous cultures teach us this.

10. WORKING FOLKS: We live in a class society where those that do the useful work are of a lower class while those that oppress and exploit us exist as a higher privileged class. There is great dignity in the labor of working people, for we do all that is needed for our needs and wants. No society can exist without us. There is no dignity or usefulness in the class that oppresses and exploits us, they do nothing useful, they are unneeded and they stand in the way of the well-being of all.

11. FOR A CLASSLESS SOCIETY: The idle rich on top living off the labor of the classes below them, and thus creating endless class conflict. Organize for a classless society for the peace and well-being of all humanity.

12. REPLACING EUROCENTICISM WITH MULTI-ETHNIC INTERNATIONALISM: Eurocenticism seeks conquest of the world by the domination of a few imperialists, and to impose their cultural/political/economic system on all, which they view as superior to all else. Eurocentic supremacy needs to be replaced with multi-ethnic internationalism. True multi-ethnic internationalism is open to all the knowledge and cultures of the people of the world.

13. ENDING THE GENOCIDE: The Western lands are built upon genocidal policies against the Original People. It is important to understand this so that we can put an end to those policies that started with Columbus and continue to this day. FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

By Nick Rahaim - Salon.com, December 8, 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.

Despite the corporate talk of "team" and "love," here's what working there was really like -- and why I had to quit

After years of organizing in secret, building bonds over beer and supporting co-workers when issues have arisen with management, team members at a Whole Foods Market in San Francisco disrupted the normal workday and demanded a $5 an hour pay increase last month. More than 20 employees beckoned store management to the floor and presented a petition signed by more than 50 of the store’s workers calling for more paid time off, better health and retirement benefits as well as steady, consistent schedules.

I worked at Whole Foods in the spring of 2012. As is the typical way of getting to know co-workers, I went out for drinks with a tight-knit group of employees. Conversations went quickly from the getting-to-know-you banter to politics, and it was at the time the Occupy Movement was running out of steam. We exchanged battle stories of political engagement and mused about how best to carry the momentum from Occupy in new directions. I asked about organizing at Whole Foods; a few of my co-workers smirked while others played dumb. A week later I was brought into the fold, and found people had been organizing for more than two years. I was feisty for action, but the others knew better; they were in it for the long haul.

Since workers came out after plotting in the shadows for nearly five years, store managers have reportedly attempted to kill them with kindness, while saying nothing of their demands. On the corporate side, Whole Foods Market announced a pay increase in its San Francisco stores effective Jan. 1, shortly after the Whole Foods Union went public. The $1.25 increase in the starting wage, from $11.50 to $12.75, sits 50 cents above San Francisco increase in minimum wage that will take effect in May of 2015. Outside of that, both the store and corporate management have refused to publicly address the situation. Workers organizing at Whole Foods claim the announced wage increase four months ahead of schedule was likely in response to their demands.

In an attempt to put teeth to their demands workers held pickets at the Whole Foods Northern California Regional distribution center in Richmond, California. The picket fell short of stopping the flow of goods to the Bay Area stores it had envisioned, in the spirit of the Black Friday actions taken in 2013 by retail workers. Although the Teamsters did agree that their drivers would not cross the picket line. To that Ruan, the shipping company contracted by Whole Foods, hired temporary workers — scabs — to cross.

Organizing with the radical-syndicalist union, the Industrial Workers of the World, Whole Foods employees are shunning traditional unions that represent the majority of workers at Safeway, Alberson’s and other national grocers. In doing so, they have given up access to the deep pockets of United Grocery Workers and the like, but have the added agility to stealthily maneuver. The IWW is also the only union to have successfully created union shops at Starbucks.

Press Release - Railroad Workers United, December 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.

This coming winter, RWU will co-sponsor two conferences, one in the Bay Area and one in the Pacific Northwest. Tentatively entitled “The Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community and Environment”, Railroad Workers United is partnering with the Backbone Campaign and other citizens and environmental groups to organize these innovative and cutting edge conferences.

In recent months, public attention has focused on the railroad in a way that it has not been for decades. In the wake of Lac Megantic and other derailments and resulting fires and explosions, the public is alarmed about oil trains and the movement of trains in general through their communities.

Environmental activists are up-in-arms about the amounts of fossil fuels moving by rail. Farmers and other shippers are concerned about the congestion that has occurred in recent months, due in part to the oil boom. All of this attention gives railroad workers a golden opportunity to educate the general public about the railroad, its inherent efficiencies, its value to society, and its potential. It also give us an invaluable opportunity to inform non-railroad workers about the situation that we face on the job every day.

The public generally has no idea what goes on daily on America’s railroads. At this conference, we plan to talk about crew fatigue, single employee train crews, excessively long and heavy trains, draconian availability policies, short staffing, limited time off work and other concerns. These issues are of concern not just to railroaders, but are of concern to environmentalists, the community at large and society in general. Non-railroaders in attendance at the conference will come away with a deeper understanding of our workplace and a greater appreciation of the issues facing us. They will without a doubt, become valuable allies in our future fights with the rail carriers.

By Anonymous - Wobblyball, November 15, 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.

EUC Wobblyball encounters a critic of green syndicalism within the environmental movement, now with speech bubbles for legibility (any resemblance to real organizations or movements with problematic-as-hell gender politics is purely intentional).