Tacoma IWW Organizing Tips - #9 Green Unionism
Like it or not, we humans are dependant upon the environment for our survival. Fact is capitalism has been the most harmful human activity to the environment in history.. Fact is we don't even know all the harmful effects of capitalist industry of 100 years ago or more. That fact can be seen in the reality of all that was buried and the long term process of that reaching groundwater or rivers and oceans. As capitalist industry developed it increased known and unknown threats to the environment at an ever inceasuing rate. The amount of harmful substances created by industry has increased, whereas it took 50 years to produce the same amount that later it took 10 years to produce, today we produce that same amount in less than a year. And this will only increase.
Tens of thousands of new chemicals are produced every year and most of the testing of harmful effects is done by the same compnies that profit from their production. Given all that we do know and realizing that all we don't know about the harm capitalist industry has on the environment, and given the fact that capitalism's overwheming priority is profit at any expence, we should clearly understand that capitalism cannot be reformed to become truely green.
Much of the environmental movement, both liberal and radical reformists, is in fact so overwhemed by the problem that it cannot do much about it. It is having less of an effect than sticking its finger in a hole in a dike trying to hold back the water. It takes them so long to make any gains and in that time capitalist industry has increased the dangers many times over.
Given that capitalism and its multi-national corporations have made such gains in its goal of global conquest of everything that can be exploited for profit and its global corporate facism to protect its conquest, makes the idea of reform even less possible.
This reality is hard to comprehend. So some resort to creating fantasys such as small acts by eco-warriors or so-called primitivism. Small acts will never add up to enough to solve any problem. Primitivism, even if 3/4s of the polulation was removed, what was left would strip the natural world of everything that it could in order to survive and there would be wars to fight over what natural resources were left. So this fantasy would be even worse than capitalism in it impact on the environment. They point to early tribalism, but what they fail to understand is even early tribalism took hundreds of years to develop and cannot be created over night.
All of the above looks rather grim. But there is a real solution to the environmental problem. Industrial change at the point of where the problems are create, at the point of production. And who is at the point of production doing the producing? Not the capitalists, but we workers.
Workers have a direct interest in changing industry, not just because we depend upon the environment to survive, but also because more often than not, we are the first victims of hazardous production and more likely than not it is our communities that are first polluted.
We Wobblies have sought to organized at the point of production to gain greater control over our production with the goal of gaining complete control over our labor and thus end the exploitation of our class by capitalism. With greater control over our production should also come greater responsiblity for the effects of our production on other working people, on our communities and on our plant Mother Earth.
Much of the so-called environmental movement has been blinded by class bigotry that they have not realized that the solution to to the harms created by capitalist industry can only be changed by changing capitalist industry itself at the point of production. They are too sold-out to class privilege to be real environmentalists, for if they were not they would get into industry and organize!
I believe than good unionism should take on the environmental problems, often this is called health and safety, with the same amount of struggle as any other union issues. We workers understand our industries and we know how to change our production. We do need good information from research workers on the problems and on safe industrial methods and we can use our union power to create industrial change including using direct action and green strikes if need be.
Based upon the IWW idea of organizing industry for day-to-day struggles, and that should include environmental struggles, as a means of organizing the power of production to the point that the organized power of the working class is greater than the organized power of the capitalist class and then withhold our production from the capitalists and take control over our labor, we can create a new society based upon those that do the labor control their labor and take responsiblity for the effects of their labor and use production for the well-being of all, including Mother Earth.
The point of production is not the only place we working people need to organize. We need to organize in our working class communities. We need to educate, and organize through direct action to confront environmental problems and create alternatives to the madness of capitalist consumerism. We need to rebuild our communities based upon our real needs and not the profits of the capitalists.
The organized struggles at the point of production and within our communities should stand hand in hand in solidarity with each other.
The real solutions to the environmental problems does not exist within fantasys, it does not exist within small acts of destruction. It does not exist within any political system and reforming it. The real solutions can be found in true green unionism.
Green Unionism and Labor Solidarity
Green unionism will only work if we have real worker solidarity. When workers through green unionism act we need to stand with them in the same way we do with any other issue. This needs to be our committment and not fall for the tricks of so-called reformists of the system. Like so often happens their so-called reform only takes away from us and gives more power to the state that functions for the bosses. Like the EFCA that looks like it gives us something useful, card counts, it in facts includes federal mediation, which could lead to binding arbitration and that would strip workers of the right to vote on their contracts. Our working class environment struggle is to important to have such political tricks played on us. Thus our struggle needs to be base upon true Principles of Labor Solidarity. An example of what those principles could look like are below.
Principles of Labor Solidarity
Every worker on every job throughout the world has a right to organize with their fellow workers in their common interests.
Every worker throughout the world has a right to a living wage, safe and healthy working conditions, and health care coverage.
Every worker throughout the world has a right to labor free of harassment and discrimination based upon race, sex, nationality, religion, or any other form of bigotry.
Every worker throughout the world has the right to refuse to participate in or support wars where working people of one country are used to fight and kill working people of another country.
Every worker throughout the world has the right and responsibility to protect the environment of our world.
Every worker throughout the world has the right to withhold their labor as means to advance the above principles.
No worker throughout the world should ever be a scab.
A. No worker should ever cross the picket line of striking workers.
B. No worker should ever supply a shop on strike with goods or services.
C. No worker should ever handle scab goods.
D. No worker should ever consume scab goods.
E. No worker should ever do the work that striking workers would have done if they were not on strike.
F. Whenever workers are faced with government repression because of their right to organize and strike then all workers have the right to withhold their labor from the companies and industries profiting from that repression and a universal boycott should be in place on all goods going to and from that country, and on the companies profiting from the repression in that country.
Every strike or job action is a class action and should be supported by direct solidarity unless that action violates the Principles of Labor Solidarity.
Labor Solidarity needs to become a part of international working class culture and practiced on a daily basis.
Arthur J. Miller
Ship Builders IU 320--IWW
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.