Green Syndicalism
Aiming to end exploitation of workers and secure ecological harmony green syndicalism is a form of worker-controlled unionism. Jeff Shantz writes:
Green syndicalism highlights certain points of similarity between anarcho-syndicalism (revolutionary unionism) and radical ecology. These include, but are by no means limited to, decentralization, regionalism, direct action, autonomy, pluralism and federation."[1]
Green syndicalism is inspired by Judi Bari's efforts to organize timber workers and environmentalists in northern California in the 1980s and 1990s, under a coalition between the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Earth First!. The IWW in 1991 voted to change its preamble for the first time since 1908, in order to include the words "and live in harmony with the earth." According to Shantz, "These seven words present a significant shift in strategy regarding industrial unionism and considerations of what is to be meant by work."[2]
Earlier inspirations include the 1970s' Italian workerist group Porto Marghera which campaigned for the abolition of "noxious," or ecologically destructive work, the Australian construction workers' 1970s "green bans" that shut down over $4 billion worth of infrastructure projects, and the 1980s Lucas Aerospace workers' strike that advocated, in part, building solar panels instead of nuclear weapons.[3]
A global movement overlapping with green syndicalism is La Via Campesina, a decentralized network of an estimated 200 million small farmers committed to sustainable food production. The ultimate strategy of green syndicalism involves taking over the means of production in order to deindustrialize society, shorten the workweek, and build a post-capitalist economy that allows humans to live in harmony with their environment.
Green syndicalism emerges from a realization that blockades and lockdowns will not be sufficient to halt ecological destruction. As Bari wrote in her essay "Revolutionary Ecology," "It is only when the factory workers refuse to make the stuff, it is only when the loggers refuse to cut the ancient trees, that we can ever hope for real and lasting change."[4]
- ↑ Jeff Shantz, "Green Syndicalism: An Alternative Red-Green Vision," 4 July 2017, Anarchist Library, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jeff-shantz-green-syndicalism.
- ↑ Shantz, "Green Syndicalism."
- ↑ Steve Ongerth, "Precarity and Green Unionism," New Politics, Winter 2022, https://newpol.org/issue_post/precarity-and-green-unionism/. See also: https://libcom.org/files/green-bans-worker-control-haskell1977.pdf. https://libcom.org/history/1976-the-fight-for-useful-work-at-lucas-aerospace. https://roarmag.org/essays/workerist-environmentalism/
- ↑ Judi Bari, "Revolutionary Ecology," originally published in 1995, http://www.judibari.org/revolutionary-ecology.html.
