Green Syndicalism: An Alternative Red/Green Vision

Introduction

xxi Introduction Green Syndicalism, Ecology, and Labor Contemporary alternative globalization networks are not reflective of a coherent movement and are produced by and productive of a variety of social, political, cultural, and geographic fault lines and ruptures. These networks are at times overlapping, at times conflicted, often resonant, and sometimes competing (Williams 2010). The character of global capitalist expansion has convinced social movement activists and theorists alike of the strategic importance of alliances to counter the hegemony of capital. Countermovements against the superimposition of the capitalist market must now attend to the difficult tasks of developing their strength among disparate minorities of the population that when taken together form a majority increasingly excluded by the new global hegemony. Rob Walker (1994, 699) speaks of the crucial need for researchers to develop some insights regarding what he calls a “politics of connections.” Walker is drawn to suggest as follows: “Exactly what a politics of connection would look like is not clear. Whatever the rhetorical and tactical appeal of a women’s movement , or an environmental movement, in the singular, it is an appeal that cannot disguise the differences and even intolerances among such movements.” These concerns over connections and commonality across sectoral boundaries have become more pressing (with attempts still faltering) in the twenty-first century period of alternative globalization. At the same time divisions and divergences remain (Williams 2010). Particularly troubling and persistent have been tensions between more xxii • Introduction privileged actors, who operate globally (such as “middle-class” activists and of professionals in nongovernmental organizations or NGOs) and the economically rooted, less mobile rank-and-file members of the working classes who tend not to be directly connected globally. The professionals take part in mass mobilizations or “activist tourism,” while blue-collar working-class members struggle to get their own unions involved in direct action campaigns organized outside of their local communities. Even getting buses to travel to demonstrations can be a point of struggle and conflict within working-class organizations (Shantz 2010). Despite the great interest generated by the global justice movements within academic as well as various community circles, and the growth of research and writing on the new global movements, there remain substantial gaps in understanding the particular practices , ideas, and, especially, places and sites of movement development and interaction (Williams 2011). The growing resistance to neoliberal capitalism is not adequately reflected in popular academic notions of global civil society. As well, there have been relatively few works that examine the more durable institutions, what I prefer to call infrastructures of resistance, created and maintained within the movements that might sustain them in moving from ephemeral, reactive mobilization to longer-term struggle and social transformation (Shantz 2010). Perhaps nowhere has the volatility of social movement relations erupted more explosively in recent years than in those interactions between labor movement and radical ecology activists. Rather than reflecting positions of disinterest regarding one another, certain forms of confrontation, such as the ramming of fishing vessels or driving logging trucks through demonstrations on timber roads, do represent serious acts of hostility. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the situation was so conflictual that Laurie Adkin (1992a, 145) could accurately state that many activists had become uncompromisingly aggressive toward their counterparts as “fixed stereotypes of both subject positions have developed, with environmentalists depicting workers as lumpen mercenaries, and workers depicting environmentalists as econuts .” At that time many prominent environmentalists argued that Introduction • xxiii there exists a fundamental opposition of positions between radical ecology and workers’ movements (see Bahro 1984; Bookchin 1980, 1987; Foreman 1991; Jensen 2006; Watson 1994, 2005; Zerzan 2005, 2008a, 2008b). In the present period, one of the key issues facing social organizing , particularly within working class movements, is the relationship between direct action and mediated political action (Williams 2011). In the twenty-first century, in the context of alternative globalization movements, there has developed a serious, and potentially fatal, rift between advocates of direct action and proponents of representational approaches. This rift has been expressed debates over black blocs, property destruction, and militance during alternative globalization demonstrations in which union officials have sided with authorities in opposing direct action (Shantz 2010). This sense of opposition has presented ongoing dilemmas for those seeking to find solidarity among environmental justice and social justice movements. It has effectively frustrated the ongoing efforts of environmental and labor activists alike to develop shared organizations , resources, and perspectives that might...