Working-Class Ecology and Union Politics: a Conceptual Topology

This paper argues that Environmental Labour Studies may benefit from incorporating the perspective of environmental justice. We offer a theorization of working-class ecology as the place where working-class communities live and work, being typically affected by environmental injustice, and of working-class environmentalism as those forms of activism that link labour and environmental struggles around the primacy of reproduction. The paper’s theoretical section draws on a social ethnography of working-class ecology in the case of Taranto, a mono-industrial town in southern Italy, which is experiencing a severe environmental and public-health crisis. We show how environmental justice activism since the early 2000s has allowed the re-framing of union politics along new ways of politicizing the local economy. We conclude by offering a conceptual topology of working-class ecology, which situates different labour organizations (confederal, social/community, and rank-and-file unions) according to their positioning in respect to environmental justice.

Barca, S., & Leonardi, E. (2018). Working-class ecology and union politics: a conceptual topology. Globalizations, 15(4), 487-503.

Cover: via: https://www.iclcit.org/organising-green-workers/ “Our comrades from FAU have been busy for quite some time organising workers in the “green industry” (agriculture, horticulture, landscaping, gardening, forest management, environment and the like) in the Green Trades Initiative (IGG, more info in the following link, in German: https://gruene-gewerke.fau.org/). The IGG advocates for the improvement of working and living conditions in these areas, fight for occupational safety and health, aim to stand up for one another, and work together to address the concerns, demands, and struggles of every individual.”