Day: 13 December 2021

The ecosocial crisis has and will have a direct and profound in the working and living conditions of the working class. We are in a ecosocial crossroads, changes are not an option but a fact, and now we have the challenge to dispute the direction of these changes: a direction lead by the green capitalism or ecofascism that will plunder, impoverish and abandon the working class and territories; or a direction represented by an ecosocialist alternative that will be built from and for the working people and the territories.

The unions work hand by hand with many working people, in concrete day-to-day struggles. These struggles as well as changing the working and living conditions of the working class, they also change the working people ourselves ideologically and in terms of self-consciousness and empowerment. This places us in front of the commitment to confront the hegemonic discourse of green capitalism and that of pedagogy and ideological struggle in favor of an ecosocialist alternative. But at the same time, it places us in a position of great potential.

This will not be a challenge without contradictions. Facing the ecosocial crisis will need a degrowth and a deep transformation in many productive sectors, a radical transformation of the productive and reproductive matrix of our societies and the global system. Unions (specially in the Global North) have historically linked our struggle to demands of the world of the employment linked to a welfare system associated with the hegemonic productive and reproductive system of the capitalism. A system that is ecologically unsustainable, and that is based on the exploitation and colonial plunder of bodies and territories crossed by different types of violence. A system we want to change. This will lead to the destruction of thousands of jobs (paradoxically, especially in unionized sectors), so we will have to face the contradiction between defending the working class interests and material living condition (immediate interests) and promoting the ecologically necessary transformation by creating disaffection to the current system (strategical interests). The energy transition, the transport transition, soil, agriculture, forestry, construction, all will require the creation of an enormous amount of jobs and public investment, which need to be planned as a social and political plan by and for the working class. Probably we need to rethink our historical claims. How can we face this contradiction? How do we face this challenge?

Furthermore, speaking of transforming the productive and reproductive matrix, should we think about articulating struggles beyond the sphere of employment? How to give value to works, activities and jobs that are essential for the maintenance of life and that are now undervalued? Which kind of alliances do we need to do so?

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Answering: Who?

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Organized by: Global Climate Jobs, LAB Sindikatua, ESK Sindikatua and STEILAS

Special guests: Iñigo Antepara, Endika Pérez, Iratxe Delgado, Jonathan Neale, Leonor Canadas

“System change, not climate change” is not a request we make to the current institutions. It is our responsibility to make it happen. To achieve this requires that we be coordinated globally and regionally, that we define strategies and act together, and create spaces where we can build peoples’ power and grow the movement. The Glasgow Agreement, a space for strategy and coordination for the climate justice movement, is currently experimenting with different tactics on how we can change the system.

In this session we will dive into different tactics of global actions used around the world – from caravans to global civil disobedience action weeks. We will analyse together what impact can they achieve in society and inside the movement, at local level and global level. We will also debate what can be the right and wrong context to use each of them. We aim to come together with answers for: I) in what different ways can we create coordinated disruption; ii) for each different situation, what tactics could be the most impactful.

Join us!

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Answering: How?

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Organized by: Climáximo and MOCICC Peru

Special guests: António Zambrano, Mariana Rodrigues

Ecosocialists and ecofeminists talk about what is wrong with the world of capitalism, and about the different world we want to build. But, just as important, we talk concretely about struggles to change the world in the here and now, because we are part of those struggles. We will have speakers from the Global South and the Global North will talk, from trade unions and from social movements. But there will be just as much space for everyone to discuss in breakout groups what they have learned from their own struggles, the good, the bad and the exciting.

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Answering: How?

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Special guests: Dani Marie, Jonathan Neale, Josua Mata, Nancy Lindisfarne, Rima Majed, Tabitha Spence.

We want to build ecosocialism. We want to build ecosocialism during our lifetime, because otherwise capitalism is pushing us to runaway climate crisis. So, how do we do it?

Some of us use the tools of the system, like courts, elections and other tools to put pressure on decision-making structures. Some of us ignore the system and build alternatives outside or at the margins of it, with experiments on self-management, intentional communities and alternative ways of producing. Some of us are directly confronting the system as a whole, aiming at a ruptural path. And all of us spend a lot of time telling to the others why our transformative strategy is the right one.

This interactive session aims at recognizing how strategies other than ours can be beneficial to our strategy while still acknowledging their risks and limits.

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Answering: How?

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Organized by: Climáximo and ULEX Project

Special guests: Alexandre Castro, G, João Camargo, Sara Conchita