International Seminar on Energy, Work, Crisis and Resistance

A three day international seminar/workshop bringing together people from different worker organizations within different branches of the energy sector and energy intensive industries, as well as analysts on these themes, to discuss the role that workers can play in building a new global energy system in the context of the current worldwide economic-financial and, increasingly, political crisis. The event seeks to contribute to an ongoing long-term discussion process about how such a transition to new energy system can be built in such a way as to benefit workers, and to be part of a wider process of building collective solidarity, resistance and alternative social and economic relations, in order to find an emancipatory way out of the multiple crises. The seminar will seek to strengthen a common analytical framework amongst participants and lay the basis for a process of long term collaboration between them.

This seminar is the first of what is hoped will be a series of thematic preparatory events along the road towards organizing a bigger and more complex global meeting, entitled Another Energy is Possible!. This large international event, which will take place in the second half of 2011, aims to make a significant global contribution towards grassroots-led efforts in relation to energy and climate change, as part of a wider process of grassroots-led emancipatory social, political and economic transformation in the face of the world-wide economic-financial (and increasingly political) crisis.

 

This global process is being organized in order for grassroots social and environmental organizations to strengthen their abilities to collectively contribute towards shaping and leading the changes in the global energy system which are currently underway, and which will without doubt accelerate and intensify in the coming years.

The way in which the world’s energy system evolves in the years ahead will be intimately intertwined with different possible ways out of the world economic-financial (and increasingly also political) crisis. Changes within the energy sector are speeding up dramatically. A combination of ecological, political, economic and financial factors are converging to ensure that energy production and consumption are set to become central to global political, economic and financial dynamics. This is true of energy in general and the globally expanding renewable energy sector in particular.

Energy is simultaneously one of the key means of production in the world-economy and also one of the key means of sustaining life. This means that it is also a site of important struggles and inequalities. As the world’s energy system is on the verge of far reaching change, it becomes up for grabs. As the process of change, which is still in its very early stages, is speeding up and intensifying, so too a struggle for who controls the sector and for what purposes energy is used is also intensifying. Tensions that have been brewing over many years are now exploding to the centre stage. As such, it is poised to be at the heart of the next round of global class struggle.
 
However, class struggle is inherently uncertain, and this  means that the transition process itself is actually a process of great uncertainty. Much uncertainty hinges on the question of who will bring the transition about, for what purposes and whose benefits.  These conflicts are structural. They exist, and cannot be wished away.  All of this means that now is crucial moment of collective realignment of forces. Consequently, there is a great urgency for making informed decisions as to with whom to align and on what basis.

In particular, it is becoming urgent that we are able to find ways of building a long term process of overcoming and avoiding three important lines of hierarchy and division which already exist and which have the potential to get much worse as the energy system undergoes far reaching changes in the coming years. These are: the relation between rural and urban communities and workers; the relation between workers in the “dirty” and “clean” energy sectors, and; the relation between communities and workers in energy producing regions (and countries) and energy consuming ones.

The need for rapid and far reaching reductions in CO2 emissions is beyond question. The key question people are now faced with is how to bring about these changes in such a way that affected communities and workers lead the discussion. A crucial issue here concerns the meaning of “clean energy”, and the extent to which it is possible, or not, to “clean up” existing “dirty” energy and energy intensive industries. To the extent that such a process is possible, it will be important that it is brought about in such a way that is empowering for affected workers and communities (who, after all, are the ones who know the industries better than anyone else), rather than at their expense. And, to the extent that “clean up” is not possible, dislocated workers and communities will need to protect themselves and struggle for opportunities to create alternative forms of livelihoods.

The other side of the energy/climate crisis, peak oil, starkly poses the issue of scarcity and the need for developing ways to collectively manage it in a fair manner. This will be vital if we are to avoid very destructive power struggles and exacerbating already existing growing inequalities (especially in relation to class, race, gender and age) and a forced imposition of austerity measures on people. Solutions must actively strive to avoid pitting different workers, both waged and unwaged, in different regions of the world, against one another, so as to ensure that capital pays the costs, not labour.

Any transition to a new energy system must not be carried out at the expense of workers, either waged and unwaged (nor their dependents). This includes workers in the existing, predominantly fossil fuel and nuclear, energy sectors; workers in energy intensive sectors, and; workers in the new emerging renewable energy sectors.

On the one hand there is a need to ensure that those currently dependent on “dirty” energy sectors, as well as energy intensive industries, are not left without livelihood. Workers in these sectors have many decades, or at times over a century, of organizational experience, and it is important that their experience, skills and knowledge are valued and made use of in the transition process. On the other hand, as the new renewable energy sector expands and includes ever greater numbers of workers throughout the world, it will be important to ensure that the transition is not carried out at their expense either. In particular, there is the danger that workers in the new energy sectors will be forced to produce the necessary infrastructure and fuel-stocks very rapidly and under great pressure (as is already happening, especially in relation to agrofuels that are produced for the world-market). Workers throughout this branch of the sector are very quickly realizing that they have to organize quickly and effectively in order to avoid this outcome. There is also the question of energy intensive industries, such as the automobile sector, tourism or export industries, many of which are in fact bearing the brunt of the current economic-financial crisis, and are at the forefront of worker resistance.

A key question resulting from all of this is how workers in the different branches of the sector (and energy intensive industries) might be able to avoid that they are pitted against one another in competition, which would almost certainly result in an incredibly destructive downward leveling relationship.  Instead, it will be important that workers across the different branches are able to build a process based in solidarity and mutual support of one another’s struggles which is aimed at upward leveling between them.

Finally, it will also be important to develop long term collaboration and cooperation projects and initiatives in non-commercial renewable energy technology transfer, open source technology research, education, training and grassroots exchanges. For this to happen, two factors are key: building up our collective skills and capacities in these technologies, and also strengthening collective capacity to raise funds, to a far greater level than exists now. This is particularly relevant to energy sector workers in the fossil and nuclear industries, as well as workers in energy intensive industries, whose livelihoods may be directly threatened by a transition to a new energy system.

•    Establish contacts between worker organizations in different branches of the energy and energy intensive sectors from around the world in order to contribute towards a process of solidary, upward leveling, relationships between workers in different branches and avoiding downward leveling competition between them.
•    Develop a common analysis of the global crises and evolving world-wide energy sector. This includes sharing information and analysis about local and global workers’ interventions and struggles in specific branches of the sector, as well as discussion about short and long term strategies for struggle.
•    Contributing to a discussion about how and why energy is produced, distributed and consumed,  as part of a wider discussion of how and why society’s  wealth is produced, distributed and consumed. Stimulate ideas about how these processes can come under some form of collective control in order to satisfy human and ecological needs rather than the needs of the profit-driven world market.
•    Laying the basis for possible collaboration amongst participants in the future. This includes discussing current interventions and proposals for future globally orientated interventions, initiatives and projects. This may be in relation to activities which take place within the framework of the international event Another Energy is Possible!, described above, or which take place outside of this dynamic.

The main group of participants will be representatives from organizations of workers (especially trade unions or their international federations) whose structural location means that they have a key role to play in any shift towards a new energy system, but whose livelihoods and conditions of work are potentially also at great risk from such a transformation. This includes energy sector workers from the existing energy sector, as well as workers in the energy intensive sectors. On the other hand, it also includes workers in the new renewable energy sector.  A second group of participants will be researchers and analysts whose work is focused on strategic questions around crisis and class struggle, production and social reproduction. The third group of participants will be people with an accumulated expertise in renewable energy technologies (technical, political, financial, organizational, etc), and who are dedicating their knowledge to expanding the sector on non-commercial lines,  and based on open source technology research that is aimed to benefit workers and communities. The aim is to connect these people with workers in the energy and energy intensive sectors in order to lay the basis for a rapid, organized, planned and coordinated intervention of non-commercial renewable energy technology transfer in which workers play a key and positive role.

In addition to participants who will travel from other countries, there will be a small number of people invited from Graz, and its surroundings, who are working on energy related struggles. The idea behind this is for the meeting to also serve to train up some local activists and to allow them to situate their local struggles within a wider global context, and with a particular focus on labour in the energy and energy intensive industries.