Abramsky, Kolya (UK) has been involved for over a decade in international anticapitalist organizing. Originally from the UK, he has lived in a number of different countries in Europe, and also in the USA. His work has included educational work, international mobilizations, publications and translations. His work currently focuses on energy related struggles. He is coordinating preparations for a global conference, Another Energy is Possible, of which this seminar is a preparatory event. He has a range of publications, including the forthcoming book Sparking a World-wide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Postpetrol World. In 2008-2009 he was a visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Science, Technology and Society, in Graz. In 2006 he was coordinator of the World Wind Energy Institute, an international effort in renewable energy education.
Alvarez Roa, Paula (Colombia) is a political scientist by profession. She has wide ranging experience working with social organizations in the area of public environmental and rural policy. She is an expert on agrofuels in Colombia. She is linked to Semillas [English: Seeds] Group, a Colombian environmental Non-Governmental Organization. Semillas strives to bring about a more just, inclusive and equitable society, in which the collective rights of peasant, Afrocolombian and Indigenous communities and organizations are respected on the basis of recognition of their territory, autonomy and traditional knowledge, and in their ability to consolidate their own sustainable living alternatives.
She is a full time advisor to workers who cut sugar cane for ethanol production. Together with these workers she carried out a study entitled the Deuda social y ambiental del negocio de la caña de azúcar en Colombia [The social and environmental debt of Colombia’s Sugar Cane Business]. The study exposes the enormous subsidies that the agribusiness receives, at the expense of the workers’ precarious labour conditions in the Cooperativas de Trabajo Asociado [Associated Work Cooperatives]; Faced with this realitiy, an important strike took place in 2008. It involved about 32,000 sugar cane workers and lasted two and a half months.
Their struggle was to obtain better wages and payment conditions and to be directly contracted through the standard labour contract. The fact that industry is able to reap ever greater economic benefits from the sector, benefiting Colombian policy to promote agrofuels with the aid of enormous subsidies and tax exemptions, has meant that the companies exert a greater exploitation of the labour force with each day that passes. Workers are subjected to a working day of more than 14 hours per day, with a salary of under $US 200. This is contributing to reducing the costs of ethanol production to the lowest levels possible, in order for Colombian companies to compete in the international market.
Bleakney, Dave (Canada) is a postal worker who has served various positions at the local level as an organizer and advocate. For the past 13 years he has been a national union representative for education in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers –Syndicate et Travailleurs des Travailleuses des de Postes, a national Union representing 55,000 workers in postal and postal related services including transport.
Caffentzis, George (USA) is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective and a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine (USA). He is the author of many articles on energy and work. He is the co-editor of "Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War 1973-1992" (Autonomedia, 1993) and author of "No Blood for Oil!" (an e-book available at
www.radicalpolytics.org).
De Angelis, Massimo (UK/Italy), professor of Political Economy and Development, School of Humanity and Social Sciences, University of East London, editor of The Commoner-A Web Journal for Other Values (
http://commoner.org.uk) and author of The Beginnning of History – Value Struggles and Global Capital, as well as Keynesianism, Social Movements and Political Economy. The previous issue of The Commoner was devoted to the energy crisis. He is currently working on a book about capitalist crisis, social movements and the commons, in which the energy/climate crisis will also figure prominently. (
http://www.uel.ac.uk/hss/staff/massimo-de-angelis/index.htm )
Dougan, Tam (UK) is the co-ordinator of NATTA, the UK based independent 'Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment', which produces a bimonthly newsletter, Renew, on renewable energy developments and policies. Previously she was part of the editorial collective of Undercurrents, the UK pioneering 'radical technology' magazine of the late 1970s/early1980s. Subsequently, she studied at Dartington College of Art, Totnes, before joining the Open University as a research assistant in the Energy and Environment Research Unit, where she worked until 2009, when she retired to run NATTA.
Elliott, David (UK) a physics BSc, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Technology Policy at the Open University and until recently was co-director of the OU Energy and Environment Research Unit (EERU). He worked initially with the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell and then for the Central Electricity Generating Board in Bristol, before moving, in the early 1970's, to the Open University, where he developed courses on technological innovation, focusing in particular on renewable energy technology. He is now retired but has been made an Emeritus Professor and continues to work in the field: current interests include the development of renewables in Central and Eastern Europe and the plans for creating an EU-wide 'supergrid' power transmission network.
He is co-chair of the policy committee of the World Renewable Energy Congress and has be involved with a range of submissions to government bodies. He served for a period on the Energy Research Review Group set up by the government’s Chief Scientific Advisor.
Prof. Elliott has written extensively on renewable energy policy, including 12 books more than 40 reports and over 50 academic journal papers. He is editor of Palgrave Macmillan's Energy, Climate and Environment monograph series, which includes 'Nuclear or Not?' a critical look at nuclear power, and 'Sustainable Energy' a strategic review of renewable energy opportunities and problems. He is also editor the long established journal, Renew, parts of which can be accessed at
http:/www.natta-renew.org
Prof Elliott was a founder of SERA, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association, and has worked with many trade union and labour movement groups over the years , including on a range of 'Workers Alernative Plans' for socially useful products, most notaby the Lucas Aerospace workers plan in the 1970's . More recently he has linked up with the Campaign against Climate Change TU group.
Gina, Cedric (South Africa). President of National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) since October 2008. He was the 2nd Deputy President since 2004. Numsa is a union that was formed in 1987 when 7 unions in the metal and autosector joined together to form one union. NUMSA is a very influential union in the socio-political sphere in South Africa. The union has taken a resolution on promoting green jobs as part of responding to challenges of climate change. It is a new resolution for NUMSA, and the union still need a lot of information on these themes. We have noted that our country, South Africa, is preparing what others are calling a progressive position for the Copenhagen climate talks. Cedric Gina was born in 1971. He lives in KwaZulu Natal where he works for BHP Billiton Aluminium as an operator.
http://www.numsa.org.za/ González, Erika (Spain) has a degree in Biology. She is a researcher in the Observatory of Multinationals in Latin America (OMAL) - Association Peace with Dignity. She is coauthor of the following books: "La energía que apaga Colombia. Los impactos de las inversiones de Repsol y Unión Fenosa" [The Energy That Switches Off Colombia: The Impacts of Investments by Repsol and Union FENOSA] (Icaria, 2007), the "Atlas de la energía en América Latina y Caribe" [Energy Atlas for Latin America and the Caribbean] (Peace with Dignity, 2008) and the book "El negocio de la responsabilidad. Crítica de la responsabilidad social corporativa de las empresas multinacionales" [The Business of Responsability: A Critique of Corporate Social Responsibility in Multinacional Companies] (Icaria 2009). OMAL is a project of the Association Peace With Dignity. Its purpose is to denounce the social, environmental and cultural impacts of the presence of Spanish transnational companies in Latin America. OMAL carries out on the ground research, writes reports, and has a public access data base of articles and news items on its website. It also participates in fora, meetings, public talks and related campaigns in order to contribute critical analysis of multinational companies. One of its major areas of work is in field of energy. It is currently focusing its efforts on critiquing the Corporate Social Responsibility model, which is of great importance in the energy sector, amongst other sectors. (
http://www.omal.info)
Hall, David (UK) is director of Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), and is responsible for its work. He specializes in water, energy and healthcare, and the design and maintenance of the PSIRU database and website. Before joining PSIRU he worked at the Public Services Privatisation Research Unit, which developed a database on privatization for the UK trade unions. He had previously worked for trade union research units, and as a lecturer in higher education. He has written books on public expenditure and labor law. Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) researches the privatization and restructuring of public services around the world, with special focus on water, energy, waste management, and healthcare. It produces reports and maintains an extensive database on the multinational companies involved. This core database is financed by Public Services International (PSI), the global confederation of public service trade unions. (
http://www.psiru.org)
Keefer, Tom (Canada) is PhD candidate in Political Science at York University where he is researching the political economy of oil and energy. He is an editor of the
anti-capitalist journal Upping the Anti <
www.uppingtheanti.org> and is also active in prison solidarity organizing and support for indigenous struggles in Southern Ontario.
Kühberger, Leo (Austria) is PhD candidate in History at the University of Graz. He has been active in local and global struggles the last years. He is involved in the free radio movement, and now working with the Educational Organisation of the Comunist Party in Graz.
Lewis, Simon (UK), School of Geography, Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds. Climate scientist specialized in African tropical forests. For many years he has been active in social and ecological struggles in the UK and internationally. He is currently active the UK Climate Camp movement, and in the global grassroots Climate Justice mobilizations around the Copenhagen COP 15 Summit.
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/s.lewis/ Lohmann , Larry (UK) works with The Corner House, a UK-based camapaigning and research organization that aims to support democratic and community movements for environmental and social justice. His books include Pulping the South: Industrial Tree Plantations in the Global Paper Economy (with Ricardo Carrere) (Zed, 1996) and the edited volume Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatization and Power (Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 2006). He is a founding member of the Durban Group for Climate Justice and his articles have appeared in journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society; Asian Survey; Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars; Carbon & Climate Law Review; Development; International Journal of Environment and Pollution; New Scientist; Race & Class and Science as Culture. www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate
Maltby, Edward (UK) is a member of the steering committee of Workers' Climate Action and was centrally involved in the campaign against the closure of the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight, which saw an intervention by WCA activists spark a workers' occupation of the plant. Workers' Climate Action is a campaign for a working-class movement against climate change. In addition to its activity around the Vestas plant, WCA activists have been active in campaigns around disputes at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, strikes and disputes at coal-fired power stations, and the Climate Camp movement. www.workersclimateaction.co.uk
Margaris, Ioannis (Greece) received Dipl. Eng. Degree and Master degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Power Systems, from the National Technical University of Athens, in 2006. He is currently pursuing his PhD thesis at National Technical University of Athens, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests are dynamic modeling and control of wind turbines and wind farms, power electronics, FRT, power system integration of wind power. During 2008-2009 he was a visiting PhD student for a six month period at Risø National Laboratory in Roskilde, Denmark. He has been a member of several anticapitalist networks and taken part in meetings regarding climate change, environmental issues and radical ecology. He is member of a group working in solidarity with the Zapatistas movement in Mexico. He is also member of the ecosocialist network - Greek section. He is currently working on issues relating to collective ownership of renewable energy focusing on wind turbine technology
de Marcellus, Olivier (Switzerland) After some twenty years campaigning against nuclear power, he has been active in organising grass-roots anti-globalisation networks since 1996, in particular with the Peoples' Global Action network. On the local level in Geneva he has been involved in organising against WTO summits and mini-ministerials with the Forum Social Lemanique. Since 2008, he has been active in Climat Justice Sociale, a local coordination of networks, groups and political parties mobilising on energy and climate issues during the run-up to Copenhagen. He was a coordinator for the Trade to Climate Caravan which traveled last December through France, Belgium and Germany from the WTO summit to the COP15, with 50 representatives of social movements of the South.
Neale, Jonathan (UK) has been international secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change (UK) for six years. He has also been part of the Campaign's trade union group, and this year around the Vestas occupation and edited the report One Million Climate Jobs Now for a coalition of British unions and climate organisations. Jonathan has been a union activist for many years, active in the Socialist Workers Party, the Genoa Social Forum, and the European Social Forum. He teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University, and has written novels, plays and nonfiction for adults and children, including You Are G8, We Are 6 Billion; A People's History of the Vietnam War; and Stop Global Warming, Change the World. The Campaign against Climate Change has been organising national climate demos and encouraging global demos since 2004. The trade union group of the campaign has held two conferences of 200 to 300, has a mailing list of 600, and five national unions affiliated. Last year they began a campaign to force the government to create a million climate jobs.
Pelosi, Alice (Italy) Recent graduate in International Relations from the University of Bologna. Her thesis is on Rural Development Projects in Colombia from 1945 to the present. The work presents a critical view of the idea of "development" that institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund created and still promote; as a case study was on Catatumbo, Colombia, about the USAID "alternative rural development project" of oil palm, discussing the pauperization of peasants, the connection to the global market which is the problem not the solution, the recent growth of violence related to the possession of land, the environmental damage are at the core of capitalism. violence, poverty, and loss of sovereignty on resources, are not "incidents" on the shining road to development; but represent the capitalist development itself.
Pulecio, Freddy (Colombian, living in Belgium) Member of the International Comission of USO, the petrol workers union in Colombia. He has also spent time in the Faja del Orinoco region of Venezuela, where he was an international delegate to IEELTALC, an organization of energy sector workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, and which USO is a member of.
In USO’s International Commission he is working to strengthen the relations between petrol workers in two important centers: on the consumption side, Antwerp, which is Europe’s main petrochemical port, and on the supply side, the Andean Amazon region, which is a producer of fossil fuels. Of particular importance is the Faja del Orinoco in Venezuela. This is one of the major sources of petrol in the world at the current moment in history. The work gives great importance to the issue of energy and security, themes which are of vital importance for both the South and the North.
http://www.usofrenteobrero.org,
http://www.ieetalc.orgRamirez, Franciso (Colombia) Sintraminercol: Union of Workers in the National Mining Company, Minercol Ltd) Sintraminercol union is affiliated to Funtraenergetica, a federation of workers in the mining, energy, metal, chemical and sharpeners sectors which includes 35,000 affiliates throughout the country. It is also affiliated to the FENASINTRAP, the federation of skilled and public sector workers. From its establishment in June 1991, Sintraminercol has waged confrontational struggle against corruption in the high level management of Minercol Ltd. This company, in collusion with representatives of large national and multinational companies, has looted Colombia’s mineral resources.
In order to confront this situation, we went about structuring an organization which has managed to assert leadership, both in its subsections and the Federations it is part of, amongst 98% of their affiliates. It has produced research about the role of multinationals in the armed conflict, worked with human rights and environmental organizations throughout Colombia and the world, and developed technical, legal and environmental assistance projects aimed at small gold producers.
Additionally, we have initiated legal actions against the Mining Code, we have pursued civil actions in the United States against multinational companies there which are responsible for serious human and labour rights violations. Our union has also combated acts of corruption such as the contracting elected officials of lawyers from multinationals to give legal advice and draw up the regulations in relation to mining law. An important example of this is Project Mining Code, both from 1996 and the current Mining Code, Law 685 from 2001.
Through our work with communities we have undertaken two projects with small miners located in the south of Bolivar. We have recently started working with Afrodescendent communities from la Guajira, who were displaced by the US company Exxon and the British company Angloamerican. We also work with Wayuu communities who have suffered repression contracted by coal mining multinationals; as well as with indigenous communities from the Valle del Cauca, Cauca, and the Choco, as well as in the Colombian Amazon. Our union branch in Marmato, in the department of Caldas, has started working with small and medium scale gold miners. These miners have been swindled by north American companies. Together with social organizations, we are coordinating research and follow up work on the situation of afrodescendent and indigenous communities in Choco, a zone in Colombia’s pacific region. For the last 10 years we have advised workers from the Cerrejon Mining Complex in Guajira and the Drummond complex in Cesar. We work involves contact with unions and NGOS from Latin America, Canada, USA, Spain, France, England, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Australia and South Africa.
de Rijk, Peer (Netherlands) Started working on nuclear energy issues in 1980 as a volunteer activist in several small grassroot groups. 1990 - 1996 energy campaigner at Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) 1997 to 2000 nuclear energy campaigner for WISE, 2000 – executive director of WISE. World Information Service on Energy (coordination office in Netherlands) (WISE), a global network of grassroots initiatives and action groups against nuclear energy. It was founded in 1978 and since then has acted as an information switchboard. Its main aim is to support and empower grassroots initiatives all over the globe and help them to effectively fight nuclear power. This is mainly done through gathering, analyzing and distributing useful information. WISE has published the Nuclear Monitor 20 times a year since 1978.
Sikhwa, Jung (South Korea) 46 years old. Currently an auto component part worker, at a factory belonging to the Hyundai-Kia group. Former vice president of KMWF(U) / former member of central commite of DLP( Democratic Labor Party). The Korean Metal Worker's Union, KMWU, is an affiliate of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, famous for its militancy and class struggle in defence of the interests of the Korean working class. It has 150,000, including - Hyundai, Kia automobil union and shipbuilding union, etc. Fierce struggles took place between Ssangyoung auto workers, scabs, and police for 77 days, as management laid off 970 auto workers. The struggle ended in defeat of workers, but it is not over yet, the struggle is still going on.
Tsaglioti, Fotini (Greece) is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the National Technical University of Athens. Her work focuses on historical patterns of regulation/automation that have been expansively used in non-renewable (steam) and renewable (wind) modes of energy production in historical capitalism. (coauthoring presentation with Aristotle Tympas.)
Tympas, Aristotle (Greece) works as assistant professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he teaches courses in the History of Technology and in Science, Technology and Society. He specializes in the history of recent technology (energy, computing/telecommunications, biotechnology). (coauthoring presentation with Fotini Tsaglioti, but will not attend seminar in person.)
Velegrakis, Giorgos (Greece) Electrical and Computer Engineer at the National Technical University of Athens, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He specializes in the field of Energy Systems (both production and distribution). Currently a post-graduate student in the field of "Environment and Developmnet Policies". He has developed some small works on the field of Energy Microgrids (mostly on the social and economic basis). His current work, the final diploma, is on "Environmental and urban movements in the region of Attica, Greece". It is a study on contemporary "green" and urban movements in Attica (the metropolitan region of Athens). He is a member of the Environmental network of SYRIZA - a left coalition - party of approximately 5% - and works in different "small" urban movements is Athens.
Wahl, Asbjorn (Norway), Adviser at the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees. He is also the national co-ordinator of the broad Campaign for the Welfare State (For velferdsstaten) in Norway, who he will represent in the seminar . Trained in history and sociology, he has many years of experience in the trade union movement, including the Norwegian Union of Railwaymen and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) in London , at whose head office he worked for some years in the 1990s. He is currently Vice President of the ITF Road Transport Workers' Section. Asbjørn Wahl was also a founding member of Attac Norway and he is a member of the Co-ordinating Committees of Forum Social Europe (an informal trade union network). He has published a number of articles on politics, social and labour questions in magazines and books both in Norway and internationally.
Wolf, Winfried (Germany) is an economist, specialist on transport and editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal "Lunapark21". He was member of the German Parliament from 1994 to 2002. He is a member in the scientific board of Attac. His books on railway are considered as standard works.
