Syndicalism, Ecology and Feminism
According to the late Wobbly organizer and Earth Firster, Judi Bari, a truly biocentric perspective must really challenge the system of industrial capitalism which is founded upon the ‘ownership’ of the earth. Industrial capitalism cannot be reformed since it is founded upon the destruction of nature. The profit drive of capitalism insists that more be taken out than is put back (be it labour or land). Bari extended the Marxist discussion of surplus value to include the elements of nature. She argued that a portion of the profit derived from any capitalist product results from the unilateral (under)valuing, by capital, of resources extracted from nature.
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You don't put anything about feminism here.
I find the question of ecology and syndicalism to be very interesting but I think we can rather think of it as an anarchist question. Back in the old days of anarchism, it was perhaps more common than now that a larger portion of the anarchist poor and working people came into very real industrial hazard at work. It still happens, but judging from anarchist literature, this problem seems less prominent nowadays, probably due to a variety of reasons. In those days, anarchists dreamed of getting away from this most dangerous and toxic work, limiting it to what was socially useful and necessary. The idea that the dirty work should be rotated and not assigned to a constant industrial underclass was also popular.
I think this is an important point and it is extremely important that the real costs of certain manufacturing become known to people because as it is now, the ecological burden is sometimes invisible to, for example, the consumer, who thus sees no reason why, for example, the production of certain products should be limited or need to be done in a completely different way. Our friend M., who worked for a couple of years in a factory producing plasma TVs can talk about the health dangers and has in fact come to the conclusion that the creation of demand for such TVs, just like the creation of demand for SUVs, is very harmful and that, if workers really had a choice, none of them would choose to produce these things.
Right now most people are still unaware of the impact on the planet that certain things have, despite the fact that ecological awareness is growing. There is a lobby of people also who would like to make everything look perfectly safe, even storing nuclear waste in your backyard, since they do not have to answer to a society which is looking after its own best interests. I don't think I'll live to see an anarchist society, but in theory, I would hope we would all be talking about ecological responsibility and would not accept that some parts of the world or some classes of people would be more exposed to danger.
As far as feminism is concerned, it's obvious how combatting sexism and other forms of prejudice is connected to the anarchist ideas of social equality. What is more challenging would be to assess the weaknesses of the anarchosyndicalist movement in this area and to try to attract more women. First step would be a more critical attitude towards the jocular male culture sometimes present here on libcom.