In a new article “Why Strike Action is Climate Action” in The Conversation, Simon Mair draws the connection between labor organizing and climate action through the shared goal of dislodging the total control of capitalism:
Participating in strike action is a demand for a democratisation of production and an assertion of the idea that something more than money matters. When we strike, we use our leverage as the people delivering the actual products in order to force our employers to consider things that they prefer to ignore. On the picket line I am asserting that I am more than a cost of production, and more than a generator of income.
Strike action alone is not enough. I do not believe that standing on a picket line can replace tearing down the fossil fuel industry. But strike action does constitute a push against core capitalist dynamics.
Tearing down the fossil fuel industry will not happen without a major shift in the centres of power in capitalist economies. Strike action is one way to build towards these shifts, and in this way can be a precursor to stronger climate action.
