Living labour, eco-syndicalism and labour law

an eco-Marxist analysis of alternatives to green capitalism

Abstract

In this text, an expanded adaptation of an article published in the Marxist architecture journal Après la révolution, in an issue entitled “Production”, Alexis Cukier presents some of his current research in the field of ecological Marxism on the relationship between self-management, social struggles and the ecological reconversion of work. He examines three recent examples of workers’ struggles: the Vio.Me factory recovered for self-management in Thessaloniki, Greece; the project of a “socially integrated cooperative” and ecological reconversion of the ex-GKN workers’ factory in Florence, Italy; and the struggle of workers and around them of an ecological and social alliance at the Total refinery in Grandpuits, France. Based on these experiences, analyzed through the prism of the Marxist concept of "living labor", he begins a critique of the dominant approaches within ecological Marxism, which show little concern for the ecology of working-class communities, and poses the problem of the conditions of possibility of alliances, more necessary than ever, between workers, trade unionists, residents and environmental activists.