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| Nora Rathzel |
From work or nature to work and nature: another kind of
unionism
On a one-week tour organised by João Paulo Cândia Veiga from
the University of São Paulo and Manoel Edivaldo Santos Matos from the Union of
Rural workers (Sindicato dos Trabalhadores y Trabalhadoras Rurais de Santarém,
STTR) in Pará, a region of the Brazilian Amazonas, we visited eight communities
along the Rivers Arapiuns, Maró and Amazonas. These are small communities of
between 90 and 300 people. They are of mixed indigenous and Portuguese origin,
some groups defining themselves as indigenous.
Traditionally, they lived from fishing, hunting, gathering
fruit and planting manioc. But with the arrival of timber companies their lives
have become unstable. In the eighties, but on a much larger scale in the
nineties, timber companies entered more remote areas of the rainforests. Game,
fruits and fibres on which people had lived began to decrease radically. In the
middle of the nineties, supported and organised by the STTR, the communities
living in the areas began a struggle for the ownership of the land they worked
and lived on. They won this struggle but their battles have not ended. The
timber companies remain, employing carrot and stick strategies to get at the
wood: threatening activists on the one hand and promising to provide
electricity and jobs on the other. The companies do not keep their promises,
jobs are heavy and wages are low. But when survival is difficult, some people
see no other choice than to work for them. Others are too concerned with the
future of the forests to accept such an option, which creates tensions within
communities.
Industrial unions often have a hard time finding solutions
for the apparent contradiction between protecting jobs and protecting the
environment. The most promising perspectives are developed by unionists who see
labour and nature as inseparable and conceptualise them as allies: without
nature there is no labour and without labour, nature cannot help to fulfil
human needs. Nature’s rights need to be protected as well as workers’ rights.
In the global South, especially in Latin America, the debate about the
relationship between labour and nature has intensified since Ecuador (2008) and
Bolivia (2011) included the “Right of nature” into their constitutions (Global
Alliance for the Rights of Nature).
Ernst Bloch suggested: “A Marxism of technology, once it is
thought through, is not a philanthropy for abused metals, it is the end of a
naive application of the point of view of the exploiter and circus trainer to
nature” (Bloch 1959/1978, 813, translation by the author).[1] Our research
on environmental policies of international unions and unions in Brazil, South
Africa, Sweden and the UK found that some unionists in South African union
NUMSA[2] and in some international confederations supported this view
(Räthzel and Uzzell 2011a) and 2011 b).
For the STTR the protection of their livelihoods and the
protection of nature are the same thing. These unionists risk their lives to
protect the environment: “Fifty of our members are on death lists. The state
should protect them, but instead, the hitmen go free while our members have to
stay locked in their homes to avoid being killed”.[3]
Not only rising emissions, but also the destruction of the
rain forests has an impact on climate change. The climate change is already
felt by the communities and adds to the destabilisation of their lives: for
example rising temperatures lead to declining fish populations and declining
harvests. Rain has become scarce in the rainy season; instead, sudden heavy
rains destroy small plants. Seasons are disappearing. We saw mango trees with
small green fruits when they should have been ripe.
How does the trade union work?
The short journey changed my view about what unions can be.
Hearing that trade unions are organising communities in the Amazonas, I
imagined some avant-garde unionists from the cities venturing into rural
communities to convince people that they should stand up against the timber
companies. Instead, we experienced a dense network of union members in the
communities, working closely together with the community associations.
Unionists see to it that people get their pensions; mothers receive support and
a share of the poverty alleviation programme. But they were also indispensable
in supporting the communities politically in their fight for land rights and in
creating structures of self-organisation such as community associations.
Without union-organising, the communities would have been too scattered and
disintegrated to win their rights. In helping to create the necessary community
and producers’ associations, the union in this particular area can be seen to
be a community organisation as well.
In the social sciences, unions have come to be perceived as
inflexible, bureaucratic organisations – dinosaurs of an industrial age, not
fit to face the challenges of a post-industrial “liquid modernity”. Hopes for
change and research efforts have shifted to “new social movements”, more
recently to “civil society” and its Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). In
the Amazonian communities such perspectives were reversed. Here, the union is
an important grassroots force, helping to develop alternative, resource-saving
forms of production. The union also supported and co-created a local
environmental organisation Saúde y Alegría to provide health, education, water,
and energy on a long-term basis. All communities had stories of disappointment
to tell about Western NGOs starting projects and then disappearing, leaving the
communities without the promised water or energy supplies – and without any
explanation. Solar panels were set up to provide energy for a school. But when
the batteries needed to be replaced, the community could not afford them. The
neoliberal ‘projectification’ of welfare systems in Europe is brought into an
area where this approach is even more harmful. It is not established NGOs, but
the union that is the flexible grassroots organisation working on a long-term
basis. Their leaders are elected in the communities and thus accountable for
what they do or don’t do. Thus, what trade unions and NGOs “are” has to be
analysed in context.
Not a world outside our world
Most communities in the area we visited are dependent on
manioc, not only as a staple, but as the main, often only, product they can
sell in the city. The price producers get for the flour does not cover the
amount of work they put into producing it and so they do not earn enough to buy
the things they cannot produce – for example, sugar.
Some of our travel companions were disappointed with the
expressed need for money, 24 hours electricity, running water, telephones and
even television. They expected to find autonomous communities working
cooperatively without private ownership. But even though some communities need
12 hours by boat to get into the next town, they are not out of touch with the
world outside. They are no havens of goodness: there are conflicts over scarce
resources, one community accusing another of overfishing, another not wanting
to include artisans of a neighbouring community into their association. Some
are divided over whether to work for timber companies or not, others over
whether to define themselves as indigenous or not. Women’s groups falter for
lack of resources, others flourish. These are ordinary people living ordinary
conflicts under harsh conditions. But it is precisely because they are not
heroic, but – like all of us - part of the world they live in, that their
achievements are so admirable. Because increasing scarcity of natural resources
due to logging and climate change produces conflict, the degree to which solidarity
and communal practices prevail is impressive.
What do people need?
To overcome the growing scarcity of the natural resources
due to logging and climate change and the dependency on manioc, new activities
have been developed that provide a living, such as artisan work and fish
farming. These efforts are important but a more fundamental transformation was
said to be needed: the diversification of agriculture. This is difficult,
because there is no agricultural tradition in the communities. They have lived
on hunting, fishing, gathering fruit, not on agriculture. Knowledge, techniques
and technologies are needed. This is an opportunity for unions and other
organisations/individuals to support the work of the STTR, to provide long-term
support for the creation of a diversified agriculture that respects the natural
resources.
Together with their union the communities have achieved a
lot. They have won the rights to their land, created and established themselves
as communities with structures allowing them to run their own affairs. Now is
the time for consolidation and for this they need education, transportation,
communication, health care and new forms of production. Otherwise, their
existence is at risk and without them there is hardly anything or anybody able
and willing to resist the pressure of timber companies longing for unlimited
access to the rainforests.
Is it not ironic that in Europe we press governments to
preserve their rainforests, reminding them of their responsibility towards
humanity, while those who have the will and need to halt deforestation remain
largely invisible and without support? Here is a possibility to act in
accordance to our concern for the rain forests and at the same time practice
international union solidarity.
Contact Manoel Edivaldo Santos Matos at the STTR: edivaldo42@yahoo.com.br or phone
him at: 51-93- 91473704 to discuss forms of cooperation.
For further information see: http://www.sttrsantarem.org.br/; www.faor.org.br; ww.fundodema.org.br;
1. “Marxismus der Technik, wenn er einmal durchdacht sein
wird, ist keine Philanthropie für misshandelte Metalle, wohl aber das Ende
der naiven Übertragung des Ausbeuter- und Tierbändigerstandpunktes auf die
Natur.“ (813)
2. NUMSA = National Union of Metalworkers South Africa
3. Personal conversation. For background information see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/31/rainforest-activists-protection-death-threats accessed
March 6, 2012)
Nora Räthzel works at the department of sociology,
University of Umea, Sweden. Her research areas include trade union policies on
climate change, the globalisation of transnational corporations, workers' lives
and work in transnational corporations. She has previously done research
on everyday racism, ethnic and gender relations.
References:
Bloch, E. (1978) Das Prinzip Hoffnung. Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp.
Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature: http://therightsofnature.org/ ,
accessed 25 March, 2012
Räthzel, N., Uzzell, D. (2011a) Natur oder Arbeit?
Dilemmatta und Perspektiven Gewerkschaftlicher Umweltpolitik. In: Das Argument
294. Pp. 734-744
Räthzel, N., Uzzell, D. (2011b) Trade Unions and climate
Change: The jobs versus environment dilemma. In: Global Environmental Change,
21 (4), 1215-1223.
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