Workers climate action meeting

Hi comrades,

I'm sorry for failing to post to this list earlier:

The first Workers' Climate Action national meeting since the climate camp has come around very quickly. For those who don't know, WCA is a network of climate and trade union activists that came together after the Heathrow camp to build solidarity between the climate and labour movements, I guess especially among young, new activists.

We've been meeting in an ad hoc way, mainly around climate camp meetings and in other walks of life, to play a part in the building a grassroots working-class movement against climate change. The politics are clearly anti-capitalist and libertarian, a dynamic and productive relation between broadly anarchist and socialist traditions.

The network played a big role in bringing labour movement politics and issues to the camp; inviting Scargill, Clara from the RMT cleaners' grades, a young GMB organiser and climate activist, the President of the Medway Trades Council. With Sian, we won the support of the Trades Council to the camp and organised visits to speak to and leaflet Kingsnorth workers about just transition, work which we are continuing.

We've laid the groundwork for activity with Heathrow workers, jointly with the LRC and have met with some branches and organisers and have been given a mandate by the local campaign to develop solidarity work among the workers.

We've been speaking to and leafleting bus and tube workers to try and get going the free public tranport campaign in London. There are active networks in Sheffield and Scotland as well, and activists dotted around the place.

The aim of the weekend is to develop our activists; We'll be talking about the economic crisis and the green new deal; workers' control, self-management and rank-and-file unionism; just transition; direct action in the labour movement; our internationalism; the direction of the climate movement - and politics more generally. On the Sunday we'll be developing working groups and activist affinity groups for self-education and skill-development, campaigns and movement building.

Please feel free to come along and get involved. We're not having many long speeches and it will be a participatory and fluid event - hopefully. We're encouraging activits to prepare any contributions they can related to the themes above. It's worth getting in contact beforehand if you want help finding some good reading or someone to discuss with, around what you're interested in.

in solidarity

Robin

www.workersclimateaction.co.uk