A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #349 - Ecology, "Ecological transition": Who works for green capitalism? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Struggle ecology has often criticized the hypocrisy behind the 
government's ecological transition and our pages have been associated 
with it for a long time. However, even greenwashing requires work, and 
behind government policies are workers whose working conditions can be 
examined. ---- The environmental movement has succeeded after several 
decades in imposing ecology in the public debate to the point that 
governments are obliged to make efforts in terms of ecological policy. 
These efforts come after numerous attacks on the public service: 
logically, production relations are organized according to the 
neoliberal model.

This condition is not unique to the public service. "Green capitalism" 
is precisely the creation of new markets. These new markets, like those 
of new technologies, are often the most subject to neoliberal logics 
which hit workers hard. Recent budget cuts have highlighted dynamics in 
the civil service, but this is not isolated. Indeed, subcontracting and 
privatization have made the boundary between public and private 
increasingly blurred. In the ecological transition sector, many 
associations are fighting to obtain markets and financing. Likewise, the 
new rules for research and development have created a very important 
ecosystem of start-ups seeking to capture public funding to implement 
their incredible disruptive solutions for tomorrow's future.

What all these workers have in common is job insecurity with short 
contracts, often fixed-term project contracts, the pressure to seek 
funding to fuel their own activity and, of course, exhaustion due to a 
workload. work in constant growth. In the public service, the breakdown 
in status has enabled the massive hiring of contract workers, which has 
become the norm. The race for projects is also a direct consequence of 
state policy: the policy of decentralization of skills has not been 
associated with a decentralization of financial capacities. On the 
contrary, the State preferred to put in place calls for projects which 
force communities to chase funding to be able to invest. The first and 
foremost affected are the workers whose precariousness affects their 
work and their ability to carry it out properly in the long term.

Mobilize and fight collectively
The March 19 mobilization in the public service was an opportunity to 
highlight budget cuts in the area of ecological transition. These cuts 
affect resources but also jobs, whether in the public service or in its 
subcontractors. We see here a new blatant contradiction of capitalism: 
even when it tries to lead the ecological transition, the organization 
it imposes makes the work produced ineffective despite a very high 
professional conscience of the workers in this sector. Let us conclude 
on the need for collective struggle. In these professions, we face 
significant obstacles and the organization of our work has distanced us 
from the traditions of struggle but also from each other.

However, we have on our side our professional conscience which must be 
turned into a tool for criticizing the system and not for 
self-exploitation. We must also get closer to existing structures which 
provide important work, in the public service of course but also in 
associations where union structures lead valuable struggles. A difficult 
task will also be to go beyond subcontracting chains by discussing our 
working conditions even if our structures are different. Finally, like 
other workers before us, we will have to work towards a convergence of 
our struggles with those of the ecological movement if we want to one 
day realize the transformative potential of our work.

Corentin (UCL Kreiz-Breizh)

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Transition-ecologique-Qui-travaille-pour-le-capitalisme-vert
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