en:green syndicalism

Eco-syndicalism is the philosophy of the green guild or sustainable trades movement. It is related to Anarcho-syndicalism and Eco-anarchism methodologically, but rejects anarchism as an ideology.

Indeed, it rejects all ideology to focus instead on training, certification and control of instructional capital useful in sustainable development. It puts an emphasis on ecology awareness, on environmental standards, ecological health and human environmental health. It draws on many best practices including ISO 14000, ISO 9000, Natural Step and Natural Capitalism. It considers developing the individual capital of its adherents to be its ultimate objective. In this sense it is more like a martial art than like political movements.

Its methods are a fusion of the trade union, more robust methods from formal syndicalism, and the direct action and workplace democracy movements. It may work closely with green movement and fair trade groups. However, it does not usually adopt the larger political goals of these movements. It is more likely to be an outgrowth of craft and heritage worker movements, e.g. to preserve wooden ship building, or traditional organic ranching methods.

Eco-syndicalists work mostly in guild-like formations, and are generally more willing to use conventional capitalist methods like patents, trademarks, consortia and even governmental claims to own the names of certain regions for association with certain traditional or natural products, called "collective intellectual property" by Vandana Shiva.

Some think the eco-syndalicalists are closely related to the back to the land or survivalist or hippie movements, or to ethical traditions that resemble those movements such as Mennonites, e.g. the Amish, especially for their focus on appropriate technology. However, they are not usually unwilling to adopt new technologies, and quite willing to work with other such groups worldwide. Eco-syndicalism is probably more closely related to the eco-gastronomy movement, which is likewise focused on techniques and the acquisition of skills and preserving of instructional capital that is closely tied to existing natural capital. One could reasonably consider Slow Food chefs to be effectively a green guild.

Credits

Original text from Wikipedia article, "Green syndicalism", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_syndicalism