Influences and Confluences
It's no secret that most of the founding members
of IWW Local #1 were also deeply involved with Earth First! in
northwestern California. Some of the loggers and millworkers even
associated with Earth First! While there was no official, formal
alliance between the two organizations, the IWW and Earth First!
shared members and worked together for more than half a decade.
Both organizations rubbed off on each other.
How did this happen? The roots of this "alliance" predate Judi Bari and the north coast timber wars. The father of Edward Abbey, who wrote the Monkeywrench Gang which inspired the formation of Earth First! may have been a Wobbly, and Dave Foreman, in a series of debates with Murray Bookchin, in Defending the Earth claims that the IWW inspired many of his ideas for Earth First! In spring of 1988, Earth First! Journal staffer Roger Featherstone approached the IWW about an alliance, and a special issue of the Industrial Worker, published for May 1, 1988 formally introduced the two organizations to each other:
May 1988 Industrial Worker
- Fellow Workers, Meet Earth First!
- Earth First!, Meet the IWW - by x322339.
- Common Ground - By Randall Restless of Montana Earth First!
- Workers and Wilderness - by Franklin Rosemont.
- From the Industrial Worker, July 21, 1945 - Wobblies Vs. Tree Nazis.
- Earth First! & the IWW - An Interview with Roger Featherstone.
This "meeting of the minds" didn't please everyone. In the September 1988 issue of the Industrial Worker, "Lobo x99" attempted to answer some of the critics:
- Earth First! vs. the Rumor Mongers - by Lobo x99.
Earth First! - IWW Local #1
The "meeting of the minds" resulted in several
IWW members joining Earth First! When Judi Bari announced (in the
Earth First! Journal) that she would lead a workshop on
the IWW at an Earth First! gathering in 1988, several of these
Wobblies contacted her. She hadn't realized that the IWW still
existed! Because of these random events, the IWW was able to
defend millworkers at the Georgia-Pacific mill in Fort Bragg in 1989.
This lead to optimistic predictions on a new consciousness:
- March 1989 - Earth First! / IWW Greenhouse Demo - by Judi Bari.
- February 1990 - Anti Wobbly Law Used Against Earth First! - By C. Firr.
- September 1990 - Labor & Ecology - by Chris Clarke.
However, the assassination attempt on Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney undermined these efforts. Still, several timber workers, as well as small timber operators remained in solidarity with the northwestern California environmental movement:
- Who Bombed Judi Bari? (song lyrics) - By Darryl Cherney.
- May 30, 1990 - People for Sustainable Forests, Jobs, and Communities.
But, the relationship between the IWW and Earth First! as well as allies on both sides of the alliance often didn't see eye-to-eye:
- Summer 1990 - The Destruction of America's Rain Forest, by D. Nicolai.
- December 12, 1990 - Ignorance is Bliss, by Crawdad Nelson.
- December 26, 1990 - The Truth About Earth First! & Loggers, by J. Bari.
- January 16, 1991 - Wherefore Art Thou, Earth First!?, by Darryl Cherney.
- Date Unknown (mid 1990s) - Interview with IWW & Earth First! Activist Darryl Cherney, by Lori Rizzo.
Northern California Earth First! Renounces Tree Spiking
Perhaps the most positive (and controversial) outcome of the IWW - Earth First! connection was the renunciation of the tactic of Tree Spiking (driving spikes into trees in order to sabotage efforts to log them). Judi Bari led the efforts to abandon Tree Spiking after Oregon millworker Gene Lawhorne argued how Tree Spiking threatens the safety of timber workers. At first, the motivations for North Coast Earth First! renouncing Tree Spiking was primarily strategic in that by doing so, workers would be potentially less threatened by Earth First!:
- Northern California Earth First! Renounces Tree Spiking - Press Conference held April 11, 1990, Louisiana Pacific Mill, Samoa, California.
Later, as Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney, Gene Lawhorn, and other IWW members within Earth First! attempted to convince all of Earth First! to abandon tree spiking, and as the adherents of tree spiking defended it, Judi Bari made convincing arguments that regardless of the danger Tree Spiking poses to workers, it doesn't even work as an anti-logging tactic:
- Sept. 22, 1990 - Why EF! Should Renounce Tree-Spiking, by G. Lawhorn.
- Sept. 22, 1990 - In Defense of Tree-Spiking, by Captain Paul Watson.
- February 17, 1993 - The Secret History of Tree Spiking - I, by Judi Bari.
- March 8, 1993 - The Secret History of Tree Spiking - II, by Judi Bari.
The Limits of Environmentalism Without Class - By John Bellamy Foster, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 1993
Foster, with the help of Judi Bari, wrote this pamphlet as a challenge to middle class environmentalists whose understanding of the nature of class division and capitalist exploitation undermines their effectiveness as organizers. Although Foster is not an IWW member and this pamphlet was not a publication of the IWW, he says everything that the IWW would say about the issue:
- Chapter 1 - Introduction.
- Chapter 2 - Ecological Catastrophe and Social Crisis.
- Chapter 3 - Monopoly Capital and Environmental Degradation.
- Chapter 4 - Ecological Conflict and the Class Struggle.
- Chapter 5 - Toward a Strategy of Ecological Conversion.
Whither the Alliance?
It's safe to say that the "meeting of the minds"
between the IWW and Earth First! has not yet had the
intended results (i.e. a revolutionary movement to overthrow
corporate domination, particularly in regards to the world's
forests and timber workers), but it has brought about,
inspired, or at least coincided with major developments in
both the labor and environmental movements in the last decade.
One step along the way was this attempt by Earth First! to show
solidarity with the Humboldt County service workers during their
strike in 1996:
The IWW and Earth First! led to various union / environmentalist coalitions, including local struggles against Louisiana-Pacific, and the Earth First!, USWA, Kaiser Worker alliance against MAXXAM.
