book: Workers of the Earth: Labour, Ecology and Reproduction in the Age of Climate Change, Stefania Barca
Workers of the Earth is a much-needed examination of the ignored role of "meta-industrial" labour — as in, unpaid housework, care work, peasant work, reproductive labour for those who know the term — in the fight for labour rights and environmentalism. Barca picks apart the misogyny embedded in the lineages of mainstream economic-environmentalism as well as the labour movement, which causes a devaluation of reproductive labour (typically "women's work") both as the foundation of society as well as a powerful point of engagement against capitalism. Unpaid, invisible home-making, child-rearing, and sick-tending keeps capitalism running — misogyny and disregard disempowers meta-industrial labourers from realising this, and consequently harnessing their power.
at times I think I struggled with reading this, but at the moment I am needing to ration my medication so I cannot say really if it is a factor of the book's leaning towards more Marxist wording.
But in any case, Barca details a few very important case studies linking the fight for ecology with labour (both industrial and meta-industrial). First is the roots of Italian environmentalism in the Servici di Medicina per gli Ambienti di Lavoro (SMAL), formed of militant medical students and researchers who assessed the health hazards posed by industry. Then, Wages for Housework, seeking to renumerate currently-unpaid housework and to properly quantify its contributions. After, the Brazilian reservas extractivistas, or Resex, which are forests maintained by the people who utilise the forest for subsistence. This includes the story of Zé Claudio and Maria do Espirito Santo. (refreshingly, the connected discussion on species supremacy/speciesism (Barca uses the former term) includes all non-human life, as in, not just non-human animals. This is something that lacks in a lot of discussions on the topic).
this is followed by a very-needed critique of the modern trade-union perspectives on environmentalism and labour, which tend to align with a desire for economic growth (to minimise controversy) and with patriarchal labour-centric thought. Barca posits that growth, whether capitalist or otherwise, is antithetical to ecological health (yknow, degrowth), and therefore the growth-tied "green jobs" and "Green New Deal" should be considered highly suspect. Barca then says that degrowth must address concerns around losing jobs and increasing poverty that could happen under real degrowth, and provide actionable things-to-do against it. this could be in the form of properly compensating the reproductive/meta-industrial labour that currently takes place! Furthermore, trade unions focus immensely on (waged) labour as the place for action and transformation, neglecting the immense power wielded by other forms of labour. Moreover, un-alienating labour — giving workers connections to the products of their work, and control over what they're doing — is important for degrowth, as it allows workers to understand when they've produced enough to meet actual need, to stop/start/change production. Simply fighting on the territory of improving waged labour tends to miss this aspect too.
a good book on theory, digestible, and the use of case studies and references to real-world examples helps ground things. I really really like Barca's perspectives on how de-alienation of labour is important to degrowth, and the importance of reproductive labour in maintaining the health of the Earth.
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thanks for reading!🪱🦀
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