People for Sustainable Forests, Jobs, and Communities

People for Sustainable Forests, Jobs, and Communities

On May 24, 1990, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were on their way to an organizing meeting for Redwood Summer when a bomb exploded under the driver's seat of Bari's car in Oakland, California. Almost imme­diately the Oakland Police and FBI named Bari and Cherney as the prime suspects. After several weeks, they were forced to drop the charges against Bari and Cherney, but the bomber remains unknown and at large to this day. Much has been written about the bombing and subsequent investigations into who and why. Needless to say it threatened the work of Earth First! - IWW Local #1.
This Press Release was issued just days after a bomb exploded in Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney's car. The remarkable thing about this release is the number of Earth First! activists, loggers, and gyppo log employers that signed it. That demonstrates that Local #1 had already built bridges among the labor and environmental movements that were too strong to be broken, even in the face of catastrophic events.

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PEOPLE FOR SUSTAINED FORESTS, JOBS, & COMMUNITIES!
TRUST: We agree when possible and disagree when necessary, but we will always respect each other's "given word". Without trust nothing is possible. We accept the philosophy that all people are innocent until proven guilty.
NON-VIOLENCE: We stress non-violence and condemn any person involved or associated with violent activity, including destruction of property.
CIVIL-DISOBEDIENCE:

(a) When Redwood Summer conducts a one-day shutdown of logging operations, the operator will be notified prior to the demonstration. (b) When Redwood Summer finds it necessary to protect critical habitat areas, old-growth forests or violations of Timber Harvest Plans, a dialogue with the operator will be opened with the operator to communicate the intent. (c) When Redwood Summer plans to demonstrate at public sites, CDF, mills, offices, etc., the demonstration may extend more than 1 day but will not block timber workers from their jobs, except at the export docks.

SUSTAINED YIELD: We are committed to sustaining the forests and will strive To improve the environment in every possible way.
RULE OF REASON: We agree that our goal is to sustain the forests of our county and to work to integrate the economic, ecologic (sic), and social needs of our local communities and all families.
This was signed by the following individuals who unanimously voted for the above statement on May 29, 1990 in Willits.
Art Harwood -- Harwood Products.
Jim Little -- Harwood Products.
Blake Bennett
Robert Pardini
Jerry Philbrick -- Philbrick, inc.
Wayne Hiatt -- Hiatt Logging, inc.
Anna Marie Stenberg -- IWW Local #1, Ft. Bragg Earth First!
Rick Cloninger -- Laytonville Earth First!
John Welch -- Cahto Wilderness Coalition
Pam Davis -- Somoma County Earth First!
Tom O'Neil -- North Coast Nonviolence Collective
Steven Day -- Eel River Habitat Conservation Planning
Naomi Wagner -- Sherwood Forest Protection Association
Judith Bailey -- Bailey's
Bill Bailey -- Bailey's
James Smith -- S-W Logging
Gary Ball -- Mendocino Environmental Center
Betty Ball -- Mendocino Environmental Center
Bill Evans -- Laytonville Earth First!
Steve Zuieback
Rich Padula -- R & J Lumber

Earth First! - IWW Greenhouse Demo By Judi Bari

This is the earliest known Industrial Worker article by Judi Bari, and although the article was published in March of 1989, the action took place the previous September. This effort predates the formation of Earth First!-IWW Local #1. Here one can see the beginnings of a deeper consciousness among labor and environmental activists—as evidenced by IWW members attempts to dialog with timber workers targeted in the demonstration described here.


Earth First! - IWW Greenhouse Demo

By Judi Bari - Industrial Worker, March 1989.

The best thing about our regional Earth First! gatherings are the demonstrations afterwards. I mean, as long as you've got 200 yahooing Earth First!ers together, you might as well do an action. So, in keeping with this venerable tradition, our California Rendezvous last September decided to go for an all-day roving picket line with the theme of the Greenhouse Effect. We whipped up a few big banners saying "Guilty Guilty-Greenhouse Effect Violator," and prepared some indictment forms to lay on the perpetrators.

We had plenty of violators to pick from, but time constraints forced us to limit it to four --Simpson Pulp Mill, Pacific Lumber Corp., Eel River Sawmills, and a public hearing on offshore oil. Simpson was the most dramatic. Truck drivers were surprised by the sudden appearance of a raggedy mob, just back from three days in the woods, blocking the entrance road to the Simpson plant. The first truck stopped and we ran over to tell the driver that the IWW says take a break on us. That was fine with him, and he kicked back to enjoy the show. The driver coming the other direction, though, didn't take it so easy. No damn hippies were gonna stop him from going to work --he was going to ram our line. "Stop Mr. Block!" chanted the crowd, but the truck kept coming until Earth First!er Corbin Solomon courageously dove under the front wheel of the moving semi. The driver stopped, cursed, then rolled forward. Our line held firm, and people started yelling "Brian Wilson!" as the truck wheels came within feet of Corbin's body before it finally stopped.

IWW rep Billy Don Robinson jumped up on the truck's running board to talk some sense into his fellow wage slave. But Mr. Block wasn't in a talking mood, and took a swing at Bill Don. "No jobs on a dead planet!" chanted the crowd, as the standoff continued for 30 minutes, with trucks backed up down the highway in both directions. Finally the police showed up and ordered us to leave. Since we had more work to do that day, we cheerfully obliged, jumping into our cars loudly announcing "Eel River Sawmills next!" Then we proceeded to Pacific Lumber Corp., skipping Eel River for now and losing our police escort.

At Pacific Lumber we paraded around their quaint 19th century company town singing "You can't clear-cut your way to Heaven" and Where are we gonna work when the trees are gone?" Eventually we ran into a hastily assembled counterdemonstration of loggers' wives carrying signs that said "Earth First! is the Worst!" The Earth First! women immediately responded by calling a women's action, and, with the men staying back, we approached the women one on one. We talked about how we had kids too, and how Pacific Lumber wasn't interested in their families' futures. This tactic seemed to take them so off guard that they stopped yelling at us, and, with the intervention of the local minister, agreed to set up a conciliation meeting between Earth First! and Pacific Lumber employees in the near future.

So it was on to our next target. We hung "Greenhouse Effect Violator banners on the mile-long Eel River Sawmills log deck without incident, which was a good thing because by then we were already late for the oil hearing. Although this was an official state hearing, it somehow must not have gotten onto the liberals' computer network.

In contrast to earlier oil hearings where 2000 people showed up to protest offshore oil, hardly anybody came to this one. The testimony was stultifying, with the shirt and-tie bureaucrats droning on about mitigating impacts and overriding economic benefits. Finally our turn came, and Earth First!/IWW songwriter Darryl Cherney took to the podium guitar in hand. We unfurled our banners as he began singing "We're All Dead Ducks", with Earth First!ers in the audience quacking on the chorus and dancing in our seats.

We woke up the hearing, but not enough, because a speaker shortly afterward contended that sonic booms underwater (used in seismic testing to locate oil) don't affect marine mammals. So on cue we all yelled "Sonic BOOM!" at the top of our lungs. The startled bureaucrats started to chastise us, but Darryl just gave them an innocent look and said "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said sonic booms don't affect mammals!"

By then the day was winding down and so were we. We stood outside in the cold and huddled in a circle and sang for a while. Then, as the sun slowly set on the golden California clear cuts, we went our separate ways, home to our cabins and communes to smoke a joint, drink a beer, and get ready for the next blockade. The Earth First!/IWW 'alliance had pulled off our first joint action, and we were ready for more.

Syndicalism, Ecology and Feminism: Judi Bari’s Vision

Syndicalism, Ecology and Feminism: Judi Bari’s Vision

Jeff Shantz

According to the late Wobbly organizer and Earth Firster, Judi Bari, a truly biocentric perspective must really challenge the system of industrial capitalism which is founded upon the ‘ownership’ of the earth. Industrial capitalism cannot be reformed since it is founded upon the destruction of nature. The profit drive of capitalism insists that more be taken out than is put back (be it labour or land). Bari extended the Marxist discussion of surplus value to include the elements of nature. She argued that a portion of the profit derived from any capitalist product results from the unilateral (under)valuing, by capital, of resources extracted from nature.

Because of her analysis of the rootedness of ecological destruction in capitalist relations Bari turned her attentions to the everyday activities of working people. Workers would be a potentially crucial ally of environmentalists, she realized, but such an alliance could only come about if environmentalists were willing to educate themselves about workplace concerns. Bari held no naïve notions of workers as privileged historical agents. She simply stressed her belief that for ecology to confront capitalist relations effectively and in a non-authoritarian manner requires the active participation of workers. Likewise, if workers were to assist environmentalists it was reasonable to accept some mutual aid in return from ecology activists.