John-Henry Harter

Environmental Justice for Whom? Class, New Social Movements, and the Environment: A Case Study of Greenpeace Canada, 1971–2000

ON 30 NOVEMBER 1999, in Seattle, Washington, an explosion of outrage against globalization materialized in protest against the World Trade Organization and its millennial round of talks.¹ While remarkable in its own right, the "Battle in Seattle" was significant for the enormous presence of the organized working class. The working class mobilized in force, with over 50,000 trade unionists coming to the city to protest the WTO. Alongside these unionists were new social movement activists from, among others, the student, environmental, and feminist movements. A popular theme written on one of the thousands of placards was "Teamsters and Turtles together at last," signifying the coming together of workers and environmentalists geographically, if not entirely ideologically.² While the majority of the labour march did not converge directly on the WTO site, thousands of workers did and it was the size and scope of the labour presence that helped bring so much attention to the protest. The protest in Seattle demonstrated the power of a convergence of class, environmental, and other new social movement politics, while hinting at the inherent difficulties of such a union. Why had Teamsters and Turtles been apart in the first place? How did the gulf between the organized working class and new social movements begin? What were the causes of this split and can they be remedied?	1
In a study comparing new social movements and old social movements, specifically unions, William K. Carroll and R.S. Ratner note that, "in the social scientific literature of recent years, unions have often been interpreted as social organizations bereft of transformative potential."³ Since Seattle it has become almost axiomatic in the analysis of anti-globalization protest to lay the blame of any failures, perceived or real, within the anti-globalization movement on organized labour. Often only organized labour's faults and the problems of working-class organizations have been examined. For example, in a recent article on the mass mobilization against the Quebec City Summit, Kevin MacKay argues that "much of the conflict between labour and newer social movements groups can be attributed to the conservative, bureaucratized structure of unions."⁴ While union bureaucracy is an important area of study and has engendered much debate within labour history, it is too easy to blame organized labour and its bureaucracy for the tensions between itself and other social movements.⁵ While Greenpeace is an older, and more bureaucratic, expression of new social movements than the affinity based, anarchistic leaning, anti-globalization movement, it does not negate the fact that new social movements need to look at themselves with a critical eye. John Bellamy Foster argues that it is both "the narrow conservationist thrust of most environmentalism in the United States" and the "unimaginative business union response of organized labour" that is the problem when attempting to form coalitions.⁶ This article addresses the environmental side of the equation. Business unionism, or social unionism for that matter, is not above reproach. However, the environmental movement is seldom held up to the same scrutiny as the labour movement when discussing the split between labour and environmentalists. Therefore, instead of reprising the labour bureaucracy debates, the focus is on new social movements and how they relate to the working class in actual campaigns. What, historically, has the relationship been between new social movements and organized labour? How have the structure, composition, and actions of new social movements contributed to the relations between workers and new social movements?	2
In order to address these questions, this article explores the history of Greenpeace Canada from 1971 to 2000 and its relationship to the working class. I chose Greenpeace for two main reasons: it has become a brand name for environmentalism; and it was formed at the beginning of the era of new social movements. This article will examine Greenpeace's structure, personnel, and the class origins of its leadership to better understand its actions. I will also look at two of its most famous actions: its opposition to the seal hunt, and its actions against forestry in British Columbia. I also examine a lesser-known Greenpeace campaign against its own workers in Toronto. While a case study of one organization in one social movement cannot test the claims of all new social movements or new social movement literature, I hope to provoke questions about new social movements and theories that often make assertions about the nature of social movements without historical reference or case studies.⁷	3
This article provides a different lens through which to look at new social movement actions and helps reinsert class into the discourse around social movements through case study of specific environmental campaigns. It suggests that the new social movement literature must pay attention to class analysis. This runs contrary to much of the literature. Alberto Melucci, for example, one of the first new social movement theorists, explicitly rejects class as a tool of analysis. "I have gradually abandoned the concept of class relationships," he states. "In systems like contemporary ones, where classes as real social groups are withering away, more appropriate concepts are required."⁸ Laurie Adkin, a Canadian sociologist, claims that the key to understanding new social movements is grasping that the "class identity and culture of a previous era no longer encompass the experiences of enough persons to constitute the core identity of a mass movement for profound social change."⁹ While this is the theoretical context that is commonly used to understand movements like Greenpeace, it is inadequate to explain how Greenpeace interacts with labour and the working class. Abandoning class when looking at new social movements creates a false picture of social movements as it renders the actors as being without class interests. Society has not yet achieved classlessness. Therefore it is premature to examine large-scale social movements as if classes as real social groups have ceased to exist. By using Greenpeace as a case study, I hope to explore the contradiction between new social movement theory and action that can occur when dealing with issues of class.	4

Greenpeace, Democracy, and Class
The structure of Greenpeace is important to investigate to understand how decisions are made and whether there is a potential for class issues to be raised within the group. It is also necessary to analyze the class position of those within Greenpeace in order to open up the question of how their class may affect the politics of Greenpeace. Illustrating the middle-class biographies of new social movement actors is not new; however there has been little analysis of how the class composition of new social movements affects their actual campaigns. I use the theory of the professional managerial class in this article in an attempt to understand how class influenced the ideology and actions of Greenpeace.	5
The term professional managerial class best describes the class position of Greenpeace officials. Barbara and John Ehrenreich identify the professional managerial class as "consisting of salaried menial workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations."¹⁰ This is a useful starting point. However, Erik Olin Wright argues that the Ehrenreichs' professional managerial class model is functionalist and falters as a complete analysis because it defines the professional managerial class by its function of reproducing capitalist culture and class relations but does not adequately consider its relationship to the means of production. Instead, Wright asserts that the professional managerial class occupies contradictory class locations: between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in the case of supervisors and managers, and between the petit bourgeoisie and the working class, in the case of semi-autonomous employees.¹¹ A synthesis of these two analyses provides an excellent working definition of the professional managerial class. The Ehrenreichs' functional analysis is important as it clearly states the role of the professional managerial class, while the contradictory class locations analysis is necessary to explain the relationship of the professional managerial class to the means of production. The term professional managerial class is preferable to middle class, new middle class, or other vague terms because it more carefully describes who comprises this class. Alex Callincos helps expand the understanding of the professional managerial class by explaining Stanley Arnowitz's idea that the professional managerial class is not static: It means the new middle class is not hermetically sealed off from other classes. At the top it shades off into the higher echelons of management and administration, which are effectively part of the ruling class. At the lower end it merges into the working class.¹² The professional managerial class was the predominant constituency within Greenpeace from the beginning and bears more scrutiny than it has been previously been accorded.	6
Thirty years have passed since Vancouver's Georgia Straight carried the one word headline: "Greenpeace." Started as the "Don't Make a Wave Committee" in order to oppose American nuclear testing, it was incorporated as Greenpeace in 1972.¹³ The Straight article outlined plans for the first voyage of what was then called the "Don't Make a Wave Committee": Saturday the group formalized plans to send a ship they'll rename Greenpeace into the Amchitka area before the next test. Greenpeace is an ambitious and maybe impossible project, but so is anything that tries to promote a sane approach to the world we live in.¹⁴ The first campaign consisted of a crew of twelve men who chartered the boat Phyllis Cormack on 15 September 1971 to "bear witness" to the nuclear test on the island Amchitka in the North West Pacific. The blast at Amchitka was not prevented, but Greenpeace declared the action a victory since the American government never used the Amchitka site again and because of the extensive media coverage Greenpeace received.¹⁵	7
Among the founding members of Greenpeace, and those who would become the most well known initially, were those who went out on the first Greenpeace action to stop the atom bomb tests at Amchitka. The group was composed of three journalists: Robert Hunter, from the Vancouver Sun; Ben Metcalfe, a theatre critic for the CBC; and Bob Cummings from the Georgia Straight. The journalists were there as members of the protest group, though their role as media personalities would greatly enhance their media coverage. The other crew members were Jim Bohlen, a forest products researcher; Patrick Moore, a graduate student at UBC; Bill Darnell, a social worker; Dr. Lyle Thruston, a medical practitioner; Terry Simmons, a cultural geographer; and Richard Fineberg, a political science professor.¹⁶ The class composition of the executive of Greenpeace changed little over the years. In 1994, the board of directors for Greenpeace Canada were Olivier Deleuze, an agronomic engineer; Joanne Dufay, a health professional; Harvey MacKinnon, a fundraising consultant; Janet Patterson, an accountant; Trudie Richards, a university professor; Steve Sawyer, an Executive Director of Greenpeace International; and Steve Shrybman, a lawyer.¹⁷ The professional managerial class base of Greenpeace's officers is consistent with the new social movement theory literature that often embraces the middle class as the agent of change in society.¹⁸ The Ehrenreichs take a different tact and argue the class interests of the professional managerial class are achieved by a "PMC radicalism" which, emerges out of PMC class interests, which include the PMC's interest in extending its technological and cultural superiority over the working class. Thus the possibility exists in the PMC for the emergence of what may at first sight seem to be a contradiction in terms: anti-working class radicalism. This possibility finds its fullest expression in the PMC radical's recurring vision of a technocratic socialism, a socialism in which the bourgeoisie has been replaced by bureaucrats, planners, and experts of various sorts.¹⁹ The point is not that anti-working-class radicalism is inevitable nor does it mean that groups like Greenpeace are inherently regressive. The point is that the possibility for anti-working-class radicalism exists within the professional managerial class and that new social movements made up largely of the professional managerial class could easily fall into such behaviour. The possibility of anti-working class radicalism is ignored when new social movements are painted as acting in a benevolent, altruistic, and classless manner. This idea co-exists with the idea that new social movements are inherently more inclusive and democratic than old social movements. While I cannot address the broader claims of classlessness of new social movements, I can show how these assumptions play out in specific campaigns.	8
It is important to look at the organisational structure of Greenpeace as well as the class composition of its leadership to see how different voices are heard within the organization. This helps us see if working-class issues could be addressed within the structure of Greenpeace. This is particularly important as inclusion and democratic structures are given much importance in new social movements theory.²⁰ Lawrence Wilde notes that new social movements emphasize "radical democratic internal structures and processes, including rotation of offices, open meetings, and limitation of rewards."²¹ Greenpeace appeared to reflect these ideas in their structure. According to Robert Hunter, one of the founders of Greenpeace, by 1977: Virtually anybody could set themselves up as a Greenpeace office, taking more or less full credit for all the achievements to date, and appoint himself or herself to a position, using no formulas more elaborate than the one we had used ourselves in Vancouver: simply, you get a bunch of your friends in a room and proclaim yourselves.²² The founders of Greenpeace believed that their lack of formal structures allowed Greenpeace to create a group that was non-hierarchical, decentralized, and democratic.²³ However Greenpeace was not organized using alternative structures. In fact, it was structureless. Decisions in the fledgling Greenpeace were made on an ad hoc basis. There were no structural mechanisms for decision making. While this likely suited the small nature of the group at the founding, it created the basis for a fundamentally undemocratic organization in which decisions were made by a small group of people, predominantly men from the professional managerial class.²⁴ Again, this itself does not prove anti-working-class bias but does suggest inclusivity was problematic.	9
It sounds paradoxical to argue that a lack of structure can impede democracy and exclude some voice. However, Jo Freeman, a feminist writing on the women's movement, argues that to strive for a "structureless" group is as useful and as deceptive, as to aim for an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy and that attempting to operate a structureless group "does not prevent the formation of informal structures, but only formal ones" and the "structurelessness becomes a way of making power."²⁵ Freeman critiques structurelessness for its informal networks that create an invisible power structure that prevents democratic member participation. This is the anti-democratic system that Greenpeace operated with for years. Greenpeace lacked even the semblance of internal democracy for close to a decade. According to Robert Hunter at the beginning in 1972, "Instead of a board we had two 'interim chairmen,' we had not had any general meetings."²⁶ This undemocratic state of affairs did not improve with time. Until at least 1977 anybody could create a Greenpeace group and appoint themselves to positions of power without any structure whatsoever.²⁷ This contradicts the idea of participatory democracy as it leaves an elite group to proclaim themselves the leaders and asks the rest of the "membership" to follow. There are no democratic structures set up to deal with issues or to make decisions. If the leaders proclaim themselves, how are they accountable? How are their decisions reached? Who gets a say and who does not? None of these questions can be adequately addressed in such a structureless formation and this contradicts the idea of grassroots, active, democratic, membership driven organization.²⁸ More to the point of this study is how the membership was insular and comprised primarily of the professional managerial class and how difficult it is to influence decisions within Greenpeace.	10
Greenpeace has not become more democratic over the years. If Greenpeace is no longer an unstructured group, its internal democracy has not improved. It is easy to become a member: one only needs to donate money at the door, but the vast majority of members have no way to influence decisions and policy. William K. Carroll and R. S. Ratner note this lack of internal democracy in an article on new social movements: Greenpeace has never aspired to a mass membership. Actually it has no formal membership; instead campaigners and office staff are paid employees, although their work is supplemented by that of volunteers. Volunteers and Greenpeace supporters — those who give money when contacted by the extensive canvass — have no rights to participate in decision making; they may define themselves as members but they are actually positioned as subscribers to the organization's glossy magazine.²⁹ The positioning of members as subscribers with no decision making power prevents members from influencing the organization.³⁰	11
This lack of internal democracy extends to the finances of Greenpeace. The budget and allocation of financial resources are decided by the Board of Directors of Greenpeace Canada. Members, or more accurately, subscribers, have no input on the allocation of financial resources within Greenpeace. This issue came to the fore in 1993 when an internal memo was leaked revealing that only 5 per cent of the annual Greenpeace budget was dedicated to campaigns.³¹ The annual budget of Greenpeace lists the total spent on different campaigns, however, this includes the entire "administrative overhead" such as salaries, copying, postage, telephone, and a percentage of rent for space, which serves to inflate the amount spent on campaigns. A snapshot of how much money Greenpeace has had over the years is available by looking through their reports. In 1979 Greenpeace Canada had $158,571; in 1980 this increased to $390,339. Revenue in the late 1980s saw a dramatic increase: in 1987 it was $1,641,565 and in 1988 $2,977,092. The 1990s again saw major increase in revenue: in 1993 $7,543,402, in 1994 $6,749,521, and in 1995 $5,571,486 and 1996 $5,928,470.³² Greenpeace is a comparatively wealthy organization in the world of social movements, however, its spending lacks even the basics of democracy.	12
The fact that Greenpeace lacks internal democracy may seem to be of concern only to the members. However, Greenpeace leaders have insisted that they are interested in expanding the scope of democracy and in speaking for a "universal" humanity. It is this contradiction that needs to be highlighted. Greenpeace asserts that their struggle is against undemocratic corporations, a David vs. Goliath scenario with Greenpeace representing the people against the multi-national polluting corporations. Greenpeace has stated this explicitly. "The battle ground is the bitterly cold ice fields of the Labrador Front. Greenpeace Shepherds against industrial Goliaths," one account put it.³³ This claim to universality is restated in a variety of ways. Another Greenpeace writer put it this way: "Greenpeacers see themselves as a prototype United Nations peace force."³⁴ When Greenpeace was initiating its second anti-whaling campaign in 1976, it sought the endorsement of the United Nations and even had the UN extend the Vancouver Habitat conference so the launching of the Greenpeace VII from the Jericho Beach conference site would end the conference.³⁵ Robert Hunter goes as far as to say, "We were sailing out this time with the official endorsement of the United Nations conference — we were the world community."³⁶	13
These claims fall apart under closer scrutiny. Greenpeace's actions to save the environment are not inherently beneficial to all. Despite their claims to be democratic, universal, and above class interests, the methods they choose often have very real negative effects on one particular group: the working class. This was especially clear in one of its first Canadian campaigns. The campaign to ban the seal hunt devastated two entire economies and communities: those of the Inuit and the Newfoundland sealers.	14

Seals, Senators, and Movie Stars
The seal hunt has always been integral to the livelihood of both the Inuit and Newfoundlanders. Native peoples have relied on seals for oil, meat, and clothing for thousands of years. From the migratory fishery of the 16th century to the later European settlements on Newfoundland in the 17th and early 18th century, sealing has played a major role in the economy and seal oil was a major export to Britain for use as lamp fuel.³⁷ Through the 19th century, as alternative fuel sources such as oil and gas were developed, the seal oil market declined, while the seal skin market increased.³⁸ The importance of sealing cannot be underestimated. In the middle of the 19th century goods produced through sealing accounted for over 30 per cent of Newfoundland's exports.³⁹ Ryan states, "the seal fishery had made an unparalleled contribution to Newfoundland and nothing — including agriculture, mining, paper milling, railroads, or free trade with the United States — could take its place."⁴⁰ The importance of the seal hunt to Newfoundlanders was not only economic. It created a whole culture, and working-class solidarity among the sealing community. As historian Shannon Ryan notes, "the seal fishery ... had a comprehensive influence on society and culture in general and contributed to the development, by 1914, of a distinctive Newfoundland identity."⁴¹	15
The hunt moved from an inland hunt to a sea-going hunt in small boats, and as industrialization increased the technology of getting out onto the ice to conduct the seal hunt changed.⁴² Small rowing boats gave way to the sailing era and the large vessel hunt, signaled by two schooners leaving St. John's in 1793. The steam era of 1863–1945 saw the sail schooners replaced by steam ships.⁴³ However, it must be noted that these technological changes did not result in an elimination of the earlier methods of sealing, as the large commercial sealers, the landsmen hunt, small ships, and individual sealers walking out to the ice, all coexisted together. It was the continued presence of the local landsman and small ship hunt that allowed Greenpeace to initially forge an alliance with the Newfoundland sealers against the large factory ships as the locals found the large hauls of the sealing ships a threat to their hunt.	16
The class formation of sealers was different from the more typical development of waged workers in Canada. This does not, however, mean that there was no class struggle. The persistence of a truck system through most of the 19th century and the early 20th century created a set of different class relations. Sean Cadigan notes that, "truck represented a mutual, though unequal, accommodation between two basic classes: merchants and fish producers. Fish producers and merchants, like suppliers of labour and capital in other staple industries, needed each other, but this interdependency did not preclude struggle between the two."⁴⁴ He argues, "while the discourse of law may have fixed broad parameters, a very material class struggle governed the day-to day lives of residents of the northeast coast."⁴⁵ With the understanding that the truck system differed from direct waged labour it can be said that the sealers were the first members of the working class in Newfoundland to take collective action, with a strike in 1832.⁴⁶ The striking sealers, fighting to get their wages from the masters and merchants in cash, banded together. In the end, the strike was successful and the sealers demands were met. The feeling of solidarity was likely reinforced by the shared, class experience of suffering through terrible employment conditions, over-crowded ships, inadequate food, and exploitative pay arrangements that continued after the 1832 strike.⁴⁷	17
A decline in the industry in the last half of the 19th century saw labour peace due more to sagging industry than better working conditions.⁴⁸ The last major strike was in 1902, again over working conditions, the cut given to the owners, and extra fees.⁴⁹ Like many of the feats, struggles, and heartaches of the sealer and the sealing community, the 1902 strike was commemorated in the song "The Sealers' Strike of 1902": Attention, all ye fishermen, and read this ballad down, And hear about the sealers strike the other day in town; When full three thousand northern men did walk the streets all day, With cool determined faces they struck out to get fair play. Each steamer's crew did fall in line, while cheers out loudly rang, Led on by one brave Calloway, the hero of the gang. Free berths it was their motto, and no man would give in, A fight for death or glory, boys, this victory to win. They halted just before the bank, when all hands fell in line; They went inside to state their case before A.B. Morine. He got the terms to suit the men, and from the van did call; That he secured three fifty and "free berths" for one and all. A ringing cheer the sealers gave, with hearts both light and gay. And three more cheers they gave Morine, the man who won the day. With happy hearts they fisted bags, as lightly they did trip, With boots and bags and baking pan to get on board their ship. Then soon around the northern head they disappeared from view, Manned by a plucky, hardy race, a bully northern crew. May they return with bumper trips, it is our earnest prayer The boys who nobly showed their pluck, and fought to get their share.⁵⁰ The solidarity and the cultural remembrances of the strength of collective action of the sealers would be a reoccurring theme in response to the protests against the hunt.	18
Sealing slowed during World War I and stopped altogether during World War II as steamers were brought into the war effort.⁵¹ However, the post-war period saw a rise in sealing, "as early as 1949 the combined catch of the Canadian and Norwegian fleets was double prewar levels."⁵² It was in this period of the 1950s and 1960s that conservation became an issue and public protest began against the hunt. The pivotal moment for the start of public support for protest against the hunt came when the French language CBC broadcast a film in 1964 on the seal hunt entitled Les Phoques de la Barquise. This film sensationalized the seal hunt by focusing on the brutality of the hunt, in particular the alleged skinning of live seals. The negative impact of this film was immense and the live skinning of seals would become a predominant theme in the coming decade of protest.⁵³ It was later revealed that the live seal skinning footage had been faked. A fisher from Magdalen Island stated that he was paid to skin a live seal for the camera and that it was before sealing season had actually opened for the year."⁵⁴ Those protesting the seal hunt withheld this knowledge from the public and instead concentrated on the brutality of the hunt.	19
In 1976, when the first Greenpeace anti-sealing campaign was started, the organizers attempted to make in-roads within the Newfoundland sealing community and rally them against the big sealers. Greenpeace member Carl Rising-Moore had met members of the Newfoundland Fishermen, Food, and Allied Workers Union (NFFAWU) in a pub in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. ⁵⁵ He convinced the president of NFFAWU, Richard Cashin, and members of the executive of the union to travel to St. Anthony's, the staging area for Greenpeace's forays onto the ice, to meet with representatives from Greenpeace. The talks to have Greenpeace and the Fisherman's union co-operate against the large foreign commercial sealing operations reached the point of a joint statement being issued by the two organizations. This statement advised that both would participate in a joint blockade of the ports of St. John's and Vancouver, closing them to all foreign trawlers and draggers by 1 June 1976, if the federal government did not declare a 200 mile fishing management zone around Canadian waters. ⁵⁶ According to Robert Hunter, who was president of the Greenpeace foundation at the time, "we formed an alliance to go after the large icebreakers mainly from Norway, that were going into the birthing grounds. These were the real threat to the continued viability of the seal herds." ⁵⁷ In their newspaper Greenpeace Chronicles, Greenpeace member Paul Watson explained why the anti-seal campaign accepted the alliance with the Newfoundland sealers: The fact is that the commercial fleets owned by Norwegian companies are wiping out the seal herds. The fact is the Norwegians destroyed three great herds of seals prior to starting on the Labrador herds in 1947. The fact is that the commercial fleets take only the pelts, leaving the meat on the ice, while the fishermen and Eskimo of Newfoundland and Labrador do eat the meat. With a conservation stand the seals could have a chance.⁵⁸ However, Greenpeace would not follow through on this historic agreement and a year later in 1977, Paul Watson would contradict himself, insisting: The entire hunt must be stopped immediately and totally by both commercial and landsmen interests ... the Greenpeace position is that we are totally opposed to the killing of all seals by Canadians, Norwegians, Danes, and others.⁵⁹ Watson assumed control of the anti-sealing campaign in 1978 and left no room for confusion on his opinion towards sealers. In a CBC interview Watson stated: I certainly wasn't for striking any bargains with Newfoundland sealers. To me sealing is despicable and it has no economic foundation for it even existing. It is a glorified welfare system. You know the government spends more money on it than it brings in.⁶⁰	20
Greenpeace's position against all sealing meant that the opportunity for the more reasonable and mutually beneficial route of stopping the foreign corporate harvest and maintaining the low-scale, self-sufficient local harvest had been lost. It had been lost not just by a tactical mistake, but also by counterposing Greenpeace's environmentalist perspective against a working-class community's economic interests. It is not entirely clear what compelled this abrupt change. According to Patrick Moore, a co-director of the anti-seal campaign, the reaction of the Greenpeace membership to the alliance with the NFFAWU was a factor: Last year we came in here determined to put an end to the commercial hunt only.... As far as Newfoundland landsmen were concerned, guys who kill a few seals working out of small boats, we backed them all the way. Know what we got for our trouble? Stacks of Greenpeace membership cards, torn in half, pouring into the office in Vancouver.⁶¹ Moore's claim may be an exaggeration as the membership numbers in 1976 were low, with one estimate being 30 core members.⁶² Watson states that there were a handful of buttons sent crushed up in a paper bag, hardly the stacks that Moore claims.⁶³ As well, the quotes from Watson in 1977 and 1978 show the Greenpeace leadership of the sealing campaign broke the alliance based as much on their own views as for any other reason. Watson's own book that covers the events suggests that the alliance was struck only as a way out of a difficult situation when the Greenpeace team was met with such hostility in the first year of the campaign. After public support increased and became international, the alliance was no longer useful.⁶⁴	21
Further evidence of a professional managerial class bias is found in the way in which Greenpeace portrayed the seal hunt and the sealers. Greenpeace began to vilify the sealers, referring to the hunt as an "annual outrage"⁶⁵ and writing descriptive prose designed to sway the reader to share the outrage. A special edition of the Greenpeace Chronicles in 1977 was typical: Millions of baby seals began to come under the fatal shadow of the sealers and their two week old lives were snuffed out by the cruel clubs and gaffs.... They butchered every seal within sight, sparing none. Each and every year the sealers came, to stain the whitish blue floes scarlet with the life-blood of the seals.⁶⁶ Greenpeace did not stop at graphically and negatively portraying the seal hunt. It also mocked Newfoundland culture. One quote indicates the tone of its campaign, "It was called 'The Great Hunt' and the sealers were considered to be strong and courageous heroes. It always has been and still remains a brutal annual outrage of destruction."⁶⁷ Greenpeace attacked the sealers' pride in their work and cultural history as well as ridiculing entire Newfoundland communities.	22
The above is only a sampling of the rhetorical devices used in the campaign. The images of the seal hunt are vivid, such as the contrast of the seals' red blood on the glaring white ice. It was easy to record the hunt, as it occurred outside, in public view, and Greenpeace emphasized that the harp seals were often killed at ten days old to increase public outrage towards the hunt and the sealers. The effect of the anti-seal campaign became evident with the incredible backlash against the sealers. Thousands of letters were sent to government officials, newspapers, magazines, radio call-in shows, and to St. Anthony, Newfoundland, addressed to sealers in general. A sampling of the letters illustrates how the anti-seal campaign had been received at home and abroad: Sirs: You people of Newfoundland are a bunch of murderers. You must love killing defenceless, baby seals. You feel that killing them is added income. With that money I hope you rot. I guess it's true, Newfoundland IS backward, ignorant and prehistoric. D.B Millwaukee, U.S.A. Sealers St. Anthony, Newfoundland The pitiful sight of the mother seal looking at her skinned baby made my heart sick. If that is the only way these men can make a living, I hope they all starve to death. Better still, maybe we could CLUB them to death. T.B. Ontario, Canada⁶⁸ This is only a sampling of thousands of letters. Author and anthropologist Janice Scott Henke has commented on the anti-seal campaign, noting that, "The tendency of the cultural anthropologist would be to view the protest movement as entirely unethical due to this blatant disregard for human impact, and its explicit denial of the intrinsic worth of Atlantic culture."⁶⁹	23
After Greenpeace had dropped their alliance with the Newfoundland sealers, they recruited US senate representatives to come north to condemn the hunt. The US House of Representatives passed a motion condemning the hunt and Congressman Jeffords, a Republican, and Congressman Ryan, a Democrat, came to witness the hunt first-hand. Greenpeace activist Robert Hunter describes this as an attempt to "bring our new American political muscle to bear."⁷⁰ It seems Hunter missed the irony of using American pressure against the working class of his own country — the same power he had opposed in Greenpeace's first action against American nuclear tests. In addition to congressmen, Greenpeace solicited the help of movie stars; Henry Fonda and Gregory Peck went on the record condemning the seal hunt and Brigitte Bardot helicoptered in for photo ops on the ice flows.⁷¹ Brigitte Bardot wrote a journal of her protest trip to the Newfoundland ice that was published in the Greenpeace Chronicles. Bardot participated in vilifying the sealers. "You are called Canadian Assassins. The word is out," she stated at a press conference.⁷² In contrast, she likened the Greenpeace protesters to the apostles and admired their courage and devotion.⁷³ Greenpeace had traded in its alliance with workers for an alliance with senators and movie stars. Francis Patey, a sealer from a sealing family who wrote a first person account of the protests around St. Anthony's in the 1970s, writes one of the best summaries of how this campaign affected sealers. Patey writes, We have read and listened for years now to the hate, the propaganda, the prejudice, the falsehoods, and the malice which has been dumped on Newfoundland and Labrador. However, in the interest of our own self-esteem, in the interest of truth and justice, we must always remember from whence [sic] the criticism comes. Primarily, it has come from people who have much to gain by seeking headlines, and by capturing close-ups before the cameras.⁷⁴ In terms of media relations, the sealers had been outdone. Greenpeace enjoyed an almost complete victory in its campaign to ban the hunt. The European Economic Community announced a voluntary boycott on seal products in 1982. In 1983, this ban became mandatory. In 1985, a Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada was formed. The report from the commission was tabled 17 December 1986 and recommended a ban on hunting seal pups. The sealing by large off-shore vessels was banned in 1987; combined with the boycott of furs and seal products in Europe, all that remained was a much decreased landsmen hunt. The landsmen had started a co-operative in 1986, the Northeast Coast Sealers Co-operative, hoping to use seal pelts in Newfoundland crafts and restart the seal meat processing.⁷⁵ By 1990 the landsmen hunt still existed marginally and the co-op was still operating with the assistance of the Newfoundland government.⁷⁶	24
The anti-sealing campaign was a success from Greenpeace's perspective, but it failed to take responsibility for destroying the economic and social basis of the Newfoundland sealing and Inuit communities. John Amagualik, an Inuit leader, states very succinctly what the Greenpeace campaigns against sealing meant: The collapse of the seal skin market meant that many of our communities could no longer depend on that income, and it resulted in an increase in the social problems that we have. When a person has nothing to do, sitting at home, he or she is more liable to get into alcohol and drug abuse. There was a marked increase in the rate of suicide among young people, especially in communities that depended heavily on the sealskin industry. So there was a devastating effect.⁷⁷ Clearly the impact was not solely economic and it affected the Inuit community. Amagualik testified to the Royal Commission on sealing about the cultural impact of the ban and boycotts noting that, "it is through the hunting of seals, and their butchering and distribution, that young people can readily be taught the virtues of cooperation, patience, sharing and their responsibilities in the community."⁷⁸	25
The economic devastation was also attested to by Newfoundland sealers plight. In 1978 the average Newfoundland sealer earned less than $8,000 per year from all sources and it was predicted that a ban on seal hunting would reduce the average sealers income by 15 to 30 per cent and would take $5.5 million out of the Newfoundland economy. ⁷⁹ In 1985 the testimony of a sealer brings the impact of a ban into perspective, We survive month to month, year to year, living in hope for better times. On average, our incomes are well below the poverty line, yet we live a lifestyle that brings great day-to-day satisfaction. We have often heard from our critics that men such as myself only earn a few hundred dollars a year from sealing. Therefore, it is of no great economic benefit. But Canadians and this Royal Commission must realize that for families living near the poverty line, a few hundred dollars means a lot. Without that money we can't continue to make money, because we need it to reinvest in the rest of the year's fishery.⁸⁰ Ironically, the hunt ban resulted in an annual culling of seals anyway. "If the hunt were banned," warned Mac Mercer, a marine biologist from McGill and Harvard, "we'd have to go quietly and bop off an annual quota of seals anyway, just to protect the fishery."⁸¹ This is what has happened. The ship-based hunt has been eliminated and the landsmen hunt continues in limited form with an annual quota of seals.	26
The Inuit sealers were not just affected by the harp seal hunt ban. While the Greenpeace campaign specifically targeted harp sealing, it also had an adverse effect on the ringed seal market, which was very important to the Inuit economy. Ringed seals are not cute and cuddly when young, and that is likely why they were not part of the campaign, although the ringed seal demand was equally decreased.⁸² James E. Candow explores this idea in his history of the seal hunt, Of Men and Seals. Candow credits Pol Chantraine, a sealer and journalist, for the explanation of the subconscious appeal to the images of the harp seal pups.⁸³ Chantraine saw that a whitecoat shares many of the same characteristics that adults respond to in a child: proportionately large head, large low-lying eyes, and awkward movements. He concluded that the physical appearance of the whitecoat subconsciously triggers protective behaviour among humans.⁸⁴ The inaccurate belief that the meat was not used also needs to be addressed, as it was a key criticism of the hunt. In a statement to the Royal Commission on Sealing set up in 1985, a sealer testified: It is not a well known fact, but it is accurate that the great majority of seal meat is fully utilized. It angers me when I see on the TV pictures of whitecoat seal carcasses just left on the ice. There is very little useable meat on an animal of that age. The flippers are used, but the TV coverage doesn't show that. On the older animals which we take, all of the meat is used.⁸⁵ In the end, Greenpeace grew in membership and its media presence soared. There was little said about the communities left behind. The Newfoundlanders have their own critique of Greenpeace using a traditional cultural medium, a folk song, "Save Our Swilers:" Come all you Newfoundlanders and listen to my song About St. Anthony's visitors from "away" and "upalong"; There were movie types and media types and Mounties, some fivescore, If we were bent on violence they'd need a hundred more. They are out to ban the seal hunt and this they mean to do, Brian Davis and the Greenpeacers and all their motley crew;... A bedlamer boy from Greenpeace he chained on to the "whip," And was dunked into the water by the rolling of the ship; We had a job to save him in all the fuss and racket, But I bet his pelt wouldn't have been worth as much as a Ragged Jacket. They call us cruel, barbaric, hunting seals just for the thrill These pampered city slickers that a day's hard work would kill; What do they know of challenges of storm and sea and ice That dare the blood to answer and to pay the sealers' price? They're out for front-page stories, they've come so far to roam, And blood on ice will show up well on T. V. screens back home; They know their media bosses have paid good money out, If they don't send "juicy" stories their jobs are "up the spout." There's many things we don't approve in countries far away How people act and dress and talk and how they earn their pay; But we don't get up a hate campaign and stir up children too, To force our views on other folks as these do-gooders do.⁸⁶ For all its claims of representing the world community Greenpeace's anti-sealing campaign did not represent the communities of Newfoundland or Labrador. Through skilled use of media images and by mobilizing star power Greenpeace presented a one sided argument to the world community. In addition to a lack of consultation with the affected communities, Greenpeace's class bias was illustrated by initially brokering a deal with the working class and then breaking it when it appeared the working class was a liability not an asset. Although it is beyond the scope of this article to explore fully the intersection of race and class as axes of oppression, its significance is suggested by the case of the Inuit in the sealing campaign. It raises more questions about Greenpeace's claim to universality. Greenpeace's apparent disregard for working-class concerns and the local economies was repeated in BC when Greenpeace entered the debate around BC's ongoing struggle for a coherent sustainable forestry strategy.	27

Greenpeace, Loggers, and Unions
In July 1997, Greenpeace found two of its ships, the Arctic Sunrise and the Moby Dick, blockaded into port in Vancouver by angry members of the Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada (IWA).⁸⁷ The struggle between loggers and environmentalists is almost legendary in BC. Yet beneath the headlines is a conflict that escapes easy analysis. The positioning of the argument as jobs versus the environment has been a successful tool used by timber companies and pro-business lobby groups to divide and conquer their critics, but it is a false dichotomy. Unfortunately Greenpeace's strategy around forestry issues often exacerbates the conflict. On the other side, Share BC groups and the pro-business lobby group BC Forest Alliance have served to fan the flames against environmentalists encouraging workers to believe that the environmentalists are to blame for the problems of the industry.	28
The debate around forestry and conservation issues goes back to the turn of the century in British Columbia. From the early industrialists who considered themselves conservationists, such as H.R. MacMillan, to the scandals around tenure in the 1950s, the balance between corporate and community interests has been hotly debated. In 1905, BC premier Richard McBride opened up BC to corporate logging interests. McBride created special licences that would allow companies to log Crown land for a period of 21 years. Within 3 years there were 15,000 such licences granted.⁸⁸ With rapid advances in technology, the logging industry continued to grow. The introduction of steam power in the 1900s meant that despite a labour shortage during World War I, logging levels reached a record high.⁸⁹ By the 1930s, H.R. MacMillan, disturbed by the lack of any coherent forest conservation policy, issued a statement that sounds very much like a contemporary concern: "How long can it last?" it may be asked. "What of the future?" Canadians have listened to such tales of Canada's limitless resources that they are prone to avoid an answer rather than seek it.... Meantime it is generally known among the well-informed that the forest is being overcut at a devastating rate in every forest province in Canada.⁹⁰ The Sloan Commission was set up in 1945 to investigate the forest industry, and issued reports in both 1945 and 1957. Upon its recommendations, forest companies were granted long-term logging rights upon the condition that mills would be built and employment created for the communities.⁹¹ Sustainable yield was the buzzword of the commission, though it meant little in terms of actual sustainability and more on how much companies were allowed to cut. Logging would expand greatly from the 1960s onwards introducing significant changes in technology.⁹²	29
Contrary to popular rhetoric, loggers have long been interested in sane, environmentally sound practices in logging. As Jerry Lembcke and William M. Tattam point out in their book One Union in Wood, "under Communist editorship the IWA's paper, the Timberworker, opposed clearcutting of forests and log exports and promoted reforestation and conservation."⁹³ The Timberworker's position makes sense, for workers stand to lose when technologies for faster, more profitable, and less environmentally sound logging are implemented and workers are eliminated. In the late 1940s the IWA correctly anticipated what lay ahead for its members. Labour saving technological advances would devastate the workers in the forest industries and wreak even more havoc on the natural environment.⁹⁴	30
The issue of technological change is a daunting one for all resource workers. Forestry workers have been particularly hard-hit over the past 30 years. Over the past three decades the annual volume of timber logged in BC has tripled while direct forestry jobs per thousand cubic metres have been cut in half.⁹⁵ Joyce Nelson identifies two key moments in forestry that resulted in huge job losses: 1974–1975 when the grapple yarder was introduced and 1983–1984 when giant failer bunchers were introduced.⁹⁶ Yarding refers to moving the cut trees from where they are cut to where they can be transported out of the cut block, either a road or landing. Highlead yarding was used up to the 1970s. This technique needed crews of five to six people; grapple yarders need only crews of two or three people.⁹⁷ The introduction of the feller buncher also had consequences for the workers. As Marchak points out, "Felling and bunching, for example, are now done by operators in mobile machines. One machine driver can log far more trees in a morning than the skilled faller of the past could have done in several days, and the driver never leaves his cab."⁹⁸	31
The workers in the forestry industry have been devastated by the changes and it clearly is not because production slowed down. Since 1980 production has increased while employment has decreased in logging, sawmills and planing mills, and pulp and paper mills. By 1995 employment in logging had decreased by 23 per cent from 1980 and production had increased by 21 per cent. Sawmills and planing mills employment had dropped by 18.8 per cent and production had increased by 18.7 per cent. Pulp and paper mills experienced similar trends: 18.8 per cent of the labour force had been cut and production had increased 22.7 per cent between 1980 and 1994.⁹⁹ It should be difficult to blame environmentalists for these types of numbers. However, blaming environmentalists allows the companies to play a game of bait and switch between workers and environmentalists. The companies say the environmentalists are to blame for the loss of jobs while the environmentalists incite the workers by blockading them from earning a living, leaving the companies relatively unscathed. This takes the focus off real issues such as overproduction, technological changes, and capitalist imperatives to increase production and profits and cut costs, such as labour.	32
Attempts had been made before to work out the issues between loggers and environmentalists without conflict. The Tin Wis Coalition was formed in 1988 with the intention of bringing workers, environmentalists, and First Nations together to talk about their interests.¹⁰⁰ Recognizing the memberships of the three groups were not mutually exclusive helped to bring the groups together. The models discussed and advocated in these forums were worker-oriented solutions, meaning solutions that were about employment, safety, and sustainability, not company profits. Solutions were largely based on the decentralization of forestry operations and community control over the means of production.¹⁰¹ The source of the conflict was seen as an economic system that valued profit over workers and the environment. The Tin Wis participants committed themselves to develop and implement the mechanisms for Native people, trade unionists, environmentalists, women, youth and others to work together on a regional basis to resolve resource development and environmental issues and conflicts and to further the process of developing a "peoples" alternative to the policies of the present government.¹⁰² Unfortunately the coalition ceased activity shortly after its October 1990 conference in which they agreed to draft an alternate forest stewardship act. The Tin Wis proposal would have been a radical departure from the mutual distrust entrenched in both the workers and environmentalist camps. Adopting such a way forward could have been the beginning of a counter hegemonic bloc that had class and race as integral components in proposing a solution. Environmental writer Michael M'Gonigle has expanded on these kind of solutions in the book Forestopia, a blueprint for value-added logging and a made in BC solution to the years of conflict between workers, environmentalists, and the industry. He does this by recognizing that the interests of workers is in sustainable forests, liveable communities, and control over the work process and their livelihoods. When solutions are framed with workers included in solving the problem of environmental degradation, then the confrontation between workers and environmentalists can be bridged.¹⁰³ Unfortunately, workers have been largely excluded from decision-making in the conflict over Clayoquot Sound and a coalition or people's alternative has remained elusive.	33
In 1989 the Social Credit government in BC formed an eleven member task force whose mandate was to find compromises for land use in Clayoquot Sound that satisfied all the stakeholders.¹⁰⁴ The task force was unable to reach an agreement, and by October 1989, it had been disbanded, with recommendations for a steering committee with more members and broader representation to take up the task. The next attempt was the Clayoquot Sound Development Steering Committee that had representatives from the logging industry, environmentalists, tourist operators, and First Nations.¹⁰⁵ Talks went on for over a year and a half until the environmental representatives walked out because logging continued while they met. The government had decided to have a separate panel composed of Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Forests representatives to decide where logging could occur, while the Steering Committee met. Failing to reach agreement on this, the environmentalists left the committee in May 1991. The tourism representative left in solidarity but was replaced by another tourism representative.¹⁰⁶ The Steering Committee broke up with no formal agreement; however, when the NDP formed government in 1991 they used the information and work of both the Task Force and the Steering Committee in their land use plan announced in 1993.¹⁰⁷ On 13 April 1993 the NDP government put forward a land use plan for Clayoquot Sound that they hoped would end the conflict over old growth, at least in that region.¹⁰⁸ Under the NDP's plan, called the Clayoquot Sound land use decision, 44.7 per cent was designated for commercial timber use under the label "general integrated management." The plan also called for 33.4 per cent of the region to be protected from logging in "protected areas," and 17.6 per cent was to be a special management area broken into three categories: recreation, 1.1 per cent; wildlife, 1.3 per cent; and scenic corridors, 15.2 per cent.¹⁰⁹	34
The Friends of Clayoquot Sound, who had walked out of the Socred talks, had put up blockades in 1992 but on a smaller scale than they would in 1993. Over the summer and fall of 1993 the protests in the Sound would eventually attract more than 11,000 protesters. In a series of confrontations over the summer of 1993, Greenpeace pursued a full preservationist agenda. Backing up the Friends of Clayoquot Sound and providing money, campaigners, and a formidable public relations machine, Greenpeace played a large part in bringing thousands of protesters into the Sound. Over 800 people were arrested, the largest number of persons ever arrested for social protest in Canada.	35
Some participants felt that making workers the target was not directly taking on the companies and allowed them to avoid scrutiny while furthering the split between workers and environmentalists. David Peerla, a Greenpeace forest campaigner at the time, was uncomfortable with the focus on workers and eventually left Greenpeace: I never wanted to put my campaign into direct conflict with labour, because I thought that was a false antagonism. So I never organized any direct civil disobedience which prevented workers from going to work in the forest.... I was really confronting what I saw as the fundamental opponent: namely capital — the corporate sector.¹¹⁰ The complexities of a campaign that was meant to put pressure on forest companies but ended up in direct conflict with workers was never adequately addressed by Greenpeace. The companies were able to falsely, but persuasively, set the workers against the environmentalists claiming their jobs were at stake. This would not have been as easy had the environmentalists not been keeping them from work, however temporarily.	36
There is no simple solution to this bait and switch tactic, yet communication would go a long way to usurping the companies' tactic of playing on the mutual distrust between the two groups. In fairness, this cannot be laid completely at the door of the environmentalists. The mistrust was mutually reinforced. A source of the mistrust was the publicity efforts of the corporate lobby group the BC Forest Alliance and also Share BC groups.¹¹¹ Share groups follow the model of the Wise Use movement in the United States.¹¹² The Library of Parliament in Ottawa published a report entitled Share Groups in B.C. The paper delineates the links between the Share Movement, the timber industry and the Wise Use movement. The conclusion of the paper argues that while, "grassroots movements and lobbying activity are legitimate and desirable in a democratic society, they are open to criticism if deliberately misrepresenting either the identity of interest involved or their goals."¹¹³ The Wise Use movements' connections to both the American Freedom Coalition, which as the political arm of the Unification Church has supported right-wing regimes in Central and South America, and forestry corporations, makes its position as a grassroots roots movement dubious.¹¹⁴ However, while recognizing industry backed protest for what it is, the complete dismissal of workers concerns would be a mistake. Many who joined Share groups would likely have been looking for an avenue to protect themselves from what they had been convinced was a threat to their livelihood. As well the division between workers and environmentalists played itself out in other ways.	37
The disparities between Tofino, the home of "Friends of Clayoquot Sound" and the base for environmental protest, and the logging community of Ucluelet, are indicative of the split between the two groups. In 1999 the average home in Tofino cost $235,000 while the average in Ucluelet was $132,000. Tofino is a town of 1,283 people of whom over 200 earn more than $50,000, while Ucluelet has 1,729 residents of whom 90 people make more than $50,000. Tofino currently has a 4.3 per cent unemployment rate compared to Ucluelet's 15.6 per cent.¹¹⁵ Admittedly this illustrates different income but not necessarily different class standing. When we look at other indicators, however, they heighten the contrast of the towns. In Tofino 70 people work in primary industry; in Ucluelet, 155. Tofino has 30 people in manufacturing, Ucluelet has 180. Tofino has 40 people in business services while Ucluelet has none. Tofino has 110 people in management occupations, Ucluelet 80. The levels of education differ substantially as well. In Tofino only 20 people have less than a grade 9 educations, while the number in Ucluelet is 150. Tofino has 285 people who lack a high school diploma; Ucluelet, 345.¹¹⁶ These statistics suggest the working-class nature of Ucluelet, and the more middle-class, or professional managerial-class, nature of Tofino, the base of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound and Greenpeace and the blockades of 1993. One caveat about the nature of class formation in the Clayoquot Sound area is that the Tofino area is not comprised simply of environmentalists and small to medium capitalist enterprises. The tourist firms do have employees who rely on the industry for their income. While these service sector workers' immediate interests may not be the same as the forestry workers in Ucluelet, the climate of fear and uncertainty in resource towns would have been felt by these service sector workers as well. In the long run a sustainable forest economy that respected biological diversity would benefit both groups of workers. It could be around this issue that the individual interests could become collective interests and begin the formation of class solidarity.¹¹⁷	38
Workers who felt threatened by the scope of the anti-logging protests mobilized in a counter protest against the blockade. Over 5,000 people came from across BC to support the Clayoquot Sound strategy, and more specifically the logging community, in an event billed as "Ucluelet Rendezvous '93."¹¹⁸ In counter-protest to the blockade, "200 litres of human excrement were dumped by the logging blockaders' information site."¹¹⁹ Many environmental supporters would argue that this was merely industry-backed protest. While the working-class groups that sprang up around this time were often industry supporters, they raised valid concerns that the workers felt environmentalists did not address. Failing to realize this was a great oversight on the environmentalists' part. By not engaging with workers' concerns the situation was ripe for a backlash. One logger who had come from Williams Lake to support the Ucluelet workers put it this way: "People in forest dependent communities don't want to destroy the forests, as environmentalists claim. But they also want their children to be able to work in the forest industry if they want to."¹²⁰ Unfortunately, industry supporters, such the BC Forestry Alliance, wanted to blame the environmentalists. The environmentalists were not the cause of the attrition of workers' jobs over the past three decades. However, it was in the companies' interest to lay blame on the environmentalists.	39
Complicated issues were often simply reduced to sloganeering and generalizations. Des Kennedy, a Clayoquot defender, takes a position that at first seems sympathetic to working-class issues but quickly degenerates into anti-working-class rhetoric. Kennedy criticizes Share groups as "existing to protect capital, not workers."¹²¹ While this would be true of the aims behind the corporate Share backers the workers in the groups were usually doing what they thought would best defend their jobs. Given the circumstances and the lack of dialogue between the workers and environmentalists this was not so unreasonable a tact to take. Lorelei Hanson points out that while there is "no doubt that corporate money helps fuel much of the activity of WUM [Wise Use Movement] the WUM should be recognized not just for the environmental setbacks they have caused, but also for the questions they raise concerning environmentally and economically sustainable livelihoods."¹²² Unfortunately, Kennedy exacerbates the divide describing the average workers as dupes who are "caught in a vortex they do not understand," while "the more gullible among them are easy prey for professional manipulators."¹²³ In contrast, he argues, "the campaign to save the Clayoquot rainforest is a classic example of non-violent civil disobedience. Participants maintain a friendly, open, and respectful attitude towards loggers, police, and company officials."¹²⁴ Kennedy insults the workers' intelligence, and then contrasts them with the benevolent "classless" environmental group that harms no one. This simplistic argument ends up perpetuating the impasse between groups and does little to end the exploitation of workers or the environment	40
Race was another axis of oppression that tended to be ignored during the Clayoquot campaign. Repeating past mistakes with the Inuit during the sealing campaign, Greenpeace entered into the forestry debate in the Sound without permission or consultation with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth peoples. Nelson Keitlah, co-chairman of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth central region Chiefs, stated, "We feel put off by people coming here who literally have nothing at stake. We are trying to create a better understanding and a new way of logging." For its part, Greenpeace accused the forest companies of buying Nuu-Chah-Nulth support with promises of shared logging revenues.¹²⁵ This unfortunate lack of cultural sensitivity made the chances of bringing about any sort of "peoples agenda" even more remote.¹²⁶	41
As the protests eventually died down Greenpeace spent the next year in a public relations war with the government and the BC Forest Alliance. Accusations were thrown back and forth all the way to Europe. The British Columbia government sent diplomatic groups over to show how the forest practices in BC were improving, while Greenpeace and other environmental groups sent their members to counter the government's spin.¹²⁷ This was not new, as the government and protest groups had both traveled to Europe to present their cases before. It had, however, become the tactic of choice for both groups after the confrontation in the summer of 1993.¹²⁸ This put the power over what would happen further away from the average worker or even the grassroots environmentalist. The debate was no longer even accessible to them.	42
The scientific panel continued to meet and issued its findings the same year. On Thursday, 6 July 1995, the BC forests minister, Andrew Petter, and the environment minister, Elizabeth Cull, announced the New Democratic Party government had accepted all of the 127 recommendations by the scientific panel on Clayoquot Sound.¹²⁹ The principle recommendations included deferring logging until inventories of pristine areas had been done; reducing the annual allowable cut in the area, clearcuts reduced to four hectares; and conducting biological and cultural inventories to aid eco-based planning. Greenpeace was satisfied and agreed to call off its boycott of Macmillan Bloedel products. In June 1999 Greenpeace announced that it would partner with Macmillan Bloedel to do the public relations work for its new logging methods in Clayoquot Sound. In exchange for MacMillan Bloedel respecting the Clayoquot Sound scientific panel's recommendations from 1995, Greenpeace would partner with Mac Blo to market its products. This was not a worker/green alliance. It was a meeting of two corporations: Greenpeace and MacMillan Bloedel.¹³⁰ The way in which Greenpeace sought to settle the dispute illustrates the Ehrenreichs' theory of Professional Managerial Class radicalism in action. The focus was on scientists and other experts, providing a solution. Workers were not given expert status and were not involved in the solution at Clayoquot Sound. In the final analysis, despite its avowals of being beyond class interests, Greenpeace allied with the employers, while an alliance with workers had not been fully explored and thus remained elusive. While this agreement could be seen as benefiting workers in that, at least potentially, it would increase sales and keep jobs stable, it has been shown that increased productivity was no guarantee of workers job security. In fact, the company had a history of increasing production while conducting a reduction of the workforce. As well, the agreement was made above the heads of the workers and their union. Greenpeace's deal had nothing in it regarding the retaining of jobs and nothing in it for workers. It was purely a marketing agreement between companies.	43
Greenpeace has not had an easy relationship with unions in the woods or in their own backyard. At the same time that Greenpeace was failing to deal with workers in the forests or with their union they were attempting to bust a homegrown union drive in their Toronto office. In June 1993 headlines across Canada brought Greenpeace's internal conflict to public attention. The front page of the Ottawa Citizen read, "Greenpeace at War with Itself." The next day it was on the Canadian Press newswire and in newspapers across Canada. At issue was Greenpeace's attempt to break the union that had been formed by staff in the Toronto head office of Greenpeace Canada. The Greenpeace staff union filed a complaint with the Ontario labour relations board accusing Greenpeace of "bargaining in bad faith, using layoffs and other threats to intimidate union members, and of systemic discrimination against women and racial minorities."¹³¹	44
The newspaper reports focused on the allegations that Greenpeace was not using a large enough percentage of donations to go towards campaigns. This is not an insignificant issue. According to a leaked report Greenpeace was spending over 90 per cent of their money earned through donations on administration, not on campaigns. The spokesperson for Greenpeace admitted as much.¹³² The fact that Greenpeace was not being honest about where its money was going reflects the unaccountable, undemocratic nature of the organization. However, it does not tell the whole story. What was underreported were the anti-union tactics Greenpeace was employing. This story came out in the alternative press when Bruce Livesey exposed the issue in the pages of Canadian Dimension. Greenpeace staffers formed a union, the Toronto Greenpeace Staff Association, in December 1992. Soon after, union organizers and union supporters began to be harassed and laid off. Two of the union organizers, Stan Gray and Gord Perks, were laid off. They claimed the layoffs were "a smokescreen for union busting."¹³³ Another staffer Andrea Ritchie stated that she "was laid off as part of the 'restructuring' that led to the lay-off of all campaign staff involved in organizing the union." In September 1993, a Greenpeace worker who was a member of the union executive was fired without just cause. She was reinstated only after an appeal to the Ontario labour relations board ruled in the union's favour. It was after this incident that the union members went public. It also was revealed that Greenpeace had hired an anti-union law firm, Mathews, Dinsdale, and Clark, best known as a defender of corporate polluters. They had, for example, defended Varnicolor Chemicals on a charge of illegally dumping toxic waste. Greenpeace hired Mathews, Dinsdale, and Clark to bust the union and paid over $100,000 to the firm. It was the use of membership money to bust a union rather than support environmental campaigns that brought up the issue of budgeting priorities.¹³⁴ Brian Iler, a lawyer and member of Greenpeace, decided to cut his relationship with Greenpeace because of its union-busting campaign. As you are aware, I have been increasingly uncomfortable with Greenpeace management's approach to labour relations, and its apparent willingness to devote massive resources desperately needed by campaigns (and which were donated to Greenpeace in the expectation they would be used for campaigns) to oppose the legitimate and legal rights of your Toronto employees to form a union and to negotiate a collective agreement. I reject absolutely the defense that management had no alternative. Heavy-handed firings and refusal to accept seniority and other provisions absolutely standard in collective agreements indicate to me that management has indeed chosen the anti-union path.¹³⁵ Ironically, the union-busting came at a time when it appeared Greenpeace was attempting to break with its past and move in a more pro-worker, pro-labour direction by hiring a liaison to work with labour.	45
Greenpeace had hired union activist Stan Gray in 1990 to work in a coalition with labour groups. Gray played a large role in creating the Green Work Alliance in 1991. Gray received a PhD in politics at Oxford and held a teaching post at McGill from 1967–1970. He was a member of the socialist pro-independence group Front de Liberation Populaire and was fired from McGill and interned for three weeks during the FLQ crisis of 1970. He then suddenly left Montreal and ended up in Hamilton, Ontario, working at Westinghouse after being blacklisted from teaching. Gray worked there for ten years and was a workers' advocate on the health and safety committee.¹³⁶ At the time he was hired by Greenpeace, Stan Gray was running a union-funded health and safety centre called the Ontario Workers' Health Centre. His project at Greenpeace, The Green Work Alliance, was a coalition of environmental groups and union and labour activists whose slogan was, "Green Jobs Not Pink Slips."¹³⁷ Gray, a key organizer of the unionizing effort at Greenpeace, was fired allegedly due to restructuring. Greenpeace then pulled out of the Green Work Alliance.	46
The attitudes of Greenpeace towards labour would come to light in a very public fashion. At the Canadian Labour Congress convention in January 1994, executive director of Greenpeace Canada Jean Moffat stated, "Greenpeace has always worked with labour."¹³⁸ This enraged labour activist and former Greenpeace researcher Andrea Ritchie who leapt to her feet to chastise Moffat, telling the crowd about Greenpeace's attempts to bust the environmental organization's Toronto staff union, using an infamous management-side law firm to conduct first contract negotiations, and firing or laying off supporters.¹³⁹ Ritchie made her comments "to point out the irony of Greenpeace speaking on building labour-environmental alliances given its political and internal track record."¹⁴⁰ Greenpeace's record is less surprising when one considers the class position of its founders and leadership and how their position is not meant to fundamentally challenge capital.	47

Conclusion: Teamsters and Turtles?
This case study of specific Greenpeace campaigns illustrates we cannot accept an interpretation of Greenpeace as a classless social movement capable of advancing an environmentalist agenda in everyone's interest. Greenpeace's undemocratic and unrepresentative nature also provokes questions about new social movements that have traditionally been levelled at labour. To continue to be critical of a labour bureaucracy without holding new social movements to similar standards can only entrench the mutual hostility that was so damaging to a successful alliance of workers and environmentalists in the case studies in this article.	48
This article also illustrates, using the case of the anti-sealing campaign, that Greenpeace pursued a course consistent with the idea of a PMC radicalism that rode roughshod over the interests of workers. Greenpeace attempted to impose its own solution on the sealing industry regardless of the effects on workers in the industry. This solution excluded the actual communities affected in favour of its own vision. It favoured the opinions of bureaucrats, planners, and experts of various sorts over the voices and opinions of the sealers. This anti-working-class radicalism was not inevitable. However in order to forge a truly democratic counter-hegemonic bloc Greenpeace would need to address their PMC bias and enter into dialogue with labour and working-class groups on an equal footing and not act arbitrarily without consultation. Dismissing the transformative potential of the working class in theory can lead to an a priori justification for a practice that only entrenches mutual distrust on both sides. This allows companies and pro-business lobby groups to successfully use a bait and switch tactic that keeps workers and environmentalists hostile to one another rather than looking at each other as potential allies.	49
The professional managerial class basis of Greenpeace limits its ability to pursue a successful coalition with labour. While it would be reductionist to claim that ideology could simply be read off class positions, it would be naive to argue that class is not a factor. Ignoring the role of the working class in the environmental movement is to lose the opportunity for a meaningful attack on capitalism's exploitation of labour and the environment. It also fails to recognise that the working class was waging environmental struggles long before Greenpeace was founded. Class-based groups have been struggling for healthy, clean working environments at the site of production for more than a century. The struggle over parkland on Deadman's Island in Vancouver is an example of early environmental advocacy by Canadian workers.¹⁴¹ In the US, labour activists formed the Workers Health Bureau in 1921 to "research in adjunct to the union movement for health and safety."¹⁴² The Bureau put forward a program that integrated labour and the environment with the understanding that, "Health is an industrial and class problem."¹⁴³ The United Steel Workers of America supported environmental initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s and even negotiated health and safety language into their contracts. In one agreement with the US Steel company plant in Clariton, Pennsylvania the steelworkers negotiated engineering controls that limited carcinogenic emissions from the coke ovens.¹⁴⁴ These examples illustrate how workers exercising power at the point of production transcends what Greenpeace might see as narrow class interests.	50
There are similar examples throughout Canadian labour history. Jerry Lembcke and William M. Tattam point out in their book, One Union in Wood, that under Communist editorship the IWA's paper, the Timberworker, opposed clearcutting of forests and log exports and promoted reforestation and conservation in the 1940s.¹⁴⁵ This was three decades before Greenpeace's opposition to clear cutting. The Timberworker's position makes sense, for workers stand to lose when technologies for faster, more profitable, and less environmentally sound logging are implemented. Of course they also lose when the environment collapses.¹⁴⁶	51
During the time of ascendancy for new social movements, unions were actively fighting for environmental issues. In her article "Greening the Canadian Workplace: Unions and the Environment," Laurel Sefton MacDowell notes that, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as unions increasingly brought occupational health and safety matters to the bargaining table, the number of strikes over such issues increased, and unions allocated more staff, time, and money to reducing workplace hazards and disease.¹⁴⁷ A good example of this occurred in 1970, when construction workers, hired to build a new mine for the company Utah of the Americas on northern Vancouver Island, called for a hearing into the ecological effects of their construction project even if it meant losing their jobs.¹⁴⁸ Attempts to have working relations would be desirable for both labour and environmental groups. Taking into account the positive contribution of workers to the environment would benefit any potential alliance.	52
Simply reasserting the primacy of class to counter the claims of new social movements that labour can not act as an agent of progressive transformation would only exacerbate the mutual distrust between the different camps. However, recognition by both labour and environmentalists that they have shared concerns and a common enemy could lead to working relationships on many campaigns. Capitalism is not based on meeting the needs of the world's population but on profiting from exploiting labour and natural resources. Marx understood this over 150 years ago when he wrote that the bourgeoisie chased over the globe to constantly expand their markets and search for raw materials.¹⁴⁹ The results of this search for constant expansion are industries that, "no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones."¹⁵⁰ This is essentially a description of globalization and neither workers nor the environment benefit from this process. Richard Douthwaite challenges the idea that growth benefits workers in his book The Growth Illusion. Douthwaite succinctly tackles myths about the benefits of growth, arguing that as profits have gone up for industrialists, wages have gone down for workers and, this has been accompanied by an inevitable destruction of the environment that results from rampant industrialism.¹⁵¹ While Marx did not live to see the full global expansion of capital he did offer remedies. Jonathan Hughes suggests that some of the solutions to the current situation lie with Marx's communist slogan, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."¹⁵² This simple idea challenges overproduction, commodity fetishism, and the exploitation of surplus value of labour and environment for personal profit. This puts the interests of the capitalists in direct opposition to the interests of the working class and the environmental movement.	53
An excellent contemporary example of how workers and environmentalists are mobilizing together on this issue was the activism of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) member and Earth First! organizer Judi Bari. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Judi Bari challenged the radical environmental movement to address class issues by forging an alliance with the revolutionary syndicalism of the IWW to oppose logging in the California redwood forests. Bari was so successful that she convinced a whole faction of Earth First!, called Ecotopia EarthFirst!, to renounce tree spiking which increased her credibility with mill workers in the Pacific Northwest.¹⁵³ More recently, in the spirit of the Battle of Seattle, members of the IWW and Earth First! joined forces to support striking sheet metal workers at Kaiser Aluminum in Washington State. Workers at Kaiser have been on strike since 1988 against the company owned by Charlie Hurwitz's Maxxam corporation, which also owns Pacific Lumber the logging operation cutting the redwood forests of California. The worker environmentalists organized a picket line, a flotilla picket and a banner hanging at the Port of Tacoma where scab labour was to unload a shipment of ore. The ship was stopped from unloading and had to remain in port for 24 days rather than the typical seven.¹⁵⁴ This kind of action and the efforts of some Earth Firsters! and the IWW shows the potential for a truly united straggle that addresses the interconnectedness of labour and the environment. The EF! Report on the IWW/EF!/Steelworker alliance sums up some of the ideas in this article and the reasons why an enviro-worker alliance is logical. "When you have Charles Hurwitz exploiting both his workers and the land, it's a natural coalition."¹⁵⁵ A coalition between workers and environmentalists is a necessary coalition if one wants to stop the exploitation of workers and the land but it is not as natural as it may seem. The mutually reinforced antagonism between workers and environmentalists need to be addressed before a true coming together of Teamsters and Turtles can be achieved. This article is only the beginning of addressing such issues. Understanding the history of conflicts between workers and Greenpeace can be seen as a corrective to further conflicts between class and environmental concerns. Only by examining the mistakes and missteps of the anti-sealing campaign, the forestry campaign in BC, and its anti-union stance in Toronto,can environmentalist and labour groups attempt to forge new approaches to working together.	54
Thanks to Mark Leier for his support, encouragement, and also some serious editing over the years. I give thanks to Lee-Anne Clarke for years of listening to different versions of this article. Funding from SFU in the form of Graduate Fellowships usually arrived just in time to buy some more groceries for Laura, John, Theresa-Anne, and Linda who are constantly showing me the joys of boundless curiosity. Thanks also to the anonymous readers at Labour/Le Travail for making this a stronger article. Notes ¹ For a thorough account of Seattle from a variety of perspectives, see Monthly Review, 52 (July/August 2000); C.Pearson, "Peaceful in Seattle," Our Times, 19 (December/January 1999); Alexander Cockburn, Jeffery St. Clair, and Allan Sekula, 5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond (London 2000). ² Placard as seen by author, 30 November 1999, Seattle Washington. Also documented in John Charlton, "Talking Seattle," International Socialism, 86 (Spring 2000), 10. ³ William K. Carroll and R.S. Ratner, "Old Unions and New Social Movements," Labour/Le Travail, 35 (Spring 1995), 195. ⁴ Kevin MacKay, "Solidarity and Symbolic Protest: Lessons for Labour from the Quebec City Summit of the Americas," Labour/Le Travail, 50 (Fall 2002), 22. ⁵ On labour bureaucracy see, Mark Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape: The making of a labour bureaucracy (Toronto 1995). On how labour bureaucracy operates and the consequences see, Paul Buhle, Taking care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor (New York 1999). For a slightly different but related debate on labour aristocracy see, Michael Piva, "The Aristocracy of the English Working Class: Help for an Historical Debate in Difficulties," Histoire sociale/Social History, 7 (November 1974); Eric Hobsbawm "Debating the Labour Aristocracy" and "The Aristocracy of Labour Reconsidered" in E.J. Hobsbawm, ed., Worlds of Labour: Further Studies in the History of Labour (London 1984); Richard Price, "The Segmentation of Work and the Labour Aristocracy," Labour/Le Travail, 17 (Spring 1986), 267–72 ⁶ John Bellamy Foster, "The Limits of Environmentalism without Class: Lessons From the Ancient Forest Struggle in the Pacific Northwest," in Daniel Faber, ed., The Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Envrionmental Justice Movements in the United States (New York 1998), 189. ⁷ William K. Carroll notes, "There has been a dearth of available texts that probe the meaning of movements in a distinctly Canadian context." See William K. Carroll, "Introduction," Organizing Dissent: Contemporary Social Movements in Theory and Practice (Victoria 1992), 3. Laurie Adkin also remarks on the lack of actual case studies. She states that "A reader of 'orthodox Marxist' versus 'post Marxist' interpretations of trade unions to radical social change, of the historical meaning of the new social movements, cannot but be struck by the general absence of analyses of actually existing social movements. New Social Movements and unions have been much theorized about, but little studied from 'ground level'." See Adkin, The Politics of Sustainable Development: Citizens, Unions and the Corporations (Montréal 1998), xiii. ⁸ Alberto Melucci, "A Strange Kind of Newness: What's 'New' in New Social Movements?" in Enrique Larana et al., eds., New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity (Philadelphia 1994), 103. ⁹ Adkin, Sustainable Development, 10. ¹⁰ Barbara and John Ehrenreich, "The Professional-Managerial Class," Radical America, 11 (March/April 1977), 13. ¹¹ A semi-autonomous employee is usually a salaried worker who has a relatively high level of control over their work environment and work processes but is removed from the day-to-day supervision of a manager and often self manages. They may have limited ability to hire and fire and some power over the workplace of others. A tenured university professor is an example of such an employee. The more typical member of the professional managerial class is the supervisor or manager who has complete control over the means of production on the behest of the capitalist employer or holds the power to manage, supervise, hire, and fire workers. Small business owners would be included in this definition. This also includes lawyers, doctors, and dentists with their own practice, as they are essentially owners of a business. Doctors, lawyers, and dentists who work in a hospital or other such institution would be considered semi-autonomous members of the professional managerial class. ¹² Alex Callinicos, "The 'New Middle Class' and Socialist Politics," International Socialism, 2 (Summer 1985), 104. ¹³ The name Greenpeace apparently originated when a Don't Make a Wave Committee meeting was ended by saying "Peace." Social worker Bill Darnell responded, "Make it a Green Peace." See, Mark Warford, ed., Greenpeace: Witness, Twenty-Five Years on the Environmental Front Line (London 1996), 9; Michael Brown and John May, The Greenpeace Story (Scarborough 1989), 9; Robert Hunter, Warriors of the Rainbow: A Chronicle of the Greenpeace Movement (New York 1979), 7; and Karl and Dona Sturmanis, The Greenpeace Book (Vancouver 1978). ¹⁴ Georgia Straight, 18–25 February 1970. ¹⁵ For comment on the media savvy of Greenpeace see Stephen Dale, McLuhan's Children: the Greenpeace Message and the Media (Toronto 1990). ¹⁶ This list of members of the original crew is complied from Brown and May, The Greenpeace Story, 11; and Hunter, Warriors, 16–17. See also Vancouver Sun, "Greenpeace sailors ready to face the test," 15 September 1971, 43. All of these men fit within the professional managerial class as semi-autonomous employees, with the exception perhaps of the grad student, who was a professional manager in training, so to speak, and the doctor, who depending upon his practice could have been in the supervisor/manager role o

Environmental Justice for Whom? Class, New Social Movements, and the Environment: A Case Study of Greenpeace Canada, 1971–2000

John-Henry Harter

Notes