Working-class environmentalism and climate justice: Strategic converging for an ecological transition from below

This essay assesses the historical unfolding of the labour-environment nexus to argue that a particular form of it – the ecological transition from above – has been hegemonic in the last decades but is undergoing a deep crisis. In this context, a new process of strategic converging between working-class environmentalism and climate justice movements is being deployed within a new horizon, that of an ecological transition from below. Firstly, we discuss what such process implies for theoretical reflections about class composition and ecological activism. Subsequently, we delve into the case study of ex-GKN Factory (automotive sector, situated in Campi Bisenzio, near Florence, Italy) and its Workers’ Collective, which has been prominent in recent months to elaborate and practice strategic convergence.