Organize!
Whether we are engaging in acts of resistance or creating new, alternative institutions, we need to create sustainable, democratic organizations that empower their members while also protecting against disruption. This section provides articles about effective organizing, creating democratic decision-making structures, building coalitions with other groups, and more. Visit the Resources Page for tools to assist your organizing efforts.
In an Internationalist Act held on Sunday, May 11, during the 5th National Agrarian Reform Fair, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) reinforced its role in fostering solidarity between countries facing massacres imposed by imperialism. At the Fair at Parque da Água Branca in São Paulo (SP), representatives from Cuba, Palestine, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and Venezuela highlighted the trajectory of resistance in their territories against external oppression and reaffirmed their partnership with the MST in the fight for sovereignty.
Social Uprising In Colombia: Four Years Later, Impunity Reigns
May 12, 2025
Alfonso Insuasty Rodríguez, Orinoco Tribune.
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Colombia, Peace, police repression, state terrorism, truth and reconciliation
Social organizations in Columbia demand a Truth Commission to investigate the crimes committed by the Colombian State, to compensate the victims, and to guarantee that repression will not be repeated. Four years after the social uprising in Colombia, impunity reigns.
Four years after the social outburst that shook Colombia between 2019 and 2021, which turned particularly intense 2021, a deep open wound persists that has not yet been addressed with the seriousness that it deserves. The massive mobilization days, largely led by excluded youth and historically marginalized sectors, represented a turning point in the country’s recent history: not only due to the magnitude of social protest but also because of the severity of the state’s response.
Retrofit For The Future Campaign Takes Demands To The Heart Of Government
May 12, 2025
Hannah Sharland, The Canary.
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climate crisis, Energy, Retrofit For The Future, United Kingdom (UK)
In March, a coalition of groups launched the vital new ‘Retrofit For the Future’ campaign – and already, it’s making waves.
Notably, the coalition has secured a meeting with a key minister inside the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to demand the government put renters’ and workers’ rights at the heart of a green and just transition in the housing sector. Fuel Poverty Action, ACORN, Greener Jobs Alliance, Medact, and the Peace & Justice Project, among others, set the ball rolling on a retrofit revolution that calls for housing fit for the future.
In particular, the campaign demands that the government direct its attention to retrofit-upgrading and improving existing homes. It argues that doing so is a key to tackling both the climate emergency and the housing crisis.
RMT Launches Campaign To #Endrailoutsourcing Amid Shocking Practices
May 10, 2025
The Canary.
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National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), Unions, United Kingdom (UK), Worker Rights and Jobs
The National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) has launched a campaign to end outsourcing on the railways. It has branded the practice as a vehicle for systemic racism, low pay, and poor service standards across the network.
A new RMT report, How Outsourcing Embeds Systemic Racism on the Railway, exposes how rail companies have trapped thousands of rail workers – predominantly from Black and racially minoritised communities – in outsourced roles with no pensions, no training, and no pathway to progression.
Key findings from the RMT reveal:
58% of outsourced cleaners and caterers are from Black or racially minoritised backgrounds. This is despite making up only 25% of directly employed train operator staff.
Locomotive Builders Forge Green Rail Project
May 9, 2025
Kari Thompson, Labor Notes.
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Pennsylvania, Railroads, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs
Union workers who make diesel locomotives at a plant in Pennsylvania are pushing ahead with their campaign to manufacture more green-powered locomotives.
The workers aim to clean up diesel railroad pollution while also revitalizing their locomotive engine manufacturing plant in Erie. But they’re facing roadblocks, and the recent federal chaos has added to the uncertainty. In the meantime, workers are making direct changes to clean up their jobsite.
The Wabtec plant, formerly General Electric, makes diesel locomotives for both freight and passenger trains. The company began researching all-electric and hybrid diesel-electric locomotives several years ago, and more recently began exploring hydrogen power.
Cuban Days Against Homophobia And Transphobia Have Begun
The National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) launched the 18th edition of the Cuban Days Against Homophobia and Transphobia on Monday. Under the slogan “Love is the law,” the event will run until May 18 in the largest of the Antilles.
During the inauguration of the initiative, CENESEX director Dr. Mariela Castro Espín commented that Cuban LGBTIQ+ activism cannot be disconnected or alienated from the current circumstances of the world, which is why these conferences are dedicated to anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles.
She referred to the setbacks occurring in several countries with regard to the rights of women and the LGBTIQ+ community.
Warehouse Workers Power New York City’s Fashion Industry
May 7, 2025
Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Labor Notes.
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Fashion Industry, New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs
Minutes from the high-end boutiques of SoHo in Manhattan sits Bergen Logistics’ fulfillment facility in North Bergen, New Jersey, where workers sort, package, and ship hundreds of packages a day for luxury fashion brands including Acne Studios, Kenzo, and Phillip Lim.
The workers themselves can’t realistically afford the ornate gowns and crisp suits they ship to online shoppers. Some work two jobs just to stay afloat, and rush to keep up with unit-per-hour expectations.
Now they’re fighting for union recognition and the reinstatement of a colleague the union alleges was fired for her organizing. The workers point to the gap between word and action for high-profile brands that publicly claim to care about working conditions.
How Farmers Responded When Trump Administration Stopped Paying Them
May 6, 2025
George B. Sánchez-Tello, Capital and Main.
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California, Food and Agriculture, Food Insecurity, Trump Administration, USDA
Every year brings its own unique challenges for California farmers: water shortages, fires, finding laborers to do the work, bureaucrats in Sacramento adding new requirements and fees, and more. But the second term of President Donald Trump has made this year very different.
As part of deep cuts across much of the government, the administration of President Donald Trump chopped $1 billion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture almost without warning. This led to widespread financial pain that affected already struggling farmers and left hungry patrons of food banks in many parts of the country desperate for other sources of healthy food.
On Feb. 28, California officials warned farmers who had grown food for schools and food banks that there was funding only for work done up to Jan. 19, despite the fact that farmers had submitted invoices for work and harvests past that date.
The Many Innovative Spheres Of Organized Sharing
Fifteen years ago, the American group Shareable filled a huge void in public consciousness when it began reporting about creative forms of sharing. Its web magazine introduced people to tool libraries, mutual aid networks, food-sharing systems, “sharing cities,” social co-operatives, tiny houses, and other neglected forms of collaboration.
Based in the Bay Area, Shareable is a worker-directed “news and action hub” that, in its words, “promotes people-powered solutions for the common good.” Despite a fairly small staff, the nonprofit has been a catalytic force nationally in promoting commoning and progressive change.
From Failing To Prepare To Preparing To Fail?
May 5, 2025
Rupert Read and Ed Jarvis, Resilience.
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Climate Adaptation, climate crisis, Localism, United Kingdom (UK)
The recent Climate Change Committee report on the UK government’s lack of preparedness for climate breakdown reveals negligence at a historic scale.
The report lays bare years of successive Governments’ failure to prepare the UK for the breakdown that is now upon us, with far worse to come.
From heat exposure to rising flood risk to national infrastructure, homes and harvests, countless lives and livelihoods are at severe risk. Conservative estimates project impact to the UK economy into hundreds of billions, before 2050.
Faced with these stark facts, can any of us still believe that the government is primed to simply come and save us? Awareness is dawning among UK communities that it’s down to all of us to respond to the dangerous climate change we’re experiencing here and now.
Historic Martin Luther King Convention For Justice And Resistance
May 4, 2025
Michael Kramer, Workers World.
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Immigrant Rights, New Jersey (NJ), Palestine, Social Movements
Newark, New Jersey - Over 250 people, representing over 250 New Jersey endorsing community groups, attended the historic Martin Luther King Convention for Justice and Resistance on April 26. Participants included members of Black churches, the Palestinian, Latine and Nigerian communities and labor unions, as well as veterans, tenants and environmentalists — just to mention a few.
The People’s Organization for Progress (POP) organized the Convention, held on the campus of Essex County College (ECC) in Newark, New Jersey. It was chaired by POP Chair Lawrence Hamm. Professor Akil Kokayi Khalfani, Director of the Africana Institute, welcomed everyone to ECC.
Student Unions Overwhelmingly Vote For ‘Fossil Free Careers’
May 3, 2025
The Canary.
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boycott, Fossil Fuels, Green Jobs, Higher Education, Jobs, United Kingdom (UK)
Students’ unions at two universities have voted overwhelmingly to boycott fossil fuel recruiters. Non-profit People & Planet coordinated the successful student-led Fossil Free Careers campaigns at University College London (UCL) and the University of Bath. Students there are demanding that their institutions end oil, gas, and mining industry recruitment on their campuses for good.
As a result of student campaigning by the Bath People & Planet Society and the UCL Climate Action Society, UCL and Bath Students’ Unions are now mandated to actively campaign for their universities’ careers services to implement an ethical careers policy that excludes oil, gas, and mining companies from recruiting on campus.
What Do We Do Now? First, Gather To Talk
May 1, 2025
Barbara Madeloni, Labor Notes.
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Labor Movement, Trump Administration, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs
I don’t have new words for the dizzying abuses of unions, immigrants, and all working people emanating from the White House in the last three months. Like many people, I’ve been cycling through anger, despair, and dismay.
The dismay is less about Trump than about the weak and ineffective union response. Between overreliance on lawsuits and calls to “fight back” or even strike with no clear plan, unions have not shown up. I keep wondering, where are the leaders?
I get that it’s overwhelming. Trump’s actions are designed to knock us off balance, to keep us hopeless, divided, confused, and afraid. But as organizers we also know what to do when bosses and the billionaires do this.
Hurricane Helene Survivor Reacts To Trump Administration Aid Response
April 30, 2025
Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch.
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disaster relief, Donald Trump, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Hurricane Helene, United States
On April 25, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Trump administration had approved a USD 1.4 billion grant for post-Hurricane Helene rebuilding efforts.
Last year, hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated some of the most impoverished regions of the US, leaving behind billions of dollars in damages and resulting in hundreds of deaths.
“This is great news for western North Carolina,” said Governor Josh Stein in a statement. “I thank the Trump Administration for moving quickly to approve this plan so we can get busy rebuilding people’s homes.”
ICE Can’t Erase What Lelo Juarez Built
April 27, 2025
David Bacon, Labor Notes.
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Farm Workers, ICE, Immigrant Rights, May Day, Worker Rights
In 2022 I went to Washington State for May Day, and the following year as well. Just south of Canada, in Bellingham and Mount Vernon, Community2Community and Familias Unidas por la Justicia celebrate the workers holiday in the tradition followed by the rest of the world. They march. For me, a child of the Cold War, when May Day was the forbidden Communist holiday, it's a time to appreciate how the world has changed. Brightly-painted hand-made signs and banners call out—“Another World is Possible!" —a May Day sentiment if there ever was one. Some demonstrations can be formal exercises.