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.

The Struggle To Stop The ‘Social Cleansing’ Of Paris For The Olympics

July 27, 2024 Daniel McArdle, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Evictions, Homeless, Migrants, Olympics, Paris

With the approach of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, organizers and aid groups are working to ensure the continuation of social services in the city. They are also trying to stop the evictions of over 12,500 of the city’s most vulnerable people, who often face the destruction of their dwellings, belongings and documents. “Those are their homes, no matter how rough,” emphasized Antoine De Clerck, coordinator of La Reverse de la Médaille, or RDLM, a collective of over 80 different aid organizations formed in response to the “social cleansing” operation underway in the city.

World Of Warcraft Developers Form Blizzard’s Largest, Most Inclusive Union

July 27, 2024 Ash Parrish, The Verge. Organize! Big Tech, Blizzard, Games, Microsoft, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 500 developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on World of Warcraft have voted to form a union. The World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild, formed with the assistance of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), is composed of employees across every department, including designers, engineers, artists, producers, and more. Together, they have formed the largest wall-to-wall union — or a union inclusive of multiple departments and disciplines — at Microsoft. This news comes less than a week after the formation of the Bethesda Game Studios union, which, at the time of the announcement, was itself the largest wall-to-wall Microsoft union.

Movement Leaders Gathered For Second Edition Of World Social Alternative

July 26, 2024 Makiza Micheline Latifa, People's Dispatch. Organize! ALBA-TCP, Bolivarian Revolution, Caribbean, Elections, Latin America, Social Movements, Venezuela

Mass movements, progressive organizations and social leaders from all sectors convened in Caracas for the second edition of the meeting of movements and social leaders for a World Social Alternative, an initiative put together by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), in collaboration with the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity amongst Peoples (ISB). The meeting ran from July 23-24, and featured debates, plenary sessions, and panel discussions at the Simon Bolivar Hall of the Bolivar Theater of Caracas in the capital of Venezuela, with delegates from across the globe. It follows the first encounter for a World Social Alternative which was held in Caracas between April 18 to April 20.

The Future Of Housing Organizing: Tenant Unions

July 25, 2024 Rose Lenehan, In These Times. Organize! Affordable Housing, Housing, Tenant Unions, Unions

Daniel Tyson had 15 days to find a place he could afford. For several years, Tyson lived at a hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he paid $125 weekly. His rent would have been slightly less if he paid monthly, but the full-time warehouse shipping clerk couldn’t save enough. Then, developers decided to kick everyone out to demolish the building and expand a luxury hotel. It was October, and the snowbirds were beginning their trips south, a migration that makes the rental market even tighter. Daniel had nowhere to go. Celia Williams had lived in her building in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago for a little under a year when she began to see bed bugs.

We Need Political Nonviolence Now More Than Ever

July 21, 2024 Rivera Sun, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Democracy, Free Speech, Human Rights, Nonviolence, Violence

After the shooting at former President Trump’s campaign rally, many people rushed to say that “political violence has no place in our democracy.” Let’s go even further and boldly say: political nonviolence is essential for democracy. The ties between nonviolence and democracy run deep. We know from the groundbreaking research of Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan that even if a nonviolent movement fails to achieve its primary goals, it often leaves a more democratic society in its wake. On the other hand, violence swiftly destroys democracies, shoving them toward authoritarianism and “politics at the barrel of a gun.”

Will Immigrant Workers In Britain Win Europe’s First Amazon Union?

July 16, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Amazon, England, Europe, Unions, United Kingdom (UK), Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers at fulfillment center BHX4 in Coventry, central England, cast votes July 8-13 for the GMB union to negotiate over pay, hours, and working conditions with the Amazon bosses. The results are expected July 17. The watershed vote comes after a long, bruising battle; Amazon tried U.S.-style stalling and union-busting tactics. Meanwhile the workers have taken 37 days of strike action in two years. They’ve grown their union to 1,400 members, established a stewards network, and built multiethnic solidarity. In the U.K., workers can become dues-paying members before union recognition is attained.

Making Our Communities What They Need To Be

July 15, 2024 Steve Early, Resilience. Organize! Communities, Democracy, Infrastructure, Unions, Vermont, Water

The symbols of public-sector infrastructure are often associated with urban areas: major highways and subway systems, for instance; bridges and tunnels; large ports and airports; billions of gallons of fresh water to deliver and hundreds of tons of solid waste to cart away every day. Yet public works departments are no less important in rural areas, where municipal employees and their families, whether members of the National Education Association, the Firefighters union, or the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), are dependent on the same community services they provide. In Middlebury, Vermont, the largest town in rural Addison County, 46-year-old Jeremy Rathbun is one of those public servants.

Green Amendments Gain Traction In More States Ahead Of Elections

July 3, 2024 Drew Hutchinson, Bloomberg News. Organize! climate crisis, Constitutional Rights, Green Amendment, State Legislatures

A new wave of state legislators are pursuing the constitutional right to a safe environment, which attorneys say could strengthen climate lawsuits and policy if interpreted correctly. But the effectiveness of those amendments hinges on their legal language and other details. Nine states so far have proposed legislation that would let voters decide in November whether they want the right to a clean, safe environment spelled out in state constitutions. Washington state, New Jersey, and Hawaii are the farthest along, with committee hearings either recently held or scheduled for the coming weeks.

We Can’t Let The Press Launder Israel’s War

June 28, 2024 Lara Witt and Maya Schenwar, In These Times. Organize! Genocide, Israel, Journalism, Media, Palestine

The United States-backed Israeli siege and genocide in Gaza is entering its tenth month. Israel’s relentless bombings and executions by Israeli snipers and soldiers have killed more than 38,100 Palestinians in Gaza, with thousands more uncounted and decomposing under the rubble, and more than 86,000 injured. Reports by nonprofit agencies and organizations have detailed the Israeli military’s numerous war crimes, including abductions, torture and sexual violence against Palestinians. More than 2.3 million Palestinians are at risk of dying from Israeli-imposed starvation, indiscriminate bombing, the spread of disease, and the cold because of Israel’s systematic targeting and elimination of hospitals, sanctuaries, homes and shelters.

Detroit Wayne State U Faculty/Staff For Justice In Palestine Formed

June 26, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. Organize! Detroit, Higher Education, Israel, Michigan, Palestine

On June 4, hundreds of students, faculty, alumni and community members rallied on the campus of Wayne State University located in the Midtown District of Detroit. The purpose of the gathering was to send a clear message to the recently appointed President Kimberly Andrews Espy who ordered a Palestine solidarity encampment raided and destroyed by campus police on May 30. Metropolitan Detroit embodies the largest population of people of Arab and Middle Eastern descent in the United States. Consequently, many people within this community have direct familial and linguistic ties to the people most impacted by the settler-colonial regime occupying Palestine.

San Diego Ponders A Bid To Take Over Its For-Profit Energy Utility

June 26, 2024 Akielly Hu, Next City. Organize! California, Energy, public power, San Diego

Activists pushing San Diego to take over the city’s investor-owned utility aren’t letting last year’s defeat of a similar effort in Maine deter their goal of establishing a nonprofit power company. They recently submitted petitions bearing more than 30,000 signatures from residents who want the City Council to let voters decide the matter this fall. Advocates say a municipal takeover of San Diego Gas & Electric would deliver cheaper rates and a faster, more affordable, and more equitable transition to clean energy. Still, the measure faces long odds from skeptical council members who have twice rejected similar proposals.

Kenya Protests: Gen Z Shows The Power Of Digital Activism

June 25, 2024 Job Mwaura, The Conversation. Organize! Digital Activism, Kenya, Mass Action, Media, Social Media, Taxes, Youth Activism

This is a powerful moment for digital activism. The protests have seen significant participation from young Kenyans who are using digital media to organise and voice their opposition. A great number of those driving the protests are Generation Z (often referred to as Gen Z) – individuals born roughly between the late 1990s and early 2010s and characterised by digital prowess and social consciousness. They have created this organic, grassroots movement which has used platforms, like social media, to mobilise and coordinate efforts quickly. Through my work I’ve documented how essential digital media has been in political participation in Kenya in the past decade.

The Biggest Organizing Wave You Never Heard Of

June 24, 2024 Chris Townsend, MLToday. Organize! Education, Labor Movement, Unions, Virginia, Worker Rights and Jobs

Nobody would pick the U.S. state of Virginia to be a trade union organizing hotspot. But that’s what increasingly is happening, despite the fact that many of the unions and certainly the national AFL-CIO are oblivious to it. Richmond the state capital was once the capital of the Confederacy, and Virginia is in many ways the ideological and historical home of U.S. segregationist and anti-union bigotry. Virginia is seeing a significant and remarkable expansion of its small but wily labor movement. In a labor movement urgently in need of new union organizing experimentation it would certainly be of value to consider the situation in Virginia as one guide to expanded organizing work across the South.

What Is The State Of Organized Labor?

June 21, 2024 Arthur MacEwan, Dollars and Sense. Organize! Labor Movement, Solidarity, Strikes, Unions

Last year was a good year for organized labor. At least that’s the popular perception. And that perception has some real basis. Major strikes, including ones that led to substantial victories for workers, marked a positive surge of the labor movement in 2023—and perhaps on into 2024. (See sidebar, “Some Major Strikes of 2023.”) The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 2023 saw an increase of 139,000 in labor union membership following an increase of 273,000 the year before. What’s more, according to Gallup polling, public approval of unions was higher in 2022 (71%) and 2023 (67%) than it has been since the mid-1960s.

Insurgent Slate Wins UFT Retiree Chapter Election

June 20, 2024 Crystal Lewis, Portside. Organize! Education, Health Care, Medicare, Retirees, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In a significant setback to the union’s leadership, former educators with the Retiree Advocate caucus of the United Federation of Teachers have ousted the incumbent Unity slate. In balloting for leadership of the union’s Retired Teachers chapter, the Retiree Advocate slate received 17,226 votes, or 63 percent of the total, while Unity, which is aligned with UFT President Michael Mulgrew, got 10,114 votes, according to unofficial results. Members of the Retiree Advocate had campaigned in opposition to the city’s efforts to switch retired city workers to a Medicare Advantage plan from their traditional Medicare. The plan is backed by the Municipal Labor Committee, of which Mulgrew is the executive vice-chair.

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