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.

Amazon Workers Affiliate With The Teamsters, Next Up Electing Officers

June 20, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Amazon, Labor Movement, Teamsters, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Amazon Labor Union members voted June 17 to affiliate with the Teamsters. Workers cast 878 ballots at JFK8 Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island, N.Y. The tally broke down to 829 votes in favor of the affiliation and 14 against it; 10 ballots were spoiled. Total turnout was 11 percent out of 8,000 workers. However, workers estimate the workforce has dipped to between 5,000 and 6,000 workers during the off-peak season. A Teamsters statement said the union will now “represent the roughly 5,500 Amazon warehouse workers.” Turnout works out to 16 percent based on that number. “On behalf of the Amazon Labor Union, I’m proud of our members choosing a path to victory. We're now stronger than ever before," said ALU President Chris Smalls in a statement.

Organizing Rural And Small Towns For Affordable Housing And Racial Justice

June 17, 2024 Joel Bleifuss and Justin Perkins, Resilience. Organize! Farmers, Housing, Racial Justice, rural communities, Worker Rights and Jobs

In March, the Rural Democracy Initiative conducted a wide-ranging survey of rural and small town voters that found the number one issue for people was rising costs, particularly the cost of buying a home. When asked if the rising cost of housing preventing people from buying homes was a major or minor problem where they lived, 68% or respondents said it was a major problem, including 64% of Democrats, 71% of Independents and 68% of Republicans. That comes as no surprise to Jaime Izaguirre, a housing organizer in Dubuque, Iowa, for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Not only is the cost of buying a house beyond the reach of many, finding an affordable, well-maintained apartment or house or mobile home to rent is increasingly difficult in rural and small town America.

How One City Beat The US To Making Juneteenth An Official Paid Holiday

June 17, 2024 Marielle Argueza, Next City. Organize! Federal Holiday, greensboro, Juneteenth, North Carolina

Princess Johnson, a dancer and owner of the Greensboro, North Carolina-based Royal Expressions Contemporary Ballet, didn’t grow up celebrating Juneteenth. Even as a Black woman who grew up in the South, the holiday was something only a few people in her circle celebrated. “I didn’t know what it was exactly. Growing up in the United States, everything’s about the Fourth of July,” she says. Juneteenth, or Freedom Day, as many Black Americans call it, commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops brought word to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas that they were free under the Emancipation Proclamation. But the news of their freedom arrived late — about two years late.

Big Union Win In Virginia Schools Where Bargaining Is Suddenly Legal

June 15, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Organize! Education, Educators, Unions, Victory, Virginia, Worker Rights and Jobs

Education unions just won a massive victory in the fight to bring collective bargaining rights to Virginia’s public sector. Workers at the Fairfax County Public Schools voted this week to unionize, creating a wall-to-wall union of 27,500 teachers, custodians, teaching assistants, bus drivers, and more. The new bargaining unit is one of the largest K-12 unions on the East Coast, according to the National Education Association. Fairfax County is in Northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and the Fairfax County school district is by far the largest in the state. But many teachers, especially newer ones, live outside Fairfax County because housing there is too expensive. And “a lot of custodians do two or three jobs just to provide for their families,” said Ernesto Escalante, a building supervisor at Crestwood Elementary and an activist in the union drive.

27,000 Virginia Education Workers Win Union Recognition

June 13, 2024 Tn Long, Portside. Organize! Education, Teachers, Unions, Victory, Virginia, Worker Rights and Jobs

Around 14,000 teachers and 13,000 support staff will now be represented by an alliance of the Fairfax County locals of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). This win increases union density in Virginia by at least 15%, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The election victories were for the two bargaining units within the FEU: the Licensed Instructional Unit, covering all workers requiring a license, such as teachers, counselors, social workers, psychologists, librarians, and speech language pathologists; and the Operational Unit for workers such as various kinds of assistants, cafeteria workers, custodians, transportation workers, and front office staff.

Building Palestine Solidarity In An Arms Factory

June 12, 2024 Eddie Cimo, Labor Notes. Organize! Genocide, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, United Kingdom (UK), weapons, Workers

I work at a site in the United Kingdom producing military equipment for aircraft, some of which ends up on the F-35 stealth fighter jet. We are members of the UK union Unite. In response to the call from Palestinian trade unions to halt arms production and transport to Israel, some co-workers and I have been trying to make this a reality in our workplace. Israel has been buying F-35 jets since 2016, and has signed deals to expand its fleet to 75 by 2028. Our site has endured two decades of a right-wing union-management partnership, resulting in poor pay deals. This toxic partnership made solidarity efforts nearly impossible. Also, certain direct actions prior to the ongoing genocide in Gaza proved counterproductive to our efforts to build rank-and-file solidarity—particularly actions not coordinated with workers.

Lavrov Opens BRICS Meeting In Russia, First After New Members Joined

June 11, 2024 Al Mayadeen, Orinoco Tribune. Organize! Africa, Brazil, BRICS, China, Egypt, Russia, Sameh Shoukry, Sergey Lavrov, South Africa, Türkiye, Wang Yi

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov opened the two-day BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting as its chair in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod from June 10 to 11. Among those attending are: China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Dr. Naledi Pandor, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry, and Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira, while Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is attending in the extended format of the meeting. This marks the first after the bloc was joined by new members – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as its original members are Russia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

We Want A Labor Law That Protects All Farm Workers

June 8, 2024 Sarah Tucker, The Stand. Organize! Farm Workers, Seattle, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Seattle - Farm workers at Windmill Mushroom traveled to Seattle on Wednesday to shed light on their years-long struggle for dignity and respect – and to urge lawmakers to pass legislation to ensure farmworker labor rights. Accompanied by United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero and joined by state legislators, farm workers spoke passionately about their fight to unionize and the need for labor laws that protect all farm workers, organized or not. The workers have been organizing together for more than two years at Windmill Farms – formerly Ostrom – fighting back against intense pressure and retaliation from the boss.

The Anti-War Left Makes Inroads In Israel

June 6, 2024 Uri Weltmann and Federico Fuentes, Links. Organize! Anti-war Movement, Gaza, Israel, Leftists, Palestine

Omdim be’Yachad-Naqef Ma’an, or Standing Together, is a Jewish-Arab social movement in Israel that organises against racism and occupation, and for equality and social justice. Federico Fuentes interviewed Standing Together’s national field organiser Uri Weltmann to discuss the growing peace movement inside Israel, how activists are confronting far-right extremists seeking to disrupt humanitarian aid going to the Gaza Strip, and the left’s recent electoral breakthroughs. How has the peace movement inside Israel developed since October 7? Is the movement succeeding in shifting broader public opinion and undermining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war efforts? And what role is Standing Together playing within the movement?

Teamsters And Amazon Labor Union Announce Affiliation

June 6, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Amazon, Labor Movement, Teamsters, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Amazon Labor Union and the Teamsters have signed an affiliation agreement. “Today is an historical day for labor in America as we now combine forces with one of the most powerful unions to take on Amazon together,” wrote ALU President Chris Smalls on Twitter, now called X. “We’re putting Amazon on notice that we are coming!” Smalls and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien signed the agreement on June 3, according to a copy obtained by Labor Notes. The affiliation agreement charters a new local known as Amazon Labor Union No. 1, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (ALU-IBT Local 1) for the five boroughs of New York City.

Southern Worker School Charts Course For Power

June 4, 2024 Southern Workers Assembly. Organize! Labor Movement, Popular Assemblies, The South, Worker Rights and Jobs

Southern politicians have gone out of their way in word and action to make clear they stand on the side of big business and racism as they’ve recently lamented that the “Alabama [ie – Southern] model for success is under attack” and vowing to “fight unions to the gates of hell.” Nearly two hundred rank and filers who are developing a movement of workers in the South that can build power to make these politicians’ fears a reality gathered in Charlotte, NC on May 17 – 19 for the 2024 Southern Worker School. These convenings are the annual organizing conference of the Southern Workers Assembly network, which includes local workers assemblies, worker organizations, and other workers from various sectors and states throughout the region.

Starbucks Resumes Bargaining Amid Fresh Wave Of Unionized Stores

June 3, 2024 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. Organize! Contract Negotiations, Labor Movement, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Starbucks has resumed bargaining with union leaders amid a fresh wave of organized stores after the world’s largest coffee chain agreed to open talks over labor agreements. After a long, embittered campaign, the Seattle-based coffee giant jointly announced a new framework with Workers United in February to reach contracts with unionized stores. Bargaining got under way on Wednesday, and is due to continue on Thursday. Since baristas in Buffalo successfully formed the first unionized US Starbucks store in December 2021, an organizing drive by Starbucks Workers United has spread nationwide, to more than 425 Starbucks stores in 43 states, representing over 10,500 workers.

From ‘An Economy Of Hope’ To The US Federation Of Worker Cooperatives

May 31, 2024 Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Organize! Capitalism, Cooperatives, Economic Democracy, Worker Rights and Jobs

The first Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy was attended by 96 people mostly worker co-op owners and members of support organizations from Ohio to Maine, New Orleans to Washington, DC, and in between. We had agreed we would have been happy if only 20 people showed up, so having almost 100 people at our first conference was quite an achievement! We also felt strongly that any democratic workplace (such as 100% worker owned ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Companies) and democratically run nonprofits) was welcome.

How Tens Of Thousands Of Graduate Workers Are Organizing

May 30, 2024 Valentina Luketa, Labor Notes. Organize! Graduate Students, Higher Education, Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

It’s the biggest organizing wave the U.S. labor movement has seen in decades. Graduate workers are unionizing in huge numbers, winning drive after drive with 90 percent support or more. What’s more, the workers are in the driver’s seat of these campaigns, with little help from union staff. Most union organizing these days relies on a staff-heavy approach that’s tough to scale up. But the grad worker upsurge offers a sketch of a worker-led model that could help reverse labor’s decline. The United Electrical Workers (UE) alone has organized close to 30,000 graduate workers over the past year and a half. We’ve won elections at eight major universities, including MIT and the University of Minnesota.

Over 400 Physicians From Delaware’s Christiana Care Move To Unionize

May 29, 2024 Jennifer Henderson, MedPage Today. Organize! Delaware, Doctors, Health Care, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 400 physicians from Delaware's Christiana Hospital, Wilmington Hospital, and Middletown Free-standing Emergency Department -- all part of the ChristianaCare health system -- filed to unionize with Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD. "If successful, this will be the first physician union in Delaware and the first union of any kind at ChristianaCare," Doctors Council SEIU said in an announcement of the filing, which pointed to the ongoing corporatization of medicine as driving the physicians' efforts. Some of the specific concerns that physicians detailed in regard to their filing included understaffing and inadequate resources, corporate influence on medical decision making, limited input in matters affecting patient care and physician safety and autonomy, and moral injury caused by pressure to place profit over patients.

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