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 Chicago Teachers Union Won Big; What Comes Next?

September 9, 2023 Jim Daley, In These Times. Organize! Chicago, Education, Schools, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

On the last Friday of summer break, Stacy Davis Gates was in high spirits. At a back-to-school party in the parking lot of Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) headquarters, she bounced from one group to another, smiling as she posed for photos with alderpersons, union activists, parents and children. Davis Gates, who has been the president of the CTU for a little over a year, has good reason to be happy. In April, Brandon Johnson, a former middle school teacher and CTU organizer, was elected mayor. And Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Pedro Martinez, who often mentions that he’s a product of CPS, was also at the party, beaming and shaking hands.

In Chicago, Socialists Are Wielding Power In A Whole New Way

September 7, 2023 Jacqui Germain, In These Times. Organize! Chicago, Governance, Immigration, Socialism

Chicago, Illinois - The crowd at the 33rd Ward Working Families office is packed and overflowing onto the sidewalk. Anticipating the deportation raids threatened by the Trump administration during the summer of 2019, several community groups sent out calls for volunteers. Dozens showed up; the city’s northwest neighborhoods would protect themselves. Caitlin Brady, a member of the independent political organization 33rd Ward Working Families, recalls how volunteers learned to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, then divided into precincts and took shifts scouring the streets by bike or on foot, looking out for them.

It’s Time For Cities To Extend And Expand Sanctuary

September 6, 2023 Vojislava Filipcevic Cordes, Next City. Organize! Homelessness, Immigration, Migration, New York City (NYC), Sanctuary Cities

Ellis Island was once the border of New York City, a gated drawbridge for millions of immigrants to what would become their new homeland. But today, when New York’s border is at the Rio Grande, that checkpoint is beyond its control. From the perspective of necessity, prudence and even justice, cities must expand their policies of welcome to match their extended borders. Months have passed since Mayor Eric Adams declared that there was “no more room at the inn” for asylum seekers arriving in the city. Invoking, perhaps inadvertently, a Biblical metaphor, the mayor suggested that New York City’s shelter system was at capacity.

Virginia Tech Graduate Students And Staff Launch Labor Unions

September 5, 2023 Lisa Rowan, Cardinal News. Organize! Higher Education, Student Activism, Unions, Virginia, Virginia Tech

Two unions are going public Tuesday at Virginia Tech, with a shared goal of creating a better working environment for graduate students, faculty and staff at the state university. It’s an effort that has been in the works for three years, as the groups have quietly recruited members while, across the country, campus labor unions have gained attention. On Tuesday, members of the United Campus Workers of Virginia Tech (UCW-VT) and the Virginia Tech Graduate Labor Union (VT GLU) will team up in a rally on the Blacksburg campus. They hope going public will attract new members and draw attention to their efforts to press university administrators for improvements for campus workers at all levels.

Dilemmas Of Humanity Conference In The US Outlines Principle Task

September 4, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Organize! Atlanta, Social Movements, Socialism, United States, Worker Rights and Jobs

“We know this system is in crisis,” said Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive director of the People’s Forum and lifelong communist, opening the Dilemmas of Humanity: A Socialist Horizon conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This conference was organized by the International People’s Assembly-North America as part of the IPA’s international conference series, “Dilemmas of Humanity,” which will conclude with an international conference in Johannesburg in October. The US-based conference was held in Atlanta’s Neighborhood Church on September 2, and supported by organizations such as Community Movement Builders, Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Peoples Forum, Unión de Vecinos, and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

Laid-Off Sierra Club Staffers: ‘We Can’t Give Up On United Fronts’

September 3, 2023 Brooke Anderson, Hop Hopkins, and Michelle Mascarenhas, Portside. Organize! Climate Justice, Frontline Community, Green Economy, Liberal class, Sierra Club

For the last decade, climate justice organizers have seen the Sierra Club as a critical lever for moving a climate agenda that centers equity and just transition. It has the largest grassroots base outside of labor, the most substantial infrastructure of any national green group in the US, and roots in a movement that at times was not afraid to go toe-to-toe with large corporations or development-oriented pro-business government entities. But beginning in May, the organization accelerated a restructuring process that included layoffs of the entire equity and environmental justice teams and of senior staffers, several Black women and other women of color among them.

Don’t Blame My Fellow Retail Workers For Poor Service, Blame Our CEOS

September 2, 2023 Felix Allen, Scheer Post. Organize! Capitalism, CEOs, Lowe's, Stock Buybacks, Worker Rights and Jobs

Ever get mad at a delivery person for bringing your pizza late? That used to be me. Now I assume it’s late because an overpaid boss is probably making two employees do the job of 10. That’s because I worked for two years at a company with the kind of chronic understaffing that plagues many of America’s largest retailers and fast food corporations. My job was to build merchandise displays at Lowe’s, the home improvement chain. I wasn’t supposed to deal directly with customers. But when people asked me for help, I was often the only employee available. So I wound up doing everything from sawing lumber to cutting keys — all the while worrying about finishing my assigned projects.

Movements, Intellectuals To Discuss Building Socialism In Latin America

September 2, 2023 Zoe Alexandra, People's Dispatch. Organize! Allende, Capitalism, Chile, Coups, History, Socialism

Movement leaders and intellectuals from across Latin America and the Caribbean will meet in Santiago, Chile, from September 2-4 for the Regional Dilemmas of Humanity Conference. The conference seeks to provoke debate and discussion about building socialism and finding solutions to address the major crises generated by capitalism. The conference, organized by the regional social movement platform ALBA Movimientos and the International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA), will be held in the Open University of Recoleta. It will take place alongside a series of historical commemorations to be held in the Chilean capital to mark the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état against the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende and the 53rd anniversary of the victory of Popular Unity.

‘Angry, Terrified, And Excited’: Adjunct On New Semester Amid Contract Talks

September 2, 2023 A CUNY Adjunct Faculty Member, Left Voice. Organize! Contract Negotiations, CUNY, Higher Education, New York City (NYC), Worker Rights and Jobs

As a CUNY adjunct starting this semester without a contract, I am filled with anger, terror, and excitement — a mix of reactions I’ll try to explain here. My anger predates our current contract struggle. Having taught at various CUNY campuses over the past six years, I’m furious about adjuncts’ working conditions and the resulting student learning conditions. As underpaid, expendable, and often invisible employees, adjuncts, who teach the majority of classes at the university, often find out our schedules mere days — or even hours — before the semester begins, and we are therefore forced to throw together syllabuses and assignments at the last minute.

In A New Climate Reality, Community May Be A Farmer’s Greatest Resource

September 1, 2023 Ellyn Lapointe, Sierra Club. Organize! climate crisis, Cooperative, Farming, Food and Agriculture, Vermont

The 10th of July had been a typical day at work for Caroline Hauser until she received an urgent email from the Intervale Center and its farms. They were calling for volunteers. The Intervale Center, a nonprofit farming cooperative in Burlington, Vermont, was bracing for intense rains and flooding forecasted to hit in the next 24 hours. It needed all hands on deck to harvest everything they could before disaster struck. Hauser messaged her manager to say she needed the day off. Hauser has been a Burlington resident since 2015 and a regular volunteer at the Intervale Center since 2019. She and her husband are summer and winter CSA members—she estimates that 80 to 90 percent of their food comes directly from the Intervale’s seven organic farms.

Extreme Heat On The Job: Workers Need Protections Now

August 31, 2023 Food Chain Workers Alliance. Organize! climate crisis, Global Warming, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workplace Safety

The dangers of heat stress for both indoor and outdoor workers is only increasing as our planet continues to warm. In the food system, farmworkers, warehouse workers, restaurant workers and street vendors are some of the most impacted, but this is a hazard for workers across all sectors, like construction workers and delivery drivers. Incarcerated people are also extremely vulnerable to the dangers of heat stress. Yet, federal OSHA has no standard to protect workers from the dangers of heat exposure. A small number of states have created their own standards: California, Minnesota, Washington, and last year, Oregon and Colorado.

Protect Wet’suwet’en Land!

August 30, 2023 Will Hodgkinson, Workers World. Organize! Canada, Indigenous Sovereignty, Police abuse, RCMP, Wet’suwet’en

New details have emerged about the militarized campaign of state and corporate persecution targeting land defenders of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in so-called Canada. The third annual Peace and Unity Summit was held August 15-16 in Gidimt’en Clan territory, home of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. Wet’suwet’en leaders detailed how private security operatives and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have attacked and terrorized Indigenous activists using tactics taken directly from a U.S. counterinsurgency “playbook” written by David Petraeus, retired U.S. Army general and an architect of U.S. invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Labor Organizing Secret: Ten-Minute Meetings

August 26, 2023 Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As auto workers prepare for the expiration of the Big 3 auto contracts covering 150,000 members September 14, some are turning to a valuable tool they saw UPS Teamsters use: the 10-minute meeting. It’s simply an in-person meeting with your co-workers that is just 10 minutes long—and which, crucially, is held at work. Instead of scheduling a long meeting offsite on off-time, you’re bringing the meeting to them, and making it as convenient as possible. Ten-minute meetings can update members on negotiations and important actions during a contract campaign. Leading up to the UPS expiration, for example, Teamster activists held brief parking lot meetings right before or after their shifts.

North American Truckers’ Movements Announce International Alliance

August 26, 2023 Truckers Movement for Justice, Popular Resistance. Organize! International Solidarity, Mexico, Truckers, Worker Rights

Mexico City, MX - Tamexun and Truckers Movement for Justice will formally meet in person for the first time, and are publicly announcing their historic international alliance. Tamexun, based in the United Mexican States, is an association formed to stop the exploitation of truckers, and is celebrating its fifth anniversary with Saturday's demonstration. Truckers Movement for Justice (TMJ), based in the United States of America, is a grassroots organization focused on economic issues affecting truckers and the trucking industry. Tamexun and TMJ are both comprised of truckers: company employees, lease-operators, and small carrier owner-operators.

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