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Organize!

organize-iconWhether 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.

Tenants Push Biden For Rent Control On All Government-Backed Housing

In the corner of a Dollar General parking lot on the southwest side of Louisville, across the street from the Nottingham Plaza Drive-Thru Liquor Barrel and an abandoned coin laundry, the Louisville Tenant Union convened for Sunday afternoon canvassing. It was nearly 90 degrees with the June sun beating down from the midday sky, so organizer Josh Poe invited the red-shirted union members to gather beneath the spotty shade provided by a small tree at the corner of the parking lot. Most have canvassed before, but Poe still walked everyone through the process. Today’s goals: have residents of Newberry Parc apartments submit comments online to the Federal Housing Finance Agency about rent hikes and poor housing conditions, and also to invite them to the next tenant union meeting.

People’s Summit Calls For Respect Of Democracy And Self-Determination

Without sovereignty and mutual respect, dialogue between regions is impossible. Throughout the days of debate and work at the People’s Summit held parallel to the III CELAC-EU Summit, trade union activists, community leaders, left political leaders, artists, and students from across Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe ratified the importance of spaces for democratic and plural debate between equal partners. The summits occurred simultaneously in the Belgian capital of Brussels from July 17-18 after a eight-year pause. The People’s Summit, held at the Free University of Brussels, was organized by a broad coalition of over 100 organizations, collectives, unions, political parties, and movements.

Congolese Students Are Taking On Big Oil

Student activists are traveling thousands of miles across the Democratic Republic of Congo to mobilize communities against the expansion of Big Oil. Pétrole Non Merci, or Petrol No Thanks, is a national campaign to oppose the proposed sale of 27 oil blocks and three gas blocks, most of which overlap protected areas. Anglo-French oil company Perenco recently bid to buy the new blocks and would export the oil using the EACOP pipeline. The campaign has a two-pronged strategy. First, they are mobilizing communities where the new oil blocks are located to build local power and hold officials accountable.

Anti-Colonial Free Speech Movement Launched

A fierce blow was struck against the weaponized FBI and U.S. government’s targeting of Black Liberation, anti-colonial, anti-war and free speech movements on July 8 with the formation of the Hands off Uhuru! Fightback Coalition. The Coalition, made up of over 30 organizations and individuals and led by black and anti-colonial movements, coalesced around a Statement of Unity that reads, in part, “Today we are facing a watershed moment in human history when our movements for freedom, liberation and democracy can fight on to victory or be pushed back, silenced and defeated. This is the moment when we must come together to vigorously fight as one, and win.” 

When The Welfare Rights Movement Was A Force For Uplifting The Poor

When Dartmouth history professor Annelise Orleck was still working on her first book, Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965, she learned about the work of an intrepid group of low-income, southern-born women in Las Vegas, Nevada. Thirteen years of research and interviews followed. The result, Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty, tells the amazing story of fed-up and reviled welfare recipients who organized on their own behalf, winning a raft of financial, medical and educational improvements for themselves, their children and their westside community.

There Can Be No Justice Until Capitalism Is Removed From The Earth

“What is the path that we are going to chart towards socialism?” This is the question that animated the first day of the ‘Dilemmas of Humanity: Pan African Dialogues to Build Socialism’ conference, which is being held in South Africa between July 17 to 20. The conference has been divided into commissions, each with a mandate to deliberate upon a particular theme and draft a concrete plan of action which will be adopted in the form of a resolution on the final day. The commissions on July 17 addressed the themes of food sovereignty and agroecology, gender struggles against patriarchy, and urban struggles for housing.

Africa’s Path To Socialism

On Monday, July 17, 200 delegates from progressive organizations, political parties, people’s movements, and trade unions across the African continent will gather in Bela-Bela, South Africa for the “Dilemmas of Humanity: Pan African Dialogues to Build Socialism” conference.  Over the course of four days, delegates will interact and deliberate on the myriad challenges that capitalism poses for working class people today, and importantly, advance concrete proposals of action to build socialism “within our lifetime.”  The event is being held at a critical juncture. “The world is changing, and it is changing very fast, the exploitation of the working class has deepened, [and] imperialism is getting more belligerent,” Kwesi Pratt Junior, the General Secretary of the SMG, told Peoples Dispatch ahead of the conference.  

Ahead Of CELAC-EU Summit, Movements Build People’s Summit

On July 17 and 18, leaders from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU) will converge in Brussels, Belgium, the seat of the EU, for the III CELAC-EU Summit. The two-day summit will be chaired by Ralph Gonsalves, the pro tempore president of CELAC and prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Charles Michel, the president of the European Council. The last summit of this nature took place in 2015, and the parties will meet again in a moment of great regional and global transformation and with the political composition in each region looking vastly different.

People’s Town Hall Demands: ‘Rent Control Now!’

Atlanta, Georgia - Tenants and housing activists packed the Neighborhood Church in East Atlanta July 8 for a People’s Town Hall to launch a statewide effort to overturn a Georgia law that forbids any rent control measures from being enacted in any jurisdiction. People traveled from around the state, coming from small towns and large cities like Valdosta near the Florida border, Columbus and Albany. Atlanta and its suburbs were well represented. Many of the featured speakers were Black women who have borne the brunt of rundown housing, where they are charged exorbitant rents and utility costs and are constantly threatened with eviction.

Workers At The Trevor Project Unionize

A majority of workers at The Trevor Project, a widely-praised nonprofit dedicated to preventing suicide among LGBTQ youth, decided to come together this spring and unionize as Friends of Trevor United. About a month later, they celebrated when management at the nonprofit agreed to voluntarily recognize their union. The Trevor Project has grown exponentially over the past few years, leading to what one union organizer describes as difficult workloads for crisis counselors dealing with increasing numbers of distress calls. Amy Solar-Greco, an organizer with Communications Workers of America — the union representing Friends of Trevor United — says Trevor’s rapid growth was ​“unsustainable and burdensome” for employees who are tasked with ​“performing intense, highly stressful and lifesaving work.”

Stanford Graduate Workers Unionize

In a landslide vote, 94% of Stanford’s graduate worker voters said ‘yes’ to being represented by the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU), according to an email announcement on Thursday. The final vote count was 1639 to 108, with a turnout rate of just over half. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certification of the results will cement the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU), affiliated with the United Electrical Workers (UE), as the official representative of eligible graduate students in collective bargaining with the University. Now that the University’s graduate workers have unionized, the SGWU’s next steps involve figuring out bargaining priorities and electing a bargaining committee.

The People Are The Builders Of The Brazil’s Unified Health System

Brazil’s 17th National Health Conference brought a significant portion of the social mobilizations that led to President Lula’s electoral victory to the federal capital Brasilia. It was a rare opportunity to see all, or almost all, the social struggles from different corners of the country in one place. The National Health Conference represented an important gathering point for different activists and generations, highlighting the long-standing challenges in the pursuit of social justice. The National Health Conferences are spaces for activists and the population at large to conduct dialogue with the government and influence the priorities and working of the Brazil’s famous Unified Health System (SUS).

Luisa González, The New Face Of Correísmo

Less than a month after a surprise designation as the presidential candidate of the Citizens’ Revolution, polls show Luisa González as the favorite to win the elections in Ecuador, far ahead of her closest opponent. Her candidacy’s strong point lies in being endorsed by the Citizens’ Revolution (RC) movement, led by former President Rafael Correa. This movement has won three consecutive presidential elections: firstly with Correa from 2007 to 2017, followed by Lenín Moreno’s term from 2017 to 2021. It was only in the 2021 presidential elections that the movement faced defeat in the runoff against current President Guillermo Lasso.

Loma Linda University Medical Residents Vote Yes On Union

In the culmination of a months-long organizing effort, resident physicians at Loma Linda University Health voted to unionize on June 22. The historic vote is the latest chapter in the most prominent recent showdown between a Seventh-day Adventist health care institution and organized labor. According to the National Labor Relations Board, which held the election, the final margin was 361 in favor of joining the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, 144 against. Approximately two-thirds of the 805 eligible resident physicians submitted a ballot. “We won,” the resident organizing committee wrote on Instagram. “After years of hard work we finally did it.”

How The Labor Movement Is Showing Up For LGBTQ+ Rights

At any march for rights there’s no shortage of creative chants. This year in New York City at the annual Queer Liberation March, a new one debuted. Playing on the lyrics to RuPaul’s “Cover Girl,” queer rights activists chanted “Socialists, put that bass in your walk! Unionize, let the whole workplace drop!” This was one of several labor-themed chants from a Left and Labor contingent which formed to amplify a labor movement that increasingly represents the LGBTQ+ community and is organizing for LGBTQ+ rights. Left Voice, an all-volunteer socialist publication, initiated the contingent. Around two dozen unions and politically left organizations joined the initiative, endorsing it, bringing out their members and publicizing the march.
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