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.

Battery Jobs Must Be Good-Paying Union Jobs, Says New UAW President

May 19, 2023 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Electric Vehicles, Just transition, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Contracts covering 150,000 auto workers at the Big 3 will expire on September 14, and the new leadership of the United Auto Workers is taking a more aggressive stance than in years past. “We’re going to launch our biggest contract campaign ever in our history,” UAW President Shawn Fain told members in a Facebook live video. Fain took office in March after winning the union’s first one member, one vote election. Running on the slogan, “No Corruption, No Concessions, No Tiers,” he and the Members United slate swept all the positions they ran for, giving reformers a majority on the international executive board.

Union Win At Bus Factory Electrifies Georgia

May 18, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Electric Vehicles, Georgia, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697. “It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW. “It’s not a single important win. It’s an example of what’s possible—workers wanting to organize and us being able to take advantage of a time and a policy that allowed them to clear a path to do so.”

National Conference For Black Self-Determination And Pan-African Unity

May 17, 2023 Tunde Osazua, Black Agenda Report. Organize! Atlanta, Black Liberation, Pan Africanism, Self-Determination

From June 23rd to the 25th, a historic gathering of Black radical organizers will take place in the city of Atlanta, hosted by Community Movement Builders . The National Black Radical Organizing Conference will serve as a rallying point for individuals dedicated to our collective liberation struggle. Under the theme of "Unity in our Lifetime: Connecting the National Black Struggle for Self-Determination with Pan-Africanism," this conference aims to propel our movement to new heights and reaffirm our unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic oppression. During conference keynotes, panels, plenaries, workshops, and screenings, a diverse array of critical topics will be explored, ranging from base building and mass work to ideological positioning, the non-profit industrial complex, political prisoners, policing, gender, incarceration, and the vital role of students and youth in our liberation struggle.

Punching Down On Libraries

May 17, 2023 Katie Pruden, The Indypendent. Organize! Budget Cuts, Education, Libraries, New York City (NYC)

New York City, New York - There’s a public library in every single neighborhood in the city, across all five boroughs. More than 200 locations altogether. Whether it be Queens (QPL), Brooklyn (BPL) or New York (NYPL), which encompasses The Bronx and Staten Island, the library’s employees, resources and physical spaces serve the public beyond providing books, free wifi and nice architecture. If you fill out a form, librarians at BPL will personally pick out recommendations for you based on what you like. Using the new Queens Name Explorer, you can find out about the history behind the names of local parks, streets and schools.

Puerto Ricans Occupy Land To Resist Displacement

May 13, 2023 Bianca Graulau and Laura Quintero, The Real News. Organize! Extreme weather, Land Reform, Mutual Aid, Puerto Rico

In front of a mural that reads “Only the people save the people,” Marisel Robles Gutiérrez stood before a group of elderly adults, to make an announcement: the non-profit organization Comedores Sociales had gained ownership of the abandoned property that they occupied in 2017 by negotiating with a real estate investment company. With a slightly cracked voice and smiling, she said: “We rescued this building… we gave it life, and thanks to all these years, to all the people who have participated,” —she interrupted and placed her hands to her chest— “finally, we can announce today that it is ours.”

The Evolving Movement For Agricultural Worker Rights

May 12, 2023 Lucia Athens, Next City. Organize! Farming, Food and Agriculture, History, Worker Rights and Jobs

Labor organizing has experienced a resurgence of late for many service workers, but not so for agricultural workers. Through the collective impact efforts of many individuals, from many walks of life, California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 was passed, the first of its kind in the US to protect farmworker rights. Adopted at the height of the United Farm Workers movement led by César Chávez, it served as a vehicle to galvanize their Union, empowering tens of thousands of workers who realized the potentiality of organizing for the first time. Unfortunately, the promise of that law was never realized and progress since then has been a mixed bag.

Penn Medicine Doctors In Philadelphia Vote Overwhelmingly To Unionize

May 11, 2023 Committee of Interns and Residents, Portside. Organize! Doctors, Health Care, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - After a months-long organizing campaign, the resident and fellow physicians at the University of Pennsylvania overwhelmingly voted to unionize with the Committee of Interns and Residents. With 88% of participants voting in favor, the frontline Penn Medicine doctors are the first statewide to gain union representation. Working at one of the region’s largest healthcare providers, Penn’s frontline physicians look forward to advocating for the conditions they need to provide top-quality care without compromising their mental, physical, or financial wellbeing. Despite working at one of the wealthiest university systems in the country, residents often struggle to make ends meet.

At UFCW, A Reform Movement Rises

May 6, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! Democracy, Grocery Workers, Labor Movement, Worker Rights

Las Vegas — It was 7:30 on a Monday morning on the Las Vegas Strip, early enough to stand outside without sunscreen. A group of people — first a trickle, then dozens — wearing matching blue T-shirts that read “Organizing & Bargaining & The Right to Strike & A Voice in Our Union,” flooded the patio of the Mirage Resort & Casino pool, overwhelming the early morning smokers who had sought refuge there. This group was smiling, energized, far too wholesome for their garish surroundings. Like a team of underdogs before a critical game, they seethed with nervous excitement. These were the reformers.

We Are All Salts

May 5, 2023 Chris Townsend, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights

Today’s revival of union “salting” could not be more welcome or more urgently needed. A tactic as old as the labor movement itself, salting describes going to work in an unorganized workplace where there may be a chance to help initiate new union organizing. It’s also a label for taking jobs at already unionized employers, hoping to play a positive role. But here I will deal with the former: taking jobs to help spur new organizing. Whatever amount of salting is underway today—it’s impossible to precisely measure—it cannot come soon enough. The U.S. labor movement is mired in a crisis that threatens its very existence.

First Boat To Protest Nuclear Weapons Inspires A New Generation

May 3, 2023 Arnie Alpert, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Golden Rule, History, Nuclear Weapons, Peace

Fredy Champagne has been a peace activist ever since he returned from combat in Vietnam. He’s been kicked out of college, where he was accused of starting a riot. He’s opened health clinics in Vietnam. He’s delivered school buses to Cuba. But in 2010, he received a call that opened his eyes to a story of resistance he had never heard before. The call was from one of Champagne’s fellow members of Veterans for Peace, or VFP, asking him to go check out a boat that had been hauled out of the water in Humboldt Bay, California — only an hour’s drive north from his home in Garberville, where he was serving as the president of the local VFP chapter. The boat — named the Golden Rule — wasn’t much to look at.

Cuban President Meets With Over 300 Enthusiastic US Supporters

May 2, 2023 Bill Hackwell, Resumen English. Organize! Cuba, Economic Blockade, International Solidarity, Sanctions, US Imperialism

This morning, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel received at the Palace of the Revolution 300 friends of Cuba, coming from the United States to demand an end to the blockade. Brigades, groups and other delegations are in Cuba to take part in the May 1 activities celebrating the International Day of Workers and to show their solidarity with the Cuban people who have withstood the longest continuous blockade in modern history. Students, trade unionists, lawyers and political activists are here many making their first visit to the socialist island. Recognizing this President Díaz-Canel said: “from the United States we not only receive sanctions and blockades, we also receive your friendship, support, trust and hope”.

Climate Justice On The Ballot In El Paso

May 1, 2023 Crystal Moran, Eddie Wong, and Mike Siegel, Convergence. Organize! Climate Justice, El Paso, Texas, Voter Initiatives

On May 6, voters in El Paso, TX will decide on Prop K, the Climate Charter amendment that would pave the way for a Green New Deal in this metropolitan area of 985,000 residents, 81% of whom are Latinx. The Prop K campaign has placed environmental racism and local control over powerful corporate interests squarely before the public. It grows out of decades of organizing and resistance in El Paso and the frontera communities—from El Paso and Doña Ana Counties to Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua, Mexico. Eddie Wong interviewed Crystal Moran and Mike Siegel for Convergence. Moran is a local Chicanx, Indigenous community organizer working in environmental, immigration, and social justice.

Striking Workers At U. Michigan Are Building Powerful Solidarity

April 30, 2023 Ryan McCarty, Left Voice. Organize! Higher Education, Labor Movement, Solidarity, Strikes

The morning of April 28, I was stumbling around making coffee, checking the strike news on Twitter. It’s been about a month now since my graduate student instructor colleagues voted overwhelmingly to strike, facing down the legal and financial powerhouses at the University of Michigan. I only had to scroll for a second, then I just sorta had to sit down. There was a picture of about 20-30 people in a beer garden on a gray springy afternoon, fists raised and smiling. The message was from grad students, lecturers, and faculty from UC Santa-Cruz; they had held a fundraiser and were donating $600 to the University of Michigan grad student strike fund.

Whose Green Transition? Ours!

April 29, 2023 Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes. Organize! Green Economy, Just transition, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Huge changes are coming for our workplaces, quick as a heat wave. This month Joe Biden inked new rules to make all-electrics the majority of new cars sold in America within a decade. To charge all those batteries, many of the largest states are pushing to power their grids with two-thirds clean energy by the same deadline. These green shifts have put billion-dollar signs in the eyes of bosses. Public cash is pouring out to subsidize cleaner manufacturing and energy. Corporations aim to cash in double by cutting unions out.

Meatpacking Workers Say Tyson Foods Makes Them Fight To See The Doctor

April 27, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. Organize! Food and Agriculture, Health Care, Meat Packers, Tysons Foods, Worker Rights and Jobs

The open gash on his right arm oozed blood in a crimson arc, like a neat lipstick smear. It dripped down fast, breaking out into rivulets, so he pushed his arm away from his body. The blood settled in a pool on the floor. Andre Ngute sustained this painful injury in March 2022 at a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant in the tiny rural town of Columbus Junction, Iowa (population 2,132). He had been working elbow-to-elbow on the kill floor wielding sharp knives when one slipped and sliced him. (Ngute requested to use a pseudonym because he fears retaliation.) Nurses in Tyson’s on-site infirmary wrapped his arm in brightly colored bandages.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources