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.

Inside The Prisoner-Led Struggle To Win Education For All

April 6, 2023 Antoine Davis, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Education, Prisoner rights, Washington

Despite increasing recognition that prison education is a key tool for reducing crime, Washington State prisoners were recently forced to gather in a janitor’s closet to organize and facilitate college education for people incarcerated in several prisons across the state. They took this dramatic step because new official restrictions are jeopardizing a liberating, prisoner-led program known as Taking Education And Creating History, or TEACH. Organized by a handful of incarcerated people — including me — over a decade ago, TEACH’s goal is to democratize education for people with long sentences.

The Undercover Organizers Behind America’s Union Wins

April 5, 2023 Josh Eidelson, Portside. Organize! Amazon, Salting, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

If you want to unionize a workplace, Will Westlake was saying, get used to unclogging the drains. At a secret off-hours gathering held in Rochester, New York, in March, the 25-year-old former barista told a few dozen labor activists that a great way to build trust with co-workers and bosses is to volunteer for thankless chores. In his case, that meant spending months at a Starbucks outside Buffalo in 2021 getting on his knees and reaching beneath the sinks to yank loose the grimy mix of mocha chips, espresso beans, congealed milk and rotten fruit that regularly stopped things up. “Be the person who’s willing,” Westlake said. “It’s going to make the company less suspicious of you.”

Duke University’s Ploy To Ban Graduate Student Unions

April 3, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. Organize! Duke University, Higher Education, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

At colleges and universities across the country, a heated battle is playing out right now over workers’ right to organize and have a say over how the institutions they keep afloat with their labor are run. From graduate student-worker unionization efforts and strikes at Temple University, the University of California, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern University, Northeastern University, the University of Chicago, and Indiana University, to faculty strikes (and near-strikes) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, The New School, Howard University, etc., to workers across the higher ed sector striking in the UK, the academic labor movement is one of the most explosive sites of labor struggle right now.

2023 Earth First! The Gathering: July 1-9, Occupied Abenaki Territory

April 3, 2023 Earth First Journal, It's Going Down. Organize! Action Camp, Activism, Climate Justice, Earth First

Earth first! is, has been, and will continue to be a think tank and proving ground of direct action in defense of the earth and those who reside here. At 43 years old, earth first! may seem like an institution, but in reality it is still created every day by those of us who show up to resist ecocide. If you show up, you’re at the table. There’s no way to sell you on earth first!, cuz earth first! is not for sale. So come to the gathering! Say your piece, make it yours, and let’s fight the bastards together. You don’t have to be an earth first!er to come to an ef! gathering – the fight for the earth is intimately intertwined with struggles against white supremacy, patriarchy, settler colonialism and all forces which oppose collective liberation.

Youth Organizers Unite Marginalized Communities To Stop Atlanta’s Cop City

April 2, 2023 Ngakiya Camara, Truthout. Organize! #StopCopCity, Atlanta, Black Radical Tradition, Cop City, Georgia, White People, Youth Activism

A crowd of youth organizers have mastered this call and response chant, a unanimous voice talking back to a potential Cop City. Nearing the end of Defend the Atlanta Forest’s Week of Action, the energy from the In Defense of Black Lives rally held at the Atlanta Police Foundation Headquarters is palpable. There is laughter, chanting, a fire of hope that electrifies the air — folks have just finished roasting the heavily militarized police, who eye the crowd through the slits of their helmets. The solidarity between these kids is their biggest threat. Black youth organizers were at the center of this rally that was organized by the Stop Cop City Coalition, In Defense of Black Lives Atlanta (IDBL), which is a coalition movement based in Atlanta that works to defend Black life and to defund the Atlanta Police Department.

Water Defenders Protect Guatemalan Lake From Mountains Of Garbage

April 1, 2023 Jeff Abbott, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Environment, Guatemala, Plastic, Water

Hundreds of activists from across Guatemala walked along the shores of the majestic Lake Atitlán in the country’s western highlands in commemoration of World Water Day on March 22. In their hands they carried white flowers, which they left floating along the shores as an offering. The ceremony was held as part of the regional meeting of water activists to mark the international day meant to bring awareness to the water crisis around the world. This meeting was hosted by the local collective Comunidad Tz’unun Ya’, which has become one of the most active water rights defenders in the Central American country.

Auto Workers Convention Lurches Towards Reversing Concessions

March 30, 2023 Keith Brower Brown and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Democracy, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs

The brand-new leaders of the United Auto Workers are making ambitious demands but face stiff organizing challenges as they seek to jump-start the union, ahead of a momentous contract expiration this September at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler). At the union’s Detroit convention this week, hundreds of delegates–often local leaders–signaled they were less ready than the members to welcome the reform leadership. But there was unanimity that it’s time to finally recoup the divisive contract concessions granted in the 2007-2009 recession. Under those contracts the then-ailing automakers were allowed to hire new workers at close to half pay and no pension.

How Rank-And-File Labor Organizers Can Transform Unions

March 30, 2023 Vince Quiles, The Real News Network. Organize! Democracy, Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

For the past five years, Tevita Uhatafe of TWU Local 567 has dedicated himself to advancing the labor movement. Known affectionately as “Mic Guy,” Uhatafe has traveled from coast to coast to rally in solidarity with striking workers in multiple states. Uhatafe entered the union movement as an outsider without family connections, but has nevertheless risen as a rank-and-file leader. He is now the Vice President of the Texas AFL-CIO. Vince Quiles, lead organizer of Home Depot Workers United, sits down with Tefita Uhatafe for an organizer-to-organizer conversation on their respective stories, the barriers impeding deeper solidarity in the labor movement, and why unions so desperately need rank-and-file leadership today.

When Wildfires Choke California, This Activist Gets Masks To People In Need

March 30, 2023 Nina Thompson, Next City. Organize! California, COVID-19, Mutual Aid, Oakland, Wildfires

Each time a fire breaks out in Northern California, local activist Quinn Redwoods and their collaborators spring into action. Walking through Oakland, Redwoods distributes masks to as many people as they can. They hand out masks in places where no one else is paying attention, like crowded underpasses where unhoused people have no options to escape the smoke. They’ll even stop UPS drivers to offer them a mask. Redwoods describes the activity as “organically emerging.” It all started back in 2017 during the Tubbs Fire, when it was so smoky in the San Francisco Bay Area it wasn’t safe to be outside.

There Is Power In A Pantry

March 27, 2023 Kim Kelly, In These Times. Organize! Alabama, Mutual Aid, Strikes, Warrior Met

If you’re one of the people who’s been following the Warrior Met Coal strike over the past 23 months, it’s almost certain that you’ve heard the name Haeden Wright. The 35-year-old mother of two is a teacher, an activist, an elected official, a coal miner’s daughter and a boss’s worst nightmare. She’s a vocal presence on social media, has given countless interviews, and has participated in panels and other public events in an effort to direct attention to the strike. But the first time I met Wright was before all that. It was April 2021 and we were standing in a forest clearing in Alabama’s Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park, surrounded by 1,000 striking coal miners and their families.

People’s Power Is At The Heart Of The Cuban Political System

March 26, 2023 Zoe Alexandra, People's Dispatch. Organize! Cuba, Economic Blockade, Elections, National Assembly of Cuba

On Sunday, March 26, eight million Cubans will have the opportunity to vote in the elections to elect the 470 members of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The Assembly has the duty of discussing and passing laws that affect the lives of the Cuban people. Half of the candidates to the Assembly are elected at a municipal level, and half are nominated by the different sectors of society, such as the mass organizations of women, students, workers, peasants, among others, whose electoral representation is a unique aspect of Cuban democracy. The National Assembly is the body that is responsible for electing and appointing persons to various state offices such as the President and Vice-President of the Republic who are elected from among its members...

UAW Reformers Clinch The Presidency

March 26, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Elections, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

Reform challenger Shawn Fain has won the presidency of the United Auto Workers, the federal monitor announced today. Fain will be sworn in just in time to chair the UAW's bargaining convention, which begins Monday. The vote count had begun March 1, but the initial tallies were so close that final results hinged on a few hundred challenged ballots. The painstaking process to check which ones were valid dragged on for weeks. But while members awaited the final count, Big 3 auto worker rank-and-filers inspired by the reform slate were already stepping up to run for local office and change their union. With their contracts expiring in September, there’s no time to lose. Several spoke to Labor Notes about their plans to reshape the union’s methods and goals.

‘What Really Keeps Me Up At Night’: A Climate Scientist’s Call To Action

March 26, 2023 Tara Lohan, The Revelator. Organize! Climate Change, climate crisis, Climate Science, Environment, IPCC

We’re running out of time to get things right. With the final installment in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report released this week, the world’s leading climate scientists have offered a stark warning that we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 or face a “rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” This will require an abrupt about-face as emissions continue to rise despite the massive body of scientific literature affirming the dire risks of proceeding with business as usual.

LA’s Teachers Make Good On Promise To Support Community Schools

March 25, 2023 Jeff Bryant, LA Progressive. Organize! California, Education, Los Angeles, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Los Angeles, California - “We should have been miserable,” said Emily Grijalva, recalling the first days of the 2019 strike by Los Angeles teachers. Grijalva, who is currently the community school and restorative justice coordinator at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School, joined her colleagues on the picket line in 2019 despite the biting cold and an unusual, prolonged rainstorm that flooded city streets and sidewalks and drenched picketers. Many of them did not wear, much less own, suitable rain gear for their normally sunny, mild Southern California climate. “But even through the rain and cold, we felt togetherness and support from the community.

Immigrant Women Workers Fighting To Close Disney’s Gender Pay Gap

March 24, 2023 Derek Seidman, Truthout. Organize! Disney, Finance and the Economy, Gender Disparities, Immigration, Patriarchy, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 631 say a major pay gap exists at Disney World that leaves workers in traditionally feminized jobs, such as costume-making, earning significantly less than workers in traditionally masculinized jobs with comparable skills levels, such as stagehand labor. The union — which represents the skilled crafts people who work behind the scenes in Disney World entertainment, from costume workers to cosmetologists to stage technicians — is demanding in bargaining that Disney close this gender pay gap by raising wages in traditionally feminized jobs to bring them in alignment with comparatively skilled but traditionally male-dominated jobs.

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