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.

Tesla Workers At Buffalo Plant Launch Union Campaign

February 15, 2023 Matt Glynn, Portside. Organize! Labor Unions, New York (NY), Tesla, Worker Rights

The organizing drive under way at Tesla Inc.’s plant in South Buffalo is putting a spotlight on one of the region’s largest private employers, and drawing more attention to region for its union activity. The campaign, launched by Tesla Workers United, also marks a new push by Workers United, which has supported organizing efforts by workers at area Starbucks stores. Those workers’ election victories have sparked organizing campaigns at stores across the country. If the effort to organize the RiverBend facility succeeds, it would become Tesla’s first unionized workplace. On Tuesday, the campaign was generating national media attention, given the prominence of its CEO, Elon Musk, and the company itself as an electric vehicle maker.

Fordham University’s Resident Assistants Unionize

February 10, 2023 Olivia Wood , Left Voice. Organize! Education, Fordham University, New York (NY), New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

New York City, New York - Last Wednesday, resident assistants (RAs) at the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University announced the formation of their union with OPEIU Local 153. The announcement came just two days after Fordham Faculty United (SEIU Local 200 United), the contingent faculty union on campus, ratified their second contract. The establishment of the Fordham RA union is the latest instance of a new but rapidly growing trend in undergraduate worker organizing on college campuses. OPEIU Local 153 also represents RAs at Barnard College and most office workers at Fordham. Over three-quarters of the bargaining unit signed a union recognition petition that was delivered to Fordham president Tania Tetlow on February 1. The union gave Tetlow until end-of-day February 7 to voluntarily recognize the union, and now it is filing for an NLRB election.

Auto Glass Workers Withstand Threats To Form Independent Union

February 8, 2023 Alejandra Quintero, Labor Notes. Organize! Mexico, Retaliation, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers who produce glass for automakers including Ford, Volkswagen, and Tesla at a big auto glass plant in Mexico are pushing for a new contract, after forming an independent union despite threats of violence from a powerful, employer-friendly union. The factory, owned by the French multinational Saint Gobain, employs 1,900 workers. It’s located in Cuautla, Morelos—the city in south-central Mexico where the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata is buried. Last September, workers there voted to join the new Independent Union of Free and Democratic Workers of Saint-Gobain Mexico and leave a union affiliated with the Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CTC). The CTC had held the contract since the plant opened in 1996. It’s one of the numerous, politically connected “employer-protection unions” that have long dominated Mexico’s labor scene.

How My Co-Workers Got Me Reinstated At Amazon’s San Bernardino Air Hub

February 7, 2023 Sara Fee, Labor Notes. Organize! Amazon, California, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

San Bernardino, California - I’ve never organized before. What we’re doing at Amazon is all new to me. When I first started working at KSBD, the Amazon air hub in San Bernardino, it was the middle of the pandemic and they were hiring in mad numbers. No one else was. I needed a job fast and it seemed like the kind of place where I could move up. KSBD is brand new. It opened in April 2021, and I was among the first hired; depending on the season, there are about 1,200-1,600 workers there. It’s located at an airport, so a few hundred people work outside with the planes and the rest of us are inside. I work on the docks, unloading trailers. It operates 24/7. When I started at the warehouse, I was organizing—I just didn’t recognize it. But I was focused on the work process and making the warehouse run more smoothly. It seemed like Amazon had opened KSBD without a lot of planning; like we were testing the operation as we went. I was really hands-on.

Political Prisoner Kwame Shakur Speaks To Law Students

February 7, 2023 Timothy Farrell, SF Bay View. Organize! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Kwame Shakur, Law Students

One of the FROLINAN (Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation) Programs for Decolonization includes the National Alliance of New Afrikan Students (NANAS). When an individual is a cadre member of FROLINAN, they are obligated to implement the FROLINAN National Strategy and its Programs for Decolonization into their daily work within the overall movement and community in an effort to build a better society. This is the case with Prison Lives Matter and The Kwame Shakur Freedom Campaign. Each has its own Lawful Committee made up of attorneys, lawful counsel and students from around the kountry. For several years, Kwame has been networking to establish NANAS, as FROLINAN cadre believe these students are the future and will play a fundamental role in rebuilding the movement. Attorney Alec Karakatsanis, who serves on both Lawful Committees, has played a major role in forging these relationships.

Massive Looting Of Public Resources At Stake In Detroit Redevelopment Scheme

February 3, 2023 Rita Singer and Tristan Taylor, Left Voice. Organize! Detroit, Developer, Housing, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan - Billionaire developers in Detroit have proposed capturing almost one billion dollars in public money to fund their newest project. The deal is far from sealed, but organized community opposition will be necessary to prevent approvals from sailing through. In a majority Black and Brown, working-class city experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis, billionaire developers are seeking to siphon public funds that should be used to build public housing and expand community resources to subsidize luxury apartments, hotels, and office space. Community members have spoken out against publicly funding the development scheme but have yet to unite an opposition capable of stopping it or even winning major concessions. A proposed development, to be constructed in the heart of Downtown Detroit, the long-promised but never realized “District Detroit”, is seeking nearly 800 million dollars in public subsidies and tax breaks.

Chicago Grads Want To Turn City Into A ‘Powerhouse Of Organizing’

February 1, 2023 Sara Van Horn, In These Times. Organize! Chicago, Higher Education, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Chicago's thousands of graduate workers — increasingly responsible for teaching and research work once performed by faculty — have long been overworked, underpaid, and non-union. This month, that might finally be starting to change. On January 12, nearly 3,000 graduate workers at Northwestern University announced a landslide victory in their union election, winning 93.5% of the vote. This Tuesday, some 3,000 graduate workers at the nearby University of Chicago (UChicago) will also cast ballots, and while UChicago’s election results won’t be tallied until March due to mail-in voting, a majority of workers pledged to vote “yes.” The two universities are the largest employers of graduate workers in Chicago, and union victories at both would reflect a dramatic increase in the area’s academic union density.

Union From The Start (You Don’t Have To Wait)

January 31, 2023 Colette Perold and Eric Dirnbach, Labor Notes. Organize! Pre-majority Union, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Win a union election, and it’s a long road to a signed contract. Lose a union election, and workers may think the fight is over. But win, lose, or not even close to an election, workers at all kinds of workplaces can fight for their unions and win demands here and now. It's a strategy called “pre-majority” unionism, and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is here to help navigate it. Where an election or contract victory doesn’t seem possible for years to come, workers are often ignored by existing unions that don’t have the resources to support them. But their continued organizing is key, we believe, to helping the labor movement grow. While they may not be able to win official recognition or a contract right away, these workers can still build shop floor unions and fight for and win improvements.

Why Louisville Trader Joe’s Employees Voted To Unionize

January 31, 2023 Ana Rocio Alvarez Brinez, Portside. Organize! Food and Agriculture, Food Workers, Kentucky, Louisville, Trader Joe’s, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Louisville, Kentucky - Employees at the only Trader Joe's store in Louisville voted in favor of organizing Thursday evening, becoming the third location of the national grocery chain to form a union. The store's workers will now be a part of the Trader Joe's United, the guild for employees across the country. The employees who voted in favor of unionizing won their vote 48-36, a release said, after taking action to do so in September. "We are so excited to be the first Trader Joe’s location affiliated with Trader Joe’s United in the south. It’s a game changing decision that will contribute massively to the modern labor movement," Connor Hovey, an employee of the store and union organizer, told The Courier Journal. A request for comment sent to Trader Joe's corporate Thursday night was not immediately returned.

Co-Creating A Seafood System Vision In The Galápagos Islands

January 30, 2023 Emma D. Paine, Resilience. Organize! Democracy, Fishing, Food and Agriculture, Galápagos Islands

The Galapagos island territory sits off the coast of Ecuador, encompassing the island archipelago, the surrounding waters, a national park and a marine reserve. The area is known for high biodiversity and among the highest levels of endemism on the planet (species that are found nowhere else). The islands and coast are home to a wide array of communities of people involved in the seafood system for decades, a web of social connections either directly or indirectly embedded in the reality of the sea. Facing the shifting and challenging environmental, social, and economic conditions, the community, local organizations, and the Galapagos Governing Council saw the need to understand the sea food system jointly with the community with the aim of later building public policies on food security for this special regime.

Fighting Anti-Abortion Extremists And The Boss

January 28, 2023 Stephen Franklin, In These Times. Organize! New York (NY), Retaliation, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

New York - Sam Heyne, a young, newly hired HR worker, was stunned by the number of workers who were quitting and the frequent accounts she was hearing about toxic behavior from bosses. “It became abundantly clear that there needed to be a culture change, and the only way…was to start a union,” Heyne says. Before long, Heyne was caught up in the long-brewing organizing drive at the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, a prestigious research and advocacy arm for the reproductive rights movement. After months of strategizing, with Heyne working on the group’s internal communications, workers won an overwhelming victory in July 2022, 63-2, to join Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153. The celebration didn’t last long; within two hours, Heyne was fired.

Burgerville Workers’ Lessons For Independent Unions

January 27, 2023 Kevin Van Meter, Labor Notes. Organize! Burgerville, Food and Agriculture, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Self-organizing a union on a shoestring? Winning the supposedly unwinnable? Workers at a local burger chain out of Portland, Oregon, were doing it before it was cool. The Burgerville Workers Union, which went public in 2016 and won its first contract in 2021, has recently been influencing and supporting independent union efforts in the region—and it has a few lessons to offer independent unions around the country. While the union is affiliated with the Portland branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, it operates largely autonomously. “What workers want is to form a union, not necessarily join a union,” asserts founding member Luis Brennan. BVWU’s intensive member-organizer training and member-led organizing, use of direct action inside the shop, and creative community events in the streets have become more common with recent independent union drives—like those at Amazon, Home Depot, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, and the high-end supermarket chain New Seasons.

Baristas Form First Unionized Peet’s Coffee In United States

January 23, 2023 Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams. Organize! Peet's Coffee, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In a win for workplace democracy, employees at a Peet's Coffee & Tea located in Davis, California formed the chain's first unionized shop in the United States on Friday. Workers at the café voted 14-1 to join Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021. "We will not be the last," tweeted Peet's Workers United (PWU), which organized the winning unionization campaign. PWU is the counterpart to Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the outfit behind dozens of successful union drives nationwide. "Solidarity, from coffee shop to coffee shop," SBWU wrote on social media ahead of Friday's vote at Peet's. After PWU won, their Starbucks allies gave them a warm "welcome to the labor movement." SBWU organizer Tyler Keeling from Lakewood, California played an instrumental role in PWU's efforts, as detailed last week in Jacobin. PWU expressed gratitude to Keeling before and after the union vote.

Immigrant Communities Mobilize For ‘Drivers License For All’ Bill

January 23, 2023 Brad Sigal, Fight Back News. Organize! Driver's License, Immigration, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota - Over 100 immigrants and supporters gathered at the Waite House Community Center on Saturday, January 21 to hear from grassroots leaders in the struggle to win drivers license access for all, and from elected officials that are advancing the bill in the state legislature. The event was organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Movement (MIM), a grassroots organization that’s been fighting for drivers license equality in Minnesota for many years. The Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) was also present and spoke at the event. The event, which was conducted in Spanish, started with an explanation of how the state legislative process works. The drivers license bill needs to pass through several committees in both the state House and Senate, then to a vote of the full House and Senate. After reconciling any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, it goes to the governor to approve it or veto it.

Why I’m Not Running Again For City Council

January 22, 2023 Kshama Sawant, The Stranger. Organize! Kshama Sawant, Labor Movement, Socialism, Worker Rights and Jobs

This is now the tenth year I’ve had the honor to serve as an elected representative of Seattle’s working people. Workers in Seattle, through getting organized alongside my socialist City Council office, and my organization, Socialist Alternative, have won historic victories, from the $15/hour minimum wage to the Amazon Tax to landmark renters’ rights. These victories have set a powerful example that has had a national and even international impact. In our four election victories and in every struggle, we’ve had to overcome the combined might of big business, the corporate media, and the political establishment. Each time, working people refused to back down, and we have prevailed again and again. This is the most important lesson from our example of socialist politics in Seattle. That when workers and young people get organized and fight, we can win. That no meaningful progressive change can be won under capitalism without the vicious opposition of the rich and their political servants.

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