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.

Organizing In The South

April 15, 2021 Joseph B. Atkins, Portside. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, The South, Worker Rights

Oxford, MI - The woman’s face still haunts me. Lined from many years of work on the farm and then in the cotton mills, she is nameless in my memory, just another “linthead” in the eyes of the mill owners, “white trash” others might say, someone off the cow patch and now in a factory in some Southern backwater working 12-hour days. In her eyes, however, was a spark of something, a flicker of hope, and it came from the union she and countless other cotton mill workers were desperate to join back in the 1930s. “We began to feel we could be a part of a great movement,” she said in filmmakers George Stoney, Judith Helfland, and Susanne Rostock’s landmark 1995 documentary The Uprising of ’34.

Message From The Amazon Union Defeat In Alabama Is Clear

April 15, 2021 Rand Wilson and Peter Olney, In These Times. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

On April 9, the National Labor Relations Board announced the results of a mail ballot certification election that concluded on March 29 for workers at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. With 3,215 votes cast, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) was defeated with at least 1,608 votes against the union, enough to crush the drive. The result was not shocking given the millions of dollars that Amazon spent and its power inside the facility to pressure workers to vote against forming a union. No matter how you spin it, the defeat is a significant blow to the multitude of organizing efforts occurring at Amazon. The election showed the clear limitations of pursuing union certification through a broken NLRB election process.

The BAmazon Loss And The Road Ahead

April 14, 2021 Joe DeManuelle-Clark, Labor Notes. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Hopes were high. The drive had garnered enormous favorable press coverage and even support from the White House. Nevertheless, the loss was no surprise to many in labor. Amazon is one of the world’s most powerful corporations, and organizing is notoriously difficult under U.S. labor law. Some aspects of the campaign gave observers pause, like the shortage of workplace leaders who were willing to speak up publicly. From years of won and lost union drives, there is some accumulated wisdom about what it takes to overcome employer tactics. At the same time, we should be wary of anyone who claims that a win is guaranteed if you just follow all the right steps. This was always going to be a tough fight.

Global Citizens’ Assembly Planned To Address Climate Crisis

April 12, 2021 Matthew Green/Reuters, News Trust. Organize! climate crisis, COP 26, People's Assembly

London - People around the world will have a chance to deliberate about responses to climate change under plans to convene a "Global Citizens' Assembly" to inform U.N. talks in Glasgow next year, organisers said on Thursday. The project aims to build on similar initiatives in countries such as Ireland, France and Canada, where citizens' assemblies have given politicians space to act by generating ambitious proposals on divisive issues. "Young people are not just frustrated by rising temperatures and declining ecosystems. We're also frustrated by the constant recycling of outdated political solutions," said Susan Nakyung Lee, 19, a South Korean student working on the project.

Bessemer – A Big Step Forward

April 10, 2021 Frank Emspak, Portside. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Workers at the Amazon fulfillment center have voted in a National Labor Relations Board election to ascertain if a majority of those voting wish to be represented by a union. Votes are being counted. Should a majority of workers vote for the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Workers, Amazon should agree to recognize the union and bargain with them. I say “should” because Amazon may find ways to challenge the vote, appeal its result or force the union into court to get the law enforced. All people who value worker rights have their hopes on an election win for the union at Amazon. Likewise all those who seek to maintain the current system of employment at will, privileges instead of rights and discrimination in employment are also looking at Bessemer.

Indigenous Group Launches Campaign Against New Voting Bills

April 10, 2021 Jared Gans, The Hill. Organize! Elections, Indigenous Activism, Native Americans, Voting Rights

An advocacy group for Native Americans is putting up billboards in various states to oppose measures that it says would increase voting restrictions. The campaign launched by the Global Indigenous Council comes as more state legislatures are considering voting laws like the one in Georgia that sparked corporate backlash. Tom Rodgers, president of the Global Indigenous Council and an enrolled Blackfeet tribal member, said the goal of the campaign is to draw attention to bills that would limit the number of available polling stations and ballot drop-off spots, calling the measures especially harmful to Native Americans who may not have access to the remaining voting locations.

The Movement To End At-Will Employment Is Getting Serious

April 9, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Organize! Disposable worker, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

On March 31, a group of worker centers, unions, community groups and policy organizations in Illinois officially formed a new coalition, Stable Jobs Now, that aims to dramatically shift the power balance between workers and bosses by eliminating “at-will” employment — the practice that allows employers to fire their employees on a whim. In most of the rest of the world, workers are protected by the “just cause” principle, which says they can only be terminated for legitimate, documented reasons connected to poor job performance. But in the United States, the at-will doctrine allows bosses to arbitrarily fire employees for any reason or no reason whatsoever, with the burden of proving it was an unlawful dismissal placed on the worker.

How Oil Workers And Environmentalists United In Struggle

April 6, 2021 Paul Morao, Left Voice. Organize! Environmental Movement, France, Oil Workers, Strike

Total’s objective in recent years has been to close its refineries in France. It has found ways to refine elsewhere: in Dubai, India, China, and with plans for Africa. The objective is twofold: to refine as close as possible to the crude oil deposits, but also to do so in countries where working conditions are worse and environmental standards are lower. Disastrous consequences have resulted, such as the forced displacement of entire populations in Uganda. Even though oil refining fulfills important needs in the region around Paris, and it is very profitable, Total’s refinery in Grandpuits was put on the list to be closed. In 2018 a lack of structural maintenance led the pipeline to burst, which accelerated Total’s plan. The company refused to invest the several hundred million needed for repairs and decided to shut down the refinery.

Fascist Free 503: Notes On Holding The Streets In Salem

April 4, 2021 It's Going Down. Organize! Fascism, Oregon, Police, Right wing extremism

Far-Right groups announced their March 29th car rally event from Sandy to Salem a month ahead of the event. People in Salem began planning a counter-demonstration early on. In January, Proud boys assaulted residents in Salem and also damaged a local business near the capital. Residents knew from prior experience that Salem Police and Oregon State Police wouldn’t do anything to protect them from the potential violence from right-wing fascists. People began to network and organize the basic essentials of a protest: medics, interpreters, legal observers, evacuation routes, maps, volunteers to monitor right-wing accounts and streams. People prepared medical equipment in case protesters were injured by riot munitions or exposed to tear gas.

Brothers EMpowered Is Building That Village We All Need to Thrive

April 3, 2021 Eric Ortiz, Popular Resistance. Organize! Community, Minneapolis, Peace, Youth Activism

Charles Caine has a dream. Just like Martin Luther King understood civil rights include economic rights, Caine wants to give all people an opportunity to prosper. That mission starts with his two sons (ages 16 and 13) and the other youth he mentors in North Minneapolis as the president and executive director of Brothers EMpowered. Caine founded the community mentorship organization in 2014 to help men of color overcome the barriers in their lives and the lives in their communities. His inspiration came from years of struggling as a young Black man in urban America. After overcoming many challenges and barriers in his life, from gang violence to chemical dependency, the turning point came when he became a father.

Virginia Public Sector Workers Organize To Make Their New Bargaining Rights A Reality

March 30, 2021 Joe Demanuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Unions, Public Workers, Virginia, Worker Rights

When Virginia changed its law last year to allow local government workers to bargain collectively, it was a leap forward in a time when the trend is generally in the opposite direction. As always, the devil is in the details—and there’s a lot of devilry here. But the change presents a substantial opening for unions. Now teachers, firefighters, and sewer workers are getting organized and pushing local governments to bargain over such issues as pay and staffing. Bargaining is still banned for state employees. But the new law, which takes effect May 1, allows cities, counties, and towns to bargain with their employees, an activity that had been expressly forbidden since a 1977 state Supreme Court ruling, codified by a 1993 law.

The Amazon Union Vote Is Ending In Bessemer

March 29, 2021 Luis Feliz Leon, The New Republic. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Union, Worker Rights

The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is 885,000 square feet of shiny new construction. Signs painted on the windows in bursts of green, red, yellow greet workers at the main entrance with the words: Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History. Under these slogans, the silhouette of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s face adorns yellow placards reading, The Dream Is Alive. Workers on break outside lean their elbows on their knees or pace around the entrance, the sleeves of their pants rolled up to their kneecaps in the hot sun. It is a March day, the usual balmy 74 degrees. People are too tired to talk shit and wait in silence to return to their shifts, staring at shadows on the pavement or eyeing their phone screens. The facility, called BHM1, opened this time last year, just as the pandemic was bearing down on the United States.

We Can Win Student Loan Debt Cancellation

March 29, 2021 Umme Hoque, Commondreams. Organize! Debt, Higher Education, Joe Biden, Student Loans

On March 18, the Biden administration's Department of Education announced that it will cancel $1 billion in federal student loan debt held by 72,000 borrowers who were defrauded by for-profit universities. These students received subprime educations and worthless degrees, and then were burdened with debt often in the tens of thousands of dollars—all while predatory companies and their investors made millions. The only reason this debt is now being cancelled is because debtors got organized. In 2015, students from for-profit, now defunct Corinthian Colleges Inc. launched the country's first student debt strike, refusing to pay their loans because they had been scammed by their school.

Colectivo Could Become The Largest Unionized Coffee Chain

March 25, 2021 Alice Herman, In These Times. Organize! Coffee, Labor Unions, union busting

On March 8, Lauretta Archibald marked her three-year anniversary as a baker for Colectivo Coffee Roasters, an upscale Midwestern coffee chain based in Milwaukee and Chicago. In her years at Colectivo, Archibald had been responsible for making artisan bread in bulk, sometimes baking 1,000 loaves a night. It was arduous work, and Archibald says that she did not always have the support — or even materials — that she needed: the bakery was understaffed for stretches of time, there weren’t enough cooling racks and one of the ovens leaked the smell of gas through the kitchen.

A Community-Centered Response To Violence Against Asian Americans

March 24, 2021 Organizing Upgrade. Organize! Asian Americans, Racism, Violence

On March 16, eight people were killed at three different spas in North Georgia including six Asian women. We are heartbroken by these murders, which come at a time when Asian American communities are already grappling with the traumatic violence against Asian Americans nationwide, fueled by the United States’ long history of white supremacy, systemic racism, and gender-based violence. As we collectively grieve and respond to this tragedy, we must lead with the needs of those most directly impacted at the center: the victims and their families.

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