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.

NOLA Garbage Workers Form Union To Fightback

May 30, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Organize! Labor Unions, New Orleans, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

“We are digging in for a long fight,” says New Orleans striking sanitation worker Jonathan Edwards late on Thursday night about being fired in early May by People Ready, a contractor of New Orleans’ Metro Services. Nearly a month ago, People Ready fired Edwards and 13 other coworkers who went on strike. Forced to work in one of the world’s worst hotbeds of COVID, garbage pickers like Edwards, employed through the temp firm People Ready and contracted by Metro Services, were only paid $10.25 an hour without benefits. On May 6th, workers went on strike demanding $15 an hour, hazard pay, protective equipment, and health insurance. However, the workers were fired two days later on May 8th. Instead of re-hiring them, Metro Services replaced them with prison labor.

Launch Of Apartheid Off Campus

May 27, 2020 Apartheid Off Campus. Organize! Apartheid, BDS, Palestine, Student Activism

Apartheid Off Campus was born officially just over a week ago and it could not have come at a better time, with the new and ever-mounting challenges the Palestinians have had to face. In this 7-day window, AOC acquired over 2000 followers across three social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. AOC has received far-reaching and overwhelming support from students and activists alike, enough to remind us that now is as perfect a time as any to launch an active, dynamic student-led movement for Palestine. After an online-only (courtesy of the lockdown!) student campaign launch, hundreds of students across the UK posted pictures of themselves with placards and posters calling for the decolonization of universities, by ending their complicity with Israeli apartheid and divesting from the companies embroiled in such oppression.

Organizing For Environmental Justice

May 24, 2020 Alex Gordon, Coalfield Justice. Organize! Environment, Fossil Fuels, Student Activism, Zero waste

Young people have been paramount to just about every successful social movement in this country, with the Climate Movement, and the revolt against oil and gas being no exceptions. Regardless, we still see a gap in youth involvement in petrochemical organizing. College students are an especially-untapped resource for the movement against petrochemical expansion and, this summer, I aim to work with these three aforementioned organizations to help mend that. Though things may have gotten a bit turned around by the current pandemic, this is a profound moment in our history. A line from My Shot in the musical Hamilton, stating “This is not a moment, it’s the movement,” plays frequently in my mind these days, out of recognition and excitement that this time is a moment for our movement, and an opening perhaps, to make lasting systemic change.

Were Chicago’s Police Torture Reparations From 5 Years Ago Implemented?

May 24, 2020 Flint Taylor, Truthout. Organize! Chicago, Police abuse, Reparations, Torture

The Chicago reparations movement offers a shining example to movements across the country, and in the past few years, activists in other cities have pursued their own calls for reparations. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the family of Eugene Ellison, a man fatally shot by the police, together with the largest police violence settlement in Little Rock history, obtained an official apology from the city manager at a ceremony where a memorial bench was dedicated to Ellison. In New Orleans, the City settled 17 police violence cases that were representative of the official lawlessness that reigned before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced the $13.3 million settlement at a press conference after a prayer meeting with the victims and families.

Restaurant Workers Mobilize In Right To Work States During COVID-19

May 23, 2020 By Clare Busch, Shadowproof. Organize! COVID-19, Restaurants, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

Rather than trying to form a legal union in a right-to-work state, Bo-o stated, “We are a volunteer organization at this point. We are less constrained by the law.” (ShiftChange members also stressed they do not have centralized authority so there is no waiting for approval before taking action.) By keeping the network loose, the group is also nimble. When many workers were still waiting on government assistance, the group engaged in mutual aid and tried to get financial assistance for those in need. McGarry said now that unemployment insurance has started to appear in people’s bank accounts, RVA ShiftChange is distributing money to undocumented workers. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, ShiftChange RVA members used walkouts, social media shaming, and letter-writing to address work conditions at local restaurants.

No Justice, No Peace! Time To Confront The US Rogue State

May 20, 2020 the Black Alliance for Peace. Organize! Global Ceasefire, Racism, US Foreign Policy, Wars and Militarism

For the people of the world, it is quite clear the United States is the primary threat to global peace. It is also clear to us it doesn’t matter who physically sits in the white people’s house because the commitment to protecting and advancing the objective interests of the capitalist ruling class will continue unless the organized masses meet them with an effective countervailing power. The predatory relationship between the U.S. and the rest of humanity is best captured in Trump’s “America First” policy. This is not in any way a departure from post-World War II U.S. policies, just a cruder statement of fact absent the liberal subterfuge. Polls each year have shown the international public sees the United States as the greatest threat to peace. The U.S. sanctions regime continuing to target more than 30 countries—even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic—reinforces that perception. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) supports the only solution: Seizing the U.S. capitalist oligarchy’s destructive power for the good of humanity.

Fighting Local Surveillance: A Toolkit

May 20, 2020 ACLU Northern California. Organize! Civil Liberties, Mass Surveillance, Tools, Transparency

In 2019, San Francisco passed a landmark law banning government facial recognition and requiring public oversight for local decisions related to the acquisition and use of other surveillance technologies such as cameras, drones, and more. That effort, led by the ACLU in deep partnership with civil rights partners, is part of a bigger movement afoot in the U.S. In more than a dozen cities and counties, communities have passed laws ensuring that decisions about high-tech surveillance are made by the community through the democratic process, not in secret by police and surveillance companies acting alone. Together, we are achieving important victories against secret and dangerous surveillance. We are raising awareness of how surveillance technology like drones, stingrays, and facial recognition exacerbate discriminatory policing, suppress dissent, and facilitate harm to immigrants and people of color.

The Growing Outbreak Of Discontent In The US Military

May 20, 2020 By Clark A. and Antonio Balmer, Marxist.com. Organize! Class war, COVID-19, Military Resistance, US military

It is a well-known feature of revolutionary history that the individual soldiers and sailors who make up the armed forces can be affected by the overarching mood in society and play a key role in the class struggle. The cramped quarters of Navy warships have been likened to “floating factories,” and given the proletarian background of most of their crews, these conditions can breed a fierce class hatred. Add a deadly virus to the already volatile mix, and the stage is set for a social explosion. In late March, after a port stop in Hanoi, an outbreak of COVID-19 began to ravage the crew of the US Navy’s Nimitz class supercarrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Routine safety measures were no match for the virus on a ship with 4,500 sailors interacting in close quarters. By March 31, as many as 200 members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19—a figure that would continue to multiply in the following weeks.

Pandemic: Protecting Public Health And The Right To Free Speech And Assembly

May 16, 2020 By Norman Siegel and Steven Hyman, Law.com. Organize! Civil Rights, Free Speech, Protest, Public Health

New Yorkers are allowed and encouraged to go out in the street with masks and stay at least 6 feet apart, as long as it is to stand in line to go shopping or to sit in a park, but if they are adhering to those requirements and they say something about an issue of public concern (similar to what members of Reclaim Pride did) that speech will make the speaker subject to arrest on the specious basis that speech is a public health risk. Banning that speech/protest while permitting the same activity without speech is unconstitutional. The president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association recently wrote to the police commissioner stating that: “This week the mayor announced an end to public protests in the city….the SBA believes that such a sweeping prohibition against the rights embodied by the First Amendment is glaringly unconstitutional.”

#GeneralStrike2020: How To Participate

This prolonged and broad campaign will organize around a list of basic demands, as outlined here. Not on the list, but included is the demand to save the US Postal Service. The campaign will follow a three-prong strategy - resistance through noncompliance, mutual aid and building alternative systems in our communities rooted in cooperation, solidarity and participatory democracy. On the next national day of action, June 1, there will be many activities. Read through and decide how you can best participate in the actions. There is something for everyone to do. Be creative!

It’s Bigger Than Scrubs – My Termination From United Hospital ER

May 11, 2020 Cliff Willmeng, RN, Popular Resistance. Organize! COVID-19, Nurses, PPE, Workers Rights and Jobs

For months, working conditions, patient safety, public health, and the rights of union members have been degraded and placed at risk by Allina hospital administration’s policies, behavior, and egregious lack of preparation for a global pandemic. This is not a matter of opinion or perspective but documented fact, evidenced by hundreds of OSHA complaints, failing infection protocols, communications of frontline healthcare workers, and hospital administration’s ongoing acts of intimidation, harassment, and threats to our professional standing. Hospital administrators placed profits and executive compensation over protection of employees, year after year. The resulting failure and disorganization have pushed workplace safety, nursing practice, public health, and our rights as workers to a breaking point.

Amazon Labor Activism Goes International

May 10, 2020 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! Amazon, International Solidarity, Pandemic, Workers Rights and Jobs

Amazon worker organizing is going international. A new coalition of Amazon employee activists from Spain, France, German, Poland and America has announced itself with a list of demands for improved pay and safety—and they say that this is just the beginning. The new group, called Amazon Workers International (AWI), is a significant new formal attempt to combine the well-established labor activism of Amazon workers in Europe with the grassroots organizing that has targeted Amazon in America in recent months. The group’s letter, sent to CEO Jeff Bezos and Stefano Perego, the VP of Europe Customer Fulfillment, asks the company to lock in temporary gains that workers have made during the pandemic, and for broader improvements in Amazon’s historically poor relationship with its warehouse workers.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources