Organizing

Will The Next Labor Movement Come From The South?

May 18, 2014 Amy B. Dean, www.truth-out.org Organize! Labor, Organizing

Corporate America - especially in the American South - doesn't seem to know the proper way to treat a guest. Guest workers have long been one of the most easily exploited segments of the American workforce. Employers frequently take advantage of their legal vulnerabilities to ignore labor laws, pay subminimum wage and threaten them with physical abuse, all of which American citizens are better equipped to resist. Whole sectors of the American economy - especially agriculture - have long depended on this underground labor market and the ease with which employers can dominate it. But in recent years, guest workers have been bringing attention to their plight and winning some small victories. One of the leaders of that movement is Saket Soni, executive director of the National Guestworker Alliance and the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. From his base in the Deep South, perhaps the United States' most worker-unfriendly region, he has helped organize workers across the Gulf Coast. In 2012, Soni worked with a group of guest workers at a crawfish processing plan named CJ's Seafood, where employees were locked in, forced to work nearly around the clock and threatened with violence when they protested.

The Girl Who Sparked Brown v. Board Of Education

May 17, 2014 Nadine Bloch, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Civil Rights, Organizing

Sixty years ago on May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson and declared separate was not equal for public schools and was therefore unconstitutional. While the decision in this case, Brown v. Board of Education, has received the most ink over the last six decades, the stories and people behind the landmark decision are even more vividly compelling and inspiring than the sea-changing unanimous ruling itself. The five cases that composed this hearing came from four states and a district — Virginia, Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina and the District of Columbia — and were all sponsored by the NAACP. The Delaware case was the only one in which the lower courts actually found discrimination unlawful; the other four cases ruled against the parents and students who were suing for equality and desegregation. Although the Supreme Court case is named after the suit from Kansas, it is the Virginia fight that stands out. It was the only case sparked by the students themselves, which opened up space for their parents and NAACP elders to fall in behind. History books, if they mention this backstory at all, talk about the student walk out at R.R. Moton High School led by 16-year-old junior Barbara Rose Johns on April 23, 1951. While that fact alone is impressive, the planning and organization that went into pulling off the action is pure inspiration.

Movement To Better Regulate Or Eliminate Oil Trains Is Growing

May 10, 2014 Dan Levy, www.wnyt.com Educate! Environment, Oil, Organizing

There are more signs that the movement to better regulate or eliminate oil trains from our community is growing. Several dozen people gathered at the Bethlehem Town Library Friday night to embark on a journey to eradicate oil trains, a trip that most people agree will be an uphill journey. Now that the federal government is calling the transport of crude oil by rail an "imminent hazard" to the public, activists feel they're gaining momentum. "It's an explosive issue and people are paying attention," says Sandy Steubing, of People of Albany United for Safe Energy -- or PAUSE. Steubing's grassroots organization is determined to eliminate oil tankers, like the ones that can be seen across the Capital Region, especially in the middle of I-787 in downtown Albany and at the Port of Albany. Along that path, graphic pictures that have been widely seen on both television and the internet, like the ones from Lac-Megantic, Quebec where 47 people died last summer in a train derailment and explosion, and pictures like the ones from Lynchburgh, Virginia last month, where 30,000 gallons of crude spilled into the James River, have become persuasive reminders that oil trains can be unsafe and unpredictable at any speed.

Frances Fox Piven’s Theory Of Disruptive Power

May 8, 2014 Mark Engler and Paul Engler, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Mass Movement, Occupy, Organizing

Social movements can be fast, and they can be slow. Mostly, the work of social change is a slow process. It involves patiently building movement institutions, cultivating leadership, organizing campaigns and leveraging power to secure small gains. If you want to see your efforts produce results, it helps to have a long-term commitment. And yet, sometimes things move more quickly. Every once in a while we see outbreaks of mass protest, periods of peak activity when the accepted rules of political affairs seem to be suspended. As one sociologist writes, these are extraordinary moments when ordinary people “rise up in anger and hope, defy the rules that ordinarily govern their lives, and, by doing so, disrupt the workings of the institutions in which they are enmeshed.” The impact of these uprisings can be profound. “The drama of such events, combined with the disorder that results, propels new issues to the center of political debate” and drives forward reforms as panicked “political leaders try to restore order.”

U.S. Religious Progressivism “Way of the Future”

May 5, 2014 Michelle Tullo, www.ipsnews.net Strategize! Organizing, Religion

The future of religion in U.S. politics lies not with conservatives but rather with religious progressives, social scientists here are suggesting, with a faith-based movement potentially able to provide momentum to a new movement for social justice. According to a new report from the Brookings Institute, a think tank here, the current religious social justice movement can be compared to the period of civil rights activism in the mid-20th century. “There really is an opening now for a religious movement for social justice that is similar in many ways to the civil rights movement. We see it around issues of minimum wage, budget cuts, and immigration,” E.J. Dionne, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and one of the authors of the report, told IPS. “On social justice issues, religion has long been a progressive force, and Pope Francis is challenging people’s assumptions that religion is an automatically conservative force … After years of paying lots of attention to religious conservatives, religion by no means lives on the right.” The United States has a strong history of religious groups in social justice movements, including in pushing for the abolition of slavery and the institutionalisation of civil rights, as well as the social welfare programmes put in place a half-century ago. Yet today, religion and progressivism are often seen as being at odds.

Animation Challenges Retail Industry

May 5, 2014 Joshua Graver and Maxwell Sorensen, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Creative Resistance, Minimum Wage, Organizing

Why can’t retail workers make ends meet? CUP worked with the Retail Action Project (RAP), and designers Joshua Graver and Maxwell Sorensen to make a short animation about the changing scheduling practices in the retail industry. Shifty Business helps retail workers understand that their experiences are not isolated events but a systemic approach to cost-cutting by their employers. It also helps policy makers see the effect these practices have on workers’ lives. Retail Action Project and its members are building a new movement in the retail industry to define the future of retail jobs. Workers across New York city are finding opportunities for education, networking, and career advancement through RAP membership. Their Just Hours campaign seeks to create fair and stable hours for retail workers. The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a nonprofit organization that uses design and art to improve civic engagement. CUP projects demystify the urban policy and planning issues that impact our communities, so that more individuals can better participate in shaping them.

Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance To Dismantle The Corporate State

April 30, 2014 The Nader Page, www.nader.org Organize! Corporatism, Organizing

We are at one of the most pivotal moments in our country’s political history: Americans are more disillusioned with their political leaders than ever before and large majorities of citizens tell pollsters that big corporations have too much political power. The ever-tightening influence of big business on the mainstream media, elections and our local, state, and federal governments, have caused many Americans to believe they have no political voice. Yet, Ralph Nader—named by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century—has an impassioned and game-changing message for American citizens: You are not powerless. In UNSTOPPABLE, Nader persuasively demonstrates that there is an emerging Left-Right alliance which has the power to dismantle the corporate-government tyranny. Large segments from the progressive, conservative, and libertarian political camps already find themselves aligned in opposition to the destruction of civil liberties, the bloated and economically draining corporate welfare state, the relentless perpetuation of America’s wars, sovereignty-shredding free trade agreements, and the unpunished crimes of Wall Street against Main Street.

Low-Wage Workers Shame Greedy Restaurant Chains in Massive Protest

April 30, 2014 Mara Kardas-Nelson, www.alternet.org Resist! Corporatism, Minimum Wage, Organizing, Protest

Hundreds of low-income workers from around the country demanding better wages, benefits and an end to corporate greed blocked traffic in Washington on Monday morning to start of a day of protests, marches and lobbying Congress for economic justice. The protesters marched along main thoroughfare Pennsylvania Avenue as they headed towards the Capitol, blocking traffic for several minutes at a time at busy locations along the Mall. The activists were in Washington, D.C., for the Rising Voices for A New Economy conference, organized by National People’s Action and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Their coalition included groups like Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), which is using the day to launch a new shaming campaign against the corporate restaurant industry and its national lobbying group, The National Restaurant Association. NRA members are also in Washington for their annual convention and congressional lobbying day. “It’s a shame that people get paid $2.13 an hour—that’s 213 pennies more than a slave was making an hour, and I come from a slave state,” said Darrin Browder,

Take Action To Clean Up The Mines!

April 28, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.alternet.org Resist! Environment, Organizing, Uranium

The findings of the most recent IPCC report are sobering. We have 15 years to mitigate climate disaster. It is up to us to make a major transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy within that timeframe. Big Energy and our plutocratic government are not going to do it without effective pressure from a people-powered movement. Earth Day is no longer about celebration. We are making Mother Earth sick by using extreme methods to extract fuels from her mountains and from beneath her surface and by massive spills of oil, chemicals and radiation. We must mobilize ourselves to take action now to create clean renewable energy and to restore the damage we have done. More people are getting this concept. This year, there are several major campaigns around Earth Day, for example the Global Climate Convergence and the Cowboy Indian Alliance camp in Washington, DC. We celebrated Earth Day by launching a new national campaign to clean up the thousands of abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) scattered throughout the Great Plains and West Coast.

Green Group Sues US Government For Hiding Tar Sands Plan

April 28, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Organizing, Pipeline, Tar Sands

The National Wildlife Federation filed a lawsuit this week charging the U.S. State Department is refusing to disclose public information about a pipeline company's possible plans to transport dangerous tar sands oil from Montreal to the coast of Maine. The lawsuit takes aim at the oil industry's repeated claims that there is no plan to transport the dirty oil through New England, despite numerous indications that such a plan indeed exists. A 70-year-old, 236-mile pipeline, owned by Portland Pipeline Corporation (which is majority owned by Exxon-Mobile), currently transports crude oil from freighters in the city of South Portland, Maine to Montreal. Yet, environmental and community organizations say there are strong signs that PPL and parent company Montreal Pipe Line Company is planning to reverse the flow of the pipeline in order to transport tar sands oil from Canada to South Portland where it would then be distributed to international markets via oil tankers and an upgraded terminal.

Overcoming Cynicism: We Can End The ‘Rule Of Money’

April 28, 2014 Joshua Holland, www.billmoyers.com Educate! Citizens United, Money As Speech, Organizing

Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig, the crusader for campaign finance reform, feels that his fellow reformers don’t think big or boldly enough to inspire the kind of grassroots campaign that might break elite donors’ stranglehold on America’s political system. In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Lessig argues that public cynicism about the prospect of deep reform actually working is the only thing keeping widespread outrage at our slide toward plutocracy in check. And he thinks that only a “moonshot” campaign — an ambitious, collective, national effort “unlike anything they’ve seen before” — can “crack this cynicism” and usher in a more democratic system. BillMoyers.com asked Lessig to lay out his vision of change. Below is a transcript of our discussion that’s been lightly edited for clarity.

People Are Ready For A $15 Minimum Wage

April 28, 2014 Shamus Cooke, www.occupy.com Resist! Minimum Wage, Organizing

You’d think unions would accept the enthusiastic public support for a $15 minimum wage as a gift-wrapped campaign sent from the heavens. If unions organized campaigns for $15 nationwide, they’d win the support and admiration of hundreds of thousands, who would then be ripe for joining. A labor movement on life support would receive a massive injection of oxygen. And if all workers made $15, the leverage of unions at the bargaining table would increase exponentially. But in most cities, unions have not yet followed up with the serious community organizing that would be necessary to make $15 a reality. Seattle has proven it’s possible. Unions there are wisely going all in: a Service Employees-led coalition called Working Washington is mobilizing its members and the community for $15. The mayor and city council are working on a plan to introduce the new minimum.

Now That We Know The Wealth Divide Grows, What Do We Do?

April 25, 2014 Richard Eskow, www.ourfuture.org Organize! Capitalism, Inequality, Organizing

When a product sells phenomenally well, as Thomas Piketty’s new book is currently doing, popular economic theory says that means one of two things: either it’s filling a substantial unmet demand, or the product is exceptionally well executed. In the case of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” both statements are true. We are told that “Capital” is now at the top of the Amazon sales charts, outselling even mass-market novels with movie tie-ins like “Divergent.” That kind of meritocratic success story is, as Piketty’s work demonstrates, increasingly rare. Piketty has given us a superior product. He has brilliantly and eloquently analyzed the crisis of inequality that threatens the global economy. The question now is, what do we do about it? There’s a certain irony in the fact that this book, rooted in historical economic principles and concerned with the threat of oligopoly wealth, is putting a few more dollars in the pocket of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s owner. But these surprising sales figures tell us something very important: People are yearning for an explanation of the dire economic straits in which they find themselves.

Cowboy Indian Alliance And Other Unlikely Environmental Alliances

April 24, 2014 Zoltán Grossman , www.portside.org Educate! Native Indians, Organizing

The Cowboy Indian Alliance may seem like an unprecedented type of environmental movement--multiracial, rooted in struggling rural communities, and often more effective in its grassroots organizing than traditional urban-based white upper/middle class environmental groups--but it is also part of a long, proud tradition that has been conveniently covered up in American history. It's not everyday you see cowboys helping to set up a tipi encampment, but that's what is happening this week on the National Mall. An unlikely alliance of white ranchers and Native American activists, known as the Cowboy Indian Alliance, has erected the tipi encampment in the nation's capital to protest plans for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The Alliance (with the ironic acronym 'CIA') brings together Native Americans with white ranchers and farmers--the archetypal enemies of the American West--to protect their common land and water. The Cowboy Indian Alliance may seem like an unprecedented type of environmental movement--multiracial, rooted in struggling rural communities, and often more effective in its grassroots organizing than traditional urban-based white upper/middle class environmental groups--but it is also part of a long, proud tradition that has been conveniently covered up in American history.

Revolution 101: Steve D’Arcy On Militant Protest

April 22, 2014 Meg Borthwick, www.rabble.ca Strategize! Organizing, Protest

First, let me say what I don't mean by "militancy." I'm not using this word as a euphemism for violence. The whole theme of violence and nonviolence gets too much attention and distracts us from more basic and pressing questions. Instead, I define militancy as grievance-motivated collective action that is both adversarial and confrontational. Militancy is adversarial in the sense that, instead of seeking to find common ground with its targets, it identifies them as adversaries to be defeated or to be forced into retreat. For example, the companies that profit from the tar sands, and the politicians that serve these business interests, are not potential partners for a meeting of the minds. If they are to be stopped, it will have to be through determined struggle; relentless, escalating, and with a broadening base of participation. We have to identify these targets as adversaries, and work to build an alliance of people and organizations willing to fight them and defeat them. Militancy is confrontational in the sense that it actively encourages conflict, rather than seeking to resolve or limit the animosity and disorder that conflict generates. In Martin Luther King's words, militancy seeks "to create a crisis" and "to foster tension." Defeating a determined and hostile adversary -- someone like Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for example -- requires a willingness to defy the authority of that adversary, and to disrupt the functioning of the systems of power from which that adversary draws strength.

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