@dgorganize
Building unions at @sununion.org Co-author Labor Law for the Rank & Filer and Solidarity Unionism at Starbucks (PM Press) Next book coming is about creating unions of our own (Haymarket) Bad things happening at work? Get support at sununion.org
To be the great Anne Feeney's friend you have to go to jail for justice
Me a lesser light, you just have to show up at a picket line to be my friend haha...it's literally that easy
Confirmed: Unions of Our Own release date, April 28th
A five year journey now currently at the printer's ☺️
If you're not ok with things at work. If you think that society is not just messed up, but dystopian. If you want to leverage the wisdom and power only you and your coworkers have.
Reach out. There is a lot of support to get to the job, the union, and the world you imagine.
To conclude that simply optimizing traditional unionism and doing more organizing on its behalf is the thing to do based on numbers that sadly are of a piece with decades and decades of decline would be a mistake.
The working class energy in many parts of the world is real and there is an opportunity at hand for major labor renewal.
Many of these folks are deciding they don't want to compromise their values or bold social change vision to get into a union.
Many want direct control over their union.
Many want better conditions but also a say in the conduct of their employer in society.
More and more workers are using a framework to collect together their best ideas and then deliberately testing those ideas in struggle. A community of mutual support, resources, and practical tools where workers take on the full spectrum of unionism is growing by the week.
Not cut off from the know-how of workers who have come before, but neither falling for the idea that there's a cookie-cutter organizing method that just needs to be followed. The answer is not starting from a blank slate either.
Something dramatically different is needed. Only one force has the collective wisdom and power to deliver it: you and your coworkers.
Even if the numbers had skyrocketed from last year and could keep skyrocketing, the reality is that the traditional union vision and its giving up of key worker power is not fit for purpose to counter fascism, the wealth gouging of billionaires, or ecological destruction.
And those other models also aimed for socialist or socialist type change, among other more fundamental changes.
The numbers just released contain a hard data point among many others: in a room of 100 private sector workers, not even 6 of them are members of a union; unchanged from the year before.
US Labor peaked in 1954, shortly after the traditional union model consolidated itself. The downslide under the traditional model, it's fair to generalize, has been inexorable since. Prior, there had been competition btw the traditional model and models that were more directly operated by workers.
Workers will win. And every single worker who gets into a union who wasn't before is meaningful. Workers are on the move; that's something to celebrate.
We want to read tea leaves positively in these numbers and thx to OP for doing valuable work.
But the risk is drawing the wrong conclusion.
CHICAGO!
Heat the Ground up
Join us for a discussion on how the historic @sbworkersunited.org strikes were organized. With @inthesetimes.com and @labornotes.bsky.social.
Live from @haymarkethouse.bsky.social and streaming on Youtube.
Friday, February 27th at 7 PM CT
RSVP:
💓
“No work, no school, no shopping”. Huelga general en Minnesota.
#IceOut #AbolishICE
There's too many economic and institutional barriers for there to be a reasonable probability that a critical mass of traditional unions will genuinely get behind a general strike.
Actual organized coworker power in and across industries is the way it happens.
Union-builders who want to help that evolution along would do well to focus on organizing structures, networks and actions among their coworkers, rather than on union officials.
A city-wide stoppage is valid and powerful even though it's not a city-wide general strike.
A stoppage can also be part of an evolution to a general strike.
It's official: Unions of Our Own is coming ☺️
My highest aspiration is that readers will find it helpful for winning all that they need from their job — and for smashing injustice in society
I'm not in the least bit surprised of the rising there against ICE. I a moved though.
Stay as safe as you can, stay together, stay courageous. More than anything, thank you for what you're doing.
Minneapolis was around the 4th city that the IWW Starbucks Workers Union expanded to. It quickly became one of the union's strongholds, with incredibly committed baristas.
The fighting spirit of the working class there - Anti-Racist Action and the 1934 strike come to mind - are rightfully legend.
Our strike begins today! Show your support for nurses fighting for safe staffing, healthcare benefits and a fair contract!
#NYCNurseStrike #SafeStaffingSavesLives #PatientsOverProfits
Thanks for weighing in, a lot of good discussion points packed in here. I hope to have a moment to say something about them. Much appreciation.
The 10 IRA and INLA hunger strikers who died in 1981 survived for between 46 and 73 days. These Palestine Action hunger strikers in the UK have been on strike for 45, 59, and 66 days.
Related:
How do we define our coworkers? Are Global South workers who create value for our employer included?
For no particular reason whatsoever this is a key time to assess your union's vision and model:
Are internationalism and anti-imperialism values we've embraced? How do we apply them?
“We’re in the oil business” -Donald Trump
“War is a racket” -General Smedley Butler
White text on red Rechazamos Repudiamos Y Denunciamos La Invasión A Venezuela ¡Fuera Yanquis de América Latina! At bottom in white circle: Ni Una Menos
Trump and Bannon campaigned on good industrial jobs and no foreign wars
Fascism is always a scam on the working class