Social organizing, (not elections) built the labor movement. When 19th-century American workers had virtually no institutional or political voice or power, they developed both by caring about and for each other.
If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time but if you have come here because you believe that your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together. -- Lila Watson
Thomas Kochan, Duanyi Yang, Erin L. Kelly, Will Kimball
The Conversation
U.S. workers have not given up on unions-a survey of the workforce found interest in joining unions to be at a four-decade high. But few workers who don’t belong to unions will get to join one, since fewer than 1% will experience an organizing drive.
Boots Riley—Oakland activist, musician, and now film-maker extraordinaire—has made labor organizing in an almost entirely non-union industry seem doable and definitely worth the bother.
After several short strikes and on-going organizing, workers at Amazon in Italy signed a contract that improves conditions and pay. This is the first time in Europe that Amazon has been forced by worker pressure to sign a union contract.
Rebuilding the democratic infrastructure is too important to leave up to the consultocracy. Mobilizers only turn out people with whom they agree. Organizers engage these people in reaching out to other people with whom they don’t agree.
Organizing Upgrade Editorial Team
Organizing Upgrade
More than that, we hope to be a force for building greater strategic alignment and operational unity on a number of different levels: unity of the broadest possible coalition of forces against the Trumpist GOP; unity among the social justice forces that are striving to establish a durable progressive pole in mass politics; and unity between the sectors of the anti-capitalist left are engaged in these efforts and are working to rebuild a durable and fully inclusive working class movement for systemic change.
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