I get that organizing is important, but I still don't actually know what that entails. Like what am I supposed to do? It's kind of like telling a straight guy who wants to get a girlfriend to just "be himself." So when I see someone complain about the hellworld we live in and a common response is "organize," it feels kinda condescending. Same with "join an org." What org? How do I know which one is good?
Like for real, why isn't there some sort of organizing guide or FAQ on here? There's a recommended routine for body weight fitness and there's even a 14 day primer on getting started (https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/kofo8l/bwf_primer_buildup_community_event_day_1_happy/). So where is the organizing primer? I mean it can start with something really simple, i.e. "on Day 1, say hi to a neighbor if you see them out walking (no need to get into a convo unless it just happens)." Like tbh how about a 14 Day Primer for organizing? Even the radlibs on the Bernie campaign had training sessions before having volunteers do stuff like call, text, or canvass. Even pick-up-artist idiots have training programs (e.g. day 1 talk to a random stranger and ask them directions, just say your phone is dead, etc.). We should have one too.
If you are in NYC I can help set you up with the local DSA. You don’t need to get me your info or anything, I just also have terrible adhd and know the hardest part of doing shit is getting it started.
And before you say it, I know electoralism is a fuck and know it can’t solve all of our problems. NYC-DSA is much more than just that. The reason you associate it so much with electoralism is that we have been majorly successful in getting socialist candidates elected to positions of power which has further improved conditions within our communities and allowed them to organize more effectively. We help empower worker’s unions, tenant unions, and elections are only a very small fraction of what we do. There are even a lot of actual marxists involved with the DSA, quite a few of which have dedicated Marxist caucuses here.
Seriously. I can direct you to where you need to go to get involved. You can pay whatever you want in dues because your time is more valuable than your money. We are trying to build this shit from the ground up instead of from the top down and it’s actually fucking working; for many years the failure of the top down method was the exact reason so many people on the left didn’t get involved. We built up a force here and are finally starting to wield a bit of power.
I know you may have your opinions on whether or not the DSA is a good organization, but unless you’re in a better one, we need you. An organization is what the people who are involved make it. You think DSA is lib? Help me make it Marxist then. You’re dealing with and surrounded by the most easy people to sell the ideals of leftism to.
DSA might not be the answer, but it does bring a bunch of lefties together. In my city there are like 30 left wing orgs of different persuasions but basically all of them have links to the DSA. They're useful for coordinating action. And I really respect that.
has anyone here organized anything more complex than their diablo inventory
Great idea to put together a primer. It would probably need to be broken into two parts: one for folks with leftist groups in their area, and a second for folks who would have to start from scratch.
For the first part, the primer would look something like this:
- Day 1: Figure out what groups are in your area. Google around for groups like Food Not Bombs, DSA, PSL, or [insert list here]. Make a list, with contact information if you can find it.
- Day 2: Start reaching out to these groups. A sample email might read, "Hi, I'm Johnny Lib. I'm trying to get more involved in my community. Can you direct me to some more information on your group? What you do, how people join, if there are meetings I can attend, etc."
- Day 3: Follow up on the conversations you've started with various groups. Learn what you can. Pick one and start participating in their activities.
At that point it becomes more difficult. If the org you pick is already doing good stuff (however that's defined), you're golden. But what if it's only a few people, but they claim to be growing? What if it's poorly run? What if it's super lib? What if it does a lot of great charity work, but makes no effort to translate that into political activity? You could write pages on each question, but each situation will be so fact-dependent that it's probably something you have to work through on a case-by-case basis.
The second part -- people who have to start from scratch -- is an even bigger question, because "starting from scratch" could mean anything from "I have a group of quasi-lefty friends who all want to do something" to "I know none of my neighbors and everyone around me seems to be a chud."
The second part – people who have to start from scratch – is an even bigger question, because “starting from scratch” could mean anything from “I have a group of quasi-lefty friends who all want to do something” to “I know none of my neighbors and everyone around me seems to be a chud.”
Yeah this is a huge issue in rural areas, cuz the DSA doesn't seem to give a fuck about areas outside major cities or college campuses.
There's no need to assume bad intentions on the part of the DSA. Organizing in dense, predominantly-liberal areas is easier for all sorts of reasons, so it's only natural that those places would be DSA hotspots. You can critique the lack of rural outreach efforts without assuming they just don't care.
You can critique the lack of rural outreach efforts without assuming they just don’t care.
The thing is, there are lib orgs all over the place in rural areas. The NAACP has a foothold in lots of rural areas. Like I said in another comment, I tried looking into starting a local chapter where I am, but I "can't" because I'm under the "jurisdiction" of a chapter in a major city that's super far away and totally disconnected from the issues here. I would understand if the web site allowed me to create a chapter if there wasn't one in my zip code. But to tell me that I can't because there's already one super far away baffles me, especially when there are YDSA chapters on college campuses in rural areas.
"Doing a poor job of rural organizing" =/= "not giving a fuck about rural organizing." I do a poor job with all sorts of things I care about, for instance.
I tried looking into starting a local chapter where I am, but I “can’t” because I’m under the “jurisdiction” of a chapter in a major city that’s super far away and totally disconnected from the issues here. I would understand if the web site allowed me to create a chapter if there wasn’t one in my zip code.
See, nothing here seems malicious. There's likely a benign reasons behind this -- they probably want people joining nearby, established chapters instead of forming a dozen chapters for every neighborhood. That might make sense as a blanket policy even if it doesn't work in your specific situation.
Have you contacted that "local" chapter that's too far away for you to join? "I'm interested, but I can't drive an hour to attend meetings" is a reasonable problem, and they'll probably work with you.
What is the NAACP doing that DSA is not doing in rural communities? Like I understand how rural DSA chapters are doing poorly because they're basically on their own just like the city one are. But the city chapters have enough people that they can do shit on their own.
AFAIK the only thing that can be done is for national to actually send more people to those rural chapters to help organize them. But I'm genuinely curious how other orgs do that successfully.
Also if your in a small town under the domain of a larger cities chapter the solution is to contact that chapter and ask to form a new chapter. My chapter did this years ago since we had like a quarter of the state in our domain.
I'd suggest you email that org, see if you can arrange a meeting. They probably have contacts in your area (paper members), that maybe they could point you towards. Be honest that you'd like to start a rural focused chapter with those members.
Although, they might not have any. I idly asked when I reconnected with my old chapter last summer if they had any near me, and that was a resounding no.
That being said at some point when shit in my life has settled down a little I intend to write stuff out
:cyber-lenin:
Also, I had to look up what lassitude meant lol (https://www.wordnik.com/words/lassitude):
n. A state or feeling of weariness, diminished energy, or listlessness. synonym: lethargy.
n. The state of having the energies weakened; weakness; weariness; languor of body or mind.
n. Synonyms Weariness, etc. See fatique.
Looking forward to reading "What Is To Be Done II" by Peanut J. Butter
This is a great point. In tandem I will often hear, unionize your workplace! Well what if it is then what? Neoliberal unions aren't exactly utopian. Then someone says, well help organize other workplaces. Well been there too and I have to ask. To what end?
This is a great point. In tandem I will often hear, unionize your workplace!
Yeah, and without clear guidance this could just read as "hey do this thing that's more than likely gonna get you fired from a job you desperately need!"
On a serious note Lenin's most respected member of the Foreign Bureau Y A Zhitomirsky, entrusted with the most confidential operations, was a spy. He was Lenins favourite orator...And was a fed.
Didn't stop the 1917 revolution or Lenin giving Zhitomirsky the old :pika-pickaxe:
Che also had to shoot a double agent
You just gotta suck it up tbh and understand that they'll be feds in orgs and try and give them the most work
UK is so infiltrated that they send spies into rape women in badger culling groups and the amount of times I've heard that the"DDR was a police state" while this shit goes on here. Literal spies in your bed.
You just gotta understand if you wish to organise in any capacity that you'll be going in a feds file. T he NSA was putting Americans on lists for going to Linux forums and UK is literally sending in spies to rape and father children on women.
Anyone remotely interested in socialism/communism or anarchism and I'd bet any visit to this site already has you in a fed file on the NSAs XKeyscore program.
Just be aware of that if you're in an org
Но будьте добры, задумайтесь над этим вопросом: Что бы делало добро, если бы зло не существовало, и как бы выглядела земля, если бы все тени исчезли? В конце концов, тени отбрасывают вещи и люди. Вот тень от моего меча. Но тени также исходят от деревьев и живых существ. Ты хочешь лишить землю всех деревьев и живых существ только потому. из-за твоей фантазии наслаждаться голым светом? Ты глуп.
I am gonna ask you the same thing, are you Russian? You seem to posture like an expert on Russia so i assumed you were one. If not, Oh so you’re like every other expert on Russia: don’t understand the language, culture, or politics but then lash out when a Russian person tells you that you are wrong. interesting tendency imo
doctor_sociology
That's just doing the feds job for them. They don't even have to infiltrate anything if no one joins anything because everyone is paranoid about infiltration.
there's too many replies so i doubt anyone will see this but of course we have organising resources. here's one since 2009: https://libcom.org/organise
How do I know which one is good?
Any org - actually meeting people motivated people will boost you and should create a desire in you to better yourself for the movement - study working class history, theory etc. If you join a shitty org and you realise that tendency is garbage or whatever hey ho this a leaning experience. You move on and find another/better one
Like what am I supposed to do?
Literally anything. If you have a standard printer start writing pamphlets or downloading already made ones of Communist/Socialist or Anarchist sites and start distributing them. You can either leaflet houses if you don't feel up to talking to anyone or stand in your city centre dishing out leaflets and having a chat(first time I did this an old lady exclaimed at me "It's good to see Communists again!"). If you join an org you can ask for work and you will be given work.
Join your local fb groups of anarchist/socialists/communists and trade unionists to see what is going on near you - rent strikes/healthcare issues/pollution. Go to those meetings. Go to strikes. Meet more people. Distribute more propaganda. Get better at talking to people. Get better at formulating arguments logically (yes I heard Shapiro there). Win people to your cause or party or organisation you are attempting to grow. There's actually so much to do when you sit and really think for a few minutes on what you can be doing - most of it is admittedly tedious but this will develop your eye for detail and professionalism etc.
Fire up a blog and begin writing (writing helps you retain information and helps develop you theoretically).
If you want to see what a Communist activist looks like and how to conduct yourself in a Communist Party you can't go wrong with J V Stalin - Foundations of Leninism
This website is probably one of the worst "social media" platforms to reach people trying to organize because everyone's so paranoid. There are serious limitations to anonymous/pseudonymous online left communities like this one. Social media spaces where normal working class people actually are (think local facebook, local twitter, among others) - as contrasted with mostly highly politically-educated leftbook type spaces - are the places where most people are introduced to existing socialist organizations online, including those in their area.
But nothing beats actually finding out about local events and going to them yourself, and getting a sense of who's actually turning people out to support a given cause. Are there any socialist organizations going to important city/town council meetings where some local capitalist or landlord group is trying to screw over local workers? If you go outside for work/groceries/etc, do you see any leaflets on lightpoles? Is there anything going on politically at or near your local college or university? DSA usually has the biggest presence in the big cities, but if you're here you probably want to join something more revolutionary than that (unless you think you're up for the task of playing tug-of-war with the useless Dem-entryist national leadership).
Steps to Getting Organized at Work
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Define your initial goal
a. What do you want to change at work? i. For example: Get a terrible manager fired ii. For example: Win a 401K retirement contribution from your employer iii. For example: Higher wages, better benefits, a labor-management committee
b. What do you think has the best chance to succeed? i. A union with all coworkers at your workplace? ii. A solidarity organization of coworkers in your department?
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Make a list
a. Decide who the people are that you want to organize with and make a spreadsheet with all of their names and contact information
b. It can be difficult to make a list at a large employer but you can be creative about how you find that information i. Be careful! Employers routinely monitor who is accessing lists of employees
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Do a power analysis :
a. Analyze the sources of your boss’s power and the sources of your coworkers’ power. Your boss’s power basically comes from money and political relationships How does your employer make money? In a for-profit company, who are the company’s biggest investors? Which politicians’ loyalty have they purchased?
b. Your power as a worker comes from your ability to withhold labor and to influence the political process i. Remember: We are many, they are few!
ii. Remember: Labor creates all wealth!c. United with your coworkers, you have tremendous power at work and in the
political process. If everyone went on strike or stood up together to demand higher wages, an end to sexual harassment, or racial discrimination, you can win.
The recent teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona are great examples of this.d. Every business has choke points. Analyze the structural power that workers have in certain departments or locations in the company.
For example: In hospitals, the most profitable department is the Operating Room. If the Operating Room is shut down, the entire hospital will lose money. There are only a handful of highly skilled nurses who can legally work in the Operating Room. OR nurses are virtually impossible to replace. Therefore, building a strong team in the hospital Operating Room should be a high priority for any organizing effort
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Build your Organizing Committee:
a. In theory, workers have tremendous power. In reality, bosses are generally successful at dividing workers and pitting them against each other. b. To harness your coworkers’ power, you have to engage in lots of important but unglamorous organizing work.
The first step is to analyze your workplace and discover who are the organic leaders among your coworkers.
A leader is a well-respected coworker (not a manager imposed on workers by the boss) who thoughtfully listens to others, steps up to help coworkers, and most basically, has a group of followers. Leadership is contextual. One person may be a leader at work but is not a leader in their faith community or in their neighborhood or vice versa.
Where are these leaders?
a. From 1199’s advice to organizers: “The working class builds cells for its
own defense, identify them and recruit their leaders.”b. People often build solidarity at work among people who they view as
similar to themselves. For example, linguistic groups, age, race, gender,
job title, worksite, etc.For example, a group of women working at a male-dominated tech company go out for a weekly happy hour to share stories and unwind. Identify the organizer of these happy hours and you will be talking to a leader!c. Identifying leaders can be a slow painstaking process, especially if you are
looking for leaders in groups that you yourself are not a member of.You’ve found the leaders. Now what? Start building your Organizing Committee (OC). An OC is made up of the group of leaders that you have identifiedat your workplace.
To be an effective OC it MUST be representative of all of the socialgroupings in your workplace.
For example, if your workplace is 50% software engineers
and 50% customer service representatives, you should
strive for 50% OC representation for each job title.For example, if your workplace is 10% Spanish-speaking,
you should make sure that your OC is at least 10% Spanish speaking.This is CRUCIAL because as soon as the boss finds out you
are organizing, she will attempt to divide your coworkers
along all of your differences: age, race, gender, job class,
education, etc.A good rule of thumb is 1 OC member for every 10 coworkers.
If you have 300 coworkers, you should try to have 30
people on your OC. Sometimes you need to build an even bigger OC to make
sure that all constituencies in your workplace are
represented.- Take action and build solidarity!
a. Now that your OC is formed, bring everyone back to Step 1 together and reevaluate your campaign goals based on the experiences of your team of leaders.
Once you’ve reached consensus on your campaign goals, it’s time to start planning for action
An action is a collective, public act that disrupts the everyday culture of your workplace. Actions can range from writing a letter to your boss, standing up together during a meeting, wearing the same color shirt on the same day, singing a song together before the start of a shift, all the way up to going on strike.
The best actions are fun, creative, and create a sense of collective power. This helps your coworkers overcome fear. Taking action shows everyone that you have each others’ backs and builds solidarity, which is key to successful organizing.
Actions should be well thought out, planned, and have specific, concrete goals. a. For example: Everyone wears a button that says “401 K contribution
now!” on the same day to send a message to management that they need to pay into a retirement fund for everyone in your workplace.The best actions are ones that a majority of your coworkers will participate in. i. It’s important for your OC to reach consensus around actions that a majority, and preferably at least 70%, of your coworkers will participate in.
Most of your coworkers will NOT be ready to take a big, confrontational action – like a strike – at first. It’s important to start small so that people get used to the idea of taking action at work and overcome their initial fears.
YOUR STRENGTH IS IN YOUR NUMBERS. No one is going to come save you if your boss tries to retaliate against you. That’s why it’s so important for your actions to have majority support. You have a legal right to organize at work but the enforcement of federal labor law is very weak.
Develop your escalation plan and plan out all of your organizing conversations. Think through a sequence of actions that you’d like your coworkers to participate in from least confrontational to most confrontational.
Your OC should then make a plan to reach out to coworkers who are not on the OC to recommend that they take the first, least confrontational action.
OC members should be prepared to recommend an action. They should not just go and ask their coworkers if they’d be willing to take action.
It’s now up to your OC to go out and talk to all of your coworkers. These conversations are called organizing conversations.
When talking to coworkers, OC members need to be engaging in conversations that are issues driven - if you don’t know why your coworkers want to take action OR the issues that may lead them to take action, it will be close to impossible to sustain momentum. Ask open ended questions, such as “if you could magically change one thing at work, what would it be?”
Through engaging in an authentic conversation, centered on what is driving coworker(s), the OC can help hold folks accountable by framing the choice when organizing invariably becomes tiring.
For example, “I understand that wearing a sticker at the team meeting feels odd - but by not standing with the rest of us to ask for safe staffing, you’re
communicating to management that staffing isn’t a concern to you.” A key component of an organizing conversation is inoculation. You and your OC need to think through what you think your boss will do in response to your action and tell your coworkers in advance so that they can confront their fears about taking action with you first. You should have a plan in place for what you and your coworkers will do to keep your boss in check.- Escalate and respond to the boss and the changing power dynamics in your workplace
Your actions should continue to bring more of your coworkers on board, or at least not shrink in participation. For this to happen, you and your OC need to clearly explain to coworkers what the plan to win is.
As soon as you start organizing you will upset the balance of power at work. You will be overturning a prior culture of acquiescence to injustice. This can have lots of unexpected consequences. You and your OC need to be in continual contact, with regular meetings, to share information, build trust and solidarity, and keep the group together.
- Win!
You and your OC will need to decide what the biggest, most powerful, most confrontational action your coworkers will take. Usually this is a strike, but it doesn’t have to be.
Once you’ve reached that point, now it’s time to prepare to win!
Your biggest action – a credible threat to strike with 70% support, for example – has the most power BEFORE you do it. Now is the time to call the boss and strike a deal.
Done right, you can achieve most if not all of your goals!
It is up to you and your OC to have thought through in advance what an acceptable compromise will be. It’s not unusual to settle for 90% of what you want. Remember: it’s extremely difficult to keep taking militant actions forever. Your coworkers will want a break and a chance to enjoy the fruits of their organizing labor. You can always build up another campaign in six months or a year to win 100% of what you originally set out to achieve. Make sure your coworkers understand that even a 90% or 80% achievement rate is a hell of a lot better than your position before you started organizing.
- Repeat from Step 1
a. Under capitalism, bosses are constantly changing working conditions and relations of production in order to maximize their profits. Your gains are always under potential threat and your OC and coworkers will constantly be changing as people retire, get hired, get laid off, or leave for other jobs.
b. Don’t get complacent! The failure of the US labor movement over the last 30 years has largely resulted from a failure of union leadership to spend the time following all of these steps consistently.
- Win!
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