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.
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.
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.
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.
at your workplace.
groupings 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.