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What's organizing? Organizing is getting other people to do something. We, as individuals, basically can't do poo poo (except for people that are really rich). There's a lot of different types, with overlap between them:
What unites all organizing is that it's not doing everything yourself, eg it's not direct action of sabotaging a factory, it's not convincing 100,000 voters by yourself, it's not going on TV, it's not convincing your house representatives to change their position on an issue. It's convincing others to work alongside you on issues that matter to you and them for those common goals. It's strength in numbers. Organizing is the actual day-in, day-out labor that makes politics move. As the left, it's how we fight against the side with all the money. Why make this thread? Organizing is my full-time job. I moved to Vegas for it. (I'll try to watch what I say so that Project Veritas types can't get me fired, but that being said, please don't get me fired.) Reading the primary thread, it struck me how even the most politically tuned-in people don't seem to grasp what a field operation is or why it's important, they (meaning, y'all) don't understand how money is used on staff, and they don't understand what the grunt-level people who work for eg Bernie or Biden or Warren or Trump or either party do on a day-to-day basis. I know that y'all believe unions are good. I know that y'all believe your workplaces should have unions. I don't believe that many people in this forum know how to unionize their workplace (or, if they're already unionized, how to help their coworkers through that union structure). How do I organize my workplace? First: read No Shortcuts by Jane McAlevey. It's not an instruction manual- if you go in expecting that, you'll be confused how it's supposed to be useful. It's the case for why the organizing model for unions is better than the top-down corporate campaign model, where money is spent on, for example, advertisements against the company. Anyway. Just read it. It's great. otoh it's a whole book so you don't HAVE to read a book to organize a workplace, you know, you do you What follows is a short, hopefully accessible version of steps I learned from Seattle DSA workplace organizing committee. (If you're in Seattle: go to this! It's great!) And I encourage everyone to read through the steps in their entirety here if this interests you. So your job sucks. Everyone hates it, you're all underpaid, overworked, and constantly on the verge of quitting. What you need to do is organize to build power in your workplace. How do you get started?
"Wait, I thought the whole point was to get a union! Where in there is unionizing??" Unionization is an amazing tool and an important step in organizing, but it's neither the only aspect of organizing, nor an end goal by itself. Not to make everyone here pessimistic about unions, but there have been important cases where rank-and-file workers need to fight against their union as well as the bosses to win real victories. I've been a worker at a union job where everyone was super passive and didn't really think anything about the union. That sucks! Whether you're a unionized worker or not, organizing needs to continue. It's a continuous process, not a one-time thing to win one victory and disband. If the organizing collapses, there's nothing to stop bosses from clawing back those things or making other poo poo worse. That being said: unionizing your workplace is great. Basically, in the process of the above, "forming a union" is one of the action steps you should take. I don't want to get further into the weeds on that then necessary, but yeah, do it, ask questions if you want to and aren't sure how. Dude I'm unemployed, just tell me how campaign organizing works It sucks. Speaking of unions, there's a reason that campaign workers are unionizing all over, which is that it pays poo poo, the hours are insane, it's incredibly stressful, and by definition it can't be a permanent job. Campaigns are super proud of allowing their workers one day off a week. But what do campaign workers do? The whole model that's used now, based around community organizing, is basically a modified version of Obama's 2008 campaign (which I worked on full time straight out of high school, though never technically as a field organizer). Basically, they recruit volunteers: they cold call hundreds of people that their data analytics thinks will be good prospective volunteers, then they get those people to knock so many doors and call so many potential voters (with those numbers being metrics they have to hit or get their asses chewed out by bosses). Being a campaign worker isn't about wearing khakis and a lanyard and going to fundraisers, it's about making ~40k a year for 60-hour weeks and having your entire job performance depend on your relationships with people who are, essentially, working for free around their other schedules. What people should take away from this post In organizing, you don't always get to choose your allies. If you need 70% of your workplace on board with something, that's not very many people you can just write off as "oh, that guy sucks" and go for someone else. You'll be surprised by who your real allies are, and who backs out: I had two hardcore DSA types meekly tell me they were too afraid for their jobs to sign on to an action that I already had 50% of the office committed to taking, while a 60 year-old woman who had recently un-retired was immediately on board. Similarly, in community or political organizing, if your action is eg "we need to register 1000 voters in this neighborhood," you don't get to choose who shows up for you. That Marxist who's always talking about revolution to overthrow capitalism might suddenly have a last-minute thing come up every single time, while the person who wears their I'm With Her t-shirt might show up to help you out 10 hours a week. It's about building relationships. so here's what I want from this thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g
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Sep 22, 2019 01:49
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here's the kind of news story that matters 10000% more than some steak fry or whatever https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/21/sanders-deputy-field-director-in-iowa-is-no-longer-with-campaign-1507264
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Sep 22, 2019 01:51
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bump
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Sep 28, 2019 12:57
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tits and cougars op
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Sep 28, 2019 12:57
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paul... thank you big news from warren's union: https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1177976876020699137
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Sep 28, 2019 20:23
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otoh kickstarter is anti-union, and Sucks. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/kickstarter-to-workers-and-project-creators-drop-dead
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Sep 28, 2019 20:24
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One big question I have is how do you organize with people who are, well, problematic? At my job there's a guy who most of the time seems like your average chud, likes Trump, says all the dumb MAGA horseshit, but out of everyone there he's the one most on board with the idea of a union. He once, totally unprompted, told me that he believes workers ought to own and run businesses themselves. But then he'll crack some lovely joke about Muslims and get super defensive when I call him out on it. My DSA local has been planning a push to organize workplaces in my industry here, and I know he'd be incredibly receptive to the idea, but if I bring him in on this I know he'll go full chud at some point and it'll be a disaster. I do not want to coddle or tolerate someone who holds these views, but at the same time I don't have the luxury of choosing who I work with, and I'll likely need him on board if I want to organize my workplace.
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Sep 28, 2019 21:51
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TrilliontonNixon posted:One big question I have is how do you organize with people who are, well, problematic? At my job there's a guy who most of the time seems like your average chud, likes Trump, says all the dumb MAGA horseshit, but out of everyone there he's the one most on board with the idea of a union. He once, totally unprompted, told me that he believes workers ought to own and run businesses themselves. But then he'll crack some lovely joke about Muslims and get super defensive when I call him out on it. My DSA local has been planning a push to organize workplaces in my industry here, and I know he'd be incredibly receptive to the idea, but if I bring him in on this I know he'll go full chud at some point and it'll be a disaster. I do not want to coddle or tolerate someone who holds these views, but at the same time I don't have the luxury of choosing who I work with, and I'll likely need him on board if I want to organize my workplace. this is a great question. i don't think that bringing him to DSA is a good idea- he's likely to either piss off all the DSA people, or fly into a tantrum when people go around a circle saying their pronouns. if you think there's a good chance he'll say something offensive to a diverse group, it would be unfair to those people to bring a racist guy around. that being said, a union supporter is a union supporter, and lots of workplaces (depending on where you are) have, well, lots of Trump supporters that you need on your side to unionize. be as clear with him as you feel comfortable being about his lovely views, but i'd take the pragmatic side and get him to help with what he can help with. there are probably other MAGA types that he'd be way better at bringing on board with unions than you would as a RADICAL ALINSKY MARXIST or whatever fox news is telling them in your workplace, is he alone in his views or are there other people like him? is he well-liked/well-respected by other workers? if he's an rear end in a top hat everyone hates then you don't need to get him to do anything other than sign an authorization card edit: organizing is all about relationships, so i'd say, do your best to maintain and build that relationship. even conservatives can start to understand, "oh, i shouldn't say [racist thing] around Trillionton." kingcobweb has issued a correction as of 22:12 on Sep 28, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 22:09
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Right, I've been leaning towards the pragmatic side of things, as distasteful as that may be sometimes, just because that's the reality of my situation. Where I live you basically have to accept that some significant portion of your coworkers are going to have reactionary views. I'd like to think that maybe experiencing the solidarity and comradeship of organizing would help to rid them of some of those beliefs, but that's probably naive. I do intend to make it perfectly clear that our union will be as inclusive as possible and I'll draw the line if they make any of our fellow workers feel unwelcome or uncomfortable, I'm just hoping it won't come to that.
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Sep 28, 2019 23:02
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reminder that no matter how progressive they are, bosses are still bosses. there is no organization good or cool enough that you don't need a union to fight for you and see management as an adversary. https://splinternews.com/the-seius-nasty-fight-with-its-own-staff-union-1838539538
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Oct 1, 2019 21:37
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Don't bother organizing it's a waste of time every city is dominated by Trotskyists and idpol liberals and they probably don't even want you around them anyway
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Oct 1, 2019 23:07
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Chuka Umana posted:Don't bother organizing it's a waste of time every city is dominated by Trotskyists and idpol liberals and they probably don't even want you around them anyway you gonna xpost this to the hot takes thread yourself or should i
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Oct 1, 2019 23:13
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2/5, you forgot the most important type of organizing which is what all other types of organizing should serve because without it achievements cannot be sustained or even realized as more than words on paper: organizing people who have become intuitively radleft in their isolated class struggles into a militarized communist party which unites these isolated instances of struggle into an overwhelming force that can crush the forces of capital, even in the face of their intensifying terror operations as more and more capitalists realize that the titles to their property are in danger of turning as worthless as their agreements with labor have been. I'll wait while u fix the OP. uncop has issued a correction as of 12:28 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 12:12
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uncop posted:2/5, you forgot the most important type of organizing which is what all other types of organizing should serve because without it achievements cannot be sustained or even realized as more than words on paper: organizing people who have become intuitively radleft in their isolated class struggles into a militarized communist party which unites these isolated instances of struggle into an overwhelming force that can crush the forces of capital, even in the face of their intensifying terror operations as more and more capitalists realize that the titles to their property are in danger of turning as worthless as their agreements with labor have been. this thread is more about tactics so what you do with it is up to you!! regardless of your specific politics there are good ways to organize, you can have poo poo politics and organize really well and you can have great politics and be incompetent
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Oct 13, 2019 00:30
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bumping this thread because google can eat my hairy rear end https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/technology/google-fires-workers.html
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Nov 26, 2019 07:32
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what the gently caress is this thread doing on the third page https://twitter.com/nomchompsky/status/1201635852927094785?s=20
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Dec 3, 2019 18:45
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bump
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Sep 15, 2020 11:14
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bump
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Sep 15, 2020 18:54
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bump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrBtOTstM-4
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Sep 15, 2020 18:56
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could the mods of the communism forum sticky this thread thats about workplace unionisation / community organisation, please. it would benefit me and others who are interested in this kind of thing
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Sep 15, 2020 19:07
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Dongicus posted:could the mods of the communism forum sticky this thread thats about workplace unionisation / community organisation, please. it was stickey'd for a while but it never got that much content edit: nevermind that was my other, better thread with similar content.
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Sep 15, 2020 19:12
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go here instead https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3909994
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Sep 15, 2020 19:16
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