organizeworkers

[organizeworkers]

Mass Reading Group Launch: "We Are the Union"

Hundreds of workers and organizers across the US and the world will come together during March and April to discuss Eric Blanc's newest book, "We Are the Union," and its practical ideas for scaling up grassroots unionism. All participants in the study group will receive a 50% off discount on the book.

Author Eric Blanc, labor writer Kim Kelly, and Moe Mills of Starbucks Workers United, will all be in attendance.

RSVP:

Further details on the format, further discussion dates, and receiving discounted copies will be provided to all those who sign up for the study group launch. Note: participants are not expected to have started reading the book by March 3.

About We Are the Union: An inspiring wave of bottom-up workplace organizing—from Starbucks stores to Amazon warehouses to southern auto factories—has thrust unionization into the national spotlight. By analyzing this surge and telling the stories of the courageous workers driving it forward, Eric Blanc’s new book makes a case for how to overcome business as usual in both corporate America and organized labor. He shows that recent struggles have developed a new organizing model, worker-to-worker unionism, which builds scalable power by giving rank-and-filers an unprecedented degree of leadership. As United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain puts it, “We Are the Union is an urgently needed blueprint for how we beat the billionaire class. Every worker should read this book."

When: March 3, 2025, 8:30 ET/ 5:30 PT

Sponsors: Democratic Socialists of America's National Labor Commission and Political Education Committee, Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, and Organizing for Power

[organizeworkers]

Mass Reading Group Launch: "We Are the Union"

Hundreds of workers and organizers across the US and the world will come together during March and April to discuss Eric Blanc's newest book, "We Are the Union," and its practical ideas for scaling up grassroots unionism. All participants in the study group will receive a 50% off discount on the book.

Author Eric Blanc, labor writer Kim Kelly, and Moe Mills of Starbucks Workers United, will all be in attendance.

RSVP:

Further details on the format, further discussion dates, and receiving discounted copies will be provided to all those who sign up for the study group launch. Note: participants are not expected to have started reading the book by March 3.

About We Are the Union: An inspiring wave of bottom-up workplace organizing—from Starbucks stores to Amazon warehouses to southern auto factories—has thrust unionization into the national spotlight. By analyzing this surge and telling the stories of the courageous workers driving it forward, Eric Blanc’s new book makes a case for how to overcome business as usual in both corporate America and organized labor. He shows that recent struggles have developed a new organizing model, worker-to-worker unionism, which builds scalable power by giving rank-and-filers an unprecedented degree of leadership. As United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain puts it, “We Are the Union is an urgently needed blueprint for how we beat the billionaire class. Every worker should read this book."

When: March 3, 2025, 8:30 ET/ 5:30 PT

Sponsors: Democratic Socialists of America's National Labor Commission and Political Education Committee, Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, and Organizing for Power

[organizeworkers]

Workers are on the frontlines of every natural and man-made disaster.

Whether it's COVID, wildfires, floods, or earthquakes, working people bear the brunt of the damage. With private sector union density at only about 7%, most of us on those frontlines have little support.

Without union protections, workers are at the whims of their bosses, maximizing profits at all costs. And when disasters do happen, these workers have to decide between safety and a paycheck. Your boss shouldn't be able to make life or death calls.

Of course, climate change hits workers first. People on the job deal with extreme heat, cold, winds, fires, and floods every year, and it's only getting worse.

The good news is you can fight back and win climate justice.

Reach out to us if your job is impacted by disasters and you want safety for yourself and your co-workers. You deserve it, and you can win it.

[organizeworkers]

Now through the end of the year, you can stream UNION and support EWOC at the same time! A percentage of profits directly support our work.

https://bit.ly/UNIONEWOC

UNION follows the Amazon Labor Union's historic journey to victory.

[organizeworkers]

Missed "What's Next for Labor?" We got you covered!

Check out the recording and hear how labor leaders think we should chart our course in the coming years.

[organizeworkers]

Today is #givingtuesday, and we’re kicking off our end-of-year fundraiser.

We can’t know the future of the labor movement, but workers have tremendous momentum right now. Your support today means greater worker power tomorrow.

Please consider donating today to keep us moving forward in 2025.

Donate

[organizeworkers]

Join us for a conversation with leading unionists and worker organizers about how the resurgent labor movement can keep up its momentum even under a Trump administration. Battle-tested organizers will discuss the new terrain and make a case for how workers can fight and win even in the most challenging of political conditions.

RSVP: https://bit.ly/whatsnext4labor

[organizeworkers]

Sports fans! 🏈⚾️⚽️

Check out how athletes are taking on the biggest opponent of all: the bosses.

RSVP

[organizeworkers]

Building Power at Work

The 2024 US presidential election is over. No more TV ads, no more mailers, no more posts. We can move on.

Except democracy and politics aren’t things we engage in every four years. As the Los Angeles chapter of DSA reminded us, your boss, your landlord, your insurance company, and other members of the ruling class use their political power every day to keep your pay low, raise your rent, and deny you coverage. We must organize in between elections, too.

In fact, this is the whole reason we organize. We as socialists and organizers are fighting for a world where we can engage in democracy every day through organized workplaces. It doesn’t have to be a distant future, either; by building and wielding our unions, we can actively fight for improvements today at work and beyond.

Trump Re-elected

With Trump returning to the White House, we’re unlikely to see a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as friendly to labor as we’ve seen over the last four years. During his first term, Trump stacked the board with members who would side with bosses and ran their playbook. As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) put it in their report comparing Trump and Biden, “…the Trump board had taken action on all 10 of the [US Chamber of Commerce’s] top priorities, all of which gave more power and rights to employers at the expense of workers.”

The succeeding Biden administration largely rolled back many of the excesses of Trump’s term, but we have every reason to believe we’ll see a return to an NLRB that backs bosses over workers. In fact, Trump may back an end to the NLRB altogether. Additionally, his campaign has repeatedly made clear that it would back further restrictions on abortion and immigration and further weaken environmental regulations, all of which would make daily life worse for workers.

What’s Next for Labor Organizing

While the terrain may shift under our feet, our objectives are still clear. The federal government may make more or less favorable conditions for our organizing, but the organizing continues. Meanwhile, countries and companies continue to delay or fight efforts to address climate change, putting workers on the frontlines. We have no choice but to stand together and fight.

Labor unions have a real opportunity to engage in new worker organizing, potentially bringing thousands, even millions, of workers into the movement. Workers stand to win big gains for themselves and the working class as a whole by building power on the job.

That power doesn’t live just within our workplaces, either; an organized working class with more control over the levers of society means we can fight for and win a more just society regardless of which capitalist party holds which seats. As Eugene Debs said, “What can Labor do for itself? The answer is not difficult. Labor can organize, it can unify; it can consolidate its forces. This done, it can demand and command.”

As workers, we can build our power by having those first conversations with their co-workers about a better future. It can be difficult, it can be painful, and it can take all of your energy, but the end reward goes beyond basic benefits — you can have a voice at work and solidarity with your co-workers. We can build this power without a friendly NLRB or a friendly president, but they certainly help make the terrain smoother. In the meantime, there’s no better time to start building that power than now. Talk with a workplace organizer or join up with EWOC if you’re ready to help build that power for yourself or other workers.

[organizeworkers]

Get in the union, Shinji

[organizeworkers]

Workplace Organizing Tips for Introverts

Building a union at work means making connections with your co-workers, building trust, and creating democratic structures at work. This might sound daunting for those of us who are more introverted, who are quieter and reluctant to speak up or speak out, or who tend to focus on the details rather than the big picture.

A lot of organizing materials focus on the natural leaders, the one-on-ones, and confronting your boss. It’s true that you make the most impact in your organizing campaign by talking with your co-workers, so how can introverts organize?

Behind-the-Scenes Work

Introverts can help in many ways. An easy place to get started is with administrative work, like writing, designing, and planning. It takes a lot of effort to keep track of where your co-workers stand and what the campaign is communicating to them. This means someone will need to make the spreadsheets, fliers, and other documents. Work like this is often invisible or lower profile, but it’s critical to the success of any organizing campaign.

Keeping your support to smaller things, like attending general meetings, posting fliers, making graphics, and helping people pick up supplies, are helpful in addition to freeing up organizers to do other things.

You can also take advantage of how your co-workers perceive you. By publicly agreeing with more outgoing organizers, you can help other people see the campaign as applying to every kind of worker.

If your fellow organizers say it’s appropriate, you can be public about your support for your union. Put up some stickers or buttons on your desk or put a pile of buttons and flyers by the coffee machine for people to take. If there’s a general meeting or action coming up, offer a carpool to it. Tell people you signed your union card. There’s strength and safety in numbers, and these conversations are a great step toward having one-on-one conversations.

Taking Small Steps

Many people get nervous about having organizing conversations — but the good news is that you can ease into them! You can start building a rapport with your colleagues by being a person they can talk to, whether it’s complaining about the boss or talking about weekend plans. By lending an ear, you can start to build the trust that is so vital to a union campaign.

This might seem daunting if you don’t talk with many people or don’t know anyone very well. Start small, talking with just one person, once a week, maybe someone you already know. You will learn so much about the goodwill, bravery, and dreams inside all of us, including yourself, that only really come out when you organize your co-workers around an issue.

Talking with just one co-worker means you can be the reliable, go-to organizer for that one person. An even more introverted person than yourself, who maybe struggles to socialize in-person, can really connect with a fellow introvert, especially if other organizers have trouble reaching them.

Having Deeper Conversations

With enough conversations, you’ll find your style of conversation and understand what to ask. An underrated organizing skill is listening and asking questions, which is a skill introverts tend to excel at. A good organizing conversation means you only have to speak about 20 percent of the time.

It might seem counterintuitive, but saying relatively little in response means you can actually get through to people. These conversations are an opportunity to better understand and listen to a person and why they support a union or not. Even if you don’t win over a co-worker in that one conversation, you can still try to understand why they’re reluctant or not supportive, which is also really important information.

Ultimately, an organizing conversation isn’t about winning a debate or talking the most. It’s about learning what makes the other person tick, listening to what they’re saying, and responding to what you hear. This is an opportunity to share why you believe a union will make things better or to clear up any misinformation they’ve heard.

The best way to help your union is to be the point person for your co-workers, even if it’s just for one or two of your co-workers because organizers can count on you to reliably turn out those one or two people to an action. With enough conversations, if you can become the point person for 10 people, you’re functionally a full organizer!

Being Yourself

It might even be helpful to map out and rehearse conversations ahead of time. What will you ask? How will you ask it? What will you do if they respond this way or that?

In any organizing situation, just be natural. Outwardly pre-empting your ask, like, “Uh, so, like, it’s totally okay if you don’t, but like, if you could, that’d be great. You can sign a union card if you want, I know it’s a lot, but, it’d be great if you did,” the other person won’t feel the importance of the request and will be less likely to engage.

On the other hand, if you’re asking or just talking about the union, and if you’re relaxed about it, the other person will be too. For example:

“Hey, have you heard of the union drive? No? We want a legally recognized union so that we can bargain with the boss about [your co-workers’ issues]. I have a flier here. Do you want one? Cool, which demand are you most excited about? Awesome, me too! We’re trying to get a majority of workers to sign union cards to show the boss that a lot of us want this. Will you sign a union card?” 

Now it’s chill and fun, and you have a template with questions for the next person to answer.

If someone tells you no, you can just say, “No problem, would you be OK with telling me why?” and ask some questions. Most people will be happy you even asked, and those responses are useful for future conversations.

You’ll rarely ever encounter a rude co-worker who yells at you just because you asked them to sign a union card. What do you do in that case? Kill ’em with kindness! Just smile and gently say, “No problem. Have a good day!” and walk away. They can make a fool of themselves; you’re trying to help them get a raise.

Any organizing effort takes many hands, and everyone will play to their strengths, but it’s also an opportunity to build new ones. There are many tasks you can contribute to the union effort that don’t involve a ton of interaction, but the life-changing experience isn’t getting or even having the union — it’s talking to your co-workers. The best thing you can do is be brave with the same courage as your co-workers to stand up to the boss and try to make a new friend in the workplace! That’s where the beauty is.

[organizeworkers]

Thought I would share this here. Image is a clickable link that will take you to the account that posted it! ID in alt text. If anyone wants to pop it out, feel free.

[organizeworkers]

This Thursday, October 10!

Want to help build power through the labor movement? Interested in learning more about worker-to-worker organizing?

Come hear from NYC-DSA members as they share their experience as workers organizing workers, including members who successfully organized new unions, and activists who have built worker power in existing unions. Union activists will talk about their successes organizing in their workplaces, building power for the working class, and how that connects to our project of ending exploitation and oppression across the globe.

And most importantly, find out ways that YOU can become involved in this essential project! We will follow up with any attendees who are interested in getting strategic rank-and-file jobs to organize, and connect you to further training and support.

Register here!

[organizeworkers]

Fighting for Justice in a Changing Climate

Webinar: Thursday, Oct. 3rd at 8:30 ET / 5:30 PT!

Join us for a discussion with a group of immigrant workers who are organizing around the impacts of a changing climate on outdoor workers. 

As we continue to fight for climate and workplace justice, how do we center those most affected?

Outdoor workers, who are disproportionately also immigrant workers, are often most directly impacted by the various effects of climate change, whether extreme temperatures and weather or worsening air quality from wildfires and pollution. Systemic barriers keep these workers from accessing social services and allow bosses to hyperexploit them. Retaliation from the boss may directly target workers’ immigration statuses, not just their employment status. How are they organizing and fighting back in the face of these challenges?

Don’t miss out. Register TODAY!

[organizeworkers]

What is a March on the Boss, and How Do We Do It?

By Iraj Eshghi

A “march on the boss” is a direct action tactic in which workers collectively and publicly confront their boss to make one or more demands. Whether you are using it in the context of a direct action plan aimed at winning a specific demand or set of demands or to apply pressure in the lead up to an election or during contract negotiations, knowing how to effectively deploy a march on the boss should be in every organizer’s toolkit. 

Any sort of disruptive action in the workplace, like a march on the boss, carries the risk of discipline and retaliation. Its primary goal of the march should be to advance the workers’ plan to win on the issues they care about the most. A march on the boss is usually one step in a sequence of escalation tactics, preceded by other smaller tactics and followed by others, increasing the pressure each time. 

When should we march on the boss?

Using the march on the boss tactic is best right after an important galvanizing event: a boss fires or disciplines a co-worker, or negotiations reach a deadlock, for example. At times like these, it’s particularly useful to increase pressure in a public show of force. 

Marching on the boss simultaneously shows off the depth and commitment of your union’s organization, while also serving to test your organizing capacity. Union organizing involves a lot of uncertainty on both the side of the boss and the workers. It also shows that you can plan a march and rally your co-workers in solidarity, which can help get the boss to budge on the target you’ve chosen ahead of time. 

Properly timing the march in the context of the overall campaign is important too. The campaign will be a lot more effective during later stages of organizing once most of the employees connect and commit to the organizing effort.

What does the march actually look like?

A march on the boss depends on a lot of factors, but your primary consideration should be the number of workers in question. Remember, this is an intimidation tactic, so the collective of employees must be imposing enough to have an effect on the boss and cause them to rethink their position. You must remain aware of the power balance at play and ideally think through it yourselves: 

How many people do you need to mobilize for the demand in question? 

Does some specific department of our workplace have a stronger PR effect than the others? 

Consider, for example, maternity ward workers in a hospital organizing a march on the boss: Materially, they might represent a smaller fraction of the hospital’s profits than the surgery department, but they hold a lot of sway in the public eye and are typically paid worse and thus easier to organize.

How do we win?

There are several ways you can maximize your chances of success, but the necessary components are commitment, inoculation, and a constructive debrief.

Securing commitments

You must secure commitments from your co-workers through one-on-one conversations. Talk with them, ask what motivates them, and tie it into the campaign. If they feel that joining in on the march can meet their demands, you’ll have the numbers that matter. Once they commit, ask them to join you in planning the action and talking with more co-workers. The more involved they are, the more they will feel empowered by the action’s success, and they will be more likely to work with you on future escalations in the union campaign.

Inoculation

You must also prepare your co-workers for all possible outcomes. The workers involved must be aware of the potential retaliation and narrative that will come from the boss and choose to remain committed despite it. Before the action itself, you and your co-workers should role-play through the events and make sure everyone involved knows their tasks and where things may go wrong. 

Constructive debrief

Once the march is over, it will be crucial to take a step back. Review the following: 

Did you win what you wanted going into the action?

What worked? What didn’t? 

By going through this together, did you learn anything about the employer and their strengths or weaknesses?

This last question can help inform further action down the line.

You’ll also want to make sure everyone knows what the next steps are and how you’re preparing to respond to whatever the boss comes back with. Remember, this is a mere step in a larger campaign, so everyone involved must be ready to continue cranking up the pressure as the campaign moves forward.

[organizeworkers]

This Labor Day, we’re kicking off our Sustaining Donor Drive. Our goal is 150 NEW sustaining donors.

EWOC’s helped 200+ campaigns since 2020, and your support helps workers fight for something better and to maintain our independence.

Donate now:

[organizeworkers]

Despite low union density in this country, unions are one of its most popular institutions. Now is the perfect time to start organizing.

Get started 👉