Milwaukee Socialist Organizer Class — Apply by February 2!
Are you interested in becoming the best organizer you can be? Do you want to expand socialism here in Milwaukee, but are unsure of where and how to start? Have you been involved but feel like the project did not go anywhere? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Milwaukee Socialist Organizer Class is for you!
This nine week program will focus on holistically teaching you to be an unstoppable organizer who builds socialism, changes hearts and minds, and impacts our city. You will learn direct action organizing, as defined by Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists, in which we organize actions, campaigns, and tactics to “1) win real, immediate, concrete improvement in people’s lives … 2) Give people a sense of their own power … 3) Alter the relations of power.”
Interested individuals will apply (Click here, which is due by 11:59 p.m. on February 2, 2024), be interviewed, and enter the program if selected. DSA membership is not required to participate, but is encouraged.
This education program will be a combination of in-person events with virtual events if necessary. Each unit will be roughly a week, with a week break in the middle of the program. Each unit will consist of classroom-style instruction in the unit topic (no more than 2 hours, which will be in-person), field work in organizing (which will be at least 3 hours and consist of having conversations, moving people to action, and building infrastructure for a strong socialist movement involving several types of campaigns), and time for personal reflection. Each participant must commit to the entire program and, unless excused, attend every unit instruction, and field work session. Missing more than two classes and field work sessions may result in removal from the program.
This is the fifth time this program has been offered, and it is back by popular demand! The two instructors have updated and revised the course to make you even more prepared to lead in socialism.
Time commitment per week:
Unit instruction: 2 hours
Organizing work: 3 hours
Miscellaneous tasks: 1 hour
Total time per week: 6 hours
Weekly Schedule
Class will be conducted on Tuesday evenings from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. and held in-person at Zao MKE, located at 3219 E Kenwood Blvd, Milwaukee, 53211.
Field work will be held at regular intervals over the week, with options to organize at several points during the week (tentative schedule, subject to change):
Saturdays, 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.
Sundays 12:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m.
Mondays 5:30 until 8:30 p.m.
Program Timeline:
February 2 at 11:59 p.m.:
Application deadline – apply here
February 6:
Start of nine week program (class held, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.), held at Zao MKE, located at 2319 E Kenwood Blvd, Milwaukee, WI 53211
February 13:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
February 20:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
February 27:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
March 5:
Week Break
March 12:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
March 19:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
March 26:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
April 2:
Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
April 5:
End of class party (tentative)
April 16:
Completion of program
Units
Each unit helps to answer the question: what is organizing?
Welcome: what is organizing?
- Get to know participants and instructor
- Define scope of class and intentions
- Determine goals and desired outcomes
Organizing is one-on-one Conversations
- Learn the 7 point organizing conversation
- Practice the conversation and its elements
Organizing is building the committee and the campaign
- The importance (or not) of the committee
- Power Mapping the campaign
- Strategy Chart
Organizing is holistic productivity
- Traction versus distraction
- Time management and its importance
- The Reverse Calendar
- Overcoming blocks to action
Organizing is a mindset
- Acknowledging hurdles and setbacks
- Failure is a great option
- Develop a practice to keep you going
Organizing is raising money and managing it
- Why money is OK
- How to bring energy and money to your campaign
- The basics of campaign budgeting and finance
Organizing is communications
- What does “messaging” mean?
- The power of media
- Writing workshop
Organizing is bringing it all together
- You’ve got momentum – now what?
- Recap of unit themes
Reviews
Here is what previous students have to say about the Milwaukee Socialist Organizer Class:
“[Before the class] I had no idea about the actual work of organizing. Now I feel confident that I would be able to become a leader in a campaign setting.”
“I loved the practical application of socialism … [and] I loved the far-reaching application of some of the class content.”
“This is a great way to move into the world of socialism … thank you so much for offering this course.”
“This [class] is a great first step for anyone looking to start organizing.”
“I radically grew in my comfort around being upfront and simply being able to approach a complete stranger with a potentially controversial topic.”
“New organizers and experienced organizers can benefit from this class.”
“Generally speaking my confidence level just interacting with people about socialism has gone through the roof. I have been given a phenomenal overview of how to organize and I feel confident that I can find out what works best for me in the future.”
“It was great to grow as an organizer within the confines of a welcoming community/instructor.”
“I feel more confident organizing outside of an electoral context.”
Meet your instructors:
Alex Brower
Alex Brower is a labor leader, socialist organizer, and the chapter co-chair of the Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America. Professionally, Alex is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, which organizes union retirees. In his organizing work, Alex has saved jobs from privatization, helped workers win a union voice on the job, defeated a temp agency, organized against a proposed iron-ore mine, helped bring comprehensive sex education to Beloit Public Schools, and won workplace healthcare for many uninsured MPS Substitute Teachers. As an MPS substitute teacher and former Milwaukee Rec. Department instructor, Alex brings a host of experience teaching others. Alex has also been a candidate for Milwaukee City Comptroller and School Board, running both times as a socialist.
Autumn Pickett
Autumn Pickett is a union organizer and Communications Director for American Federation of Teachers – Wisconsin. She helped win back voting rights for 20,000 students while attending college in Indiana, protect 100’s of custodial and grounds crew jobs from privatization across Wisconsin, sink billionaire Howard Schultz’s 2016 presidential run, use organizing tactics that garnered national headlines, and mentor dozens of YDSA chapters across the country that continue to make real wins for working people. She has served on the National Coordinating Committee for YDSA, as Milwaukee DSA’s Education Officer, and currently represents Milwaukee DSA on the statewide Socialists in Office committee. Autumn is excited to bring her years of experience mentoring new socialist organizers over to the Milwaukee Organizer Class for the first time and help build a people powered movement in Cream City alongside each of you.
Any questions?
Contact Alex Brower at 414-949-8756 or milwaukeedsa@gmail.com
Apply now!
Apply here, or copy and paste this URL into your web browser: https://forms.gle/L7QCtowhrBhNm4xM7
“Inbuilt”: Zionism, Gaza, and Genocide
But transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought
Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 60
to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish
state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure.
On a frigid night, December 5, 2023, Joe Biden visited Boston to raise money for his re-election campaign. The president was received by a large group of citizens who protested in unconditional support for Israel and, by extension, its genocidal actions against the Palestinians.
In Washington, on the same day as Biden’s visit, the House of Representatives passed a resolution explicitly equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and defining many common pro-Palestinian slogans like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as anti-Semitic.
This is a blatant attack on freedom of speech, and signifies a dangerous step toward the criminalization of legitimate political dissent.
As a Boston local living near many universities, I have been disappointed to see local student leaders threatened with strong disciplinary sanctions, just as students were threatened during the Vietnam anti-war protests.
_._
“I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels with my beloved South Africa are truly painful,” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 2014).
Indeed, the current situation in Palestine is reminiscent of South African apartheid, though in many ways, incomparably worse. Nevertheless, despite their differences, the Zionist movement bears an important resemblance to the Afrikaner movement: it is a social system rooted in colonial, racist, and totalitarian practice.
In the West Bank, while broad democratic freedoms are extended to Israeli Jews, Arabs Israelis face, on one level, overwhelming political, legal, and economic discrimination in apartheid-like form and, on another, the daily humiliation and incursions of a brutal and prolonged military occupation. In Gaza, the situation has reached the level of genocidal proportions. As of writing, South Africa is before the International Court of Justice, engaged in a legal proceeding against Israel accusing it of “subject[ing] the Palestinians in Gaza to genocidal acts.”
This is the true face of Zionism: repopulating stolen land, expelling its indigenous inhabitants through humiliation, indiscriminate force, and destroying all access to the basic necessities of life. As much was suggested by the UN Secretary General , who stated that this ‘wave of violence,’ as it is cynically referred to in the press, “does not come out of nowhere,” but “is born of a long-standing conflict, with 56 years of occupation and no political end in sight.”
In Gaza, according to latest UN data, there are at least 22,835 fatalities, with approximately two-thirds of those being women and children. Additionally, there are thousands of Palestinian political prisoners being held without due process, only a handful of hospitals partially functioning, and the threat of famine looming large as the result of draconian Israeli restrictions.
These crimes are well-documented by leading figures and institutions in international law and human rights:
Human Rights Watch: “Since 1948, Israel has established a regime of racial domination and oppression over the Palestinian people primarily in the domains of nationality and land. In the immediate aftermath of the Nakba, Israel adopted a series of laws, policies, and practices, which sealed the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people, systematically denying the return of Palestinian refugees and other Palestinians who were abroad at the time of the war. At the same time, Israel imposed a system of institutionalized racial discrimination over Palestinians who remained on the land, many of whom had been internally displaced. Such Israeli laws have constituted the legal architecture of Israeli apartheid that continues to be imposed on the Palestinian people today.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), described the IDF’s relentless bombardments of the Gaza Strip as “shocking” and the unfolding human tragedy as “unbearable.” Lazzarini highlighted the dire situation in Gaza, where approximately one million people were displaced from north to south over three weeks, in stating that “no place is safe in Gaza.”
Such conditions have prompted rights-groups, like Amnesty International, to call for “End[ing] all U.S. support for the Israeli government’s rights violations and crimes against humanity against Palestinians, particularly the illegal campaign of forced displacement through home demolitions, evictions and settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.
In Boston, we received Biden in the manner he deserved: with powerful, spirited, and determined protest. Nor he, nor his administration, promote peace; instead, they relish war, squandering billions of dollars on instruments of death that could be used for humanitarian efforts and real democracy promotion.
Israel is engaging in wanton terrorism and racism: to state this is not to entertain anti-Semitism, nor is it to deny the Jewish faith, ethnicity, culture, or nation. Jews and Israelis are deserving of the same rights and dignity as everyone else. But Israel, as a State, does not represent all Jews, nor does it contain only Jews. Jews are not a problem, but the prevailing ideology of Zionism is; and it is Zionism that we see unfolding in Gaza today.
Just as we cannot overlook the crimes committed in other historical instances of apartheid and genocide, we cannot overlook the crimes committed in Gaza today. As members of Boston DSA, we have the political and moral obligation educate, organize, and mobilize against all forms of oppression: therefore, it is undeniable that such obligations apply to the case of genocide and Israel’s present assault on Gaza.
Unionized workers in Detroit to get $54,500 bonus
by Joanne Coutts
The Detroit Lions’ win over the Minnesota Vikings on December 24th clinched the division title for the first time in 30 years. For this feat each player will receive a $54,500 bonus with the potential for additional payouts depending how they fare in the playoffs. This money comes from a playoff pool created by the NFL’s revenue-sharing program. Does this sound a little bit like socialism?
The NFL suffers from many identity crises. It promotes nationalism while yearning for the global appeal of soccer. It cloaks itself in militarism and extracted $5.4 million from the Department of Defense in exchange for patriotism spectacles. It aids billionaire team owners in appropriating taxpayer money to build giant stadiums ($110 million in the case of Ford Field) while positioning itself as the sport of the “blue collar worker.”
However, the NFL identity crisis on which sports writers have spilled the most ink is the tension between the league’s deeply capitalistic goals and its need to embrace at least parts of socialism to achieve them.
If you type “NFL socialism” into an internet search engine, many articles will pop up, arguing that various aspects of the NFL are or are not socialist. These generally focus on the draft, which gives the teams with the worst win/loss records in the previous season first choice of the best players moving from college to the NFL each year, thereby giving the teams that need it most first access to new resources.
They also discuss revenue sharing, which distributes television revenue equally among all teams regardless of how many people watch their games on any given Sunday, to spread the wealth and allow teams in smaller cities like Green Bay to remain competitive with larger ones like New York. And they argue that the salary cap, which prevents teams from accumulating all the best players by paying them more, means that wealthy team owners cannot gobble up and hoard all the “best resources” for themselves.
These measures have the goal of ensuring parity across the league, and have resulted in 12 different Super Bowl winners in the past 15 years. In contrast, the English Premier League, where none of these socialist wealth-distribution mechanisms exist and unfettered capitalism reigns supreme, has seen only 5 different clubs win the league during the same period.
Credit the union (or blame the union)
One central tenet of socialism, worker’s unions, is mostly overlooked in these articles. The strength of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) has been a key factor in the success of the league, and over the years the NFLPA has gotten its members everything from clean jock straps to a $1 million per year minimum wage.
At the NFLPA’s first meeting, in 1956, players from 11 of the 12 teams signed on to be represented by the new union. Their demands included a minimum $5,000 salary whether playing or injured, clean uniforms, and equipment paid for by their teams. In 2014, the latest year for which information is available from the Department of Labor, 1,959 or 91% of the NFL’s approximately 2,144 active and practice squad players were voting members of their union. An additional 3,130 former players were also NFLPA members. Union membership remains strong because of the NFLPA’s success in raising player’s salaries and improving working conditions and benefits, and its relatively modest dues, $31,000 per year, which for context represents 4.1% of the league’s 2023 minimum salary ($750,000 per year).
In the summer of 1968, the NFLPA, led by Detroit Lions offensive guard John Gordy, held its first strike and soon after ratified its first collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The CBA included an increase in minimum salaries, exhibition game pay, and a $1.5 million contribution by NFL owners to a pension fund. The most recent CBA, ratified in 2020, makes these gains look paltry by comparison. Some of the highlights which we might all drool over include:
Revenue sharing — The CBA requires that players receive 48% of gross football-related revenues generated by the league. This means that 48% of TV broadcast deals, ticket sales, league-wide and local sponsorships, gambling, and even soda and hot dog sales must be spent on player wages and benefits. Retail store workers receive around 17% of revenue in wages, for restaurant workers it’s 25 to 30%, and in some manufacturing plants worker’s share of revenue can drop as low as 10%.
Minimum wage — In 2023 minimum-salary players on a team’s active roster received a 6.4% increase from $705,000 to $750,000 per year. Under the current CBA, minimum-salary players will see a 33% increase from their current salaries, hitting the $1 million mark by 2030. The recent UAW deal comes close to this, raising base wages by 25% by 2028. For the rest of us, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will see average wage growth of 3% per year, for a total 18% increase by 2030.
Health and Pension Benefits — NFL players and their dependents receive a variety of health benefits which continue for five years after they leave the league, after which they can opt to continue in the health plan at their own expense. Specific health conditions related to playing football, such as joint damage or neurological care, are covered for life. They also get a league pension, averaging $43,000 per year, starting at age 55 and can join the league’s 401K, Annuity and Second Career savings programs. While many U.S. workers participate in 401K or Retirement Savings Plans, only 11% of private sector workers have access to a pension plan.
The NFLPA has been aided in achieving all this by advantages most unions can only dream of. Its coffers are filled with revenue from marketing and endorsement deals in addition to player dues. Its members hold almost all the “means of production” of their product, making scabbing all but impossible; all attempts during the various player strikes and owner lockouts to replace the product on TV and in stadiums have been a dismal failure.
The union’s leadership is predominantly made up of rank-and-file players. Hands up: who has heard of NFLPA President JC Tretter and of Jalen Reeves-Mabin, who currently represents the Lions as a vice-president of the union? Perhaps because of this rank-and-file leadership, many of these gains benefit rank-and-file over “star” players. For example, increases in minimum salaries and benefits for all, combined with the salary cap, limit the money available to pay “big name” players.
We should all be so lucky as to be represented by such an active, well funded, and powerful union. With that power comes responsibility to stand in solidarity with workers around the world. As our Detroit Lions head to the playoffs let’s push the NFLPA to use its power to support workers across the country, as they did for Amazon workers in Alabama in 2021, and across the globe. Tell the NFLPA to demand a #CeasefireNow!
Send a message https://nflpa.com/contact. Tweet @NFLPA @JCTretter
Go Lions!!!
Notes and Links
Inflation 2023:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/12/heres-the-inflation-breakdown-for-november-2023-in-one-chart.html
Jalen Reeves Mabin is Detroit Lion on NFLPA Executive Committee:
Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_Players_Association
NFLPA Revenue spending:
NFLPA:
https://nflpa.com/ and https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/nfl-players-association/
Paid militarization of the NFL:
https://fee.org/articles/its-time-to-end-the-paid-militarization-of-the-nfl/
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/nfl-dod-national-anthem-6f682cebc7cd/
2020 CBA highlights:
https://operations.nfl.com/inside-football-ops/players-legends/2020-nfl-nflpa-cba-need-to-know/
NFL post season pay:
Detroit Lions Player Report Card:
https://nflpa.com/detroit-lions-report-card#treatment-of-families
NFL and Socialism:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-the-nfl-owners-are-exclusive-socialists-102946280.html
https://fee.org/articles/is-the-nfl-draft-socialism/
https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/columns/2014/10/24/the-nfl-is-socialistic-enterprise/36089303007/
Capitalism in UK football:
https://jacobin.com/2020/08/english-football-capitalism-manchester-premier-league-fc
Detroit Lions history:
Detroit Lions | Detroit Historical Society
The Detroit Socialist is produced and run by members of Detroit DSA’s Newspaper Collective. Interested in becoming a member of Detroit DSA? Go to metrodetroitdsa.com/join to become a member. Send a copy of the dues receipt to: membership@metrodetroitdsa.com in order to get plugged in to our activities!
Unionized workers in Detroit to get $54,500 bonus was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
The Struggle for Public Power: Lessons from Maine DSA
2023 was the hottest year on record and for many people across the country being able to afford their utility bills to cool or heat their homes during the more extreme temperatures caused by climate change is becoming a possibly deadly challenge. Last year, Maine DSA was part of a statewide coalition called Pine Tree Power that attempted to take over the two largest corporate utilities in the state through a ballot measure in November. They didn’t win. But here on Revolutions Per Minute we are just as interested in talking about losses as we are victories. Tonight, we’ll go to Maine and talk with Aarron and Dwight about the struggles of organizing in a rural state and the lessons they learned from their Public Power campaign.
We’ll also check in with Chen from the New York City EcoSocialist Working Group for an update on the state of renewable energy development in New York (spoiler alert: the private market is in shambles) and what comes next for implementing the Build Public Renewables Act.
Follow Maine DSA and our guests at @DSA_Maine, @bioleera, and @dwobbsy.
Follow New York City EcoSocialist Working Group at @NYCDSA_Ecosoc
Defending Public Education
Chapter Statement Jan 9, 2024
In response to an attack article in CNYcentral from a right-wing propaganda group.
Syracuse DSA proudly endorsed several candidates in 2021, recognizing their tireless advocacy for the needs of all children in Syracuse. We stand firm in our support of our endorsees. The ‘report’ by Parents Defending Education – a group akin to Moms for Liberty and known for spreading disinformation and fear-mongering – creates a false equivalence between those working to fund and build up our public education system and those ideologically committed to dismantling it.
These far-right groups whitewash history, erase cultural diversity and identities, and seek the wholesale destruction of the public education system. Syracuse DSA supports policies to strengthen our public education system – including the principles of community care instead of juvenile policing (Care, not Cops). In contrast to the right-wing agenda of indoctrination, we embrace students’ varying cultural backgrounds and reject a learning environment that forces assimilation and ideological conformity.
We reject the unfounded allegations made by right-wing educational groups as well as their support for the school-to-prison pipeline. It is no surprise to us that these groups have no objections to funding genocide in other contexts. Syracuse DSA welcomes those standing for and with public schools and invites them to seek our endorsement next election.
The post Defending Public Education appeared first on Syracuse DSA.
The Road to Convention | Register, Read Proposals, Attend Events!
The Road to Convention | Register, Read Proposals, Attend Events!
We are now on the road to the 2024 NNJ DSA Convention! All submitted resolutions, priority campaigns, EC Candidate Questionnaires are now live! Amendments to these proposals are due a week from tonight, Sunday, January 14th. We’ve also announced a few more events to support Convention, facilitate more political discussion, learn how the rules of Convention go, and even party it up with a social the night before!
View Proposals here
Submit Amendments here.
RSVP for Roberts Rules Training
RSVP for Run for EC Leadership Forum
Jan 27th Our Political Moment in NJ Forum & Social – LOCATION TBA
RSVP for 2024 Convention
Check (and even save to your Calendar) the chapter Calendar to register for events and see in-person locations for some supplemental events. The Convention itself is totally on Zoom.
If you’re not a Member in good standing, go ahead and pay dues to get access to view proposals. If you want to make sure you are up to date on when all things in the chapter are happening, and to be involved in the discussions about future projects and organizing, Join our Chapter Slack by attending our new member orientation Sat. January 20th at 11AM.
The post The Road to Convention | Register, Read Proposals, Attend Events! first appeared on North NJ DSA.
Charlotte for CATS 2024 Campaign Launch
Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) buses can be miserable to use. Buses are infrequent, arrive late, and skip stops. Bus stops can be hard to get to, sometimes with nowhere to sit or shelter while waiting. Trips that ought to take 30 minutes can take hours depending on the day. Overall, riding the bus is so inconvenient that most Charlotteans don’t even consider taking the bus. Therefore, only those who truly rely on the bus system tend to experience its failures. This fact is often shrugged off by Democrats – after all, most people have cars – and justified by Republicans as a punishment for poverty. As socialists, we see this is a tragedy needing an urgent solution.
Mass public transit is a crucial service for the city. It’s a substantially cheaper, safer, and even more dignified form of transportation than our current car-centered system. Mass transit relieves us of the need to purchase, maintain, and pay debt on a car. Mass transit takes vehicles off the road, resulting in quieter streets and less polluted air. Mass transit recognizes that the ability to get to work, run errands, and explore our city should be shared equally, connecting rather than separating us.
This year the Charlotte Metro DSA is launching the Charlotte for CATS campaign. We demand that CATS become the mass public transit system that Charlotte needs. Since the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, CATS has fallen into disrepair. Mired in scandals, CATS is under-performing and under pressure to change. Rather than give in to this situation and let the bus system leave behind those who depend on it, we can turn the situation around. CATS can operate for the benefit of all.
Join us today and let the city know: CATS service levels must be improved!
Solidarity Forever,
Charlotte Metro Democratic Socialists of America Steering Committee
This local group will help you organize your workplace
by Chris Mills Rodrigo
Taking a glance at how the spike in union activity over the last few years has been described in traditional media — a wave, a surge, a boom — one could be forgiven for thinking that the process is natural. Anyone who has organized their workplace will tell you the opposite. Organizing is hard work, from covertly building support amongst colleagues to weathering management retaliation to navigating the byzantine process of formal elections. Desire to unionize can only go so far without organizers willing to put in the work to make it happen.
Few places experienced that disconnect between interest in unionization and successful campaigns as acutely as the Bay Area in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite exciting organizing activity across the nation — particularly at chains like Starbucks and Trader Joe’s — and a rich local history of organized labor, new unions in the area were still few and far in between.
Fearing that the Bay Area was at risk of missing out on a special opportunity to build durable labor power, the East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) started asking itself what it could do to help.
“There was this huge wave of new organizing happening across the country, and to some extent in the Bay Area, but not quite as much as we were expecting,” Zach Weinstein, one of the co-chairs of the organization’s Labor Committee, explained. “We were having a conversation: what do we do in terms of engaging with this wave of organizing that’s happening? How do we do labor work that isn’t just sitting around waiting for workers or a union to ask us for help?”
Taking a look at what was working elsewhere in the country to motivate unionization, members of the labor committee were taken by the successes of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.
At the height of the pandemic, when the contempt of many employers for their workers became harder to ignore, the DSA and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America teamed up to create a one-stop-shop for workers with the desire to organize that lack the know-how to make it happen.
Since its inception in March 2020, EWOC has helped over 70 organizing drives win demands and aided almost 100 successful unionization campaigns by providing resources, training and individual help to workers.
In the spring of 2022, the East Bay DSA members began discussing whether forming a local equivalent would be a good way to help turn the rise of pro-labor sentiment in the area into concrete organizing wins. By September of that year, a resolution establishing the East Bay Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee was approved.
A little over a year in, based on the raw numbers alone, the project has been a success. The group has played a part in seven successful unionization campaigns, aiding workers in successful efforts to win union elections at three Peet’s Coffee locations, a Starbucks, a Trader Joe’s, Berkeley’s Ecology Center, and Urban Ore.
After becoming the first local EWOC in the Bay Area – and the second nationally after New York City’s – the organization has helped the San Francisco and Santa Cruz DSA chapters launch their own local affiliates.
Those behind the campaign say the next goal for East Bay EWOC is to bring some of the workers they have helped organize into the DSA to help the group better represent the region’s working class.
East Bay EWOC provides a variety of services to workers fighting to improve their workplaces. The group utilizes the national organization’s online support form, which workers can fill out to get help from trained organizers. Requests for help from the region are forwarded to the local EWOC, which then has volunteers contact workers directly.
The group’s volunteers have helped give workers interested in organizing direction, turning get-togethers that would often devolve into aimless complaining and gossip into more structured discussions with clear targets in mind, according to workers who spoke with Majority for this article.
“They gave us tools and resources to structure our meetings to make them productive and to envision the arc of the campaign, to have goals to be constantly working towards,” one worker, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said.
The organization has also hosted a series of workplace organizing trainings, three of which were adapted from Labor Notes’s Secrets of a Successful Organizer and a fourth which focused on contract negotiations. The training not only helped upwards of 30 workers develop the skills necessary to organize their workplaces, but it also helped spread awareness about the assistance that East Bay EWOC offers.
Another worker at a not yet public unionization drive, heard about one of these trainings through a friend, showed up, and then was connected to a local organizer who helped get their campaign to the next step.
“There’s been a lot of different things over the years that have had people talking about the benefits of unionizing,” they told Majority. “But previously in those conversations, it was a small group of people and when we looked into what it would take to actually unionize it felt really overwhelming.”
The local organizer assigned to the campaign was able to provide strategies for how to reach new colleagues, answer questions about eligibility and give tips on how to keep shop lists organized.
As East Bay EWOC heads into its second year, there is still a lot more to achieve.
For one, none of the union campaigns that the group has aided have secured their first contracts yet. Helping get those challenging negotiations over the finish line is a priority.
Once those contracts do start getting ratified, East Bay EWOC organizers hope they can convince some of the workers involved in the process to join the local DSA chapter and contribute to the fight to grow worker power nationwide.
“I think EWOC has the power to make an organization like DSA actually feel and look like the working class,” Taylor Henry said. “When you have something like EWOC that focuses on supporting and growing the power of the working class, that will have a big impact on our membership.”
If you want support to organize your workplace, fill out this form to be connected to a local organizer through EWOC. To volunteer with EBEWOC, email labor@eastbaydsa.org.
An old anti-war book for a new anti-war moment, or: can new dogs learn old tricks?