Writing
Organizers with substantial, direct experience in the field have an entirely different focus than authors who have not been involved in campaigns: we focus on how the work gets done (methods), and how to win.

ATU victory

How Open Bargaining—and Not Letting Management Set the Ground Rules—Led to a Union Victory: In 2017, Kentucky became the most recent “right-to-work” state in the US. Which makes the recent victory by the Amalgamated Transit Union all the more significant.

In this right-to-work state where only 7.9 percent of the workforce are covered by union contracts, the members of Local 1447 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) beat back racist divide-and-conquer proposals by management last November to win a great contract. But their victory relied on method—not luck. Read the complete article here >> Read More

Nurses celebrating their hard won contract

Getting to Contract: Negotiating and Winning Against the Odds: Workers learn governing power through high-participation negotiations. That’s also how they can get employers to the table.

Whether a union is new and independent or long-established, the questions of how to negotiate, and how to get to the bargaining table, represent strategic choices. Workers can’t begin the process of realizing the concrete gains that will lead to a better life—from ending torturous scheduling to achieving real cost-of-living wage increases to obtaining the health care and retirement plans everyone deserves—until they secure a first union contract. Read More

UC workers on strike

Time to Turn Up the Pressure on the University of California Decision-Makers: There's one clear and urgent path to victory

As a member of Local 5810 of the United Auto Workers, I can’t think of a more momentous month in our union. The massive University of California system is as important to the country’s political economy as General Motors was at the UAW’s industrial peak. Read the complete article here >>                 Read More

woman carrrying Moment flag

How Workers Can Win in 2022: They need to create a crisis in order to turn this country around.

Our new Gilded Age of obscene wealth and arrogance stands in stark contrast to the everyday struggles faced by tens of millions of exhausted workers fighting just to stay healthy and alive, avoid eviction, make the next month’s rent payment, or find the kind of job that will leave enough free time to help their children with homework. Read More

horses in motion

Labor Needs an Outside Strategy: Only worker power can make good on the promises of the Biden administration.

Despite staggering wealth and income inequality in the United States, President Biden is bargaining against himself on his already way-too-small proposal to tax the rich, and far too many Democrats oppose the measure. While disappointing, that’s to be expected. But what’s now becoming absurd in the race to the death of the working class and our unions is the lack of strikes or any serious effort to build the power required so workers can reverse fifty years of nonstop abuse. Read More