You’ve gotten your red card, attended several organizer trainings, countless branch meetings and union socials. You’ve gone to events where you have heard organizers tell their stories and have subscribed to their blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. You’ve read all the labor books you can find. You’ve signed every petition and attended every picket. All this and you still feel like everything is two steps forward and six steps back in your workplace organizing. You want to proudly work wearing that union label. You want success for the big reasons: capitalism keeps us enslaved. And for the smaller reasons that nag you in your sleep: people who matter to you think you’re ridiculous for doing any of this. Sharing victories adds legitimacy.

We have to believe that we can do this work. We have to know that as fact. We all have our feelings of isolation in this world: feeling not good enough, that our bodies or minds aren’t right, and that we made the wrong choices. We have lifelong battles to accept ourselves or to ignore how much we don’t accept ourselves. Confidence is not something focused on in U.S. culture. This society relies on making you not feel good enough in order to push you into spending your last dime on something that you believe can make you stronger, prettier, smarter or sexier.

Then there’s the very nature of subservient work: you’re placed into a job with “superiors” that are younger than you (I’m 31 and have a 19-year-old supervisor) or have less experience than you. We’re told that these people are inherently worth more than we are to the job and the world in general. We’re supposed to follow work orders without question, often to the point of injury or death. You have been told that you are worth little but actually believe in your bones that you are worth something. You have contributions to make to the world through your community, your family, and your job(s). You can act against capitalism. It serves the bosses to hate ourselves.

In order to get our co-workers to fight together, we have to believe we can. The majority of your co-workers, like you, have had a lifetime of having their self-esteem chipped away at. We have been broken down by authority figures our whole lives, be they police, classmates, housemates, intimate partners, parents, teachers, social workers and our bosses. We’re broken and molded into participating in this system that we never chose. We work ourselves to death in order to buy goods and services that we then use to keep ourselves functioning enough to keep working. Working students are working their way through school in order to get that next job, if careers even exist anymore. They are often disheartened to learn that all the crap that they went through at their old job exists at their new one. For folks that grew up poor, confidence is much harder to come by. We grew up watching our parents struggle. We promised ourselves and them that we would find a path out of this poverty and that we would take them with us. We feel guilty for not doing better by ourselves and by our families. We swear to everyone that we’ll work hard and it will “pay off.” We pull hard at our bootstraps to watch the system snip the line time and again and we keep pulling.

This cycle can end with us. We have to believe. We keep looking up for instruction when we should be looking to those at our side: our neighbors, our friends, and our co-workers. Their ideas, like ours, are worthwhile. If you don’t believe you are capable of organizing then your co-workers won’t believe it either.

When I came into the IWW Starbucks Workers Union I had some large shoes to fill. I was afraid. I felt alone and ill-prepared. For the first couple of years of organizing most of my actions were decided by asking myself what I felt could turn into a “badass story.” Will I be the mouse or the lion? I don’t care about how arrogant that sounds. I needed some arrogance to counter my low self-esteem.

I also don’t care because it worked. I found myself shaking when talking to the boss. I was saying things I knew we weren’t “allowed” to say and refusing to be mistreated. These showdowns with bosses led to getting what I wanted on the job. Once a busser overheard a district manager say that they needed to make sure the union knew “whose house this is.” The shop committee then started declaring at work, “Whose house is this? This is our house.” We made constant references to the bosses being “guests in our home.” It was a huge confidence-builder.

Walk into your job like you own it. It can’t operate without you. It’s important to exude confidence, even if you don’t feel confident. Try, even if it feels hopeless, because without the effort you’ve accepted defeat. And if you feel unable, then what hope do you have to offer your co-workers? Workers have been organizing in various forms for hundreds of years. Many of them haven’t had the resources and support you can have access to in the IWW. If they could, and can, do it, then so can you.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (January/February 2014)

Fellow Worker (FW) Jane Street’s letter to Mrs. Elmer S. Bruse is one of the most profound pieces of IWW history. FW Street, of Denver, sent this letter to a domestic worker organizer in Tulsa, Okla., in 1917. It was stolen by federal agents and was only discovered in FBI files in 1976.

It shows how the IWW went about organizing a very marginalized section of the working class. It also addresses the sexism encountered by the Domestic Workers Industrial Union from other IWW members. I’ve always been inspired by this letter because it has practical lessons for us today. I can see a similar effort being made in restaurants and other workplaces, especially in medium-sized towns.

We had to cut a great deal of the letter for space. I encourage you to look at http://www.iww.org for the full text.

- F.N. Brill

Letter to Mrs. Elmer S. Bruse

Your letter of the 28th received, also the one of several weeks ago, which was read at our business meeting with great applause.

I am not so presumptuous as to suppose that no method of organizing can be used successful with the domestic workers than the one which was used here. However, I can give you the benefit of my experiences and observation in the work here and the conclusions at which we have arrived.

My method [of organizing] was very tedious. I worked at housework for three months, collecting names all the while. When I was off of a job I rented a room and put an ad in the paper for a housemaid. Sometimes I used a box number and sometimes I used my address. The ad was worded something like this, “Wanted, Housemaid for private family, $30, eight hours daily.” I would write them letters afterwards and have them call and see me ... Sometimes I would engage myself to as many as 25 jobs in one day, promising to call the next day to everyone that phoned. I would collect the information secured in this way. If any girl wanted any of the jobs, she could go out and say that they called her up the day before.

I secured 300 names in this way. I had never mentioned the IWW to any of them, for I expected them to be prejudiced, which did not prove the case. I picked out 100 of the most promising...and sent them invitations to attend a meeting. There were about 35 came. Thirteen of the 35 signed the application for a charter. So don’t get discouraged.

We have been organized [for] about one year. In this time we have interviewed personally in our office about 1,500 or 2,000 girls...placing probably over 1,000 in jobs. We have on our books the names of 155 members, only about 83 of whom we can actually call members.

How they organized

However, we have got results. We have raised wages, shortened hours, bettered conditions in hundreds of places. For instance, if you want to raise a job from $20 to $30…you can have a dozen girls answer an ad and demand $30—even if they do not want work at all. Or call up the woman and tell her you will accept the position at $20. Then she will not run her ad the next day. Don’t go. Call up the next day and ask for $25 and promise to go (and don’t go). On the third day she will say, “Come on out and we will talk the matter over.” You can get not only the wages, but shortened hours and lightened labor as well.

We keep a record of every job advertised in every paper. As when they advertise in the papers, a girl can go out to them without their knowing that she is in the IWW at all. We make a note of the wages, the size of the family and the house, etc. To give girls this information is to save them a great deal of time.

If a girl decides to shorten hours on the job by refusing to work afternoons...as a rule her employer does not fire her until she secures another girl. She calls up an employment shark ...with the union office in operation, no girl arrives. The employer advertises in the paper. We catch her ad and send out a girl who refuses to do the same thing. If you have a union of only four girls and you can get them consecutively on the same job you soon have job control.

However, it is necessary to have rebels who will actually do these things on the job.

It is a hard matter to get girls outside the organization to attend a meeting. We have formulated no scale of hours or wages, for the reason that we could not enforce them. We are able however to raise wages and shorten hours on individual jobs by striking on the job and by systematic work at the office.

Sexism within the IWW

The Mixed Local [similar to a General Membership Branch] here in Denver has done us more harm than any other enemy. They have cut us off from donations from outside locals, slandered this local and myself from one end of the country to the other...they gave our club house a bad name because they were not permitted to come out there, and finally they have assaulted me bodily and torn up our charter.

At present we are without due[s] stamps and without membership books. Meanwhile the work of fighting the boss goes merrily on. We have taken in about 28 new members since our charter was destroyed.

I am telling you about this, not because I think there will come a time when you will profit by my experiences, but because we need the support of the IWW every place.

What I am telling you is not merely a personal matter with me...but now this opposition has spread not only in this local but to all domestic workers’ locals. For a domestic workers’ local to spring up anywhere and achieve success is a monument to their treachery and false prophecy against us.

I am so sorry to tell you of these things. I have tried to keep out of this letter the bitterness that surges up in me. But when one looks upon the slavery on all sides that enchain the workers—these women workers sentenced to hard labor and solitary confinement on their prison jobs in the homes of the rich—and these very men who forgot their IWW principles in their opposition to us—when we look about us, we soon see that the Method of Emancipation that we advocate is greater than any or all of us and that the great principles and ideals that we stand for can completely overshadow the frailties of human nature.

Stick to your domestic workers’ union, fellow worker, stick to it with all the persistence and ardor that there is in you. Every day some sign of success will thrill your blood and urge you on! Keep on with the work.

Jane Street, Sec. of the Denver IWW Domestic Workers Industrial Union

P.S. We are having some interesting times collecting bills. There is a lawyer here who has volunteered his services. Most of our bills are settled out of court. In compiling information on jobs it is well to put the name and business of the employer’s husband on the card. To send a business man a “dun” bearing the IWW seal is to become a first class bill collector. This will help you to get girls to do delegate work. Such a girl boosts the union to the skies.

You must open your employment office to all domestic workers regardless of whether they join or not, if you would cripple the employment sharks.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (March 2014)

About 10 years ago, when I was a member of the Chicago General Membership Branch, I got to know a Wobbly who had been a member of the union since the 1960s. In his decades as a Wob he had seen many people come and go. He had a term of scorn for people who took out a red card briefly for reasons of ideology or nostalgia. He called them “thirty-day wonders.” Thirtyday wonders join the union, pay their initiation fees and a month’s dues and then disappear.

I have been a member of the IWW long enough now that I have seen my share of “thirty-day wonders” come and go. I have also watched multiple cohorts of Wobs develop who are committed to the union for the long haul. I expect Fellow Workers like Liberte Locke, Nate Hawthorne, Adam Weaver, Erik Forman, and the Industrial Worker’s editor, Diane Krauthamer, to be part of the union for decades to come. Watching them, and the development of my own life, I have started to think about what it means to be a Wobbly, not for 30 days, but for a lifetime. When I joined the IWW I was 22, filled with youthful militancy, just entering the workforce and totally naïve about workplace organizing. Today I am 37; I have a family, a career and have had the privilege of being involved in four significant organizing campaigns. I also chaired the committee that reformed the union’s Organizing Department in 2006 and have been editing this column for close to eight years.

My experience has helped me reach a few conclusions about what long-term commitment to the IWW requires. First, and perhaps most importantly, it requires the ability to take care of yourself. The better world that Wobblies seek isn’t going to come anytime soon. Committing to the IWW for the long haul means making time for family and friends, for exercise and whatever else you need to maintain your health. There will always be another meeting, another organizing campaign, and another picket line. It is alright to miss something or step back for a while from organizing. If you don’t take care of yourself chances are you will burn out pretty quickly.

Second, be kind and compassionate towards other workers. We have a range of ideologies and experiences in our organization. It is easy to “be a jerk about bad ideas.” Resist the temptation. If you are kind towards others chances are they will be more willing to listen to you. Also, if the IWW is about “building the new society within the shell of the old,” then one of the things we need to do is learn to treat each other as if the new society has already come.

Third, organize the worker, not the job. Jobs come and go. One of the big advantages the IWW has over the large business unions is that when Wobblies leave a job we take our union membership with us. If we are going to continue to build the union we need to exploit this advantage. We can help each other develop skills and networks of solidarity that we can carry with us no matter where we end up. We can do this by continuing to improve our organizer training programs and building a strong culture that people want to be part of.

Finally, commit to building the organization. Workplace struggle comes and goes. Most workers don’t want to be in a constant state of conflict with their employers. Many people think this desire for stability can be solved by contractualism. I have my doubts about that. Instead, I think building the kind of organization that we activate to defend past gains and win new ones is the solution. Such an organization almost certainly transcends specific workplaces.

I suspect that other longtime members of the IWW have their own lists of things that they believe are necessary for a longterm commitment to the union. I would be interested in seeing those lists and starting some collective reflection on what it means to be a Wobbly for the long haul. If you have thoughts please send them my way. I would be delighted to put them in a future “Workers’ Power” column.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (April 2014)

For the last couple of years I have been involved in an organizing campaign at my workplace. The company I work for is large and there are a number of craftbased unions present in it. My craft, however, doesn’t have a union and we aren’t eligible for representation through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) process. Nonetheless, we have managed to build up an organizing committee with approximately 30 active members and have begun our first public campaign around a particular set of grievances.

I haven’t tried to develop our organizing campaign into an IWW campaign for two reasons. The first is the sharply ideological nature of my craft. People have very strong opinions and are uncritical of the capitalist system. In addition, they tend to come from wealthy backgrounds and are not open to discussions around class war. Instead of changing the economic system most of my co-workers want to fix it.

My first reason, however, is significantly less important than my second one. There are several people in the organizing committee who think we should affiliate with one of the large AFL-CIO or Change to Win Federation unions. I know that if I pushed for an affiliation with the IWW, those who want to affiliate with a large business union would quickly win the argument and we would end up being part of another union. The situation that has resulted is a stalemate. We aren’t affiliated with anyone and we aren’t seeking affiliation.

Several of my co-workers know about my previous experiences organizing with the IWW. Recently, I had a conversation with one of them about what we were doing and my approach to building our organization. I told him that even though we weren’t affiliated with the IWW I thought that our organizing was, thus far, very much in the style of the IWW. So, he asked me, “What’s Wobbly about it?” Several things I told him: we run our organization democratically; we treat every member as an organizer; our organization is built on the strength of our relationships with each other; and we are not, currently, seeking formal recognition from our employer, instead we are organizing around grievances. None of this makes our organization a revolutionary union but it does make our organization one with radical potential. To see how, let me explain, briefly, how the union works.

We have an organizing meeting once a week for an hour. The meeting is open to everyone who works at our company and in our craft, who someone in the union has invited to attend. Meeting sizes range from slightly more than 10 to slightly less than 25. The meeting is run by a chair. The chair rotates week to week and while the agenda is set in advance, any member can place an item on it. Decisions at the meeting require a two-thirds majority and the meeting only has authority with respect to how the union relates to external bodies: management, the press and other unions. In other instances members are encouraged to take action around specific issues that affect them. As a result, members engage in small organizing projects that intrigue them and cooperate on the larger ones.

In addition, we hold semi-regular organizer trainings. Not everyone attends these but they are designed to help members grow into organizers. Everyone is encouraged to bring other people into the union and the emphasis on this has meant that the organization has grown organically. It also means that people are beginning to see the union not as some abstract body but, instead, as made up of the relationships they have with each other. Standing up to management becomes, in part, an issue of standing up for friends. People end up committed to the union not because they are committed to some set of abstract ideas or even improving their working conditions. They end up committed because they are committed to each other.

I hope that this structure means that people won’t think of the union we’re building as a workplace-specific organization. Instead, I hope that they will come to think of it as a way of being in the world. If being part of a union means developing a certain kind of relationship with one’s co-workers, then that attitude becomes something that is transferred from workplace to workplace, as people change jobs. And that infuses even a non-revolutionary union with revolutionary potential. And that’s what’s Wobbly about it!

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (May 2014)

Recently, I worked for a business union. I knew this was going to be a lousy job before I even started; it was slated to be a part-time temp job in the AFL-CIO’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Before I started working there, two of my future bosses gave me three different answers on what my start time would be on my first day of work. I arbitrarily came up with a time that would work best for me. When I walked into work on my first day, my primary boss, Bonnie (one of five bosses), told me that we would use the “honor’s system” to keep track of my hours, which were not to exceed 20 per week. That was the moment I decided to start a workplace journal and to keep track of the hours myself, because this was not the first business union I had worked for, and it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard the “honor’s system” line.

Hours and scheduling were ongoing issues throughout my time working there. I spoke with a fellow worker from my local branch about these problems and she helped me determine that a large part of the problem at my job came from a lack of paper trail.

When I started this job, Bonnie told me to work nearly full-time hours during what was a particularly busy time in my life. Bonnie didn’t confirm the hours I worked, she did not even write them down, so as far as I knew I would only be paid for a 20-hour work-week even when I was working 30-plus hours. When I sent Bonnie emails about this to either confirm in writing that I would be paid for the overtime, or confirm in writing that I could work only the 20 hours she allotted, she responded by calling me. In fact, she called my personal cell phone when I was off the clock, and I knew I had to put a stop to this. I blocked her number, and she eventually stopped trying to call my cell phone.

The following week, again when Bonnie asked me to work nearly 30 hours, I again sent her an email telling her I could not work more than 20 hours that week and every week from that point forward. Through inside sources I saw that Bonnie immediately forwarded my message to her colleague and close friend, Julie (who also was another one of my bosses), with snarky commentary, as though I was not entitled to ask that I be able to work the hours I was slated to work.

Following this, Julie called me into her office for a closed-door meeting. She told me that Bonnie was taken “aback” by my email—not because of my scheduling request, that was fine, but she didn’t like the “tone” of my email. Julie then suggested that I send Bonnie a new email to apologize and ask for her permission to work these hours. Julie proceeded to give me a lecture on the difference in how old and “younger” people communicate—as though the problem was because of generational differences.

I did a little research and found that there was a union representing union staff members. I did not know if the workers in my workplace were covered by a contract. If we were then this union was the union to which we would belong. After frantic phone calls, I found the person who would have been my shop steward if we had a contract. She told me that the workplace was not represented. The last time they had a contract was 20 years ago, before the organization “let go” of everyone working there who was on the bargaining committee. I was not surprised to learn that another business union could not help resolve the problems with the business union that I worked for.

After persistently sending emails to Bonnie demanding part-time hours, I was able to secure a 20-hour work week. I secured this over email so that I had this agreement from my boss in writing. A few weeks later, after additional verbal abuse and other workplace issues which are too numerous to discuss here, I quit that terrible job.

Quitting that job was important for my sanity, but the underlying problems were not resolved. There remained the issue of the hypocrisy of working for a place which claims to fight for the things that they don’t provide for their own employees. Still, it is possible to gain a certain sense of victory for fighting for something that you deserve. We cannot solve the problems of business unions overnight. If we are union staff members or business union members it is important that we learn how to deal with business unions. Through organizing on the job for ourselves and our fellow workers, we can set powerful examples for the struggles ahead.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (September 2014)

A lot of the knowledge and skills we pass down in the IWW are the basics, the initial steps, the first things you do. We try to institutionalize this stuff so members learn and then build off them. Rather than leaving people to themselves, making it necessary to reinvent the wheel every time, we promote member education through programs like the Organizer Trainings 101 and 102. The idea is that once you become familiar with what needs to be done, you’ll do those things automatically. And as you get better, you can assess how you’ve done or whether the steps and skills handed down need to be altered or improved in some way. But even those of us who know better make mistakes.

Like FW db said in his article “Toward A Union Of Organizers,” there are certain things that are good to do regardless of whether or not a Wobbly plans to organize at their workplace. Maybe organizing isn’t in your plans now, but those plans could change. Plus, sometimes situations arise and you need to react. Just such a situation happened to me recently, where simple mistakes and lack of preparation hurt my efforts.

At a warehouse on the south side of Minneapolis, I was employed at a small company that specialized in buying overstock and customer return loads from large online retailers. For a good part of the day, we would break down the pallets from these loads and sort through the items. While sorting one of these loads, a co-worker made a joke about taking a PlayStation 2 home with him in front of the warehouse supervisor. Such jokes were common, even by the supervisor, but this time it was different.

The next day, the owner of the company was in the building, and there were rumors that there were items missing from the load. This was actually pretty common. The packing lists rarely matched what actually came off the truck. Sometimes there were things missing, sometimes there was extra. This was known by everyone, including the owner.

Regardless of this fact, my co-worker who had cracked the joke was fired within the hour. Three years working at this company and he was out the door because of an offhand remark. Pissed off, two other co-workers and I confronted the warehouse supervisor about this. We quickly picked up that personal reasons between him and the fired co-worker were the root of all this. All eight of us on the floor were mad and very little work was getting done. A few hours later, the owner called a meeting, where he tried to explain why he fired the guy and why we should understand it. This ended with the two co-workers and I getting into a shouting match with him.

Tempers were flaring and you could cut the tension in the air with a knife. This was now a “hot shop.” I never planned on organizing there, but that was now irrelevant. We had to try and get this guy’s job back and to establish some meager concerted activity protection for the two others and I who stood up. I tried to push that anger toward a conversation later, rather than loud complaining that would eventually dissipate and collapse into hopelessness. After texting the fired coworker, we agreed to talk on the phone after work. With another co-worker I set up a one-on-one meeting for the next day, so we could talk about our options and so I could get contact info for everyone.

There was a preventable mistake with the planned one-on-one though: no firm date and time. As we got off work and entered the New Year’s Eve break, no one would get back to me. The timing was off, but my failure to do a simple thing like agree to a specific date and time led it to not being a priority on a busy holiday. If I had better prepared by sticking to what I’ve been taught and know how to do it, things may have turned out differently.

In the end, a few of us ended up quitting and finding other jobs, a Band-aid solution that solves nothing but transferring our misery to another low-wage job.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (October 2014)

The IWW has made dramatic strides in the last decade, returning to its roots as an effective and transformative labor union. Unique campaigns in diverse industries have won important gains for workers and significantly influenced the broader labor movement. Still, the building of enduring worker-led and operated industrial unions, a founding mandate of our union, has not yet been fully realized.

With the IWW’s strong recent track record, unparalleled experience in rank-and-file organizing, and rich learnings from our work, we are positioned to get to the next level of building durable industrial unions to scale.

Here are three ways we can get to the next level:

1)Take a step back. Too many Wobbly campaigns start with a group of workers deciding they are going to talk to their co-workers and organize their shop. The idea is after the shop or chain is organized, they will then figure out how to organize the industry. This approach is not working because a shop is not a significant unit in our economy; industries are.

Instead of jumping right in to organize your shop, take a step back and look at your industry. Your job as an IWW organizer is to organize your shop, but more so, it is to co-found a successful industrial union of workers in your industry. Understand the industry, its workers, employers, customers, investors, supply chain, distribution, and so forth. Build a model to win in the industry, including at your job.

Once you have taken a step back you might decide that your industrial union building effort actually should start with organizing your shop or chain, and that is totally fine. You will have the roadmap to do it right and the mission’s clarity in that your ultimate project is to build an effective industrial union. On the other hand, you might decide on a totally different path into an industry that at the moment does not directly involve your employer. That is fine, too, as then you have just avoided years of misdirected effort.

It is completely understandable to want to get the ball rolling, fight injustice at your shop or company, and then figure out the bigger picture as you go. But, by taking a step back you will avoid the fate that has felled many Wobbly campaigns and instead, you will be investing in big, durable victories to come.

2)Get clarity on your strategy. Many IWW campaigns have faltered for lack of a viable strategy or even a lack of any articulated strategy. We need to learn strategy-making in the IWW. Without finding a strategy that works for your industrial union building effort, the most courageous and hard-fought efforts will be beaten.

The two essential questions to formulate strategy are: where will we struggle and how will we win? “Where to struggle” means things like which industry, sector, geographic location, employers, or other stakeholders that will be our focus. “How to win” means the unique choices we make to achieve our winning objective in the field of struggle we have picked. These two strategy questions are adapted from the work of business school professor Roger Martin, which we modified in New York for use in worker organizations. A good way to start practicing with the “where to struggle” and “how to win” questions is to apply them to various worker organizing campaigns that you are familiar with, successful and unsuccessful, inside and outside the IWW.

More than anything, your strategy must assert the power you will need to win your demands. Asserting sufficient power is extremely difficult and will not come from generic formulations. Each industrial union effort will have to do its own thinking about this question. Different industries, sectors, workers, employers and geographies pose varied challenges and opportunities for power assertion. Always include secondary targets or influencers in your analysis. A common success factor for many worker organizing campaigns has been the ability to move those stakeholders.

Several IWW campaigns today have only an employer-level strategy, which is related to the need to step back, which I have discussed. Do not fall into that trap. The mission is to build an industrial union and that requires a cascade of strategies beyond your shop or employer.

Many industrial union building efforts will need an overall organizational strategy, an industry-level strategy, a sector-level strategy, and an employer-level strategy. You will answer the where to struggle and how to win question for each level. And each level is interrelated.

You should be able to write down the core of each strategy level in the ballpark of 25 words or less. This short statement will not replace a strategic plan; but, the best engines of power assertion are amenable to simple and brief articulation. It is much easier to remember and align a team of founding fellow workers around 25 words than it is 25 pages.

Scared you will assess and test several strategies but still choose the wrong path? You probably will. However, with a system for regular strategy reviews and the will to keep the struggle alive, you will adjust until you find the strategy that works. And adjust again if it stops working. With effective strategy-making, you and other workers will see big and game-changing results in IWW organizing.

3)Build a model. A strategy to win is necessary but not sufficient to create an industrial union. In casual conversation, we often interchange strategy and model. We cannot afford to make that mistake in the high-stakes and incredibly difficult project of founding an industrial union. Strategy is a component of an organizational model. A model includes all of your organization’s fundamental building blocks and how they interlace.

Which set of workers in the industry will you and your fellow workers seek out first? What channels will you prioritize to reach those workers? How will leaders develop?

If you are able to successfully assert power, what mechanism will use to define and hold the gains you win? A collective bargaining agreement? A code of conduct with large brands? A non-contractual standard, which was for example IWW Local 8’s approach on the Philadelphia waterfront?

How will you tie the value created by the industrial union to being a member of the organization? How will you retain members? What will you measure to see if your vision is making progress in the messy world of reality?

These are some key questions that a model must seek to answer and test. Though interrelated with strategy, hopefully, it is clear they require their own thinking and formulation. It takes a complete model for an industrial union to win, scale and endure.

Like strategy, the model almost never works right off the bat and that is fine. The key is to dialogue, debate, and document your model as founding co-workers and to stay alive. You will refine the model as you go and even transform it dramatically if needed. When it does click you will change your industry and your workplace, and maybe even the labor movement and the world.

A member of the New York City IWW, Daniel Gross founded the worker center Brandworkers and helped launch the IWW Starbucks Workers Union while he was a barista at the company.