#organizing

Architects Are Toiling Under Brutal Working Conditions - An interview with Andrew Daley
▻https://jacobin.com/2023/05/architects-union-organizing-international-association-of-machinists-and-aer

Aux États Unis les idées d’Ayn Rand ont une place hégémonique dans la pensée des ouvriers white collar . Elles constituent un obstacle majeur pour les efforts de syndicalisation. Cet interview tourne autour des efforts pour syndiquer les employés des bureaux d’architecture.

14.5.2023 Interview by Alex N. Press - In 2021, workers at SHoP, a New York architecture firm, filed for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union election with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. They felt overworked (Curbed reported on a SHoP worker who “was hospitalized with pneumonia after working a 110-hour week and felt pressured to work while his wife was in the middle of childbirth”), and some of them carried a heavy load of student debt. They wanted a collective avenue of redress and a means to stabilize their work lives. The Architecture Lobby, a nonprofit that advocates for reform within the industry, has existed for nearly a decade, but SHoP was poised to become the first private sector architectural firm to unionize since the 1940s.

The backlash was swift. According to the workers, SHoP management launched an anti-union campaign, hiring prime union-busting law firm Proskauer Rose LLP to craft the strategy. Management warned of losing clients and instituted an employee stock-ownership program (ESOP) that, while not providing a seat at the table or say over the direction of the firm, functioned as a wedge, peeling off support for the union by distributing company profits to workers in the form of company shares. It worked: fearing that it would lose the union election were it to go through with it, the SHoP union withdrew its petition in February of 2022.

Andrew Daley was one of the SHoP workers who supported the union. During the campaign, Daley decided to make a change: he quit his job at SHoP and joined the Machinists as a full-time organizer. Since joining, Daley has assisted workers at Bernheimer Architecture, another New York–based firm, in winning voluntary union recognition. Earlier this week, another campaign went public, with employees at Snøhetta, a high-end firm, filing for an NLRB election.

Jacobin’s Alex N. Press spoke to Daley about the SHoP campaign, the biggest issues facing architects, and his hopes for the current organizing efforts. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Alex N. Press

You’re a full-time union organizer for the Machinists now, but you were an architect until recently. How did you decide to go all in on trying to organize the sector?

Andrew Daley

I’m a licensed architect in the state of New York and have practiced in four different states. I’ve been in the profession for twelve years, with experience at big and small firms. I’ve been an independent contractor, I’ve done construction. I’ve worked in lots of different environments. At those places, I’ve tried to agitate for better conditions for myself and people around me, whether that was by talking one-on-one to the owner or through committees or working groups. I had familiarity with unions, particularly from friends who are writers, but I think I had a sort of NIMBY [“not in my backyard”] attitude like, “I love this, it’s great for everybody, but I just can’t see that as a possibility for architecture.”

In the summer of 2020 at the firm that I had then been at for around six years, we were rethinking firm policies on equity and diversity. We met with hesitation, an attitude of, “We’re doing the best that we can.” Then, they laid a bunch of people off in September of 2020. At that point, a few people, not myself, started connecting with organizers and talking about the possibility of unionizing so that even if we couldn’t stop layoffs, we could build a structure for them.

I was brought into that conversation a few months after that, when there were about ten people in the group. We organized for another nine months after that, and I wound up leaving a little bit before the campaign went public right before Christmas of 2021. I was considering a shift to the public sector, but the Machinists asked if I’d be interested in becoming an organizer. I hadn’t thought that was a possibility, but I couldn’t pass it up.

When the SHoP campaign went public, they had about 65 percent of workers supporting the union, and then there was another round of layoffs. Morale was low. But they filed. Ultimately, the firm ran a heavy anti-union campaign, and the workers pulled their petition, because a lot of the tactics started working.

After that, the question was, what do we want to do at this point? We’d had a big push, we had thousands of followers on an Instagram that we hadn’t expected to get that kind of attention. People were interested in what was happening and devastated by the fact that it had failed. But a number of groups had reached out about organizing, and without exception they still felt they needed to unionize. One group in particular was the Bernheimer Architecture group, which included one member from the SHoP campaign who had been laid off and taken a job there afterward.

Bernheimer went public in September of 2022 and got voluntary recognition. Now, we have around eight to twelve active campaigns (though of course, some of those might go dark, hit plateaus, and so on). There are around a dozen more firms where we’ve had some conversations. My point being: there is a lot of interest.

Alex N. Press

Are all of these firms in New York?

Andrew Daley

No, but the epicenter is here. A lot of that has to do with the critical mass of architecture in New York. Plus, there’s always been an ethos that the only place to make a decent living in architecture is in New York, which is a backward assumption: most of the architects I know in other cities weren’t making that much less than I was but had a way cheaper cost of living.

So New York has a big concentration of architects and also the worst working conditions, which explains why these efforts took off here. But we’re talking to groups in Los Angeles, San Francisco, one in the Midwest, a firm with offices across the country. That’s exciting, because if this were just in New York, or at one type of profile of work, I’d think we didn’t have as good of a read on the industry as I’d have hoped. But instead, it’s all over the map in terms of location, size, and discipline. These are systemic issues throughout the industry that need to be addressed in a systemic way.

Alex N. Press

For people who might not be familiar with the architecture world, can you explain what you mean when you refer to different types and echelons of work?

Andrew Daley

I don’t want to use the term “starchitect,” but there are famous firms in the field. These aren’t identifying the firms we’re working with, but some famous firms would be Zaha Hadid, the SHoPs of the world, Bjarke Ingles, SOM, and Frank Gehry — high-profile people who a lay person may be familiar with. But the ones we are actually working with: some are doing mega-developments, some are doing high-rise luxury residential, some are small-scale retail interiors, some do really institutional work, some do government work, some do massive governmental and infrastructural planning. It’s not any one kind of work — it’s all kinds.

Alex N. Press

So you went through the SHoP campaign as a worker, and you referred to the anti-union campaign that peeled off enough support that the union ended up withdrawing the NLRB petition. What have you and the Machinists learned from that so it doesn’t end that way going forward?

Andrew Daley

As much as there are similarities in how each industry fights unions, there are also differences in tactics, and now that we’ve seen it in this industry, we know what to expect. We assume firms that don’t want this to happen will follow SHoP’s playbook. We can learn from how it played out. We’re open with every group about what they might expect.

We also tell those groups that they’re going to have to call out their employers. Firms should know that if they’re going to break the law and pressure their employees rather than respect their rights, workers will put it in the press and make what is happening clear to the public. Public perception shifting on the campaign helps make those anti-union tactics stop. We will make things public, we will file unfair labor practice (ULP) charges.

Another thing we’ve thought a lot about is the path that the Bernheimer group laid of voluntary recognition and a collaborative environment with their owner. We aren’t steering the ship in the negotiations at that firm; we’re a fly on the wall advising, but it’s about what they want in their workplace collectively. Do I think any of the firms that have big corporate structures and an ethos about being a corporation will offer voluntary recognition? No. But do I think that firms that are still owned by founding partners, or even the next generation of partners that may understand that they have something to gain here? Yes, it’s possible.

The Conde Nast group is another model, where they didn’t file for a union election, but they knew they had support and figured out other ways of putting pressure on management. It might be harder to replicate that within an industry where there’s no union density, but it’s an interesting strategy.

Alex N. Press

Do you think what happened at Bernheimer could be replicable at other firms?

Andrew Daley

Yes. In one way, Andy Bernheimer is incredibly unique in how he thinks about himself, how he thinks about his practice, and how he thinks about labor overall compared to a lot of other firm owners. That being said, it’s also not that different from any other firm. It’s a twenty-person firm; there are tons of twenty-person firms throughout the country and definitely in New York. Maybe the Bernheimer playbook doesn’t work when we’re talking about a two thousand–person firm that has offices all around the world, but even up to a hundred and fifty employees, it’s something that we can point to. And Bernheimer is going to set the standard in the industry with its contract; it’s going to be the only contract of a private sector architecture firm, so that’s something to follow too.

Alex N. Press

Some of the shops you’re working with are small, and the first thing an employer will cite to oppose a union is the competitive pressure in the industry. What’s your plan to handle bargaining and winning multiple first contracts when these shops get union recognition?

Andrew Daley

We make it abundantly clear to everybody that their salaries are not going to double overnight. The first contract might only get minimal gains in terms of salary increases. But what we are going to be able to get is a lot of noneconomic things and protections that, frankly, don’t exist right now.

Another thing that we are going to be pushing is policies that in one sense are economic but in another sense are disincentives for working a lot of overtime. The model of the industry is, “I have all exempt workers, so I don’t have to pay them overtime. I’m getting pinched in every direction in terms of my fee, and the only way to make it all back is to require my staff to do excessive amounts of unpaid overtime.” That’s what we’re conditioned to do from day one in architecture school.

What that overlooks is the amount of inefficiency that happens within those hours of work that a client never sees and doesn’t care about, from internal miscommunication, to back-and-forth between multiple different partners reviewing a project, to redoing things not necessarily in the name of a better product. If we put in lots of disincentives in contracts (and it might not be time and a half right away, and it might not be forty hours right away), but if we build in structures to guard against it, we’re giving time back to all of the employees, because most firms are going to say, “Well, we can’t afford to pay the overtime.” So then we’re all in agreement: let’s make sure it doesn’t happen. That’s the biggest one to me because it trickles down to everything else.

Alex N. Press

The last time there were private sector architects joining unions in the United States was the 1930s. Unemployment in the sector was a key issue back then. With these recent campaigns, a lot of architects have mentioned overtime as a major issue. Is that what is driving this push now, or are there other problems?

Andrew Daley

A lot of things are driving it. Being an at-will employee itself is soul crushing. I’ve been laid off. I was tapped on the shoulder and asked, “Hey, do you have a minute?” This was at a three-person fabrication studio and it wasn’t like, “Here’s two weeks’ notice.” It was, “Go home now.” That was a unique situation, but it’s not uncommon, not only in architecture of course, but in this field, there’s very little severance, and what you get is not commensurate with the rest of the market. So not only can you be dismissed at will, but you’re not set up to do anything on the flip side of that, which leads you to rush into something new to stay afloat.

A lot of issues that people talk about come back to uncompensated overtime. Burnout is directly related to hours. Work-life balance is directly related to hours. How much you’re getting paid is directly related to hours: if you’re getting paid an okay salary, but then you amortize that out over your hourly rate, which is 25 or 50 percent overtime, all of a sudden that wage doesn’t look so good.

Alex N. Press

There are some stereotypes about architects, though The Fountainhead may be responsible for that. Are there actual peculiarities to this work or this type of worker, be they ideological or something to do with the job itself?

Andrew Daley

The general public does perceive architects a certain way, as frustrated geniuses toiling away, trying to get the world to understand their singular brilliance. The idea is that it’s an individual pursuit, and if you’re just good enough and work hard enough at it, then everyone will see you for what you are — that’s how people see Frank Lloyd Wright, for example.

But what we miss is that he had hundreds of employees. We never talk about Wright’s workers. And not only that: he started a school so that he could not only have workers, but have people pay to apprentice under him. So even when we think about this romantic time, the stereotype wasn’t true either. We aren’t taught that history, and we are really bad at educating the public about what we do and how much time it actually takes.

Alex N. Press

You changed your life to try to organize a nonunion sector. Is there anything you’d like to say about all of this on a personal level?

Andrew Daley

I might be the only licensed architect who is doing this full time. A lot of people ask me, “Do you miss architecture? Do you miss design?” In a lot of ways, yes. I miss the camaraderie of it. I miss being collaborative with people on a project. I miss seeing projects come to life.

But in a lot of ways, this is similar. All of these different campaigns are different projects, and I’m helping people get rights that they don’t have now. I feel closer and more connected to the industry than I ever have before. In part, that’s because it’s now my job to be able to connect on these things. But personally, I now have a reasonable work-life balance and a healthy working environment. I don’t think I’ve ever had that in the industry before, and that’s what I want to be able to create for everyone else.

For example, I talk to so many people who are parents who find themselves in a situation where they’ll leave work at six, catch their kids for a little bit, and then log back on for three more hours. That’s soul-crushing. I would love to see it not be like that any longer. That’s what I’m fighting for.

#USA #New_York #travail #syndicalisme #organizing #architecture #Ayn_Rand #Fountainhead

In Chicago, a Socialist Teacher Takes on the Entrenched Political Machine
▻https://jacobin.com/2023/02/chicago-11th-ward-alderman-election-ambria-taylor-dsa

Die Probleme der kleinen Leute sind überall die gleichen: Besser Schulen, bezahlbare Wohnungen, funktionierende öffentliche Einrichtungen und Transportmittel und die Beseitigung von Gewalt und Verbrechen. Der Süden von Chicago ist wie eine viel härtere Ausgabe der härtesten Ecken von Berlin Neukölln.

In der Southside ist die Wahlkampagne einer Sozialistin Teil der Bewegung für einen gemeinsamen Kapf der Einwohner um eine Stadtverwaltung ohne die traditionelle Korruption und Vetternwirtschaft. Bis heute wird die Stadt wie der Erbhof einer Bügermeisterdynastie verwaltet. Damit soll jetzt Schluß sein.

24.2.2023 by Caleb Horton - An interview with Ambria Taylor

Chicago’s 11th Ward is the heart of the old “Chicago machine,” one of the largest, longest-running, and most powerful political forces in US history. For most of the twentieth century, the Chicago machine organized the political, economic, and social order of America’s second city. Patronage rewards like plum city jobs were awarded to lieutenants who could best turn out the vote for the Democratic Party, which in turn provided funds, connections, and gifts to the ruling Daley family and their inner circle.

Mayor Richard J. Daley, often called “the last big city boss,” ruled Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Daley spearheaded infrastructure and urban renewal projects that physically segregated white and black parts of the city with expressways and housing blocks and drove black displacement from desirable areas. He tangled with Martin Luther King Jr over school and housing desegregation, sicced the cops on antiwar protestors at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and gave “shoot to kill” orders during the uprisings following King’s assassination.

The Chicago machine’s glory days are past, but the legacy of the Daleys lives on. Relatives and friends of Mayor Daley still hold office throughout Chicago, and his nephew, Patrick Daley-Thompson, had a strong hold over City Council as the 11th Ward alderman until July 2022, when he was convicted of tax fraud and lying to federal bank regulators and forced to resign.

Although the Daley family has lost direct control over the 11th Ward, their presence is still felt in the neighborhood of Bridgeport. While racial segregation is not explicitly enforced, the neighborhood still has a reputation among many older black residents as a “no-go zone,” and throughout the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, white gangs roamed the streets with weapons questioning anyone who looked “out of place” — a callback to the racist mob violence perpetrated by the Hamburg Athletic Club, of which a teenage Daley was a member a whole century prior.

So what is Ambria Taylor, a socialist public school teacher, doing running for office in the backyard of this entrenched political fiefdom? Jacobin contributor Caleb Horton sat down with Taylor to discuss why she chose to run at this time and in this place, and how she is building a movement that can overturn the power of one of the nation’s most notorious political dynasties.

Taylor launched her campaign in October 2021, when Daley-Thompson was still in office. After a few months of campaigning, the 11th Ward began to undergo major changes. First Daley-Thompson was arrested and then convicted of fraud, and then the ten-year ward remap took place, removing parts of the old 11th Ward and adding parts of Chinatown and McKinley Park.

In just a few short months, Taylor was facing a newly-appointed incumbent, a new map, and six other candidates for alderman. Taylor is the only progressive in the race.

Caleb Horton

Why did you decide to run for office?

Ambria Taylor

Growing up, I experienced poverty and homelessness in rural Illinois. I moved to Chicago when I was seventeen to escape that. I slept on my brother’s floor, shared an air mattress with my mom.

Chicago saved my life in a lot of ways. Urban areas have public transportation, they have dense development where you can walk to get what you need, where you can get to a job without a car. Public goods help people survive.

Experiencing all that defined me. It’s why I’m so committed to protecting public goods like affordable public transportation and affordable housing. It’s why I’m a socialist. It’s why I got my master’s degree and became a teacher.

I had a chance to grow up and live a decent life thanks to the strong public goods and services available in Chicago, but unfortunately that’s all been under attack due to neoliberalism, the hollowing out of the public sphere, and the assaults on unions.

That’s why I’m running. We deserve a city that works for everyone like it worked for me. We deserve a city that, in the richest country in the history of the world, provides for the people who live here and make it run. And here in Chicago we have been building the movement for the city we deserve through making the ward office a space for people who are marginalized to build power.

Caleb Horton

What do you want to do when you’re in office?

Ambria Taylor

In Chicago the local ward office has a lot of local power. The alderman is kind of like a mini-mayor of their district. They have power to make proposals for spending taxpayer money, and they each get a budget of discretionary funds of about $1.5 million annually for ward projects.

Aldermen have influence in the committee that oversees Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts. On TIFs, we gave $5 million in taxpayer money to Pepsi and $1.5 million to Vienna Beef.

We shouldn’t be taking money away from our schools to fund giveaways to megacorporations, period. But if we’re going to have TIFs, residents should have democratic input into how those funds are spent. We have dozens of empty storefronts in what should be our commercial hubs — why not fund small businesses providing needed services and quality of life to residents?

My dream is to, for one thing, involve the public in development decisions. But most of all, I want to ensure that money goes to things that benefit residents. Things they can see and experience, like cleaning alleys or tree trimming or sidewalk maintenance. In this ward, there’s a history of “the deal is made, and then they have a public meeting about it.” I want things to be the other way around.

I’m excited for the potential of what we could do here if there’s a ward office that’s open and collaborative and is genuinely trying to do things that benefit the most vulnerable.

Caleb Horton

Could you talk a little bit about the ward’s political history, and why it has been such an “insiders’ club” of decision makers?

Ambria Taylor

We are on the Near South Side of Chicago. This ward now includes Bridgeport, Chinatown, and parts of a few neighborhoods called Canaryville, Armor Square, and McKinley Park.

The Daley family is from this area. The home that’s been in the family for generations is here. The family has been powerful here for a really long time. They were also involved in various clubs and associations, like the Hamburg Athletic Club that took part in the racist white riots in 1919.

The 11th Ward is well known for being an enclave of extremely aggressive anti-black racism. In the 1990s there was a young black boy who dared cross over here from Bronzeville to put air in his bicycle tires from a place that had free air, and he was put into a coma by teenage boys.

One of those boys was well connected to the Mafia here. Potential witnesses for the trial who knew this boy and were present when it happened weren’t willing to come forward. This happened in the 1990s. Think about how old the fourteen-, fifteen-, sixteen-year-old boys would be now. Many people who are influential now were alive during that time and were wrapped up in that culture. This was considered a sundown town, and to some people still is.

Things are changing rapidly. People move to the suburbs, new people move in, things change over time. There still is a vocal conservative contingent here, but this is also a place where Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary two times. Because of where we stand at this moment amid all those contradictions, we have the chance to make monumental change.

There’s always been dissatisfaction with the machine, but we’ve started to cohere that dissatisfaction and the latent progressive energy into an organized base. We’ve brought together a base of people around progressive issues that many have said couldn’t exist here. We’re proving them wrong and proving the narrative about this part of the city wrong.

As socialists, narratives are often used against us. It’s that narrative of what’s possible. The “Oh, we love Bernie, but he could never win. . . .” We say that a better world is possible. And what we’re seeing on the doors is that people are very excited to see a democratic socialist on the ballot. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the city running for office who has “socialist” on their literature. That’s big whether or not we win.

Caleb Horton

In what ways is this a movement campaign?

Ambria Taylor

We launched this campaign very early. We launched in October 2021 with an election at the end of February 2023. We did this because we needed time to organize.

We started by holding community meetings for months. We brought communities together to articulate their desires for the city — like for streets and sanitation, public safety, the environment — and made those our platform planks.

We engaged people with what they want to see happen in the ward: “How do you want an alderman to be working toward making those things happen? Let’s talk about how the city council works. Let’s talk about how the ward office operates and what budget it has.”

Our residents have an appetite to get into the nitty-gritty about what an alderman can actually do to make progress on the things they want to see in this community and for Chicago. They want to take ownership over their own affairs.

This is what political education can look like in the context of an aldermanic race. The people ask questions, articulate their needs, and we try to put that through the lens of what we can do as an aldermanic office and as organized communities.

One thing we’ve found impactful is coming together for creative events. For instance, we had a huge block party with the owner and staff of a business called Haus of Melanin. This is a black-owned beauty bar that was vandalized twice in the months after they started up. A hair salon for black people? You can see why that might piss racists off.

So we stepped in and built a relationship with them. We threw this huge block party, bringing a bunch of people together to say, “We’re going to celebrate that there are going to be black people in this neighborhood. There are going to be black-owned businesses that cater to black people.” And a lot of people came out in this neighborhood to say, “We support this business, we love that it’s here, and nobody is going to scare our neighbors away.”

The business owner had talked about leaving. She had stylists leave because of the vandalism that happened. Haus of Melanin might have been chased out if the community didn’t turn out to say that these racists don’t represent us and we’re not going to take it. All of that is what a movement campaign looks like.

Caleb Horton

This is the city’s first Asian-majority ward, and the current alderperson is the city’s first Chinese American alderperson. Some people have said that this is an office that should go to an Asian American or a Chinese American person — that you as a white person shouldn’t be running for this office. How do you respond to that?

Ambria Taylor

We do remaps based on the census every ten years or so, and there was a big push to remap the 11th Ward to include Chinatown. Before the remap, the 11th Ward was 40 percent Asian, mostly Chinese. I think the biggest thing this remap did is unite a center politically that is already mapped culturally.

The incumbent I’m running against was appointed by an unpopular mayor and is backed by the Daley family. Her father worked for Mayor Richard M. Daley. Richard M. Daley and John Daley sent out a letter backing our current alderman.

It’s really exciting for this Asian-majority ward to have the opportunity to elect a representative they trust will fight for their interests.

My team has worked hard to do everything on the campaign the way we plan to run our ward office. We have made the campaign a space to build power for people who are marginalized. We have a huge campaign team that includes canvassers who speak Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taishanese. Just today we used all three languages while we were at the doors.

We make sure that people who are multilingual are present at our community meetings. Also every single piece of lit we’ve printed has been translated into three languages: English, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish.

This election is not just about the candidate as a representative, but about electing someone who is going to focus on issues that matter to the people of this ward. This is bigger than one person, and we have been able to build a lot of meaningful connections.

For example, we’ve made deep connections with Chinese-language newspapers, and that relationship is going to go a long way. We’ve had Chinese-language newspapers commenting on union rallies I was going to, my Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) endorsement, and so on, and we want to continue to nurture that relationship.

Caleb Horton

How has your experience as a Chicago Public Schools teacher influenced your politics?

Ambria Taylor

Teaching in Chicago Public Schools was really hard. I kind of expected that, but you have to live it for it to truly sink in.

After a year of student teaching, I started my first lead teaching position in the 2019–2020 year. A month and a half later, we went on strike for almost two weeks. We came back to the classroom, and just as I was trying to get back into the swing of things, COVID hit.

I became a remote teacher of middle schoolers, and things were really difficult. We had to eventually juggle hybrid learning and lack of staff. I became the union delegate for our school and experienced horrible retaliation from my principal. But through that, I learned to organize people in my building around workplace issues even if they had different politics than me.

I saw how the workplace can unite us — it gives you something to convene around, and it’s hard to have anything interfere with that because your reality is informing it all. Public education is in a lot of trouble, and I firsthand experienced these schools unraveling at the seams.

The city allocates money to bullshit while lead paint flakes off the walls and our buildings fall apart. As teachers, we face the struggle of trying to get through the day while kids are being put in the auditorium a few classes at a time because there is not enough staff to supervise them.

That influenced me because a huge part of my campaign as a socialist is to fight against neoliberalism, austerity, and private interests’ attempt to narrow what the public sector does by choking these various public services and then saying, “It doesn’t work!”

What is happening with Chicago Public Schools is happening everywhere — at the Chicago Public Library, in our transit system. My dream is being part of a movement that will help save our public sector.

Caleb Horton

The Chicago political machine faced an unsuccessful challenger in the 11th Ward four years ago. What makes your campaign different?

Ambria Taylor

There have been other challengers to the machine politicians in the 11th Ward. Usually it’s a person who has a few volunteers, and they raise less than $5,000. We’ve been able to raise over $90,000, and we have had over a hundred people volunteer for us. That’s something that challengers haven’t been able to muster up, and understandably so — it’s not an easy thing to do.

The people of the ward want to support this kind of effort, and despite their modest fundraising, we’ve seen previous small campaigns still give the machine a run for its money. We had a guy take Patrick Daley to a runoff election, and he raised less than $5,000. What that shows is that a strong campaign stands a chance, and we’ve made a strong effort here.

Caleb Horton

What are the biggest issues facing the 11th Ward?

Ambria Taylor

Environmental issues are huge here. Our air quality is eight to nine times worse than northern parts of the city. Our city is very segregated. The further north you get the whiter it gets, and you will notice that the South Side has way worse air quality and way more heavy — or “dirty” — industry that pollutes our air and our soil.

We used to have a Department of Environment that ticketed polluters that were breaking the rules and causing toxic contamination. That department is gone now, and the ticketing has gone down. When ticketing does happen, it happens on the North Side.

So there is a lot we can do here, like reestablishing the Department of Environment and working with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to make sure that the polluters in this area are being held to the standards they should be held to; also, when it comes to developments, saying, “No, I will not support new dirty industry coming to this region which is already severely overburdened.”

Caleb Horton

Public safety has come up a lot this election. What do you believe the 11th Ward could be doing about this?

Ambria Taylor

Public safety has become a major talking point this year. That’s not to say that everything is safe and everything is fine: we have carjackings, shootings, and assaults. People experiencing violence is unacceptable.

However, a lot of people have given in to saying, “I’m the alderman and I love the police.” What that does is absolve our leadership of any responsibility. We’ve had police officers responding to forty thousand mental health calls a year. There’s been a big movement in Chicago to shift things like mental health and domestic violence calls to other city workers instead of the police.

What we’ve seen is poverty and austerity are on the rise, and when you have high poverty, you have high crime. We need resources for young people, better social services, housing, and mental health care. A lot of people who we’ve canvassed agree that police are not enough and we need to address violence holistically.

Caleb Horton

What about affordable housing? Where do you stand on that?

Ambria Taylor

Here in the 11th Ward, there has been a push for affordable housing, but it’s really hit or miss as far as enforcement goes. Also, when it comes to affordability, we need to be stricter on how we define it. Right now, developments can say there are affordable units in a building even if they are not truly affordable and are just a little cheaper than other units in the building.

We want affordable housing, and we want to hold developers’ feet to the fire as far as prices go. Having a resident-led ward gives us the opportunity to ask developers, “What do you plan to charge for the units?” and get them to commit to something truly affordable for people to live in.

We must also expand public housing. Chicago has lots of money for it, yet we’re selling land that belongs to the housing authority off to private interests. That needs to stop. I’m interested in partnering with residents who live in public housing to make sure it improves and expands.

I also support just cause for evictions and lifting the ban on rent control in Illinois. We have a ban on passing rent control — we can’t even introduce a bill on it. I very much support the effort to overturn that.

Caleb Horton

What are your plans for this progressive base that you’re building?

Ambria Taylor

From here on out, if I’m the next alderman, we will continue to organize through the ward office and institute participatory budgeting and resident-led zoning and development boards. We will make serious changes to how the ward office is engaging with the people who live here.

And if we don’t win, we have movement institutions: we have the 11th Ward Independent Political Organization, we have DSA. We need to make sure we’re actually organizing people into groups where we can continue to grow what we’re doing. I’m really interested in where we are going to take this.
–-----
Filed Under
#United_States #Politics #Cities #racism #democratic_socialists_of_america #Chicago_City_Council

A Live Chat with Ambria Taylor, 11th Ward Alderperson Candidate!
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9VYjSzwN_Q

6 Candidates Are Challenging Ald. Nicole Lee In 11th Ward Race
▻https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/01/11/six-candidates-are-challenging-ald-nicole-lee-in-the-11th-ward

https://lede-admin.blockclubchicago.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/01/11thWardRace.jpg

Two teachers, a veteran police officer, a firefighter and an attorney are among the challengers looking to unseat Lee, who was appointed to the City Council seat in 2022.

Ambria Taylor | Chicago News | WTTW
▻https://news.wttw.com/elections/voters-guide/2023/Ambria-Taylor

Chicago DSA Endorses Ambria Taylor and Warren Williams
▻https://midwestsocialist.com/2023/01/11/chicago-dsa-endorses-ambria-taylor-and-warren-williams-post-petiti

#USA #Chicago #southside #Rassismus #Armut #Gewalt #Korruption #Sicherheit #Politik #Organizing

How Socialists and Trade Unionists Built a New Labor Organizing Model During the Pandemic
▻https://jacobinmag.com/2022/02/ue-dsa-ewoc-covid-19-new-organizing-labor

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/11164952/image-wabtec-strike.jpg

Millions of workers want a union. The Emergency Worker Organizing Committee, a project launched by socialists and the United Electrical Workers at the beginning of the pandemic, offers insights into how to organize them.

We know the US labor movement is too small. Our current union density, or membership rate, is very low, about 10 percent of the total workforce. This includes around just 6 percent of private sector workers, and it’s been falling nearly every year for decades. To put this crisis in perspective, the union membership rate hasn’t been this low in more than a century. Wages, benefits, and working conditions for many workers are not improving, and in some ways have gotten worse in recent decades.

Furthermore, union membership is concentrated in too few states. Nearly half of the 14 million union members live in just six states. And in ten states, the union membership rate is less than 5 percent. That means there are too many elected officials that have no fear of voting against union and workers’ interests. Politically, we won’t accomplish many ambitious socialist goals with such a low level of worker organization. A socialist movement requires a strong and militant labor movement.

In the 1950s, the union membership rate was higher than 30 percent. We need to strengthen the labor movement dramatically to meet and ideally surpass this figure. A higher union membership rate will mean more worker power overall.

But unions are doing too little organizing. From the 1950s through the 1970s, an average of about 500,000 private sector workers participated in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections every year, about 1 percent of the workforce annually. But in recent years, there have been only around 1,000 representation elections per year in the private sector, with less than 0.1 percent of all workers participating. To increase union density by just 1 percent per year, we would need to organize over 1 million workers annually. But current campaigns are organizing only tens of thousands of workers every year. Even if we include union organizing outside the NLRB, this number is likely not much greater. Aside from unions, there are alternative organizations that help workers, such as worker centers. But they’re also not organizing at a large enough scale either, although the data on that is less clear.

Why We Aren’t Organizing Enough

Asilver lining in this trend is that the union win rate of NLRB elections is pretty decent, at about two-thirds of elections in recent years. So unions know how to win organizing campaigns, but they aren’t doing enough of them. Why is that?

Mainly, organizing campaigns that are well-run and successful are very staff-intensive and time consuming, with most campaigns having to counter outrageous union busting and multiple unfair labor practices by employers. Of course, this is because labor law isn’t good enough, and passing something like the PRO Act would be very helpful. But historically, we tend to get labor law reform when the labor movement is strong and disruptive enough to win it.

We also have a major structural problem in the labor movement. Very few unions allow any interested worker to join or get trained to organize. You have to be in a workplace that the union targets for an organizing campaign. Then you have to win your campaign, usually in an election. And then you have to bargain for a contract. Only then do you become a regular dues-paying union member. That process can take years. The average amount of time just to bargain a first contract is over a year. Some workers win an election but never get a contract at all, and thus don’t become union members, even after all that effort. This whole standard organizing process is slow, resource intensive, and involves too few workers.

How to Reach More Workers
Meanwhile, more workers really want to be union members! The most recent annual Gallup survey recorded a modern record union approval rating of 68 percent, the highest level since 1965. Another recent poll found strong support among workers for unions at their workplace, with the highest support from those who earn less than $25,000 per year (58 percent), between $25,000 and $50,000 per year (57 percent), and among people with less than a high school education (60 percent). More than half of lower-income workers would support a strike at their job.

A major study in 2017 found that nearly 50 percent of nonunion workers would vote to join a union. Considering just the private sector, there are about 100 million nonunion workers, so let’s assume that roughly 50 million workers want a union. Recent years have seen a little more than 50,000 workers vote in annual NLRB elections, so at the rate that the labor movement is organizing, it will take about one thousand years to reach all these workers! How do we connect with more workers when current union efforts only organize a very small fraction?

One way is for unions to be much more open about providing organizing training and assistance to workers who want it. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is the only union I’m aware of that allows any worker to join and get training and organizing assistance. That’s a great example other unions should follow. Mainstream unions don’t do this because, with few exceptions, they are committed to the idea of a membership based only in workplaces with exclusive representation and a union contract. Any worker who wants to learn to organize and get some help fighting for improvements on the job is out of luck if they can’t convince a union to prioritize their workplace for an organizing campaign.

This traditional union framework is simpler, provides organizational stability, and is easier to staff, but it leaves out too many workers who want a union. So we need to find another way to get organizing assistance to the millions of workers who want it.

Organizing Training Projects Are an Answer
An important concept for us to remember is that any group of workers organizing together to improve working conditions is acting like a union. They may not have official recognition and a contract, but they are a union nonetheless, and they can organize to win things. Many workers don’t realize this. But they usually need some help to start organizing, since this is a challenging and risky endeavor with many ways to fail.

That leads us to what I’ll call Organizing Training Projects, which are programs available for workers to learn about union organizing. A long-running example is Labor Notes, which has organizing training schools and materials like Secrets of a Successful Organizer. There’s also Jane McAlevey’s Strike School, which is based on the organizing philosophy found in her book No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age.

And there is also the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), a joint project of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). EWOC started in 2020 to help workers organize during the pandemic. I’ve been involved in EWOC since almost the beginning, and have become very interested in how it offers organizing training and campaign assistance to more workers who want and need help. It’s worth discussing how EWOC functions in some detail, because it provides a model for how we can overcome the organizing problem confronting unions today.

How Does EWOC Work?
Since March 2020, EWOC has had over 1,300 volunteers, with over a hundred currently involved, and has two staff coordinators. Roles include organizing, research, media, communications, training, data administration, political education, and fundraising.

Workers contact EWOC by filling out a form on the website. An intake organizer then reaches out to them for basic information about their workplace and issues. EWOC’s goal is to contact the worker within three days of getting their initial form. If the worker wants to move forward, they are assigned an advanced organizer to develop an organizing plan together for as long as they want to continue. Contact with the workers has been primarily on the phone or over Zoom during the pandemic, and this may shift to more in-person meetings when the pandemic subsides.

EWOC has also developed a six-session weekly training program that workers are encouraged to take. It has organizing materials on its website, such as videos, organizing basics, and a training manual. It also holds panel discussions where workers talk about their campaigns and the concept of “rank-and-file unionism.”

There is training for organizers to learn how to assist EWOC internally. Some of the workers who contact EWOC will run their campaign, go through the training, and then become an EWOC volunteer organizer.

EWOC is also experimenting with helping workers form networks at large companies with multiple locations, like retail chains. That’s an incredible challenge, since we need to coordinate organizing at many locations at the same time and build power with enough workers to move a large employer.

EWOC’s Organizing Methodology
The basic EWOC organizing framework is covered in the training and in our conversations with workers. It shares common features with Labor Notes, McAlevey, IWW, and many other union trainings. But the best training is to actually organize, and workers will learn this as they do it.

The organizing follows these steps:

Conversations among coworkers are the foundation to everything.
The initial worker(s) should form an organizing committee, and talk with more coworkers.
They should map the workplace, identify all the workers and leaders, know who talks with whom, and assess workers on their support for taking action.
They should identify common and deeply felt issues.
They should frame demands, for example in a petition, which can get majority support.
They should do “inoculation” against the likely boss response.
They should take majority actions, for example a march on the boss, and make their demands.
They can assess what happened and continue. If they win something, that’s great — claim the win and organize for more with an escalating campaign.
If they don’t win yet, regroup and try again.
EWOC’s Results
Here’s my experience as an advanced organizer to give a deeper sense of how this works out. I have taken cases with about seventy-five workers who reached out to EWOC, and I was able to talk with about half of them — the rest never got back to me. About twenty-five of the cases became campaigns in the sense that the worker engaged in some organizing activity, which means talking with coworkers and trying to form an organizing committee. Of these, a handful so far have been successful in that the workers won something, usually regarding COVID issues. Some campaigns are still ongoing.

Some of the workers will organize for wins and may stop there, while others will keep organizing over time. Some want to go further and run an election to get official union recognition and a contract. In one of those cases I worked on, the workers did a majority petition and made some gains, and I then discussed union options with them. I helped connect them to a union, and they won their election and are now in contract bargaining.

Overall, after almost two years of operation, over three thousand workers have reached out to EWOC, and we attempted to connect with all of them. Over 800 had intake calls and were assigned to an organizer for further discussions. These workers were employed at over 600 different employers. Of these, nearly 400 campaigns launched with some organizing activity. Of these, there have been about sixty successful campaigns that have won improved conditions or stopped concessions so far, involving thousands of impacted workers.

Some of the wins include fast food, grocery, and retail workers winning better COVID protections, sick leave and raises, graduate workers getting raises and other improvements, and health care and social service workers winning safety improvements. EWOC has also connected over a dozen workplaces with a union, with many winning elections or voluntary recognition so far. There have also been several successful strikes at EWOC-supported campaigns.

There have been about sixty successful EWOC-supported campaigns that have won improved conditions or stopped concessions so far, involving thousands of impacted workers.
On the EWOC training program, over 1,200 people have attended at least one training session, and 290 have attended the whole series. Nearly 1,500 people RSVP’d for an EWOC political education event in 2021, and 1,500 have downloaded the Organizing Guide.

The industries that EWOC has interacted with the most include food service, grocery, retail, health care, and education, sectors that largely remained open with essential workers during the pandemic.

What We’ve Learned
One main lesson is that we have to be honest about how hard this is. A pretty low percentage of everyone that contacts EWOC, and even of those who start real organizing, wins a campaign because some workers lose interest, organizing is really challenging, and we need to get better. However, there are enough campaign wins to show that EWOC is on to something.

A major bottleneck in these campaigns is the formation of an organizing committee. Sometimes there is one activist in a workplace who wants to do something, but they can’t find anyone to work with them. A lack of faith that things can change or fear of getting fired are widespread. Admittedly, not every worker we deal with is a leader or a good enough organizer yet, and perhaps EWOC volunteers are not good enough mentors yet. I suspect that if an organizing committee can form, and eventually the workers take action, there’s a really good chance of winning improvements, and we’re collecting the data on these campaigns to test that theory.

Also, it’s difficult for many workers to imagine being able to win with collective action. Part of this project is to help them envision that possibility. Organizing together in a structured way builds the collective confidence that leads to making demands and winning improvements. It’s also important to share the sense that organizing is something many people can do and get better at. There are definite skills needed, and experience is very helpful, but organizing can be taught, practiced, learned and improved.

In my conversations with workers, I try to offer advice and assistance, be honest about the risks and what can be won, and teach the organizing framework. But the campaign timing and activity is all up to them. These campaigns continue as long as the workers want them to.

Even after wins, it’s an ongoing challenge to keep the workplace organized over time with worker turnover. The gains that were won have to be defended. And there’s the hope that trained workers will bring an organizing philosophy to future workplaces, training other workers and organizing there. It’s likely that spreading this organizing knowledge widely will contribute to victories later on.

The overall idea is that these campaigns should be run by workers with EWOC assistance. The organizing is based on direct action in the workplace, but other campaign elements can be added as well, such as online petitions, protests outside the workplace, getting media attention, and so on. If this sounds like a syndicalist model of organizing, that’s because it partly is. EWOC’s methodology is similar to the traditional IWW framework of worker-led, direct action organizing to fight the boss and win improvements on the job. But EWOC also has a relationship with more mainstream unionism since some campaigns connect with unions to achieve traditional recognition and a contract. In my view, maintaining this flexibility and providing different options to workers is a strength.

This project sees itself on the political left, consistent with UE’s rank-and-file “Them and Us Unionism” philosophy. Most importantly, the EWOC model suggests a way for unions to reach many more workers with organizing training and campaign assistance.

What Does This All Mean?
EWOC provides a network of experienced volunteers to do the traditional work of union organizers and other staff on a lot of worker-led organizing campaigns, with some success. EWOC has been able to assist thousands of workers over the last two years that might not have gotten any help otherwise. This valuable service provides a basic level of solidarity for all workers that is really needed in the labor movement — that any worker in any workplace can contact the project, get a conversation fairly quickly, and then have organizing assistance and training available to them as needed.

However, let’s remind ourselves that ideally, we would have an organizing training infrastructure large enough to reach hundreds of thousands, even millions, of workers each year. Even if you think workplace-based organizing on that scale is madness, and that we need some sort of sectoral bargaining or to wait for the next worker upsurge, we would still need to train workers on this scale to build the power to make that kind of bargaining or upsurge successful.

This discussion raises a host of additional questions and thoughts:

Organizing Effectiveness: We need to learn more lessons about the most effective ways to organize and win over time. This raises issues about continuously improving the organizing training and mentoring process, as well as campaign support. Moreover, we should continue to improve our campaign data collection and analysis.

Scalability: If this is an effective program, how can we scale it up dramatically? If we want to have thousands of volunteers involved, how do we find, train, and retain them? We also want to find effective ways to reach out to more workers. This is obviously a massive training and coordination challenge for that scale of effort.

Structure: Do we need more paid staff? How much funding do we need, and where do we get it? Should workers in the EWOC ecosystem be encouraged to pay dues? EWOC is not a union and doesn’t intend to be. But it could become a kind of worker solidarity association, where workers in various campaigns provide assistance to each other. The governance of the program will likely have to evolve as well, to incorporate a more formal role for workers.

Relationship to Unions: Should the labor movement as a whole create a huge volunteer labor organizing training and campaign assistance program like EWOC? We can imagine a system where workers start their organizing campaigns there, and then for those interested, get connected with unions later on.

Organizing Is Critical
Let me reemphasize an important point. If 50 million workers say they’d vote for a union, this likely means that most of them want the better wages, benefits, and working conditions that come with a union job, but they may not have an understanding of the organizing it takes to get that. So, if unions open the door to everyone, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of pro-union workers might want to join immediately. Sounds great, right? But it does them or unions little good to have a few unorganized workers scattered here and there in a million different workplaces.

If workers don’t build power and eventually get the improvements from union membership in the form of better wages, benefits and working conditions, many will become frustrated and quit, and who could blame them? That’s why it matters that there’s a commitment from the workers to organize and from unions to provide training and campaign support. Real working-class power comes from organized workers fighting the boss for better conditions. This program has to facilitate that, and not just enable more workers to become union members and pay dues.

I think the main question the labor movement has to grapple with, if it’s serious about growing and meeting the desperate need for worker organizing, is how it can provide good organizing training and campaign assistance to the millions of workers who need it, and in the near term, not on some distant horizon. Some of the ideas I have suggested here have been raised before over the years. But as a large-scale volunteer organizing network, EWOC provides a real-world working model for how this could be achieved.

Quelle: ▻https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/winter-2022/millions-of-workers-want-a-union-ewocs-organizing-model-shows

#USA #Arbeit #Gewerkschaft #Organizing #Covid-19

A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy – New York Labor History Association
▻http://newyorklaborhistory.org/web/?page_id=1726

https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/McAlevey_Macht_Gemeinsame_Sache_teaser.jpg

Macht. Gemeinsame Sache. Gewerkschaften, Organizing und der Kampf um die Demokratie
▻https://www.rosalux.de/publikation/id/44215/macht-gemeinsame-sache
Download
▻https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/images/publikationen/sonstige_texte/VSA_McAlevey_Macht_Gemeinsame_Sache.pdf

A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy by Jane McAlevey (New York: HarperCollins, 2020).

Jane McAlevey has provided a guide to the revival of labor unions, which she regards as essential to the overall reform of American government and society. An experienced union organizer and activist, as well as book and magazine author, she contends that “only strong, democratic unions can get us out of the myriad crises” the United States and other nations are now facing. “The root cause” of these problems, affecting such matters as democracy, suffrage, and race and sex, is “wealth inequality,” a result of political dominance by the “billionaire class” as represented by Democrats as well as Republicans who have formed a “Party of Inequality.” With government, particularly the Supreme Court, under the control of such forces, unions are the primary agents of positive change.

Beginning with the Great Depression, the author sketches a historical backdrop. She says that disaster was “the last time the American billionaire class forced most Americans into a massive crisis,” and regards the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 as a course-correction “for bankrupting the American worker.” Moving to the Post-World War II Era, she says the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 resulted from “a tactical alliance between big corporations in the North and their racist pro-Jim Crow Southern allies.” Similarly, “a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, delivered the North American Free Trade Agreement [effective in 1994] for the corporate global elite.” In addition, she attributes Hillary Clinton’s election defeat in 2016 in good part to “NAFTA and Globalization.” Her explanation is clear: “Between overt union-busting and the insidious union-busting effects of globalization, unionization rates in the private sector have plummeted over the past forty years.” As union membership declined, “income inequality . . . skyrocketed.”

Lest we attribute inequality solely to those forces, let us acknowledge the obvious, that this disparity is not generally condemned. The American people have traditionally embraced equality of opportunity, but not of condition. The phrase “personal accountability” is a convenient device to avoid social responsibility for poverty or other forms of distress. In other words, it has been politically as well as economically profitable to assail labor. With capitalism identified with patriotism, socialism has long been regarded as unpatriotic.

McAlevey’s spirited pace makes for fascinating reading. It is good to see an extended discussion of the Koch brothers and the perhaps less well-known Silicon Valley union buster Robert Noyce. The list of vehemently anti-union companies in that area is daunting: “Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook.” So are the author’s accounts of such places as West Virginia, where a strike defeated coal barons, and Mexico, where polluted air from factories owned in the United States choked the border between the two countries. On the other hand, it is encouraging to read of worker resistance, as in the case of the unionized teachers of Los Angeles to preserve the public schools of their city. Yes, teachers and others have been fighting back, but the damage done over the past seven decades has been disheartening at least, as is evidenced by graphs on increasing income inequality and shrinking union membership.

Though this book condemns the conduct of both major political parties, it is clearly aimed at achieving change in Washington.  The author’s call to action is for the nation to “build good unions, undo Taft-Hartley, and enable robust collective bargaining and strikes.” Such a course would preserve democracy and produce political success, and begin by defeating Donald J. Trump and “winning the White House,” which is “urgent.” Moreover, it would require the fielding of a candidate who is not “backed by mostly corporate money,” and a campaign spearheaded by “good unions [to] point us in the direction we need to go and produce the solidarity and unity desperately needed to win.” Such an achievement would be enormous. Ever the optimist, Jane McAlevey declares, “We can fight, and we can win.”

Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet, Professor of History, York College, City University of New York

#USA #Arbeit #Gewerkschaft #Geschichte #HowTo #organizing

jungle.world - »Die Organisierung hat an Schwung verloren«
▻https://jungle.world/artikel/2021/24/die-organisierung-hat-schwung-verloren

17.6.2021 Interview von Peter Nowak - Was hat Sie an dem Thema »Arbeitskämpfe bei Essenslieferdiensten« so interessiert, dass Sie erst Ihre Bachelorarbeit und dann noch ein Buch zum Thema geschrieben haben?

Die Lieferdienste, um die sich das Buch dreht, sind Teil der Gig Economy. Das ist ein Bereich des Arbeitsmarkts, in dem prekäre Dienstleistungsjobs über digitale Plattformen vermittelt werden. Dadurch sind die »Rider« genannten Kurierfahrerinnen und -fahrer im Arbeitsalltag tendenziell vereinzelt. Gleichzeitig gibt es eine hohe Fluktuation in der Belegschaft, weil die meisten entweder befristet oder als Soloselbständige beschäftigt sind und den Job häufig als Übergangslösung sehen. Mich hat vor allem interessiert, wie gewerkschaftliche Organisierung unter diesen Bedingungen möglich ist und welche Rolle dabei Basisgewerkschaften wie die FAU spielen, die in vielen Ländern an Arbeitskämpfen in der Gig Economy beteiligt sind. Ich wollte meine Bachelorarbeit nicht in einer Schublade verstauben lassen. Nach Rücksprache mit der Deliverunion und meinen ­Interviewpartnerinnen und -partnern habe ich mich deshalb daran gemacht, den Text zugänglicher zu gestalten und zu ergänzen. Daraus ist das Buch entstanden.

»Meist fangen diese Unternehmen als kleine Start-ups an, dahinter stehen aber Investorinnen und Investoren mit gigantischen Mengen an Risikokapital.«

Die Deliverunion war eine Kampagne der anarchosyndikalistisch orientierten Gewerkschaft FAU. Ziel war, die Arbeitskämpfe der Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter der Lieferdienste Deliveroo und Foodora zusammenzuführen. Die Kampagne fand ein großes Presseecho. Warum ist das für die Medien so interessant, obwohl doch die Welt der Arbeit sonst keine zentrale Rolle spielt?

Zunächst mal kommt man im Alltag fast automatisch mit den Ridern in Berührung, die mit ihren auffälligen Rucksäcken vielerorts das Stadtbild prägen. Gleichzeitig hängen an der Lieferdienst-App ja nicht nur die Rider, ­sondern auch die Restaurants und die Kundschaft. Das Aufkommen der Plattformen verändert also nicht nur die Arbeitswelt, sondern auch das Alltagsleben und die Esskultur. Es gibt beispielsweise bereits »Geisterrestaurants« ohne eigenen Gastraum, die nur für den Online-Lieferservice kochen. Und man kann sich mittlerweile von Lieferdiensten wie Gorillas sogar den kompletten Wocheneinkauf direkt vor die Haustür bringen lassen. Allgemein erscheint das ganze Thema sehr zukunftsträchtig, weil Digitalisierung, Technik und auch Überwachung dabei eine Rolle spielen.

Wie funktioniert denn das Geschäftsmodell der Gig Economy, zu der die Lieferdienste zählen?

Plattformunternehmen wie Lieferando oder Uber stellen primär die Software bereit. Die Arbeitskraft und auch die meisten Produktionsmittel steuern dann die Beschäftigten und – im Fall der Lieferdienste – die Restaurants bei. Koordiniert wird das ­alles durch App-basiertes Management. Lieferando beispielsweise hat in vielen Städten gar keine eigenen Büros, es wird stattdessen alles aus der Zentrale gesteuert. Das macht es für solche Unternehmen sehr einfach, an neue Standorte zu expandieren.

Meist fangen sie als kleine Start-ups an, dahinter stehen aber Investorinnen und Investoren mit gigantischen Mengen an Risikokapital, die hoffen, dass ihre jeweilige Plattform in kürzester Zeit den Markt übernimmt. Die Plattformunternehmen verbrennen darum zunächst jede Menge Geld, um zu wachsen, ihre Preise niedrig zu halten und mit verhältnismäßig guten Arbeitsbedingungen genügend Beschäftigte zu gewinnen. Wenn sie sich etabliert haben, erhöhen sie dann fast immer die Preise und verschlechtern die Arbeitsbedingungen, um profitabel zu werden.

Wie kam es unter diesen schwierigen Bedingungen trotzdem zur ­gewerkschaftlichen Organisation bei den Ridern?

Die Rider sind zwar tendenziell vereinzelt, aber auf der Straße füreinander gut sichtbar. Weil alles nur über die App gesteuert wird, entzieht es sich dem Management, wenn sie sich unterei­nander vernetzen. Die von Ridern oft ­erlebte Intransparenz wirkt also auch in umgekehrter Richtung. Ein Schlüssel­ereignis für die Organisierung bei den Lieferdiensten war auf jeden Fall ein siebentägiger wilder Streik von 200 Deliveroo-Ridern in London im August 2016. Anknüpfend daran gab es in weiteren britischen Städten Proteste und im Oktober 2016 haben auch Rider bei Foodora in der norditalienischen Stadt Turin gestreikt. Im folgenden Jahr gab es dann Arbeitskämpfe in ganz Europa und darüber hinaus. Auslöser war oft, dass die Lieferdienste versucht haben, unternehmerische Risiken stärker auf die Rider abzuwälzen, zum Beispiel durch die Bezahlung pro Lieferung anstelle eines festen Stundenlohns. Auch die meisten Berliner Rider, mit denen ich gesprochen habe, hatten erlebt, wie die Arbeitsbedingungen schrittweise immer weiter verschlechtert wurden.

Heute hört man von der Deliverunion kaum noch etwas. Ist die gewerkschaftliche Organisation dort gescheitert? Wo sehen Sie Grenzen für die gewerkschaftlichen Orga­nisation bei den Lieferdiensten?

Auf Dauer stellt vor allem die hohe Fluktuation in der Belegschaft ein großes Problem dar, weil sie die Mobili­sierung neuer Kolleginnen und Kollegen zu einer Daueraufgabe macht. ­Darum hat die Organisierung in Berlin an Schwung verloren, noch bevor sich Deliveroo 2019 vom deutschen Markt zurückgezogen hat und Foodora von Lieferando geschluckt wurde. Ein ­weiteres Problem war, dass Verbesserungen der Arbeitsbedingungen nicht der Deliverunion zugerechnet wurden, weil sich die Lieferdienste weitgehend geweigert hatten, die FAU als Verhandlungspartnerin anzuer­kennen. Einige der zentralen Forderungen an Deliveroo und Foodora wurden aber offenbar dann von Lieferando erfüllt. Es gibt jetzt zum Beispiel eine ­­geringe Kilometerpauschale für die Instandhaltung der Fahrräder und in einigen Städten werden auch Leihräder gestellt. In der FAU Berlin hat sich mittlerweile eine Lieferando-Betriebsgruppe gegründet und Rider haben auch schon mit Protestaktionen auf sich aufmerksam gemacht, etwa während des Schneechaos im Februar ­dieses Jahres. Auch bei den neuen Lieferdiensten Gorillas und Wolt gibt es Betriebsgruppen. Bisher haben die sich aber noch nicht wieder unternehmensübergreifend als Deliverunion orga­nisiert.

Sie sind in einem Kapitel auch auf die Initiative »Liefern am Limit« eingegangen, die in der DGB-Gewerkschaft Nahrung-Genuss-Gaststätten (NGG) organisiert ist und bei Food­ora und Lieferando zahlreiche Betriebsräte gegründet hat. Gab es Kontakte zur Deliverunion?
Leider kaum. Die einzige sichtbare Kooperation hat vermittelt über einen von dem Verein »Aktion gegen Arbeitsunrecht« organisierten bundesweiten Aktionstag stattgefunden, nachdem »Liefern am Limit« in Köln einen Betriebsrat gegründet und Deliveroo daraufhin bundesweit Rider nur noch als Soloselbständige eingestellt hat – die ja bekanntlich keine Betriebsräte gründen können. Ansonsten wurde aber die Möglichkeit weiterer städteübergreifender Aktionen verschenkt. Besonders schade ist das, da bei beiden Initiativen die Selbstorganisation der Rider an der Basis zentral war. Anscheinend hat der Umstand, dass die NGG und die FAU beide nur bedingt zur Zusammenarbeit bereit waren, die Rider gewissermaßen voneinander ferngehalten.

Warum haben Sie in Ihrem Buch eine Solidaritätsaktion von bei Verdi gewerkschaftlich organisierten Taxifahrern mit den Ridern in Berlin hervorgehoben?

Die #Taxifahrer haben bei einer Demonstration von Deliveroo-Ridern auf ähnliche Probleme in ihren eigenen ­Arbeitsverhältnissen aufmerksam gemacht. Ich fand das ein schönes Beispiel branchenübergreifender Solidarität. In Großbritannien ging das noch weiter, da haben sich Rider im Oktober 2018 zusammen mit Fahrerinnen und Fahrern von Uber zu einem landesweiten Streik- und Aktionstag koordiniert. In Deutschland ist das Geschäftsmodell von Uber noch verboten, aber es gibt Plattformen, die recht ähnlich funktionieren. Auch in der Taxibranche werden oft Verantwortung und Kosten auf die Beschäftigten abgewälzt, zum Beispiel indem Wartezeiten zwischen einzelnen Aufträgen oder die Reinigung und Wartung der Taxis nicht bezahlt werden.

In der Covid-19-Pandemie expandieren die Lieferdienste. Sehen Sie hier Möglichkeiten für eine gewerkschaftliche Organisierung?
Lieferando hat im Winter und während des sogenannten Lockdowns Rekordumsätze erzielt. Gleichzeitig arbeiten die Rider weiterhin knapp über dem Mindestlohn. Dabei ist ihre Arbeit in der Pandemie eher noch fordernder und auch gefährlicher geworden. Ganz ähnlich sieht es bei anderen Unternehmen aus, die von der Krise profitieren, etwa bei Lebensmittel-Discountern oder im Versandhandel. Als Gewerkschaften diese Ungerechtigkeiten zu skandalisieren und sich für branchenübergreifende Organisierung einzusetzen, ist aus meiner Sicht derzeit besonders wichtig.

Kürzlich sorgte ein wilder Streik beim Lebensmittel-Lieferdienst Gorillas in Berlin für Schlagzeilen. Könnte das die Organisationsprozesse in der Branche wieder beschleunigen?

Das ist gut möglich. Zum einen haben die Streikenden ein Problem thematisiert, dass auch andere Rider betrifft, nämlich ihre Verwundbarkeit durch lange Probezeiten und befristete Arbeitsverträge. Zum anderen haben sie mit der Blockade von Warenlagern eine direkte Aktionsform ins Spiel gebracht, die in Deutschland bisher nicht präsent war. Und in der Vergangenheit hat sich immer wieder gezeigt, dass sich Forderungen und Aktionsformen unter den Ridern über Städte und Unternehmen hinweg verbreiten.

#Gewerkschaft #Streik #organizing

Saul Alinsky - Wikipedia
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Saul_Alinsky.jpg

Influence on the Tea Party movement[edit]
In the 2000s, Rules for Radicals did develop as a primer for middle-class moblization, but it was of a kind and in a direction—the return to “vanished verities”—that Alinsky had feared. As did William F. Buckley in the 1960s, a new generation of libertarian, right-wing populist, and conservative activists seemed willing to admire Alinsky’s disruptive organizing talents while rejecting his social-justice politics. Rules for Radicals, and adaptations of the book, began circulating among Republican Tea Party activists.

#organizing

Labor organizer Jane McAlevey on how the left builds power all wrong - The Ezra Klein Show - Vox
▻https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/3/17/21182149/jane-mcalevey-the-ezra-klein-show-labor-organizing

By Ezra Klein@ezraklein Mar 17, 2020, The organizer, scholar, and writer gives a master class in political organizing on The Ezra Klein Show.

The Bernie Sanders campaign is an organizing tour de force relative to the Joe Biden campaign, yet the latter has won primary after primary — with even higher turnouts than 2016. So does organizing even work? And, if so, what went wrong?

To get a sense of how to answer these questions, I sat down with the scholar, writer, and organizer Jane McAlevey on The Ezra Klein Show. McAlevey has organized hundreds of thousands of workers on the front lines of America’s labor movement. She is also a senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center and the author of three books on organizing, including, most recently, A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy.

McAlevey doesn’t pull her punches. She thinks the left builds political power all wrong. She thinks people are constantly mistaking “mobilizing” for “organizing,” and that social media has taught a generation of young activists the worst possible lessons. She thinks organized labor’s push for “card check” was a mistake but that there really is a viable path back to a strong labor movement. And since McAlevey is, above all, a teacher and an organizer, she offers what amounts to a master class in organizing, one relevant not just to building political power but to building anything.

To McAlevey, organizing, at its core, is about something very simple and very close to the heart of this show: How do you talk to people who may not agree with you such that you can truly hear them, and they can truly hear you? This conversation ran long, but it ran long because it was damn good.

Here’s a lightly edited transcript of part of our conversation, which we released this week on The Ezra Klein Show.

Ezra Klein

What is the difference between advocacy, mobilizing, and organizing?
Jane McAlevey

In the advocacy model, people aren’t really central to the solution. Instead, you have lawyers, public opinion researchers, and a full-time staff in Washington, DC. Greenpeace is an example. If you’re concerned about the planet, you write a check to Greenpeace and they’re going to take care of the problem for you. That’s advocacy.

Then you move to the difference between mobilizing and organizing. It’s the difference between these two that I think most of the progressive movement is deeply confused about. Mobilizing is essentially doing a very good job at getting people off the couch who largely already agree with you. In the mobilizing model, you may be involving people in very large numbers, but the limitation of the mobilizing approach is that you’re only talking to people who agree with you already.

Organizing, which I put the highest value on, is the process by which people come to change their opinions and change their views. Organizing is what I call “base expansion,” meaning it’s expanding either the political or the societal basis from which you can then later mobilize. What makes organizing different than all other kinds of activism is it puts you in direct contact every day with people who have no shared political values whatsoever. When you’re a union organizer, you get a list of let’s say a thousand employees and you’ve got to figure out how to build to 90 percent or greater unity with unbreakable solidarity and a tight, effective structure. So, essentially every single trade union unionization campaign I’ve negotiated is an experiment in how you build political unity in a time of intense polarization.
Ezra Klein

I’m interested in your thoughts on the 2020 Democratic primary. My observation is a lot of people in the Sanders campaign thought they were doing organizing when they were doing mobilizing. This is not to say anything good about the Biden campaign, which I think just skated by. But there seems to me to be a real distinction between the personality type and the temperament and the strategies of a mobilizer versus an organizer. And it seems to me that not only in the Sanders campaign but all over politics — and especially on social media — I see people acting in ways that wouldn’t be conducive to organizing.
Jane McAlevey

Mobilizers tend to be activists. They’re better engaging a self-selected crowd of people who exist in some bubble. When I’m looking for organizers, I’m looking for people who genuinely believe that ordinary people have high intelligence and who really deeply respect ordinary people. I start out every day genuinely believing that people can make radical changes in how they think about and see the world. And that means you have to be willing to work with them, even if their views are fairly different than your own.

Almost every worker in a campaign I’ve worked on starts out with values that seem pretty different than mine. But you have to respect where they’re coming from, what shaped them, how they got there, and then have a theory of how to help them shift from maybe having the wrong idea of who’s to blame for the pain in their lives. They might be blaming Mexican immigrants for stealing their jobs instead of the CEOs of corporations that directly facilitated the departure of their job. And if you can’t look at them and imagine where they might be based on the fact that most people want to have clean water, a safe planet, a decent job, nice neighbors, and fairness, then you’re not going to be a good organizer.
Ezra Klein

One of the things that strikes me about your mobilizing-organizing distinction has to do with the fact that for each one there are different incentives around disagreement. When faced with disagreement, do you escalate or do you somehow find a way to synthesize or get around it? So, walk me through a typical interaction with a worker, specifically one who may disagree with you.
Jane McAlevey

When I start a conversation with a worker, I’m going to start by telling them exactly why I’m there. There’s no bullshitting: I’m here because coworkers of yours called up and they’re in and figuring out how you can make things better in the workplace. That’s it. I’m being very honest about why I’m on your door. The very next thing I’m going to do is ask them a question: If you could change three things at work tomorrow, what would they be?

This question is going to give me immediate insight into your human priorities. So, when I later find out that we may have very different political views, it doesn’t really matter to me. If I know the three things that matter most to you about the workplace that you want to change, I’m sticking with that conversation the whole way through it. And I’m gonna help you understand who is in the way of fixing that problem and how only you and your coworkers can actually fix it.

Let’s say a nurse says to me “I’m exhausted every day. I love my job in the ICU so much. But I’m so frustrated I can’t get my job done. We need more staff on the floors.” I don’t know if she’s Republican, a libertarian Democrat, Green Party, or has never voted in her life, but when she tells me that I’m off and running. The thing I’m gonna ask her is, “Given how much profit your employer had last year, why do you think you’re working so short on the floors in the hospital?” The whole point of organizing is I’m never going to tell her what the answer is. I’m going to just start framing a series of questions that are going help that nurse begin to understand why it is she works for a filthy rich employer and why it is she can’t get her job done. And it’s gonna be pretty crystal clear.

#syndicalisme #organizing #USA

Jane McAlevey | janemcalevey.com
▻https://janemcalevey.com

https://janemcalevey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/organizing-for-power-online-slider-1500x620.jpg

Organizing for Power: Coronovirus and Everything After - A Free Global Online Training Webinar with Jane McAlevey

A free, four-part on-line organizing course led by Jane McAlevey and co-hosted by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, taking place online between March 30th and April 16th. McAlevey will build on her experiences, connecting them to the current world health crisis, the surrounding political climate, and the organizing that will be necessary to prevent a further collapse into disaster capitalism and right-wing authoritarianism

#syndicalisme #USA #formation #organizing

Ein Generalstab für den Green New Deal | Jacobin Magazin
▻https://jacobin.de/artikel/generalstab-fuer-den-green-new-deal

6.4.2020, von Jane McAlevey, Übersetzung von Linus Westheuser - Im Kampf für einen Green New Deal und gegen den Klimawandel muss die Gewerkschaftsbewegung eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Erfolgreiche Arbeitskämpfe zeigen, wie das möglich ist – in kurzer Zeit und von der Basis her organisiert.

Die derzeitige Welle von Schülerinnen-Protesten und -Streiks verschafft der Forderung nach echter Klimagerechtigkeit willkommenen Auftrieb. Die Mainstream-Medien und sozialen Netzwerke sind voll von Bildern junger Leute wie der Schwedin Greta Thunberg, die auf die Plätze der Welt drängen, Bremser in der Politik zur Rede stellen und sich offensiv mit den Mächtigen anlegen. Schon immer brachte die Jugend zwei essenzielle Dinge in soziale Bewegungen ein: ihren klaren moralischen Kompass und eine einzigartige, aufwühlende Energie. Ihre Vision ist mutig, ihr Vorgehen kompromisslos. Doch die kohlenstoffbasierte Wirtschaft zurückzudrängen und schließlich zu beseitigen, den Planeten zu retten und zugleich eine Zukunft zu ermöglichen, die jungen Menschen die Art von Arbeit verschafft, die sie gerne machen – all das erfordert mehr Macht und eine ernsthafte Strategie.

In den USA dreht sich die Debatte zur Klimakrise hauptsächlich um das Gesetzesvorhaben zu einem Green New Deal, das die Abgeordneten Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez und Ed Markey im Februar 2019 vorlegten. Die Kommentare dazu changierten zwischen faszinierten Beschreibungen eines großen Wurfs und skeptischen bis ablehnenden Stimmen – auch vonseiten potenzieller Unterstützerinnen und Unterstützer: »Weder umsetzbar noch realistisch« lautete das Urteil des größten Gewerkschaftsverbands der USA, der AFL-CIO vergleichbar mit dem deutschen DGB. Im Hintergrund der Debatten tobte eine nicht enden wollende Serie von extremen Stürmen, wie sie die Klimaforscherinnen seit den 80er-Jahren vorhergesagt hatten. Sogenannte Bomben-Zyklone verwüsteten den Mittleren Westen, massive Regenfälle trafen Kalifornien nach einer verheerenden Waldbrandsaison und der Süden hatte mit Tornados zu kämpfen, die die Ernte zerstörten. Die mangelnde Vorbereitung auf diese Krise kostet Menschenleben.

Angesichts dessen ist es natürlich ärgerlich, wenn die AFL-CIO sich weigert, das Ausmaß der Krise einzusehen. Doch wollen wir im Kampf für einen Green New Deal unsere ganze Kraft in die Waagschale werfen, brauchen wir mehr als mutige Visionen. Es reicht nicht aus, dass die Linke sich der Alternative zwischen Jobs und der Umwelt widersetzt. Wir müssen erst noch beweisen, dass bei unseren rhetorischen Bekenntnissen am Ende auch wirklich grüne Jobs herausspringen.

Wenn wir gewinnen wollen, sollten wir auf Nato Green zu hören – einen Organizer der Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft SEIU. Er erklärte kürzlich in einem Artikel, wie lokale Gewerkschaftssektionen Verhandlungen über Klimagerechtigkeit führen können und sollen: »Jede erfahrene Gewerkschafterin liebt es, während Vertragsverhandlungen zu mobilisieren: Die harte Deadline dieser Kämpfe, die Androhung von Streiks nach Ablauf der Friedenspflicht – all das fokussiert die Aufmerksamkeit der Leute. Die Klimaforschung hat uns eine neue Deadline gegeben, und damit eine neue Gelegenheit, zu zeigen, dass wir der Herausforderung gewachsen sind. Wir haben zwölf Jahre.«

Green hat recht: Gewerkschafts-Organizerinnen lieben Kämpfe mit klaren Fristen. Betrachten wir also die zwölf Jahre, die der Weltklimarat IPCC in seinem letzten Report skizziert hat, als Fristende: Was ist ein glaubwürdiger Plan, bis 2030 zu gewinnen?

Leute, die es ernst damit meinen, aus schwierigen Kämpfen siegreich hervorzugehen – und womöglich ist keiner schwieriger, als der gegen die fossile Energiewirtschaft – beginnen das Planen mit einer umfassenden Analyse der Machtstruktur sowie mit dem Aufbau eines Generalstabs. Der martialische Begriff ist bewusst gewählt, denn tatsächlich befinden wir uns in einem Krieg; einem, den bislang die Öl-Milliardäre und ihre Lobby gewinnen. Unsere Seite sollte sich an kriegerische Metaphern gewöhnen, denn die höflichen, ordnungsgemäßen Demonstrationen, mit denen wir es bisher versucht haben, haben uns der Rettung des Planeten und einer gerechten Wirtschaftsform nicht näher gebracht – auch wenn wir das nicht gerne hören. Ein Generalstab ist ein physischer Ort, an dem Leute mit der notwendigen Erfahrung und inneren Festigkeit gemeinsam brainstormen, planen und diskutieren, welche nächsten Schritte nötig sind, um zu gewinnen. Die Planung beginnt beim Zustand der Welt, wie sie jetzt ist – also bei der Herausforderung, einen völlig wüsten Haufen von Leuten und Organisationen zusammenzubringen, die nur allzu oft durch Methoden des ›Teile und Herrsche‹ gegeneinander ausgespielt werden und sich nur allzu selten auf das Gemeinsame konzentrieren, das weit über das nackte Überleben hinausgeht.

In den USA muss sich der Klima-Generalstab zunächst damit auseinandersetzen, dass wir jetzt mit Gerichten gestraft sind, die für weitere dreißig bis vierzig Jahre gegen den Planeten und die Arbeiterinnen entscheiden werden. Wir sind uns noch gar nicht der Tragweite der Urteile bewusst, die die gestärkte rechte Mehrheit im Supreme Court in den nächsten Jahren fällen und kippen wird.

Der Verlust des Gleichgewichts im obersten Gericht macht eine veränderte Strategie nötig. In den letzten vierzig Jahren haben Umweltorganisationen hauptsächlich auf Lobbyarbeit, punktuelle Mobilisierung und juristische Strategien gesetzt, statt sich der schwierigeren Arbeit zu widmen, eine Massenbewegung aufzubauen. Das Ergebnis ist eine grüne Bewegung, die kaum eine populäre Basis hat, leicht als elitär diffamiert werden kann und der so die nötige Macht fehlt um zu gewinnen.

Glücklicherweise gibt es eine Strategie, die auch in Zeiten feindseliger Gerichte Erfolge vorweisen kann: Organizing. Echtes Organizing. Es mag erstmal zu langwierig wirken, für eine Auseinandersetzung, die wir in der allernächsten Zukunft für uns werden entscheiden müssen. Doch tatsächlich zeigen jüngste Erfolge, dass es möglich ist, in kürzerer als der für den Green New Deal anvisierten Zeit ernstzunehmende Macht von unten zu organisieren.

Beispiele waren die bahnbrechenden Arbeitskämpfe von Lehrerinnen in Chicago, West Virginia und Los Angeles. In allen drei Fällen verwandelten kluge, progressive und motivierte Arbeiterinnen ihre totgesagten, kraftlosen Organisationen in wahre Gewerkschaften, die imstande waren, lange und harte Auseinandersetzungen mit starken Gegnern zu führen – und zu gewinnen.

In West Virginia brauchte es weniger als ein Jahr, um eine republikanische, ultra-rechte und tief mit der Öl- und Kohle-Lobby verbundene Landesregierung zu bezwingen, obwohl diese über die Kontrolle in beiden legislativen Kammern verfügte. Kompromisslose und umfassende Streiks können das erreichen. Viele Lehrerinnen waren Töchter und Söhne von Minenarbeiterinnen, die sich auf die Tradition der großen Minenstreiks beriefen.

In Chicago und Los Angeles waren die Lehrerinnen mit der anderen Machtstruktur konfrontiert, die anzugehen in Klimafragen unerlässlich ist: dem Wall Street-Flügel innerhalb der Demokratischen Partei. Es brauchte vier Jahre, um nutzlose und untätige, von oben organisierte Organisationen zu übernehmen und in produktive Basis-Organisationen zu verwandeln. Die sich organisierenden Arbeiterinnen hatten Fristen vor Augen und hielten sie ein. Generalstabsmäßige Planung und eine Rückkehr zu den Grundlagen des Organizing waren der Schlüssel.

Machtstrukturanalysen und Planungsdiskussionen im Generalstabsformat sollen herausstellen, was nicht funktioniert (Kämpfe vor Gericht und große Demos) und was sehr wohl funktioniert (kraftvolle Streiks mit hundertprozentiger Beteiligung der Belegschaften und aktiver Unterstützung lokaler Communities). Gibt es Beispiele aus der Welt der Klimapolitik, die zeigen, wie es aussieht, erfolgreich zu sein? Ein wichtiges Beispiel ist ein jüngeres Vorhaben in New York, das 2014 seinen Anfang nahm, als eine Reihe von Gewerkschaften sich zusammensetzten, um die Klimakrise mit der gebotenen Ernsthaftigkeit anzugehen.

Vincent Alvarez, Präsident der landesweit größten Lokalsektion der AFL-CIO in New York, erinnert sich: »Wir waren frustriert von dem Gerede und der Untätigkeit in Washington und beschlossen, vor Ort etwas auf die Beine zu stellen, um der Doppelkrise von Klima und Ungleichheit entgegenzutreten. Es ging uns darum, ein Programm zu entwickeln, das es erlauben würde, messbare Schritte in Richtung eines nachhaltigeren Klimas zu machen und zugleich die Krise der Ungleichheit anzugehen.«

Alvarez erklärt, dass es Sinn ergibt, die 10 Prozent konflikthaften Themen (wie das Fracking oder den Pipeline-Bau) zunächst beiseite zu lassen und sich auf die 90 Prozent zu konzentrieren, in denen sich Umweltbewegte und Gewerkschafterinnen völlig einig sind: Infrastruktur, öffentlicher Nahverkehr, Energiewende – um nur drei zu nennen. Bevor sich Umweltaktivistinnen den ersteren 10 Prozent zuwenden – was sie früher oder später natürlich sollten – müssen sie durch konkretes Handeln bewiesen haben, dass sie dabei helfen können, in diesen drei Sektoren gute, gewerkschaftlich organisierte Arbeitsplätze zu schaffen. Wenn es uns nicht gelingt, ›schlüsselfertige‹ Alternativen zur Arbeit im Pipelinebau aufzuzeigen, geben wir der Lobby für fossile Brennstoffe eine astreine Gelegenheit, Zwietracht zu säen.

Lara Skinner, Leiterin des Worker Institute an der Cornell-Universität, das die New Yorker Klima-Jobinitative begleitete, berichtet, dass die Einrichtung einer rein gewerkschaftlichen Arbeitsgruppe zum Thema Klima ein zentraler Fortschritt war. Wie viele Gewerkschafterinnen, denen Klimafragen am Herzen liegen, verbrachte Skinner Jahre damit, sich den Kopf darüber zu zerbrechen, wie man Öko-Aktivistinnen und Gewerkschafterinnen zusammenbringen könnte. Der Kampf gegen den Bau der Keystone XL Pipeline in den späten Obama-Jahren machte große Schlagzeilen, zerstörte aber zugleich die Ansätze von Organisierungsarbeit des behutsam wachsenden Bündnisses von Grünen und Blaumännern.

Die Kraftstoff-Lobby stürzte sich dankbar auf die Keystone Proteste und trieb das Thema wie einen Keil zwischen Arbeiterinnen und Umweltaktivistinnen, die ihnen vermeintlich ihre Jobs wegnehmen wollten. Die Umweltschützerinnen tappten voll in die Falle, indem sie sich auf Auseinandersetzungen darüber einließen, wie viele Jobs tatsächlich abzubauen seien: nämlich weniger als von der Industrie behauptet. Doch das war überhaupt nicht der Punkt.

Nach einer massiven Rezession, die die Ersparnisse, Rücklagen und Rentenversicherungen der Arbeiterinnenklasse gebeutelt hinterlassen, ihre Häuser entwertet den Neubau zum Erliegen gebracht hatte, waren hochwertige, gewerkschaftlich geschützte Jobs eine Seltenheit. Darüber zu diskutieren, wie viele Arbeiterinnen genau diese eben geschaffenen Jobs wieder verlieren sollten, spielte den Bossen in die Karten: Für die Aktivistinnen schienen Arbeitsplätze ein akzeptabler Kollateralschaden zu sein. Statt die Schicksale krisengeschüttelter Arbeiterinnen in Erbsenzählerei zu verwandeln, hätte die Umweltbewegung auf konkrete Infrastrukturprojekte in der Region des Pipeline-Baus verweisen und so ›schlüsselfertige‹ Arbeitsplätze als echte Alternative präsentieren sollen.

Doch während sich hier Fenster schlossen, öffneten sich andere. Nur Monate nach dem Keystone-Zerwürfnis erreichte der schwere Hurrikan Sandy den Bundesstaat New York. Lara Skinner erinnert sich: »Sandy hat den Gewerkschaftsmitgliedern in New York bewusst gemacht, wie ernst die Lage wirklich ist. Der Sturm Irene hatte gerade zuvor erst den Norden des Staates getroffen – und wir bemerkten alle, wie planlos und unvorbereitet wir waren.« Der Sturm eröffnete die Gelegenheit für eine Wiederaufnahme der Diskussion, die von Skinner und ihrem Team nun als gewerkschaftsinterner Runder Tisch zur Klimakrise organisiert wurde.

Umweltaktivistinnen bekennen sich zwar rhetorisch zu grünen Jobs, doch in der Praxis fehlt ihnen die Einsicht, dass sie sich aktiv für die Schaffung guter, gewerkschaftlich organisierter Arbeitsplätze einsetzen müssen, um wirksam mit Gewerkschaften zusammenarbeiten zu können. Im Zuge des Sandy-Schocks formierte sich 2014 eine Runde aus Mitgliedern der New Yorker Gewerkschaften, die die Diskussion und Selbstbildung rund um den Klimawandel zum Gegenstand hatte. Arbeitsgruppen wurden mit Mitgliedern von Gewerkschaften zentraler betroffener Sektoren besetzt: Energie, Transportwesen, Infrastruktur und Bau sowie öffentlicher Dienst. Sie luden Klimawissenschaftlerinnen zu regelmäßigen Treffen ein, um sich einen besseren Einblick zu verschaffen.

Teil des Selbstbildungsprogramms war auch der Besuch einer New Yorker Delegation bei dänischen Gewerkschaften im Sommer 2018. Alvarez berichtet: »Es war wirklich wichtig, über die bloße Diskussion hinauszukommen, gewerkschaftlich organisierte dänische Arbeiterinnen in ihren Produktionsstätten zu treffen und aus erster Hand zu erfahren, wie sie den Übergang zur Windenergie erlebt und mitgetragen haben.«

In nur drei Jahren produzierte die Arbeitsgruppe unter Ko-Autorschaft von Skinner einen wegweisenden Abschlussbericht: »Reversing Inequality, Combatting Climate Change: A Climate Jobs Program for New York State«. Der Bericht – umfassend, klug und getragen von allen maßgeblichen Gewerkschaften – sollte als Inspiration und Ansatzpunkt für andere Bundesstaaten wie auch für die Bundesebene dienen. Schnell gelang den Gewerkschaften auch die Umsetzung in die Praxis: In Antwort auf die machtvolle Forderung der Gewerkschaften wurde beschlossen, dass New York bis 2035 die Hälfte seines gesamten Energiebedarfs von nachhaltigen Offshore-Windprojekten beziehen werde.

Der ausgehandelte Vertrag im Wert von 50 Milliarden Dollar enthält außerdem eine gewerkschaftliche Jobgarantie bekannt als Project Labor Agreement oder PLA. Und das ist erst der Anfang für das Bündnis von Arbeit und Ökologie. Kein anderer Bundesstaat hat ein vergleichbares Programm zur Halbierung seiner Abhängigkeit von fossilen Energien in so kurzer Zeit. Der Grund war, so Skinner, »dass die Gewerkschaften sich informiert und den riesigen Maßstab erkannt haben, in dem wir bei grünen Jobs denken müssen.« Die Pläne für diese grünen Jobs müssen von denen gemacht werden, die auch die Arbeit machen.

Der Generalstab, den wir für den Green New Deal brauchen, muss es den New Yorker Gewerkschaften gleichtun: selbständig die Initiative ergreifen, das Thema mit größtem Ernst behandeln, sich bilden. Und Wissen und Macht dazu verwenden, einen glaubwürdigen Plan zu entwickeln, mit dem man gewinnen kann. Was sie nicht getan hatten, war herumzusitzen und sich zu beschweren oder auf die Einladung zu irgendeinem halbherzigen Policy-Dialog zu warten, bei dem alle nur aneinander vorbeireden und nichts zustande bringen, während der Gegner Keile in unsere Allianzen treibt. Der New Yorker Deal gelang, weil Gewerkschaften die Macht hatten, Subventionen (also Steuergelder) so zu kanalisieren, dass ihr Gebrauch zugleich den Ansprüchen der Klimaforschung bei der Emissionsreduktion und den Arbeits- und Lohnstandards der Gewerkschaften genügen würde, für die ihre Mitglieder zu kämpfen bereit und in der Lage sind. Beide sind unerlässlich, um die Wirtschaft in dem Tempo und in dem Ausmaß umzubauen, das der Lage angemessen ist.

Wie bezahlen wir das ganze? Christian Parenti bemerkte neulich, dass US-Konzerne derzeit 4,8 Billionen Dollar Cash horten – ein Fünftel der 22,1 Billiarden ihres Finanzvermögens. Dieses Geld könnte genutzt werden, um eine robuste grüne Wirtschaft nach gewerkschaftlichen Standards aufzubauen; eine, die es den Arbeiterinnen der Zukunft erlaubt, ein würdevolles Lebensniveau aufrechtzuerhalten und die ein für alle Mal die Frontstellung von Jobs gegen Umwelt beendet.

Doch um an dieses Geld heranzukommen, bedarf es echter Macht und echten Know-Hows, wie es die New Yorker Gewerkschaften und die einiger anderer Staaten haben. Um diese gewerkschaftliche Macht wiederaufzurichten, müssen Umweltaktivistinnen an der Seite der Gewerkschafterinnen kämpfen. Wirklich kämpfen vor allem, statt bloß über grüne Jobs zu reden. Das bedeutet, sich aktiv in Kämpfe um das Streikrecht einzumischen und die Arbeiterinnen mit den eigenen Ressourcen zu unterstützen.

Diese Art von Organizing und die politische Macht, die von ihr ausgeht, wird notwendig sein, um die höhere Besteuerung von Reichen wirklich durchsetzen zu können und auf Bundesebene weg von der fossilen Energie und hin zu einer nachhaltigen Wirtschaft für Mensch und Natur zu kommen. Ebenso wird es notwendig sein, die Umweltbewegung neu auszurichten, indem wir uns von der gescheiterten Strategie verabschieden, die sich nur auf Gerichtsverfahren stütze. Wir müssen uns stattdessen darauf konzentrieren, eine Massenbewegung und damit Macht aufzubauen.

Ein ernstgemeinter Green New Deal benötigt auch den Wiederaufbau eines robusten öffentlichen Sektors. So ein öffentlicher Sektor verspricht eine Zukunft voll guter Jobs für Frauen und People of Color. Doch die Angriffe der Rechten auf die Gewerkschaften und die Reste öffentlicher Errungenschaften werden nicht aufhören. Es ist noch nicht zu spät für umweltbewegte Menschen, zu Verbündeten der Arbeiterinnen und ihrer Gewerkschaften zu werden – aber die Zeit läuft. Gute Gewerkschaften sind ideale Organisationen, um unter schwierigen Bedingungen und mit strengen Fristen zu kämpfen. Es ist Zeit für den Generalstab 2030!

#écologie #organizing #auf_deutsch

Why Detroit Residents Pushed Back Against Tree-Planting
▻https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/01/detroit-tree-planting-programs-white-environmentalism-research/579937

Detroiters were refusing city-sponsored “free trees.” A researcher found out the problem: She was the first person to ask them if they wanted them.
...

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/THneDLID4wt_KvG-5KmQbT6WTfE=/1240x2204/https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/posts/2019/01/CheyenneSt3/original.jpg

“This shows sidewalk damage and a large limb that has fallen from a street tree planted, likely by the city, many years ago,” said study author Christine Carmichael. “Residents who were resistant to tree planting also often noted that they felt existing, large trees on city property were not adequately cared for and affected the appearance of the neighborhood, and presented a safety concern.” (Christine E. Carmichael)
...
After all, who would turn down a free tree on their property, given all of the health and economic benefits that service affords? Perhaps these people just don’t get it. As one staff member told Carmichael in the study:

You’re dealing with a generation that has not been used to having trees, the people who remember the elms are getting older and older. Now we’ve got generations of people that have grown up without trees on their street, they don’t even know what they’re missing.

However, environmental justice is not just about the distribution of bad stuff, like pollution, or good stuff, like forestry projects across disadvantaged communities. It’s also about the distribution of power among communities that have historically only been the subjects and experiments of power structures.
...
A couple of African-American women Carmichael talked to linked the tree-planting program to a painful racist moment in Detroit’s history, right after the 1967 race rebellion, when the city suddenly began cutting down elm trees in bulk in their neighborhoods. The city did this, as the women understood it, so that law enforcement and intelligence agents could better surveil their neighborhoods from helicopters and other high places after the urban uprising.

#USA #racisme #organizing #communautarisme

„GO GET ORGANIZED!“ by THE REDSKINS
▻https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/the-redskins/go-get-organized-83
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBquv9EcVWk

https://www.flashlyrics.com/image/tw/the-redskins/go-get-organized-83?.jpg

I got a job just shifting beer
Straight out of school, straight into here
I got a job pays none too well
But every Friday I can tell them go to hell
This place is noisy and full of dust & s***
This jobs dead lousy but I can’t get out of it
Come every Friday I see an old man
Sat back from the bar in the smoke room
He’s been through battles
He’s seen some hard ones
I fought and lost he said
But let me tell you this son

Your only weapon
Is those you work with
Your strength is their strength
Can’t beat the rank and file

Go get organized!

I joined the union & started signing up
I found a man ten years a member
And all this time he’s been holin’ up, hiding quiet
We pressed the govnor for improved conditions
And found ourselves on strike for union recognition
I seen the old man in the smoke room
He’s been through battles
He’s seen some hard ones
I fought and lost he said
But let me tell you this son

Your only weapon
Is those you work with
Your strength is their strength
Can’t beat the rank and file
Go get organized!

Come every Friday I see an old man
Sat back from the bar in the smoke room
He’s been through battles
He’s seen some hard ones
I fought and lost he said
But let me tell you this son

Your only weapon
Is those you work with
Your strength is their strength
Can’t beat the rank and file

Go get organized!

#Gewerkschaft #Organizing #Musik

#Etats-Unis : les succès mitigés des nouvelles formes syndicales
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/economie/100916/etats-unis-les-succes-mitiges-des-nouvelles-formes-syndicales

À travers le combat des salariés américains de #walmart et celui des travailleurs des fast-foods pour un meilleur salaire, le chercheur Mathieu Hocquelet décrypte les mutations du #syndicalisme à l’américaine, tenté par l’organizing, pour rattraper les bastions de travailleurs pauvres du pays.

#Economie #Amérique_du_nord #anti-syndicalisme #fast-food #grande_distribution #mouvement_social #organizing #social