Yes, It Is Organizing: Workers Centers and the Labor Movement

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6806/yes_it_is_organizing/

Monday Jan 3, 2011 4:52 pm

By Jacob Lesniewski

Don't believe the doctrinaire dismissal: workers centers are a crucial part of the labor movement

Once again, those of us who work at and think about workers centers are confronted by a labor writer's first and last impression of workers centers: initial intrigue followed by a quick dismissal that boils down to this: They're not unions, so they don't do organizing, so they are for all intents and purposes irrelevant.

It's unfortunate that so many who write about the labor movement have such a limited understanding of what organizing is and what makes a movement, as the labor movement purports to do, "move."

The piece I'm referring to—"But Is It Organizing?"—has been making the rounds in the leftosphere. The piece appeared on Talking Union, a the labor blog of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and was authored by Bob Roman, who edits New Ground, the publication of DSA's Chicago chapter. It's been posted on the left-wing listserv Portside and elsewhere.

First off, even the briefest of perusals of contemporary and historical models of organizing should indicate that "old-fashioned union organizing" is not the only model of making change through "people power." In fact, good old-fashioned, pre-AFL labor organizing often looked a lot like the organizing that workers centers, especially the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC)—which is mentioned in the piece—do right now. If the only valid result of organizing is an increase in union density, then what of the work of Highlander Center and other groups in the civil rights movement that transformed ordinary folks into civil rights leaders and activists?

Is community policing, a model similar to what workers centers do with grassroots enforcement of labor laws, not organizing? What of the feminist rape crisis centers that leveraged a social service into a movement that changed policy and attitudes around rape? Is it possible that workers centers are "relational platforms" that bring together allies (even unions!) and workers in ways that build movements that improve conditions of work for low-wage workers? Is it possible that workers centers provide a physical and ideological space for low-wage workers and allies to be "labor activists" in ways that unions can't? Is any of that organizing?

FULL story at link.

[patrice]

1. This makes me very happy! It's exactly what NEEDS to be done.

Do you happen to know why Labor news doesn't get a better reception here at DU?

You'd think a site that claims such strong Liberal/Lefty leadership would be more interested in Labor news. Am I mistaken?

What is your understanding of this relationship, Omaha Steve?

[eilen]

2. What is a workers center? nt