practical

Labor, Work, and Organizing: Practical

What does this look like on the ground, and what are people doing about it now?

See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes.

This is the lens where labor stops being history and theory and becomes the campaign down the street. The last several years have been the most active period for new organizing in a generation: Amazon, Starbucks, graduate workers, nurses, teachers, auto, and the return of the strike. The materials here are meant to connect that wave to the room’s own workplaces and to the concrete question of what it takes to build power where you work.

Anchor questions

• Who is organizing near you, at work or in their industry, and what are they up against?
• What is the difference between a union that mobilizes the already-convinced and one that organizes everyone? Why does it matter?
• When Amazon or Starbucks fights a union drive, what exactly do they do, and how do workers answer it?
• What does it take, concretely, to move coworkers from private complaint to collective action?
• What can a strike do that a petition cannot? What does a strike require to work?

Materials

Free unless marked otherwise. Many labor podcasts publish a free main feed and paywall only bonus episodes, so the core content is free for a group.

Journalism and reporting

• Labor Notes (1979 to present). The rank-and-file labor magazine and organizing project, reporting inventive organizing tactics and contract campaigns “to put the movement back in the labor movement.” The core practical outlet, and the publisher of the handbook below. Free: labornotes.org
• More Perfect Union (2021 to present). A nonprofit video-journalism newsroom producing short, shareable explainers on labor disputes, gig work, and corporate accountability from a working-class lens. Excellent for session openers. Free: perfectunion.us

Films and documentaries

• Union (Stephen Maing and Brett Story, 2024, 90 min). A cinema-verite chronicle of the Amazon Labor Union’s grassroots drive to organize the Staten Island JFK8 warehouse under Chris Smalls. The definitive on-the-ground film of a contemporary campaign, and it streams free through PBS POV with discussion guides and lesson plans. Free: pbs.org
• Harlan County USA (Barbara Kopple, 1976, 103 min). The Academy Award-winning verite record of the 1973 to 1974 Brookside coal miners’ strike in Kentucky, filmed on the picket line under real threat of violence. A touchstone for what a strike costs and demands. On the Criterion Channel or for rental, and free with a library card on Kanopy where available. criterion.com

Practical handbooks and how-to material

• Secrets of a Successful Organizer (Alexandra Bradbury, Mark Brenner, and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes, 2016). Forty-seven concrete practices for building power on the job, from mapping a workplace to running an escalating campaign. The book is for sale, but all of the handouts, exercises, and the trainer’s guide are free PDF downloads in English and Spanish, and amount to a ready-made workshop curriculum. Free materials: labornotes.org
• Rules for Radicals (Saul D. Alinsky, 1971). The foundational community-organizing tactics text, best used as a debated classic to read critically alongside the whole-worker approach of McAlevey and Labor Notes rather than as gospel. Free to borrow: archive.org

Podcasts and interviews with organizers

• Working People (Maximillian Alvarez, 2016 to present). First-person interviews with rank-and-file workers about their jobs, struggles, and organizing, from warehouses to rail to graduate-student strikes. The best “workers in their own words, today” audio for this school. Free main feed. inthesetimes.com
• The Valley Labor Report (Jacob Morrison and Adam Keller, 2020 to present). Alabama’s union talk-radio show, with recurring segments like “Last Week in Southern Labor” and “Boss Watch.” Valuable for a view of organizing in the South, where union density is lowest. Free: tvlr.fm
• Belabored (Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen, Dissent, 2013 to 2023). A biweekly news-and-analysis show interviewing journalists, academics, and organizers about strikes and campaigns across sectors. The back catalog is a deep, searchable record of the last decade of labor struggle. Free: podcasts.apple.com

Explainers and case studies on video

• “Why Corporate America Hates Unions” (Second Thought, 2022). Roughly 18 minutes, about 742,000 views. Walks through union-busting tactics and the recent Amazon, Starbucks, and REI wins. A strong practical opener. youtube.com/watch?v=yv0QJVqovDo
• “Starbucks Tried to Crush Its Baristas. What Happened Next Will Shock You” (More Perfect Union, 2024). Roughly 12 minutes, about 350,000 views. Follows baristas forcing Starbucks toward the bargaining table. A concrete case study of a live campaign. youtube.com/watch?v=w9V-o8ckKyg
• “We Just Unionized Amazon” (Democracy Now!, 2022). Roughly 28 minutes, about 183,000 views. A long interview with Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer on how the first Amazon union won. A deep companion to the film Union. youtube.com/watch?v=82UEYmJs0jQ
• “How To Start A Union: Step By Step” (More Perfect Union, 2022). Roughly 13 minutes, about 67,000 views. Chefs Sohla and Ham El-Waylly walk through one-on-ones, going public, and bargaining. A direct how-to that pairs with the Labor Notes handbook. youtube.com/watch?v=tok00IDVTz4

Status

This lens has a developed first pass for this theme. Resources continue to be added as the project grows. Contributions welcome, especially case studies and accounts from groups that have run local sessions, and material on organizing outside the workplace, in tenant unions, and in the informal economy.