#organizing 101

I spend a lot of time talking about strategies and frameworks for IRL worldbuilding. This can be a bit problematic for a lot of reasons. I’ll start by looking at two: a “democratic centralist” ideological lineage that I disagree with, and a different, more insurrectionary response to that tendency. Now, that is something I have much more respect for, but don’t see it as being able to carry the torch the whole way.

I am someone who sees the importance and benefits of strategic thinking but also understands the negation-oriented spontaneity of uprisings, direct actions, and isolated confrontations. I don’t want (nor do I think it’s possible for) those things to stop, but I want them to be as effective as possible. This means that more people need to become collaborative and autonomous (in the self-directed, can-make-decisions-for-themselves sense). We have to organize around this, and we need a strategy so that we can both make it happen and iterate more successfully.

That’s all I’ll say about that section of things. Anti-organization/anti-strategic folks are dope, but they can’t get us all the way. The best case is that they widen the spaces for autonomy to flourish. The main thing I want to focus on is people who strategize and organize in a centralized way. I’m going to discuss dialectical materialism as it is conceived, and why I think that it blows.

Let’s talk about dialectics and materialism separately for a bit. Dialectics is a way to think about the world, a kind of mental model builder, that allows one to analyze tensions (or contradictions) in society and resolve them in a way more satisfactory than either choice. It is an undergirding idea that can animate further thoughts. Materialism, meanwhile is that the material world/reality itself is what promotes history and social development. Ideas aren’t what make history move, it’s the material conditions. So, the way that they are combined, becoming the philosophy of dialectical materialism is meant to be a framework to allows us to understand and critique society so that we can make it more liberatory.

Dialectical materialism is an idea that I’ll mostly attribute to Stalin that sees social change and history through understanding contradictions and material circumstances. It’s meant to understand the base of society, which is the economic mode of production, and the superstructure, which is everything that is birthed from that economic mode of production. So things like culture, art, ideology, etc. Base = economics, Superstructure = the rest of the pieces of society. Got it?

While this may sound great, dialectical materialism as a framework has some glaring blind spots. People don’t act purely from a place of rationality or determinism based on their conditions. Said otherwise, you cannot look solely at material conditions and understand why the world is why it is, or why people act the way that they do. We have to dialectically (ha) look at the tension between materialism and idealism, analyzing both of their places in the world. With this in mind, the way that dialectics are bundled with materialism (creating the philosophy of dialectical materialism) claims scientific rigor without proving it through a relationship of experimentation and iteration. There isn’t enough empirical evidence to support this conception of dialectical materialism.

It leaves me to question whether or not a more holistic, systems & complexity-oriented method/philosophy can surpass dialectical materialism. Complexity theories, namely the ideas of self-organization, emergence, chaos, and entropy are exciting and interesting ways to see how social change works. Rather than a simple machine, societies are complex adaptive systems that are more than just resolving tensions between contradictions. A useful mental model builder is DSRP (Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives) structures. Distinctions are about looking at the elements/agents within a system, where identifying one element implies the existence of other elements. Systems are an understanding whole that necessitates parts. Relationships are the actions and reactions between the other structures (Distinctions, Systems, other Relationships, and Perspectives). Perspectives are specific positions/points, implying a view. Using DSRP, we can construct models of systems and understand them on a holistic level, rather than reducing the fidelity of our analysis to our detriment. DSRP, similarly to dialectical materialism, is a fractal tool, creating as little or as much fidelity as we would like in our models.

I think that the most damning thing for dialectical materialism is a lack of understanding of how power functions within both the base and the superstructure, influencing and steering social forces. Power is a relationship between both people and their positions within a society. By not questioning the form that power takes (power-over vs. power-to vs. power-with), it cannot actually resolve the contradictions within society meaningfully. It undermines the whole project. We need to unpack the multifaceted nature of inequality, relating to all of the vectors that identity exists (race, gender, ability, sexuality, etc.) and seeing their relation to the structure as both of and from that structure. How social discourses, institutions, and practices reinforce matrixes of domination is very important to understand.

But maybe this doesn’t mean that we fully discard dialectics and materialism. I see them as something that can complement complexity theory and a liberatory power analysis. Dialectics are a great way to look at shifting terrains and sites of struggle, based on our understanding of the complex adaptive system of society. We also need to understand the material world, which benefits from a holistic scientific framework like understanding complexity. Ecosystems (a descriptive, holistic science) are a much more useful touchstone for understanding society than physics (a prescriptive, reductionist science). Oppressive ideas come from material conditions and are shaped by power structures. We could critically employ dialectical materialism to get a fuller picture, but that comes from being in concert with other tools.

So unionizing is a process that is driven by the people who work for a given company or at a given location — meaning the most you personally can do is help them with the process. But as for how you start a union organizing campaign:

The first step in creating a union is to talk to your co-workers about it. At this stage, you want to keep things as quiet and low-key as possible. Although there are laws protecting employees who want to unionize, there is nothing to stop management from launching its own anti-union misinformation campaign and that can very quickly kill your chances if i happens in the early stage. So try o keep management in the dark as long as possible. 

This means that you want to think carefully about who to talk to and how to frame the conversation. You shouldn’t go to anyone who seems more friendly than average with management or has a history of throwing their co-workers under the bus. If there are employees you think would be receptive who are also well-liked by other co-workers or hang out with co-workers you don’t know as well, they can be especially good to talk to. 

You should also be careful how you frame the discussion. You can actually spend a while talking about unions without using the word union. A good first conversation might just be about problems at work or things they wish were better — like any good work-related bitch session with your co-workers. After a while, maybe say something like, “I wonder if we pushed back as a group if they would have to listen to us.” And see how it goes over. 

The point is that at this early stage, you should be careful and move slowly. Take your time, don’t feel the need to get things done immediately. 

Once you have a group of people who are onboard with the idea, the next step is to contact a parent union. 

When employees at a given workplace unionize, they do so as a unit or shop within a parent union. This parent union will specialize in representing employees in your industry — things like retail, food service, or a certain kind of manufacturing. If you can’t find a union that seems to fit, reach out to the AFL-CIO, which is the largest labor union in the country — most parent unions are part of the AFL-CIO in some capacity. 

Unlike your shop, which will be made of ordinary people who work for your company and do union stuff on the side, the parent union will have full time employees who specialize in union stuff and know how to organize — and if/when your union is officially recognized, the parent union will continue to help you negotiate with management to ensure that things get better in your workplace. 

In order to make this possible, members of the union pay dues to the parent union — usually less than 2% of each paycheck. Members are also allowed to vote in union elections to elect the leaders in their parent union. 

All that stuff is far down the line if you’re just starting out, but it’s good to have an idea of what the end goal is. 

Throughout this week (11/13-11/20), activists have the opportunity to participate in workshops, volunteer events and protests. Read on if you want to get involved in the community regarding sustainability, community organizing and national politics.

Thursday, Nov. 14

Sustainable Communities Workshop

@ 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

Girl Scouts of Gulfcoast Florida Inc – 4780 Cattlemen Rd, Sarasota FL

The Legacy: Reflections on MLK Day

Hola Everybody, Here in New York Martin Luther King’s legacy is celebrated partly with a day off work. My feeling is that the infotainment culture has managed to repackage Martin Luther King into a two-minute cliché that we dust off every year for his birthday. In that way, the power and meaning of his struggles and the struggles of those that walked by his side are lessened. MLK’s message has…