Organizing Tips for Everyday Workers

1. Don’t Quit. Organize!

Everyone’s situation is different, but if you can do so, stay on the job and organize to change the things at your workplace that aren’t working for you. Organizing is the best way to make your bad boss regret their crappy practices. Chances are that your co-workers have some of the same problems.

2. Talk to Your Co-Workers

Don’t go it alone. As workers, our power comes from collective action alongside our co-workers. Find out about others’ concerns. Ask them questions and listen to their answers. Share your own concerns with trustworthy people, but follow the rule of one mouth, two ears. We organize people by listening and showing them we hear them. Identify the issues that are widely and deeply felt in your workplace and take those issues seriously. Common issues include unmanageable workloads, substandard equipment, and unpredictable scheduling — and more. Help people overcome their fear by finding their righteous anger.

3. Find Places Where You Can Talk and Build Solidarity

What the boss doesn’t know can’t hurt you. Where are the places you and your co-workers can speak freely? This could be the proverbial water cooler, a smokers’ corner, a break room, or anyplace away from prying ears. Find solid people and establish a means of communicating outside of work: a text thread, an after-work hangout, or the like. Bosses try to divide us in many ways — backstabbing gossip, pitting us against each other for small rewards, racism, anti-woman or anti-queer sexism. Organizers build solidarity between co-workers.

4. Map Who Has Influence

The most powerful co-worker on your shift may not have a title. Identify the co-worker everyone respects and listens to. When they speak up, others follow. Talk to them about your issue. Their buy-in is worth more than a dozen casual supporters.

5. Every Collective Action Matters

Solidarity is a muscle that gets stronger with exercise. Strikes are the most powerful weapon we have as workers, but they are like the Solidarity Olympics, and you have to build up to them. Any action that you and your co-workers take together to improve your conditions builds the collective power to achieve what none of you could alone.

6. Document Everything

Keep a shared record of incidents, promises made, and responses received. When workers compare notes, patterns emerge, and patterns are evidence. A single complaint is easy to brush off. A pattern documented by ten people is much harder to ignore.

7. Learn from Experience

Make connections and get support from labor movement organizations. There’s no need to go it alone and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can start by contacting the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee at workerorganizing.org.