Dear John,

Today, we honor the passing this past week of a powerful organizer who taught us so much about winning: Jane McAlevey. Jane pushed us every day to internalize that it’s not enough to simply mobilize people; we have to organize people.

It’s impossible to say everything there is to say about Jane, but there’s one core idea of hers that informs our work at TakeAction MN.

Organizing. Organizing. Organizing.

Systemic change that challenges the power of billionaires and corporations and delivers the conditions we want to see for our families and future will only happen when we build relationships with those in our communities: our neighborhoods, our institutions, and as Jane stressed, our workplaces.

That’s why we are organizing the places we live and work, growing into teams of renters, students, parents, performers, and building the power we need to make measurable wins for our communities. 

Here’s what we’re reading, watching and listening to this week.

First, here’s a few interviews with Jane McAlevey, highlighting some important quotes that summarize her powerful worldview:

1. How to Organize for Power 

I think most people on the left and in this country have learned that elections actually matter…[but] the truth is, there are way too few people, right now, who self-identify as ‘participating progressives’ We need way, way, way, way more to actually win.

Organizing is what happens before and after election time… In organizing, we’re consciously, every single day, doing what we call “base expansion.” We’re expanding the universe of people from whom we can later come back to mobilize, whether it’s to go to the polls or whether it’s getting people on a picket line and striking.

A fundamental quality of successful organizers is that we actually have a lot of faith in people, and we believe that our job is to play the role of teacher, and coach.

2. Meeting the standard 

The minute we can tell a worker, “You’re not going to get a job on the pipeline. Instead, we’re going to get you a job on a wind farm, and the wind farm employer is going to match your salary and your benefits,” this fight’s going to end.

And guess what that requires? A fuck load more power than the environmental movement has. And now we’re down to my favorite question. How do we build the power to make that happen? It’s great that Ocasio-Cortez and others have changed the dialogue around taxing the super rich, because obviously taxing the super rich is going to make it so we can have a real just transition, and so that we can begin to subsidize clean energy jobs the way we subsidize the fossil fuel jobs

3. Jane McAlevey’s Plan for How to Build a Fighting Labor Movement

The methods I was taught were about building worksite power, and then additionally, thinking about how workers come to see themselves as powerful actors inside of their communities. And you knit that power together — we should just say that it’s radical political education. The point of it all is to help everyday people connect the dots in their own lives about things that enable them to have confidence, because confidence is one of the most important things the working class needs in order to act…

…[T]o have more self-confidence in their capacity to win on the way to a big strike, or on the way to believing they can elect a great mayor. We are here to help people connect the dots.

4. It’s Not Enough to Fight

Most people, including most socialists, don’t understand that we don’t just call for a strike. It’s about building and expanding the universe of people who are with us in this struggle for justice.

The central concept of the course is that, for organizers, we wake up every morning asking how to engage the people who don’t agree with us — or who think they don’t agree with us. These folks are definitely not part of our social media feeds, and they’re not coming to our activist meetings, they’re not there.

5. Park workers union continue strike

Unionized Minneapolis park workers agreed to an indefinite strike “until the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board agrees to go back to contract negotiations”, with the union’s business manager promising to “fight until we get a fair contract and the respect that we deserve”.

All workers deserve fair compensation, and the way we get there is by organizing workers together until they have enough power to demand it.

6. Wave of union victories for Duluth nurses

Duluth nurses at the 3rd Street Clinics and Patient Flow Hospital have successfully unionized under the Minnesota Nurses Association, joining those at the Clinic 1st Street, 2nd Street Clinic, Solvay Hospice House. Nurses at Essentia Health St. Mary’s-Superior Wisconsin Clinic have also announced that they have filed for an election vote.

7. Left leads; fascists denied majority

If you read last week's news digest and were on the edge of your seat about the results from France, you weren't alone. So here's your update! The left-wing coalition won the most votes, defeating Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally, relegating them to third. So far, Macron has signalled that he is not willing to form a coalition with the left-wing bloc, despite them winning the most votes, and in the days since, a major French union has called for a massive protest if Macron does not allow the party which won the most seats to form the government.

This is a perfect example of the importance of all forms of organizing: unions and elections alike. We can only win when we wield power throughout society.

8. The climate crisis in our backyard

After torrential rain for over a month, much of Minnesota, from the North to the South is still recovering from devastating floods. As we watch escalating natural disasters and extreme weather patterns around the world, it’s important to remember that these unprecedented times are not caused by the chaos of the natural world, but an intentional choice by a few billionaires to keep profiting off of fossil fuels, at the expense of our futures.

And that’s a wrap!

Send us what you’re reading, watching and listening to.

Until next time,

Mattias Lehman (he/him)
Communications Director