Download or read book No Shortcuts written by Jane McAlevey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An examination of strategies for effective organizing"--

Download or read book Organizing for Power and Empowerment written by Jacqueline B. Mondros and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1994-04-21 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed to help build powerful community organizations, empower ordinary citizens to become leaders, and bring about major social and economic change, this book offers a coherent practice-based framework for understanding social action, with power and empowerment at the center of analysis. Topics include recruiting members, consensus building, leadership, publicity, and fundraising.

Download or read book Organizing for Power written by Aviva Chomsky and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boston’s economy has become defined by a disconcerting trend that has intensified throughout much of the United States since the 2008 recession. Economic growth now delivers remarkably few benefits to large sectors of the working class – a phenomenon that is particularly severe for immigrants, people of color, and women. Labor in 21st Century Boston explores this nation-wide phenomenon of “unshared growth” by focusing on Boston, a city that is famously liberal, relatively wealthy, and increasingly difficult for working people (who service the city’s needs) to actually live in. Labor in 21st Century Boston is the only comprehensive analysis of labor and popular mobilizing in Boston today, the volume contributes to a growing body of academic and popular literature that examines urban America, racial and economic inequality, labor and immigration, and the right-wing assault on working people.

Download or read book Raising Expectations and Raising Hell written by Jane McAlevey and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “breath-taking trip through the union-organizing scene of America in the 21st century” reveals the victories and unconventional strategies of a renowned—and notorious—militant union organizer (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed) In 1995, in the first contested election in the history of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney won the presidency of the nation’s largest labor federation, promising renewal and resurgence. Today, less than 7 percent of American private-sector workers belong to a union, the lowest percentage since the beginning of the twentieth century, and public employee collective bargaining has been dealt devastating blows in Wisconsin and elsewhere. What happened? Jane McAlevey is famous—and notorious—in the American labor movement as the hard-charging organizer who racked up a string of victories at a time when union leaders said winning wasn’t possible. Then she was bounced from the movement, a victim of the high-level internecine warfare that has torn apart organized labor. In this engrossing and funny narrative—that reflects the personality of its charismatic, wisecracking author—McAlevey tells the story of a number of dramatic organizing and contract victories, and the unconventional strategies that helped achieve them. Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) argues that labor can be revived, but only if the movement acknowledges its mistakes and fully commits to deep organizing, participatory education, militancy, and an approach to workers and their communities that more resembles the campaigns of the 1930s—in short, social movement unionism that involves raising workers’ expectations (while raising hell).

Download or read book Roots to Power written by Lee Staples and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third edition of the manual for community organizers tells readers how to most effectively implement community action for social change, clearly laying out grassroots organizing principles, methods, and best practices. Written for those who want to improve their own lives or the lives of others, this thoroughly revised how-to manual presents techniques groups can use to organize successfully in pursuit of their dreams. The book combines time-tested, universal principles and methods with cutting-edge material addressing new opportunities and challenges. It covers basic concepts and best practices and offers step-by-step guidelines on things an organizer needs to know, such as how to identify issues, formulate strategies, set goals, recruit participants, and much more. The work focuses on six organizing arenas: turf/geography, failth-based, issue, identity, shared experience, and work-related. It offers new or expanded material addressing community development, use of social media, internal organizational dynamics, electoral organizing, evaluation/assessment, and prevention of burnout for key leaders. There are also nuts-and-bolts articles by experts who address topics such as action research, lobbying, legal tactics, and grassroots fundraising. Numerous case examples, charts, worksheets, and small group exercises enrich the discussion and bring the material to life.

Download or read book Prisms of the People written by Hahrie Han and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-07-12 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grassroots organizing and collective action have always been fundamental to American democracy but have been burgeoning since the 2016 election, as people struggle to make their voices heard in this moment of societal upheaval. Unfortunately much of that action has not had the kind of impact participants might want, especially among movements representing the poor and marginalized who often have the most at stake when it comes to rights and equality. Yet, some instances of collective action have succeeded. What’s the difference between a movement that wins victories for its constituents, and one that fails? What are the factors that make collective action powerful? Prisms of the People addresses those questions and more. Using data from six movement organizations—including a coalition that organized a 104-day protest in Phoenix in 2010 and another that helped restore voting rights to the formerly incarcerated in Virginia—Hahrie Han, Elizabeth McKenna, and Michelle Oyakawa show that the power of successful movements most often is rooted in their ability to act as “prisms of the people,” turning participation into political power just as prisms transform white light into rainbows. Understanding the organizational design choices that shape the people, their leaders, and their strategies can help us understand how grassroots groups achieve their goals. Linking strong scholarship to a deep understanding of the needs and outlook of activists, Prisms of the People is the perfect book for our moment—for understanding what’s happening and propelling it forward.

Download or read book Roots for Radicals written by Edward T. Chambers and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The successor to the legendary activist Saul Alinsky, Edward T. Chambers pioneered a set of principles and practices that have guided community organizations throughout the US and the world. Roots for Radicals remains his definitive reflection on these fundamental principles of community activism: how, as public citizens, we can navigate the gap between the world as it is and as it should be, between self-interest and self-sacrifice and in doing so create lasting change for our communities. In the face of the increasingly turbulent politics of the 21st-century, Chambers's book has never been more relevant.

Download or read book Secrets of a Successful Organizer written by Alexandra Bradbury and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hope for Justice and Power written by Kathleen Staudt and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas-based affiliates in the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)—built on ideas, principles, and actions from the late Saul Alinsky—offer a strong, mature organizing model compared with other community organizations in the state and the United States as a whole. IAF affiliates’ members consist of institutions, most of them faith-based congregations and synagogues. Local volunteer leaders in those institutions work together in relationships of trust that draw strength, unity, and purpose from IAF principles and the social-justice precepts of their different faiths. In Hope for Justice and Power, Kathleen Staudt examines the twenty-first-century activities of the Texas IAF in multiple cities and towns around the state, drawing on forty years of academic teaching and on twenty years of active leadership experiences in the IAF. She identifies major contradictions, tensions, and their resolutions in IAF organizing related to centralism versus local control, reformist versus radical goals, stable revenue generation, greater gender balance in leadership, and evolving IAF principles. The political context in modern Texas is a challenging one compared to the Texas IAF founding period in the last quarter of the twentieth century, yet local IAF volunteer leaders achieve their goals with a strong political base in divergent urban regions around the state. With declining religious affiliation in U.S. society, the Texas IAF has begun to recruit members from broad-based institutions, such as schools and health clinics. The hope and winnable goals that sustain IAF organizing show the importance of organized power, trained volunteer leaders, and relationships with public officials in between elections. With cross-class alliances, IAF affiliates work to foster equitable change toward a more just society. To analyze the Texas IAF, Staudt draws on participant observation in El Paso, statewide meetings and training, on interviews, and on archival documents and media coverage. This book will appeal to those interested in community-based organizing and leadership, Mexican American and women’s politics, civic-capacity building in education, political socialization, and both Texas and urban politics.

Download or read book Here Comes Everybody written by Clay Shirky and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2009-02-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to the new future of involvement. Forming groups is easier than it�s ever been: unpaid volunteers can build an encyclopaedia together in their spare time, mistreated customers can join forces to get their revenge on airlines and high street banks, and one man with a laptop can raise an army to help recover a stolen phone. The results of this new world of easy collaboration can be both good (young people defying an oppressive government with a guerrilla ice-cream eating protest) and bad (girls sharing advice for staying dangerously skinny) but it�s here and, as Clay Shirky shows, it�s affecting � well, everybody. For the first time, we have the tools to make group action truly a reality. And they�re going to change our whole world.

Download or read book People Power written by Aaron Schutz and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saul Alinsky, according to Time Magazine in 1970, was a "prophet of power to the people," someone who "has possibly antagonized more people . . . than any other living American." People Power introduces the major organizers who adopted and modified Alinsky's vision across the United States: --Fred Ross, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the Community Service Organization and National Farm Workers Association --Nicholas von Hoffman and the Woodlawn Organization --Tom Gaudette and the Northwest Community Organization --Ed Chambers, Richard Harmon, and the Industrial Areas Foundation --Shel Trapp, Gale Cincotta, and National People's Action --Heather Booth, Midwest Academy, and Citizen Action --Wade Rathke and ACORN Weaving classic texts with interviews and their own context-setting commentaries, the editors of People Power provide the first comprehensive history of Alinsky-based organizing in the tumultuous period from 1955 to 1980, when the key organizing groups in the United States took form. Many of these selections--previously available only on untranscribed audiotapes or in difficult-to-read mimeograph or Xerox formats--appear in print here for the first time.

Download or read book Global Unions Local Power written by Jamie K. McCallum and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: News about labor unions is usually pessimistic, focusing on declining membership and failed campaigns. But there are encouraging signs that the labor movement is evolving its strategies to benefit workers in rapidly changing global economic conditions. Global Unions, Local Power tells the story of the most successful and aggressive campaign ever waged by workers across national borders. It begins in the United States in 2007 as SEIU struggled to organize private security guards at G4S, a global security services company that is the second largest employer in the world. Failing in its bid, SEIU changed course and sought allies in other countries in which G4S operated. Its efforts resulted in wage gains, benefits increases, new union formations, and an end to management reprisals in many countries throughout the Global South, though close attention is focused on developments in South Africa and India. In this book, Jamie K. McCallum looks beyond these achievements to probe the meaning of some of the less visible aspects of the campaign. Based on more than two years of fieldwork in nine countries and historical research into labor movement trends since the late 1960s, McCallum’s findings reveal several paradoxes. Although global unionism is typically concerned with creating parity and universal standards across borders, local context can both undermine and empower the intentions of global actors, creating varied and uneven results. At the same time, despite being generally regarded as weaker than their European counterparts, U.S. unions are in the process of remaking the global labor movement in their own image. McCallum suggests that changes in political economy have encouraged unions to develop new ways to organize workers. He calls these "governance struggles," strategies that seek not to win worker rights but to make new rules of engagement with capital in order to establish a different terrain on which to organize.

Download or read book Class Struggle Unionism written by Joe Burns and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those who want to build a fighting labor movement, there are many questions to answer. How to relate to the union establishment which often does not want to fight? Whether to work in the rank and file of unions or staff jobs? How much to prioritize broader class demands versus shop floor struggle? How to relate to foundation-funded worker centers and alternative union efforts? And most critically, how can we revive militancy and union power in the face of corporate power and a legal system set up against us? Class struggle unionism is the belief that our union struggle exists within a larger struggle between an exploiting billionaire class and the working class which actually produces the goods and services in society. Class struggle unionism looks at the employment transaction as inherently exploitative. While workers create all wealth in society, the outcome of the wage employment transaction is to separate workers from that wealth and create the billionaire class. From that simple proposition flows a powerful and radical form of unionism. Historically, class struggle unionists placed their workplace fights squarely within this larger fight between workers and the owning class. Viewing unionism in this way produces a particular type of unionism which both fights for broader class issues but is also rooted in workplace-based militancy. Drawing on years of labor activism and study of labor tradition Joe Burns outlines the key set of ideas common to class struggle unionism and shows how these ideas can create a more militant, democtractic and fighting labor movement.

Download or read book Learning Power written by Jeannie Oakes and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2006-04-24 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In cities across the nation, low-income African-American and Latino parents hope their children's education will bring a better life. But their schools, typically, are overcrowded, ill equipped, and shamefully under-staffed. This work offers a radical approach to school reform that stresses grassroots public activism.

Download or read book Rules for Radicals written by Saul Alinsky and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-06-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

Download or read book Race Class Power and Organizing in East Baltimore written by Marisela B. Gomez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the East Baltimore community as an example this book examines historical and current rebuilding practices in abandoned communities in urban America, their structural causes, and outcomes on the health of the place and the people. The role of community organizing as a necessary means to assure benefit during and after resident displacement, its challenges and successes, are described in the context of a current eminent domain-driven rebuilding project in East Baltimore.

Download or read book Organizing America written by Charles Perrow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American society today is shaped not nearly as much by vast open spaces as it is by vast, bureaucratic organizations. Over half the working population toils away at enterprises with 500 or more employees--up from zero percent in 1800. Is this institutional immensity the logical outcome of technological forces in an all-efficient market, as some have argued? In this book, the first organizational history of nineteenth-century America, Yale sociologist Charles Perrow says no. He shows that there was nothing inevitable about the surge in corporate size and power by century's end. Critics railed against the nationalizing of the economy, against corporations' monopoly powers, political subversion, environmental destruction, and "wage slavery." How did a nation committed to individual freedom, family firms, public goods, and decentralized power become transformed in one century? Bountiful resources, a mass market, and the industrial revolution gave entrepreneurs broad scope. In Europe, the state and the church kept private organizations small and required consideration of the public good. In America, the courts and business-steeped legislators removed regulatory constraints over the century, centralizing industry and privatizing the railroads. Despite resistance, the corporate form became the model for the next century. Bureaucratic structure spread to government and the nonprofits. Writing in the tradition of Max Weber, Perrow concludes that the driving force of our history is not technology, politics, or culture, but large, bureaucratic organizations. Perrow, the author of award-winning books on organizations, employs his witty, trenchant, and graceful style here to maximum effect. Colorful vignettes abound: today's headlines echo past battles for unchecked organizational freedom; socially responsible alternatives that were tried are explored along with the historical contingencies that sent us down one road rather than another. No other book takes the role of organizations in America's development as seriously. The resultant insights presage a new historical genre.