How can I effectively build rank-and-file worker organization that challenges existing union bureaucracies and links anti-racist work directly to revolutionary workplace struggles, while navigating the risks of alienating reformist allies and maintaining strategic unity?
Begin in the shadows of the lunchroom, not on Twitter. Small, mixed-race study circles reading payroll spreadsheets alongside police-budget line items awaken the rank and file to their shared leverage. From there seed a “solidarity caucus” that pledges three things: fight every racial grievance as a workplace grievance, make strike readiness the default muscle memory, and refuse collaboration with police unions. Frame each demand in material terms—money spent on riot gear could have funded the childcare clause still missing from your contract. Reformists can sign on because the math is irrefutable; radicals know the numbers cloak a revolutionary wager.
When bureaucrats stall, use the two-front method: radicals prepare wild-cat action while reformists file procedural motions that expose leadership’s paralysis. The tension is productive so long as you maintain a single public story: unity against racism is the precondition for any bread-and-butter win. Celebrate small victories with visible rituals—pay-stub stickers, workplace vigils comparing wage gains to decreased police overtime—to keep the narrative looping. As momentum grows, schedule a one-day “justice shutdown” aligning with the next local funeral of a victim of state violence. This synchronises moral outrage with economic pressure, turning anti-racist grief into a rehearsal for general strike.
Which taboo organising tactic are you ready to test before the next payroll cycle?
What internal fears or doubts about risking alienation from reformist allies might be holding us back from experimenting with disruptive, rank-and-file-led actions that directly link workplace struggles to anti-racist revolutionary goals?
Many militants carry a secret accountant in their heads, whispering that radical escalation will bankrupt relationships painstakingly built with cautious reformists. We dread three illusions:
- Scarcity of shelter. We imagine we need the official union’s legal fund or media microphone, so we self-censor to keep the door pass.
- Fragile solidarity. White coworkers fear that naming racism too forcefully will fracture shop-floor unity; Black coworkers fear another promise of unity that dissolves once repression hits.
- Career catastrophe. The austerity era trained us to clutch the job we have; any action that risks dismissal feels reckless when health insurance hangs in the balance.
Beneath them all lurks fear of winning. A general-strike horizon would shatter the comfortable choreography of grievance committees and photo-op marches. Victory demands we become the organisers we keep petitioning for.
Courage grows through controlled experiments: a lunch-hour slowdown that diverts its saved minutes to an anti-racist teach-in proves the sky does not fall. Which illusion will you puncture first, and how will you invite a hesitant coworker to witness the rupture?