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An unorthodox, irreverent, and battle-tested strategy for workers to leverage the power we already have We know how our workplaces should be, but they're changing for the worse. We know how we want the world to be too, but billionaires are doing their best to make things fall apart.
In
Unions of Our Own, veteran labor organizer and co-founder of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union Daniel Gross provides a radical, step-by-step framework for workers who want to fight for the better workplaces they've always envisioned-and dream of bigger changes, too. In a world teeming with union-busters and bad bosses, Daniel Gross reveals the eight building blocks needed to build a sustainable labor union that can actually stand up for workers' needs.
Through practical tools and real-world examples,
Unions of Our Own is an actionable, inspiring, and confidence-boosting handbook on how to win the workplace-and the world-we all deserve.
List of contents
IntroductionEstablishing a connection with the reader, via the miseries of work - lays out the general framework. Includes some of Daniel's experience at Starbucks and Borders
Part 1 | Considering the Union Journey
Work Problems, Work Solutions
Work is daunting, don't be daunted by organizing. It can be done!
Organizing and Operating a Union at Your Job
General overview of what's involved with a union & contrasting to mainstream union models
Part 2 | The Foundational Building Blocks to a Union of Your Own
Building Block 1: Constituency | Choose Your People
Pretty self-explanatory: who is it that you're organizing?
Building Block 2: Problem | What's Most Painful?
Grievances, shared and particular: race, gender, sexualities, status, etc. and how to build on them.
Building Block 3: Solution | Solve Problems with Solidarity
The importance of "an injury to one is an injury to all" how to tackle those questions among co-workers, minority organizing strategies
Building Block 4: Strategy | Power to Win
Becoming coworkers with a sense of collective self; what are our goals, what does winning mean, and identifying strategies
Part 3 | The Sustainability and Growth Building Blocks
Building Block 5: Mechanism | Hold Your Gains, Define Your Character
How to understand collective bargaining, cease-fire agreements, and issue-by-issue agreements, among others. Contrasting the cost / benefits of those for workers' interests
Building Block 6: Structure | A Union You Control
What a democratic union is, why it's important, and how to conceive of a structure that reflects the interests of the workers.
Building Block 7: Funding | Resources to Win
How to conceive of the finances for your new union
Building Block 8: Metrics | Measure Your Model, Focus Your Work
About the author
Daniel Gross has been doing worker-led organizing and union-building for more than two decades, accompanying thousands of workers creating unions in their workplaces. Together with his co-workers, Gross helped found the groundbreaking IWW Starbucks Workers Union, which held power for over a decade at the coffee giant and helped revitalize a more inclusive labor movement.
Gross has practiced labor law from a rank & file perspective and served on the board of the National Lawyers Guild and the Food Chain Workers Alliance. He is also the founding director of Brandworkers, the first worker center of immigrant workers in the metro New York local food manufacturing industry.
With Staughton Lynd, he is the co-author of the classic
Labor Law for the Rank & Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law as well as the graphic pamphlet,
Solidarity Unionism at Starbucks, with illustrator Tom Keough. He is based in New York City.
