What powers Interference Archive: labor organizing
December 8, 2016 by
This post is the second in a series during the month of December 2016, where we are reflecting on the things — issues, movements, and ideas — that give us a reason for existing here at Interference Archive. Read our first post, on women’s movements, here.
Labor organizing
Part of the history of society is the struggle of power, wages, and work. Worker campaigns have empowered people to fight against capitalist oppression, humanize brutalizing systems of labor, and their stumbles provide valuable lessons for future organizing.
At Interference Archive, reflecting on archival evidence of this struggle gives us a framework for looking at current actions. Keeping this history alive is critical for us; it provides an excellent example of how current organizing does not exist in a vacuum, but rather carries on a long legacy of hard work.
— Vero Ordaz
From the archive:
Browsing the pamphlets in our collective gives us a great overview of the work that’s been done by labor organizers. Here’s a small selection.
Industrial Workers of the World, Preamble and Constitution, organized July 7, 1905.
Artist Unknown, Black Workers Freedom Convention, 1972.
Jim Griffin, Philadelphia Workers’ Organizing Committee. Racism and the Workers’ Movements.
Steve Downs. Hell on Wheels: the success & failure of reform in transport workers Union Local 100. 2008.
David Graeber. On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs. 2013. Published by Strike!
If you’d like to support our work so that we can keep organizing this important history, please consider making a donation today.
