
The inaugural Red Hot Summer program of Summer 2022 has concluded but please read below for the resources that were shared throughout the six-week program, as well as additional political education readings and a few other resources that were given to us by Red Hot Summer participants. Thank you for your continued interest in labor organizing!
General Links
Week One – General Introductions to Red Hot Summer
Simple Starter Questions
- Why are you here today? What are you excited about?
- Have any of your co-workers ever complained about anything at your job?
More Specific Questions
- What are the major issues at your workplace?
- What was your first work experience like?
- Have you ever experienced wage theft?
- Have you and/or your coworkers ever fought back against management (through passive resistance or collective action)?
- What do you want to change about your workplace?
- Why is it important to you to organize your workplace?
- What matters to you about the work you do?
Week Two – Political Education
Reading + Questions
- No Left without Labor – Jonah Furman
- Why are unions important for the political left?
- What are some ways we can reconnect the political left with the labor movement?
- Why are unions important for the political left?
- Ireland Strikes for Repeal – Aoife Frances
- How might we be able to use our organizing in our workplaces to advocate for other intersectional issues like abortion?
- What can we do specifically about abortion?
- What are other issues we should tie to our organizing efforts?
- How might we be able to use our organizing in our workplaces to advocate for other intersectional issues like abortion?
- Seizing the Means of Reproduction – Emily Callaci
- Do you see reproductive labor (including caretaking or service work) devalued or disregarded in your own workplace?
- If so, how could we fight that devaluation by organizing?
- Do you see reproductive labor (including caretaking or service work) devalued or disregarded in your own workplace?
Week Three – Workplace Mapping and Organizing Conversations
Beginning Exercises
Breakout Activities
- Breakout Activity One – Developing a Rap
- We want our co-workers to realize:
- They care about a problem.
- There is a decision-maker who has the power to fix this problem.
- The decision-maker won’t fix it until someone pushes them to.
- If your co-worker really wants this problem to be fixed, they have to join you and other co-workers in taking action.
- We want our co-workers to realize:
- Breakout Activity Two – Organizing Questions Brainstorm
- Intro questions:
- How is your day going?
- How long have you worked here?
- How have things changed since you started?
- Agitating questions:
- Is that okay with you?
- How long has that been going on?
- Is that how you would do things if you were in charge?
- What would need to change to make your job more fulfilling?
- What would need to change for you to feel respected at work?
- Why do you think we’re having this problem?
- What does this mean for students/patients/the public?
- Polarizing questions:
- Who is in the position to fix this? What would they have to do?
- Do you think this problem is going to fix itself?
- How much longer are you willing to put up with this?
- Is that ever going to get better if we do nothing?
- Intro questions:
Week Four – Political Education
Readings
- Bottom-Up Labor Solidarity for Palestine Is Growing – Suzanne Adely
- https://y.dsausa.org/the-activist/centering-palestinian-liberation-is-essential-to-revitalizing-the-labor-movement/ – Willem Morris
- Organizing Against Amazon Requires Strategizing Across Global Supply Chains – Charmaine Chua
Questions
- How does your work relate to other workers around the world?
- Why is it important for workers to fight oppression abroad? Why should workers not only focus on organizing in their own country?
- How can we accomplish this?
- How can workplace organizing develop further political/class struggle?
Week Five – Escalation and Inoculation
- Identifying a Good Organizing Issue
- Breakout Activity – Evaluating an Organizing Issue
- Action Thermometer
- Breakout Activity – Arrange These Tactics on a Thermometer
Week Six – Political Education
General Reading
- ILWU, ILA, and Teamsters Take Action in Honor of George Floyd – Frances Madeson
Reading + Questions by Category
Teaching
- Why Socialists Should Become Teachers – DSA teachers of West Virginia
- What makes education a strategic industry to organize in?
- What organizing challenges might we face as teachers?
Nursing
- The Nursing Strike That Beat Austerity – Keith Brower Brown and Mark Drexler
- What makes nursing/healthcare a strategic industry to organize in?
- How can organizing in healthcare be part of a larger political campaign for universal healthcare?
Logistics
- Organizing Amazon is do or die for the Labor Movement – Eli Rose
- What makes logistics a strategic industry to organize?
Films Shown
- “Pride” – 2014 movie about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, a solidarity effort for the 1984-85 coal miners strike in the UK
- “Nae Pasaran” – 2018 movie about Scottish strikes against the Chilean dictatorship
- “The Killing Floor” – 1984 movie about Chicago meat packing unionization and the 1919 racist riot
Zoom Session Recordings
- Coming soon!
Other Recommendations from Red Hot Summer Participants
- Podcasts
- “Capitalism Hits Home” by Democracy at Work
- It Could Happen Here
Extended Labor History Program Readings
Early 20th Century Radical Unionism
- The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 – Graciela Pichardo
- Trade Union Education League – Chris Maisano
- Feminism and the Labor Movement: A Century of Collaboration and Conflict – Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck
- The IWW – James Cannon
- “The Program and Principles of the Trade Union Educational League” – William Z Foster
- Strike! by Jeremey Brecher; Chapter Four (“Nineteen Nineteen”)
The 1930s and 40s upsurge
- Anti-racist solidarity brought victory for all dock workers in 1934 San Francisco General Strike – Paul Wilcox
- Strike! by Jeremey Brecher; Chapter Five (“Depression Decade”)
- “The Great Minneapolis Strikes” – James Cannon
Rank and File Rebellions of the long 1970s
- Decade of the Rank and File – Cal Winslow
- Workplace Feminism in the 1970s – Dorothy Sue Cobble
- Black Power at the point of production, 1968–73 – Lee Sustar
- The Radical Vision of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes – Kim Kelly
- An Injury To All, Chapter 3 (pages 41-69), – Kim Moody
The Modern Labor Movement
- No Shortcuts, Chapter 4 – Jane McAlevey
- The Entire Food Industry Should Go Union – Laila Dalton
- Opening the Door to a More Democratic UAW – Nelson Lichtenstein
- With Reformers Victorious, It’s a New Day for the Teamsters – Indigo Oliver
- Oakland teachers and ILWU strike against racism and gentrification
- How Seven Thousand Quebec Workers Went on Strike against Climate Change – Alain Savard
- This Is What the Beginning of a Climate-Labor Alliance Looks Like – Kate Aronoff