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submitted 3 days ago by chobeat@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

While there are plenty of spaces for debate, news commentary, "political internet culture", memes, and so on, I still haven't found a single community dedicated to any form of collective action, either IRL or in digital spaces. There are some communities dedicated to unions, but it seems mostly news commentary and very little action, educational material, events, or projects to plug yourself into.

I understand that the core user base of lemmy might not be the most prone to collective action, but I'm still surprised there's nothing even on the most political communities.

Any suggestion?

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[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

I love giving advice on organizing, but I tend to agree with the other person that social media is a poor format for building long term collective action. The best place to share this stuff is with a union. I learned everything I know about organizing from my union CWA, including the classes needed to learn how to organize (they're free and offered every weekend).

I'm fighting an unjust firing, and went to my union. When we had a violation of status quo, we turned to our union. When we're unsure how to organize, our union forms a committee to figure it out. When we need more people, we recruit among coworkers. When we have an idea for political action, we talk to our local president to get it proposed during membership meetings. When we have questions we can't answer, we talk to our executive board.

There is space for a community like what you're proposing and I'd participate in it, but I don't know how much active interest there would be.

[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago

I'm one of the people organizing such activities, not within a union but through a similar dynamic. While that's a great way to build capacity and know-how, it's very narrow and slow to evolve. There's plenty of research and discussion on how to build democratic organizations more effectively, and this kind of discussion doesn't happen within a single org. When it does, it's often very disconnected from reality and uninteresting. This kind of know-how can totally be circulated through social networks (not necessarily social media, but also) when the exchange is on topics of interest on a global scale.

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

What are your goals, how will you achieve them, and how will you maintain cohesion? To me, it seems you have an idea and a lot of resistance to joining anything that has existing problems. One of the biggest obstacles facing this idea in the long term is how organizing is usually very specific to local problems, so most information that would be shared is only relevant to a single campaign at a specific point in time. Like for example I created a shortened organizing training for my campaign, we were able to turn a 4 hour, 2 class course into a single 1.5 hour session because we tailored the info specifically to the ongoing campaign. It could be useful for some very limited purposes, but by and large it's just a relic of my campaign history.

Unions can be slow, but they also move incredibly fast. CWA still has work to be done, but members won't allow it to be anything other than democratically controlled. The labor activist world is small and full of plagiarism, the conversation is never held to just one group with unique ideas. Conversation about democratization jumps from the 1920s IWW to 2000s Ver Di to 1970s teachers to modern examples that were just implemented.

[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago

What are your goals, how will you achieve them, and how will you maintain cohesion?

My goal is to build more effective political organizations. I abandoned my career to do this as a consultant, I do this as a volunteer for the orgs that cannot afford me, and I do it in the orgs in which I'm politically active first-hand. Building communities of experts and people interested in improving, on a global scale, is part of the process.

To me, it seems you have an idea and a lot of resistance to joining anything that has existing problems.

There are effective orgs with problems and there are orgs with no chance of having a positive impact because they spend all their resources reproducing themselves. No problem joining the first kind, but I don't believe there's a point beating a dead horse with the second.

One of the biggest obstacles facing this idea in the long term is how organizing is usually very specific to local problems, so most information that would be shared is only relevant to a single campaign at a specific point in time.

I'm not American, so campaign organization is not really the frame I'm immersed in. I do a lot of organizing with Americans, so I understand the context, but if you want to build a political org that can last a century and it's able to evolve and fit changing needs, that kind of know-how is generic and reusable. There are intrinsic dynamics of how humans behave within organizations and how organizations grow, and anything pertaining to those aspects is knowledge that is transferable and can live a long time. If you build for the short-term, you are subject to the ebbs and flows of the current moment and your impact will be short-lived. I'm not against this way of doing things, but I just don't find it interesting or ambitious enough.

Conversation about democratization jumps from the 1920s IWW to 2000s Ver Di

A suspicious amount of my peers are past-IWW members who are now part of VerDi, lol.

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I abandoned my career to do this as a consultant

It makes me feel much better knowing you're (probably) familiar with my type of questioning, it's become too ingrained to stop.

Now that I understand how this would differentiate itself from actual orgs, I'm definitely on board. I have some good things worth sharing already for tenant organizing

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this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
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