Rhode island Jobs with Justice

Have you felt frustrated by our inability to win demands and reach our goals? How we can wage grassroots struggles that will build our ability to fight to win? What's the difference between activism and organizing? How can we build our capacity (POWER) to achieve our vision? Do you want to learn and share lessons from grassroots organizing? Social change work may incorporate different approaches (self help, service, electoral, advocacy, mobilization) but grassroots organizing is the most effective way to build collective power to shift power relations. We need to define the difference between activist approaches and organizing strategies to avoid paternalistic recruitment efforts and make sure that our organizing efforts go beyond rhetoric and events- or tactics-focused activism. Join a participatory workshop exploring the ways we can expand our social movements by moving from activism to organizing. Share and learn lessons from grassroots organizing to win our short and long term goals.

This panel addresses strategies and tools to build support for immigrant workers, including non-unionized immigrant workers, in the labor movement. Speakers will discuss the history of immigrant workers’ relationship to labor, the work that went into changing the AFL-CIO’s immigration policy, the shifts in organizing practices to engage immigrant workers, and the work done by Jobs with Justice, Workers Centers, and other organizations to support struggles by immigrant workers facing detention and deportation. We will discuss tools for building common ground among different community struggles such as mis-classification of workers and wage theft, building cooperation between prison industrial activists and immigrant activists, and popular education around the economic crisis. We will also facilitate a discussion to incorporate and highlight the successful approaches, organizing methods, and lessons from workshop attendees.

Have you felt frustrated by our inability to win demands and reach our goals? How we can wage grassroots struggles that will build our ability to fight to win? What's the difference between activism and organizing? How can we build our capacity (POWER) to achieve our vision? Do you want to learn and share lessons from grassroots organizing? Social change work may incorporate different approaches (self help, service, electoral, advocacy, mobilization) but grassroots organizing is the most effective way to build collective power to shift power relations. We need to define the difference between activist approaches and organizing strategies to avoid paternalistic recruitment efforts and make sure that our organizing efforts go beyond rhetoric and events- or tactics-focused activism. Join a participatory workshop exploring the ways we can expand our social movements by moving from activism to organizing. Share and learn lessons from grassroots organizing to win our short and long term goals.

This panel addresses strategies and tools to build support for immigrant workers, including non-unionized immigrant workers, in the labor movement. Speakers will discuss the history of immigrant workers’ relationship to labor, the work that went into changing the AFL-CIO’s immigration policy, the shifts in organizing practices to engage immigrant workers, and the work done by Jobs with Justice, Workers Centers, and other organizations to support struggles by immigrant workers facing detention and deportation. We will discuss tools for building common ground among different community struggles such as mis-classification of workers and wage theft, building cooperation between prison industrial activists and immigrant activists, and popular education around the economic crisis. We will also facilitate a discussion to incorporate and highlight the successful approaches, organizing methods, and lessons from workshop attendees.