Organizing

Chapter 1: Organizing

On the other hand, let's say that you and 30 of your friends stand in front of the store passing out leaflets about the high prices and poor quality. Next, 75 of you sign an ad in the newspaper asking people not to buy at the store until it changes its policies. Then a petition signed by several hundred people in the neighborhood is presented by a dozen of you to the president of the company. They're going to listen and act. They may not care about the amount of money that you spend in one week. But multiply that by 300 or 400 and you have a lot of cash. That income, that volume, is important to the store, where you as an individual aren't. The power of a lot of people working together is enough to make changes where one person can do very little.

Let's take another example. Say you're a senior citizen living in a large city. You're angry because poor public transportation where you live makes it hard to get to places you need to go. You can do a lot of things on your own. You can write letters to the editor. You can make calls to the radio and television stations. You can telephone every politician in the city. You can write angry letters to the mayor. You can go to city council meetings to stand up and complain. But as long as it's just you, it's not likely that much is going to get done. The people who would have to make the changes you're seeking are always going to ask themselves one question: "What's going to happen if I don't do it?" If you're the only one making waves, the answer is "Probably not very much."

On the other hand, suppose you and 300 other senior citizens do all of these things together—carry petitions to the newspaper, appear as a group at the radio and television stations demanding to be heard, show up all at once at city council meetings, go together to the mayor's house. Then it's not just awkward and embarrassing. It's a real sign of the power that you have to deliver. Regardless of age, 300 people are 300 voters. Any politician knows that 300 voters can make a big difference in an election. That's why they'll listen to a group, and that's why they'll often give in to the group's demands.

The fact that you're right usually has very little to do with whether or not you win. People with power and privilege rarely give it away because it would be "right"' to do so. The question is, Are you powerful? If you have power, then you can get something done.

Does organizing really work?

The best way to answer that question is to look around you and see who is organized and who isn't. Generally, the people who have the power are the ones who are best organized. Where does your money go? A lot of it goes to health care. Doctors can charge such high rates because they are so well organized that they have almost a total monopoly on health care in this country. If you rent, a lot of your money goes to the landlord. Landlords have organized to pass laws to protect them and not you. Part of your budget goes for food, for the high profits of chain stores that have organized to keep out competition, to keep food quality down and prices--and profits--up. Lately, more and more of your money is going to utilities, which have organized to raise your fuel prices and their profits to outrageous levels. The fact that our tax dollars help those who already have the most money more than they help us reflects the fact that those people are well organized and we aren't.

In the United States today, power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of well-organized individuals and corporations. These corporations and the individuals involved in them have extraordinary power to make decisions that affect all of our lives. Corporations have again and again shown an ability to work together to fix prices regardless of the suffering and hardship that it has caused people and even the country itself. In recent years the prices of gasoline and fuel oil have jumped to three and four times their earlier levels. The oil corporations, which also control so many of our natural resources such as coal and hydroelectric power, have increased their profits up to 800 percent in one year.

This is real power. It is a kind of power working families have never really known. How many working families have ever been able to increase their income four times in one year? How many working families have never been threatened with unemployment or layoffs? How many working families have been able to escape the payment of taxes altogether? How many working families have been able to break the law and avoid punishment?

This is exactly what is going on in our country today. This small group of corporations and individuals is steadily and systematically chipping away at the freedoms that all of us have. The rights that we are guaranteed under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are being taken away by the actions of the corporations, because without economic freedom there can be no political freedom.

We see our lack of power as individuals and families in many areas of life. We see it in the prices we pay for the necessities of life: for food, for clothing, for utilities, for housing, for medical care. In many cases the prices for these items are so high compared with what most people make that they're not even available. It's becoming almost impossible for a working family to even own a house. In rural areas the price of land has risen so high that it's impossible for anyone other than a corporation to think of owning and operating a farm.

How does the opposition exercise power?

The opposition controls us and our lives in a number of different ways. Power is exercised through control of resources. Ownership of factories and businesses gives power over people's jobs and job security. Ownership of natural resources—coal, timber, land, water, oil, uranium—gives power to set prices, to ensure higher profits, to control supply and demand, to make the necessities of life scarce.

The power of these investments is reinforced by control of the political process. This in turn depends on the power of money, of cold cash. Again and again we see the ability of the opposition to influence elections at all levels of government—national, state, county, city, local—through the tremendous amounts of money that are spent. The politicians are elected through the use of these enormous campaign contributions, but they then owe a responsibility to their backers—at least on the particular issues that the backers are interested in. As a result, many of the laws that are passed favor the self-interests of wealthy individuals and of the corporations rather than protecting the ordinary people and families that make up the majority of this country. For example, unions are the only real power that working people have to balance their own rights against those of the people they work for. But the laws governing relationships between union workers and their employers have been rewritten again and again over the years to favor management so that the rights of workers to organize have been severely undercut.

In some cases power is exercised by individuals. There are definitely individuals who own so many different things and who play such a strong role in politics that they have tremendous power. But even the power of these individuals depends on being organized together. The power that the average employer has, for example, comes not only from control over jobs and the profits that are made on those jobs, but also from the power that is exercised nationally by groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. These groups work together to create legislation that is favorable to businesses and employers. They pressure the different agencies of government into carrying out existing laws in a way that favors those who have rather than those who have not. It's no accident that the laws in this country tend to favor corporations, wealthy individuals, factory owners, landlords, and investors.

The corporations argue that the rest of us have all the rights we need to make it in the system if we really try. A person who is unemployed has the right to go anywhere and apply for a job. They claim that if a person can work for long enough and accumulate enough money, she can even start her own factory. Someone who cannot afford housing has the right to offer the landlord less rent whether or not in fact that landlord will accept less. We all have the right to "prove" ourselves, to seek additional education or training, to improve our skills to make us more employable or desirable. If we are without work and without money we have the right to go to the government agencies set up to help us: to the administrators of Social Security, welfare, public housing, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps. If we're turned down by these agencies and programs, we have the right to appeal their decisions through administrative and judicial procedures—even to the Supreme Court of the United States.

In theory, as far as those who have power are concerned, no one should be complaining. But, in fact, as anybody who has ever tried to use them will tell you, these rights exist in theory but not in fact. In fact, if you're out of work, you're out of luck. In fact, if you're evicted, you're on the street. In fact, if you're old, there's no place for you. In fact, if you're poor, you're probably going to stay poor. In fact, if you're discriminated against, you're just going to have a hard time. Despite supposed guarantees for the rights of the individual, a single person has almost no power whatsoever when it's necessary to confront the organized power that controls our lives in so many different ways.

Can organizing work for ordinary people?

It's evident that organizing works for people who have wealth and power to begin with. But there is also a whole history in this country of organizing by ordinary people that has been tremendously successful. If you look at the history of our country, you'll find that most progress was made because people organized to make it. The American Revolution, for example, didn't just happen. It was organized. The people who organized it held meetings, planned strategy, developed leadership, set up systems of communication, defined issues, took direct action, used public relations, raised funds, built coalitions—just as we do in community organizing today.

Most of the rights and benefits we have now weren't just given to us. People organized to get them. Many of the things we now take for granted had to be fought for. Today most of us who work have pension plans, paid vacations, paid holidays, sick leave, and overtime benefits. We didn't get these benefits because the companies suddenly decided to give them to us. We have them because millions of people in the 1930s and at other times organized unions to force their companies to give them these benefits, which were then adopted by the society as a whole. The fact that women have the vote or that people of color have some of their civil rights protected came about not because of the good-heartedness of the government, but because these groups organized to demand those rights. Even public schools and public education came about because people in this country organized to insist that their children, as well as the children of the rich, had a right to education.

What are the benefits of organizing?

Organizing has both short- and long-range benefits. In the short run it's an effective tool for getting things done: for improving schools, for lowering taxes, for establishing rights on the job, for improving transportation and health care, for protecting and defending neighborhoods and communities. Many of the everyday problems that we face as individuals can be dealt with by organizing.

But organizing has other benefits that may in the long run be even more important. Through organizing, people learn something new about themselves. They find dignity in place of mistreatment. They find self-respect instead of a lack of self-confidence. They begin to use more fully the skills and abilities that they possess: to work with other people, to influence, to speak up, to fight back.

Through organizing, people begin to rediscover themselves. They find out who they are, where they came from, their background, their history, their roots, their culture. They rediscover the things in their family, their gender, their class, their ethnic or language group, their race that give them strength. They rediscover their own history of struggle and resistance.

All of us are partly what we think we are, and we think we are what we've been told we are. So when we're told that our group has never made waves, stirred up trouble, or questioned authority, we tend to think that's how we should act as well. When we're told our group has always kept to itself and done things on its own, we tend not to question that.

But the real history of people in this country is not of passively accepting whatever was handed to them but of fighting back. This was true during the American Revolution and it's true today. But most of us have lost this legacy of fighting back. We're told that the American way is for all of us to join together and cooperate for the national good. So we're expected to do our part, to sacrifice, to do without, to be quiet, not to demand but to ask for favors.

Whom does all this benefit? It benefits the people who control the corporations, the government agencies, and the political parties, who therefore control many parts of all of our lives. We ordinary people tighten our belts on energy consumption so that the oil companies can profit. We do without police protection in our neighborhoods while the city uses our tax money to build industrial parks which are given tax-free to profit-making industries. The city builds convention centers while our schools fall apart.

In organizing we begin to rediscover our own needs and demand that they be filled. In doing so we rediscover our strengths, our roots, our heritage. We relearn the skills of cooperation, of collective action, of working together, of supporting each other. In this knowledge and this experience is the beginning of real power for people.

Organizing is for people with problems. It is good as a tool, a weapon, a means. But it is also an end in itself. As we organize, we reclarify ourselves as individuals because we learn to speak for ourselves in ways that make us heard.

Who can organize?

One of the wonderful things about organizing is that almost anyone can use it. True, there are professional organizers, such as the author of this book, who earn a living helping people organize themselves. Sometimes to listen to us professional organizers you'd think that organizing was a very difficult and mysterious way of doing things. Organizers, like many professionals, sometimes exaggerate the skill needed to do what they do. They talk in a mysterious language: actions, models, constituencies, coalitions, agendas, strategies, tactics. This kind of "shop talk" sometimes makes people believe that there is something very complicated about the organizing process. But, in fact, good organizing is an uncomplicated way of doing things. It depends on the basic skills that most of us have to some degree. While there are not hard-and-fast rules for organizing, there are steps that need to be taken in most situations. These steps can be learned by ordinary people.

Most people don't think of themselves as organizers. In fact, most people don't think of themselves as someone who could ever be an organizer. Organizing is looked on as something difficult, dangerous, romantic. The organizers you see in the movies are usually handsome, strong, tough, young, white, and male.

Luckily, it's not true. If you had to fit the movies' image to be an organizer, most of the fine organizing that's been done since this country was founded would never have taken place. The history of organizing in the United States is a history of people of every age, gender, color, nationality, religion, language, and ethnic group. Wonderful organizing that made life better for thousands of people has been done by high school students, paraplegics, people in their 70s and 80s and 90s, veterans, the homeless, social workers, lesbians and gay men, farmers, teachers, undocumented workers, migrant laborers, parents, mental patients, and all kinds of other ordinary people.

The reason that ordinary people make good organizers is that the skills of organizing are everyday skills. They're the kinds of skills that help us do well in daily life at home, with our families, with our friends, and at work. People who are good at dealing with people make good organizers.

If you are a typical person, you're probably thinking that this is some sort of public relations hype. You're saying to yourself, "I could never be an organizer or a leader." But most people who are leaders today in communities, in factories, in schools, in institutions started out thinking the same thing. They thought that they could never speak in public. They believed they could never confront their landlord, or boss, or city council representative. They felt that they could never chair a meeting or put together an agenda. They assumed that no one would listen to them, follow them, or take them seriously, and so they were afraid to act at all. It is easy to punish individuals for standing up. We remember that—and we are kept from discovering that groups that stand together are a whole different matter.

These feelings are part of the price we pay for the way we're brought up. They come from a lifetime of working in separation, of being discouraged from coming together to work for a common goal. But the truth is that most people have within themselves a tremendous capacity to work together, to provide leadership, to offer inspiration, to organize others. For most of us these abilities have been beaten down so far that we don't have the confidence even to begin. But throughout history, people who never thought they could become organizers have led important movements for change in their neighborhoods, in their schools, in their workplaces. Every group of people—black people, white people, old people, young people, women, men, factory workers, farmers, taxpayers, consumers—has produced real leadership from individuals who thought they could never be leaders.

Anyone can organize. Anyone can learn the basic principles of organizing. There is no tool more effective. You can "learn how to win friends and influence people," you can "discover your human potential," you can "modify your behavior," you can "become more assertive." But nothing can change your life as much as finding other people who want to move in the same direction you do and learning to work together with them to accomplish the goals that all of you want.

Why do people organize?

People organize for a number of different reasons. Sometimes they are approached by someone who asks them to organize. This person can be a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker, a relative, a representative of a neighborhood or community organization, a staff organizer for a union. The approach may be very simple. Someone says, "I'm mad. Let's get together and see if we can do something about this."

Sometimes the answer is "No, I'd rather do it myself." Many of us have become suspicious of each other. If someone comes to the door with a petition, we think twice before we sign it, if we sign it at all. If we're asked to a neighborhood or community meeting, we can often think of more reasons not to go than reasons to go. But often the answer is "Yes." It depends a lot on how we're approached, what we're approached about, and what we're asked to do.

Other times, we begin organizing because we've run out of other things to try. We did everything that we know how to do on our own to solve the problem. We complained to our friends. We got mad. We wrote letters to the editor. We called up the radio stations. We complained to the boss. We threatened. Nothing seems to work.

Finally, we start to ask other people, "Hey, have you been having this problem?" We find out we're not the only ones who are mad and think something should be done. There are people on the block, in the neighborhood, in the plant, in the schoolroom, who feel the same way we do. They're frustrated by the lack of answers. They too want to get something done. That's the start of organizing: recognizing that individual solutions are not working and that therefore the answer has to be working together.

Why don't people organize?

Not everyone who has a problem is going to organize. Some people will keep trying individual solutions, even if they don't seem to be getting results. Other people will just give up and think about something else.

There are a lot of reasons why people resist organizing. For many, it's something new and therefore something to be feared. They have never done it and so they find it hard to think of ever doing it. For others, there is a fear of some of the things that they think they might be asked to do as part of organizing. They're afraid that they'll be asked to take on public responsibility they don't feel equal to. They may be afraid of making speeches in public. They may be afraid that they'll appear ignorant or act like they don't know what they're doing. Lack of self-confidence, coupled with a fear of strange situations, is one major reason why people don't organize.

Another reason is fear of what will happen if they do organize. You see this often in union organizing. Workers are afraid that if they join the union they'll get fired, or lose their seniority, or be transferred to a lower-paying or less desirable job or into a dangerous or unhealthy area of the plant. They're afraid that they'll be painted by management as troublemakers, agitators, and singled out for harassment and intimidation.

Sometimes this fear is justified. Harassment and intimidation are used on people who try to organize, not only in union situations but in other kinds of organizing as well. But sometimes this fear is exaggerated by what people have heard about organizing.

Those who have power—corporations, military leaders, political bureaucracies, and the like—have tried to keep the secrets of organizing to themselves. Not only are ordinary people not taught to organize, they are actively kept from even thinking about it. Most of us are taught from our earliest days of school that organizing—people getting together to accomplish what they all want—is somehow un-American. We don't learn about the organizing that has been done throughout the history of this country, by people of all ages and races, from every state and part of the country, around all kinds of issues. So we don't learn that organizing is as American as apple pie and is a basic part of the way this country works. We're taught to associate organizing with "union corruption," with "communism," with "troublemakers," with "hippies."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Organizing is basic to how the American system of democracy and representative government is supposed to work. But because people are not taught about organizing, we see it as something that is not done by "people like us."

Instead, we are told that there are better ways of solving our problems. At work we're told that if we'd only go to the boss one at a time and talk calmly about our problem something would be done. At school we're told that if we're having a problem we should come in and see the teacher, the counselor, or the principal after school and everything will be fine. Newspaper columnists tell women to have a private chat with their husbands if there are problems at home. People on welfare are told to talk to their caseworkers in private and confidentially.

Over and over we are encouraged to look for individual solutions. We are taught to act as individuals, not as groups. But the truth is that individual action rarely gets things done. It keeps us separated from each other and prevents us from making the really basic changes that need to be made.

There are other reasons why society encourages us to take individual approaches to solving our problems. Individual problems can be handled without making major readjustments in the system. If one worker in a plant keeps complaining privately to the boss about wages, it is easy enough to make a slight adjustment in that worker's pay or to promote that worker to a supervisory position. If, rather than going to the boss, that worker decides to use her leadership skills to bring other workers together, it may be necessary to give a raise to everyone.

If one individual goes to city hall and complains about the taxes on his house, it may be worth it to the city to keep things quiet by cutting those taxes a little bit. If several hundred taxpayers complain, the only solution may be a general change in the tax structure that would benefit private homeowners rather than private corporations. By encouraging all of us to seek individual solutions, society keeps from having to make major changes in the way it operates, which might be far more expensive in the long run.

Another reason for encouraging individual solutions is that they tend to make people blame themselves for their own problems. Most of us tend to think that we have more problems than other people. We don't recognize how many of our problems are shared by people around us. So we think that if we would just work a little harder, dress a little nicer, or talk a little better those problems would be solved.

The system deliberately encourages this attitude. Workers are told that if they could just bring their production up a little bit there might be a promotion in the works for them. Women are told that if they could just keep the house a little cleaner their husbands might love them more. Minority groups are told that if they could only find the right channels to go through their problems would be dealt with—one at a time.

We tend to see our failure to get a better job, to have more of a voice in our community, to have a better home life as a personal failure. This undercuts our confidence in ourselves. It makes us believe that we are really not as good as the people who run the country, the factories, the schools. We begin to suspect that maybe they are right when they tell us we should leave things in their hands. Let them make the decisions. Let them give us what they think we should have.

So all of us end up being a little less than we could be. We lack confidence to take matters into our own hands. We become separated and alienated from each other. Confronted with an opposition that works closely together, that makes strategy together, that exercises power together, we become unable to change the things that make life difficult for us.

There is another reason why we are encouraged to act only as individuals in this society. People who have power know only too well what happens when other people get a little taste of it. They know that once people learn that by organizing they are able to change small things, they will start to think about changing larger things. They know that the workers who succeed in cleaning up a dirty canteen in the plant will start trying to do something about wages and seniority as well. They know that people in a neighborhood who by working together force the city to clean up a few vacant lots start talking about how they can get police protection and fairer taxes as well.

Are some people easier to organize than others?

In organizing, as in so many other things, it seems as if the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The members of almost every group think that they are the most difficult people to organize. Often, for example, when you're working in a situation that involves both black and white people, the white people will say, "You know, black people will stick together. They stand up for each other. They're not afraid to back each other up. If white people would only do that, we could get somewhere." On the other hand, the black people will say, "You know, the thing about white people is they all hang together. They're not like black people, fighting each other. They know what they want and they'll stand together to get it."

What's fascinating is that almost any group tends to see itself as divided and other groups as unified. Actually, no group is easy to organize. But no group is impossible to organize. Every group has special strengths and special problems that need to be made part of an organizing strategy.

In rural areas, for example, people are spread out. Going from door to door to see people is hard. So is bringing people together for meetings. Strategies that might involve a trip to the state capital to lobby are difficult because of the long distance people have to travel. On the other hand, in a rural community there are often more established traditions of cooperation and people helping each other. There are fewer competing events and activities, so that even though people have to go farther to see each other there is more reason to do so.

No matter what group you're working with, there will be some things that will make them easier to organize and other things that will make them harder to organize. What's important is to recognize for each group what the strengths and difficulties are. Don't assume that what worked for one group will work for another. Just as each person is special and needs to be treated as an individual, so each community or neighborhood or group of people has its own special qualities. Understanding these qualities and working with them makes the job of organizing more effective and successful.

It is also true that the same group of people will be easier to organize at some times than at others. People organize when they have a good reason to do so, at least as far as they're concerned. A good time to get people talking about taxes is when the county has just announced a property tax increase. A good time to organize around safety in the neighborhood is when a woman has been assaulted on the street at night. People are often more willing to organize when a specific issue arises—either to defend their standard of living and way of life or because they see some kind of gain they can make at that time.

People also are easier to organize when they see a chance of winning. Most people have all the problems they can handle and some that they can't. They'd like to see solutions to those problems. But their life experiences have shown them that solutions are unlikely. Often we wonder, for example, why people whose houses are falling down won't organize around poor housing conditions. The answer often is that they don't think they can do anything about it. They may be right or they may be wrong about the reality of what can or can't be done. But if they think something can be done they are much more likely to organize than if they think nothing can be done.

Communities, like people, have periods of activity and periods of rest. Just as people are sometimes able to take risks, try new ventures, step outside themselves, so communities sometimes are willing to chance new ways of doing things and take collective risks. At other times communities, like people, may be cautious. Sometimes we end up thinking that a community can't be organized when the real answer is that it can't be organized this week, or this year, or around this particular issue.

Sometimes, for example, when a community has just finished a long but successful organizing campaign, we try to push it right away to start another one. But what is needed is a resting period when people consolidate, celebrate, and rebuild their strength for another long, hard fight. The natural rhythms of communities, like the natural rhythms of individuals, are important and need to be watched carefully in putting together an organizing campaign.

Where do you start?

The best place to start is where you are, with the people you care about, the issues you're angry about, the things you'd like to have changed in your life and the lives of the people you spend time with. Start with the people you work with and live with, the people that are like you, who share your concerns and interests. Organizing doesn't need to be big to be successful. A small group of people can accomplish a tremendous amount.

One of the extraordinary things about organizing is how many people will take part in it once it gets started. Most people want to do something to make their lives better. But most people also think that there is little or nothing they can do. So they sit back waiting for someone to do it for them, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Often it's the action taken by just one person, sometimes someone who has never done anything like it before, that is the spark to set off a major organizing campaign.

Some years ago when I was living in Fannin County, Georgia, the county commission announced a major increase in property taxes. All of us were mad. We hung around the tractor place complaining. It was all that anybody talked about. But nobody was doing anything. Finally, one of the union members at the copper mine put a three-line ad in the paper. It said, as nearly as I can remember, "I'm mad about my taxes and I want to do something. If you want to do something, too, meet me at the courthouse tonight at 8:00." Three hundred people showed up at the courthouse. That was the beginning of an important movement to change not just taxes but government in that county. Everyone wanted to do something, everyone was angry, but it took the action of one person to change that anger into activity.

Organizing doesn't always work. Not every fight is won. Not every problem is solved. But more often than not, if you take the first step, other people will follow.

How do you get started?

Because the history of organizing has to some extent been written by organizers, it's easy to get the idea that you need to have a professional organizer on call before you even get started. It can be helpful to have someone with previous organizing experience to talk with, to think through issues and ideas with, to help plan strategies and choose tactics. But most of the important social and political movements in this country have been started by ordinary people on their own.

Besides, although most of us haven't organized unions, political campaigns, or neighborhood groups, we do have a lot of organizational experience that we often fail to recognize. Many of us have worked in synagogue and church groups, as members of unions, in parent-teacher-student associations, in service clubs, in farmers' or veterans' associations, in other types of organizations. Many of the same skills that are used to build these organizations are useful in the kind of organizing that we're talking about here. Think about your own life and the times that you were part of an organization. Go back to the things that you did and the things that you learned. You'll probably find that you have a lot more organizing skills than you ever thought. These skills can be the beginning of a do-it-yourself approach to organizing. The rest of this book is about how to do it yourself, and why. There are really no mysteries, no secrets. All of us have or can develop the knowledge and experience to play an important role in changing our world for the better. Each of us will have different skills and abilities, different values and priorities. But all of us, working together, can be leaders in building a society that works for each of us.

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