This exciting piece brings together Bargaining for the Common Good’s Marilyn Sneiderman and Stephen Lerner’s respective half a decade of experience in labor justice to reflect on previous moments while building strategy for our current moment, including the necessary role of Common Good Bargaining as a strategic tool. Walk with them through the Janitors for Justice campaign, Union Cities, and the many, many ways workers have FOUGHT and will continue to FIGHT now – when support for workers is high and on the rise! They also join the “Reinventing Solidarity” podcast to further discuss their ideas. 

In this third decade of the twenty-first century, the U.S. and global working class confront conditions unique both in their potential for advancing justice and in their ability to deepen already gaping economic and racial inequality and planetary peril. Especially since 2020, workers have engaged in protest and organizing in ways that inspire great hope. Workers are angry, organizing, striking, and challenging their bosses and the systemic racism they face. From Red for Ed and teacher strikes, to the strikes at John Deere and Kellogg, and the organizing at Amazon and Starbucks, there are growing examples of workers organizing, standing up, and fighting on a level we have not seen in a long time. And hopeful strategies are emerging too. Workers are organizing in the automobile industry as it transitions to electric vehicles, and innovative organizing initiatives are emerging in tech, retail, banks, and other key sectors of the economy. Adding momentum to these trends, workers and the public are more pro-union than at any time in recent history….Read more HERE

Marilyn Sneiderman is the executive director of the Center for Innovation in Worker Organizing (CIWO) and distinguished professor at Rutger’s University. Stephen Lerner is a Senior Fellow at Bargaining for The Common Good.

For more updates from Bargaining for The Common Good organizers and allies, make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter.