Workers’ movements have always engaged in investigation, research, analysis, and publishing to aid organizing efforts. The historical record of its findings fills bookshelves, libraries, and archives. Today unions utilize bargaining surveys, networks of labor activists publish monthly magazines, movement publishers and academics produce a wide array of materials, as do workers’ organizations and individual workers themselves.
First-person narratives and workers’ inquiry can aid the recent uptick in new organizing efforts, launch of new unions, renewal of solidarity unionism (or what has been called “pre-majority” or “minority unions”), success of grassroots rank-and-file caucuses, and expansion of demands beyond wages-hours-working conditions to prioritizing the fight against oppression and workplace democracy.
This workshop will introduce participants to the history and contemporary practice of first-person narratives and workers’ inquiry and recommend their use in organizing efforts and workers’ movements.
Kevin Van Meter (he/him/his) is an author, labor educator, and union organizer. He is author of Guerrillas of Desire, co-editor of Uses of a Whirlwind, writes regularly on contemporary labor issues, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Labor and Society.