Activity

I listened and nodded as one of the other trainers said something about struggles needing leaders and about it being the job of those leaders (Of you, here in this room, he said) to be courageous and to lead their coworkers through their fear. If I had tried to answer then, I think I would have sai…

When we’d finished eating, I asked if anyone had a final question or announcement, guessing someone would respond with another joke or an exaggerated call for me to just wrap it up already. For a moment, no one said anything, and then you raised your hand, Alma—a formality that brought a sudden ser…

These were not the words we used in your living room. You did not need for us to tell you that winning a union in your factory would be hard or that the system is rigged in favor of the company. People don’t work in industrial laundries unless they have to. And there is no real space or time that i…

We talked about the “blitz,” which was key to our model of organizing. As groundwork we needed to build a list of all your coworkers: their names and shifts and departments and phone numbers and, most importantly, home addresses, Manuel explained. We would build a map of when they worked and where …

You worked in soil sort, you said. I asked if you would describe your work—I still had no idea what “soil sort” was, or what you were required to do with your body there for ten hours a day. You rose from your chair to demonstrate, maybe because you could tell by how poorly I’d asked the question t…