Now, when I think about what seemed at the time a very clear understanding of unions and power, I feel mostly perplexed. Of course it is better to organize than not organize—that is not the question. But I no longer subscribe to that top-down theory, nor do I think of power as a finite sum, a thing that is acquired by wresting it away—however forcefully—from the powerful, as if the work of organizing were akin to cleaving an orange, or as if the substance of solidarity were the same as the substance of oppression. What I mean is that I no longer think that worker power originates with the boss, or that workers come by it by taking it away from the company where they work. Worker power is built and waged through an entirely separate system.

The union we built in Phoenix was a wholly original force. Its power was not stripped away from Sodexho or the other laundry companies or the managers who oversaw production. It was built, piece by piece, through the everyday tasks and exchanges that comprised our organizing. We made leaflet copies at Kinko’s. We drove in circles around the city. We packed and unpacked the folding chairs for our committee meetings. We knocked on thousands of doors. We asked people to trust us, and they did. We stood together in the parking lot, running department meetings from midnight until 4 a.m., and listened as the moths plinked their bodies against the floodlights.