Organizing means learning, and learning means organizing. Today it seems increasingly urgent to link the processes of informatization and informalization in knowledge-based economies on one hand, and on the other the constitution of new subjectivities as immaterial or affective labor force.
Organizing has a long tradition in the fight for social rights - and its power lies in the obvious: many can achieve what a single person cannot and the most well-known symbol for that power is the strike or civil disobedience.
The power of organizing is based on the application of tactics and strategies that turn individual weakness into collective strength. If many are subject to the same conditions their forces can add up to more than the some of its parts.
But what can be done when those many share hardly any common ground to organize on? What to do when living and working conditions are not shared by a mass of people but start to be very differenciated, scattered and insecure, temporary and permanently changing?
Contemporary labour struggles suggest that even in deregulated environments organizing is an essential means of recognizing and multiplying the forces of those singled out and individuated. Rather than unity it creates multiplicity focusing on specific issues and spaces rather than identities, attacking well directed the weakest part of the chain and moving on while linking up and synergizing movements.
We want build on these experiences, create and promote concepts of organizing that take on deregulation and precarisation while actualizing different instances of social and labour movements, as separate lines in constant interplay with one another.
who is there ?
From Union organizers to social movement activists, community organizers to researchers, from experienced organizers to organizing enthusiasts we will connect people in this summit, that can elaborate perspectives on organizing towards an organizing network able to support initiatives, that reaches from labour to social activist initiatives and struggling for the rights to have rights in precarious, neoliberal, outsourced and de-regulated environments.
why does it matter ?
Many organizing initiatives are happening at the moment in and outside of labor unions in Europe and more seem to come with many debates attached to it. In the face of these new initiatives the potentiality of organizing needs to be revealed and explored. LEARNING ORGANIZING / ORGANIZING LEARNING creates a space that devotes itself to the development of organizing as a means, a method and a strategy that is applicable for union as well as social movements or activist initiatives connecting them for mutual support and networked collaborations. This space will be critical but productive, founded on the idea that organizing is a principle that needs to be build upon, a strategy that aims to change relations of power instead of making them just a bit more bearable.
what will happen?
LEARNING ORGANIZING / ORGANIZING LEARNING includes a series of seminars, workshops and meetings at the SUMMIT of non-aligned initiatives in education culture, shaping and focusing the debate around organizing, connecting and networking with interesting and interested people from an organizing perspective, creating dialogue and practice between movements (social, labour, political) and advocating for a collaboration on organizing beyond the SUMMIT in a network of european and local organizing initiatives that develop the capacity to campaign together against specific targets for specific demands.
program
The organizing caucus will bring together various perspectives and strategies on organizing precarious labor force to exchange and learn from each other experiences.
(Translation into German will be offered)
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ORGANIZING THE UNORGANIZABLE
Location: HAU 1 theatre hall Date: Friday, May 25 Hour: 1100
with Valery Alzaga, Franziska Bruder, Hae-Lin Choi, Lisa Fithian, Susanne Lang, Leo Penta
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LEARNING BY ORGANIZING: Case Studies 1
Location: HAU 3 rehearsal space
Date: Friday, May 25 Hour: 1600
Two examples of Organizing Campaigns that took place in Germany will be analyzed. What does it take to develop a successful organizing campaign? What are timeframes, resources and possible outcomes of an Organizing Campaign? What has been successful and what not and for
which reasons? How could it be improved?
Study 1: Fluechtlingsinitiative Brandenburg: Organizing in
Asylumseeker centers in Brandenburg - Intro by Christopher Nsoh (tbc)
Study 2: LIDL Campaign: Organizing LIDL employees for basic labor rights and participation, forming workers councils - Intro by Rainer Kau and Nicole Heroven http://lidl.verdi.de/
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LEARNING BY ORGANIZING: Case Studies 2
Location: HAU 3 rehearsal space
Date: Saturday, May 26 Hour: 1100
Two examples of Organizing Campaigns that took place internationally will be analyzed. What can we learn? What does it take to develop a successful organizing campaign? Strategy vs tactics? What are timeframes, resources and possible outcomes of an Organizing Campaign? What was successful and what not and for which reasons?
Study 1: Houston Campaign: Organizing Janitors in Houston to form a Union and fight for basic labour rights
with Stephen Lerner, Lisa Fithian, Zoe
Romano and Hae-Lin Choi
http://www.houstonjanitors.org/
Study 2: Intermittent: Organizing cultural workers in France to win state funding for the temporary unemployment conditions (tbc)
http://www.cip-idf.org/
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TWO OR THREE THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT PRECARIZATION 1
Location: HAU 1 theatre hall
Date: Saturday, May 26 Hour: 1600
What does precarity mean? How can we learn to link and connect emerging struggles against precarization? What is the specific link between knowledge and organizing? A conversation between Stephen Lerner and Klaus Dörre.
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TWO OR THREE THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT PRECARIZATION 2
Location: HAU 3 rehearsal space
Date: Sunday, May 27 Hour: 1100
Constituting a network for the development and advancement of organizing campaigns, methodology and support, building ownership from the ground up.
with Amarela Varela (Barcelona Migrant Association), Zoe Romano(chainworkers), Bondgenoten (Cleaning Union), Ms Ava Caradonna (International Union of Sex Workers), Jonas Berhe (Security, ver.di)