Looking Ahead: The Brigade's Six-Month Plan
The Louisville Workers Brigade
11/25/2024
At the beginning of the month, The Louisville Workers Brigade announced that we were entering into a period of intensive reflection, analysis, self-criticism, and planning for the future. This collective process has required bold honesty, rigorous introspection, and focused dedication. The Brigade constantly speaks about the necessity of undertaking a scientific approach to organizing and this procedure has been part and parcel of how we implement such an approach to our work. The result of this month-long process has been the completion of a Six-Month Plan which will guide our trajectory into the first half of 2025.
The Brigade began by all of our organizers creating lists of goals we wish for the organization to achieve in the new year. At this stage of the process, we did not feel these goals needed to be fully fleshed out or even firmly grounded in reality… we just wanted a summary of the objectives our organizers wanted to strive for in the new year. The ideas presented were firmly steeped in the three pillars of the Brigade’s mission—To Educate. To Support. To Unite.—and were placed into four categories of our work: Personnel, Events, Campaigns, and Organizational. We took all of these goals and created what amounted to be a master list of objectives. Again, at this early point in our period of analysis and planning, we did not yet consider whether or not these goals were even within the realm of possibility.
Having created a master list of goals that our organizers would like to see the Brigade strive towards, we then began to unpack each one. If applicable, we analyzed what the Brigade has done since our founding towards these objectives. We recognized major steps forward in advancing the Brigade’s mission while simultaneously offering rigorous self-criticism when shortcomings, failings, and deficiencies were identified. We pieced together a brief sketch of steps that would be necessary for accomplishing the goals on our master list. From this stage of analysis, we removed some goals from the list, recognizing the fact that current conditions would not allow the achievement of them within a six-month timeframe; nevertheless, even when a goal was removed, concrete actions and markers were established to push us forward towards achieving them in future. The ending of this phase of our analysis provided us a list of twelve objectives and a rough strategic framework for achieving them.
Next, Brigade organizers were tasked with fully fleshing out a strategic plan to accomplish these goals within the next six-months, carefully considering our current conditions, historical precedence, and the trajectory our organization is currently on. We strove to formulate these strategies so that they could sufficiently guide our work while also ensuring that we did not paint ourselves into a corner by creating a rigid, dogmatic plan of action that could not adjust to changing conditions and unforeseen circumstances. This phase of our analysis and planning required frequent communication between Brigade organizers, thorough review of our past work, and a tremendous amount of editing and adjustment. The ending of this phase provided us a clear strategic outline for each of our twelve objectives for the first half of 2025.
The final step of this process of analysis and planning entailed the final collective discussion of our goals and corresponding strategies. By this point, a well-defined vision of our work for the next six-months had become apparent and our collective work up to this point had put everyone on the same page, making the necessity for final edits minimal. By now, every organizer had worked on every objective, offering their personal insights, analysis, outlook, and input. Upon making the final minor adjustments needed, Brigade organizers collectively and unanimously ratified our Six-Month Plan which will span from November 2024 to May 2025. The Brigade is immensely pleased with the final product of this process and is proud to now offer a brief glimpse of our work and objectives for the first half of 2025…
PERSONNEL: The next six months of the Brigade will be focused on expanding our size, scope, and influence within our Louisville community. This entails the recruitment of additional organizers who are dedicated to the Brigade’s mission of educating, supporting, and uniting working class forces in the city. We will also be seeking new contributors to our publication, The Class Struggle Chronicle, attempting to provide new perspectives, ideas, and material for our readers to enjoy. Additionally, the Brigade will be building upon the relationships we’ve already fostered with local organized labor and left-progressive groups in Louisville and will simultaneously seek the establishment of new relationships based on solidarity and mutual support. Lastly, we wish to offer a special thank you to those groups who have been most supportive and encouraging since our establishment, including, but not limited to: the KY AFL-CIO, UAW Local 862, Teamsters Local 89, UA Local 502, IUE-CWA Local 83761, IBEW Local 369, IAFF Local 54, the workers organized with AFSCME at the Louisville Free Public Libraries, the Louisville Youth Group, Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare, the Revolution KY, the Tacoma General Membership Branch of the IWW, Cincinnati Socialists, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, and Socialist Café. This list does not even begin to touch upon the numerous individuals who have also provided us support, guidance, and assistance (Walter, Kay, Thurman, Dustin, Greg, Chris, Rick, Angela, Sonja, Austin, Shade, Vinny, L.G., Jon, etc. etc. etc.)… from the bottom of our hearts, the solidarity you’ve shown us has been overwhelming and we offer our sincere gratitude and admiration!
EVENTS: The Brigade will be returning to organizing regular in-person events beginning in January! Additionally, the Brigade will be regularly tabling at various community events and our organizers will be reaching out to other left-progressive groups in our community to seek ways in which we can collaborate to offer new opportunities for working and oppressed people to get involved in the Movement. Internally to our organization, our organizers will be meeting more frequently to ensure this Six-Month Plan is adhered to and implemented in a strategic and scientific manner.
CAMPAIGNS: The Brigade will be launching agitational campaigns throughout the city, seeking to organize new workplaces. Our aim is to find pro-union contacts within targeted industries and workplaces, to help formulate the beginnings of an organizing committee, and to then help pair the workers with a union that best suits their particular conditions and needs. Additionally, the Brigade will be reaching out to our contacts within organized labor to spearhead other campaigns which we hope to discuss further in the near future.
ORGANIZATIONAL: The Brigade will be further developing our social media presence, paying particular attention to our Facebook page and our YouTube channel. Beginning in December, we will begin creating and posting shortform videos (10-20 minutes in length), seeking to further educate working and oppressed people about working class labor history. Lastly, we will be widely promoting our publication, The Class Struggle Chronicle, with the goal of getting our literature into the hands of more and more workers in the city (and beyond).
This is a brief outline of The Louisville Workers Brigade’s newly ratified Six-Month Plan. For obvious reasons, some details have been omitted to ensure the success of specific campaigns and to protect the confidence of some of our contacts. The Brigade is very pleased with our work over the first six-months since our founding, but we are always alert for signs of stagnation, conservatism, dogmatism, and rigidity… given the urgent needs facing the working and oppressed masses of our city (and the world), a scientific approach to organizing is essential, ensuring that organizers are constantly immersed in the conditions we’re working within. In short, we believe a vision and strategy for moving forward, coupled with a flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, are necessary components to effective organizing.
As always, we want to end by thanking everyone who has shown the Brigade support, encouragement, and solidarity! We look forward to continuing our work into 2025 and to implementing this Six-Month Plan! If you would like to get involved in our work and/or if we can be of assistance in any way, please reach out to us.
Solidarity Forever! Power, Liberation, and Peace to All Working and Oppressed People!