The Louisville Workers Brigade at Six Months
The Louisville Workers Brigade
11/1/2024
INTRODUCTION
The Louisville Workers Brigade was officially established on International Workers’ Day of this year (May 1st). Today, then, marks half a year since our founding. In accordance with the theory and process of scientific organizing that we advocate for, the Brigade (and our publication, The Class Struggle Chronicle) now enters an intensive period of analysis to closely examine our work over the past six months. We believe this methodical investigation is a crucial component to our organization’s health, maintenance, and growth. We recognize the need for rigorous self-criticism and remember the importance of not falling into either extreme of flippant self-congratulatory complacency or of destructive self-flagellation over faults and shortcomings; a clinical, coolheaded tactic is needed for such a scientific endeavor and our organizers, with the input and support of our allies and friends, will be engaging in this important organizational work over the coming weeks.
Within a few weeks of our founding, the Brigade finally landed on a simple, but comprehensive slogan for our association: “To Educate. To Support. To Unite.” These three components of our organization’s purpose constitute the mission of the Brigade and are the guiding principles we use to assess our work and to steer our organizing trajectory. Because we are just now entering into this period of analysis and because we wish to maintain the confidentiality of the working people we’ve been fortunate to organize and organize with, we will only briefly provide a cursory outline of our analysis process in relation to these three pillars of our organization.
TO EDUCATE.
Since our founding on May Day of this year, the Brigade has organized a total of seven educational presentations. Our first was a video introducing the Brigade to our community and outlining our approach as an organization based on the solid foundation of class struggle unionism. In June, we hosted a panel of local workers currently negotiating their first union contract; the panelists represented workers from Trader Joe’s, Lush Cosmetics, and Rainbow Blossom-Gardiner Lane. In July, we virtually welcomed Dr. Rick Halpern to discuss his writings and research concerning the United Packinghouse Workers of America and the strong interracial solidarity their radical union built. In August, we were pleased to have Thurman Wenzl join us to discuss labor history, workplace safety, and organizing the unorganized. To celebrate Labor Day (U.S.), we released a video outlining the steps for unionizing a workplace and, later in September, we released an interview with veteran organizer, Chris Townsend, on the legacy of the great William Z. Foster and the need for a class struggle approach to organizing. October’s educational presentation returned to an in-person venue where we were fortunate to have local activist, Sonja Wilde-de Vries, speak about the importance of organizing around the issue of political prisoners. The Brigade is currently in the process of preparing a video interview for November where we will be interviewing Matt Alley of BlueCollarWriter Labor Media about labor journalism.
The Brigade has been immensely pleased with the quality of content provided by our guest speakers for our educational presentations. The topics we’ve delved into span a wide range of progressive issues, including working class history, various liberation movements, politics, local subjects, the training of organizers… the list could go on and on. Through the connections the Brigade has made—both with the attendees at these events and with the presenters themselves—we have gained many new friends, learned more about the movement and our role within it, and have, hopefully, produced quality educational material for working and oppressed people to study and enjoy.
These educational presentations, though, cannot be analyzed without a measure of self-criticism. The first deficiency in our organizing capacity as an organization quickly became apparent in our preparation of the recordings of these events. Because none of our organizers have video-editing experience, many of our videos (particularly the earlier ones) suffer from both poor sound and visual quality. The correction of this shortcoming has been ongoing, with Brigade organizers investing personal funds into a video-editing software subscription and through the continuing study of “best practices” for crafting quality videos.
Additionally, and most pressing, the Brigade is unsatisfied with the in-person attendance we’ve mobilized for these events. In part, this shortcoming is due to external factors over which we have little control; nevertheless, we have already begun to collectively identify internal factors which have led to this concern—such as our scheduling decisions and a lack of creativity in how we invite folks to attend these events. In an effort to not waste our guest speakers’ time and to not “oversaturate” the community with leftist events, the Brigade decided in August to alternate between in-person and pre-recorded educational presentation month-to-month. A considerable portion of November’s analysis period will be dedicated to scientifically studying what the Brigade can do to correct this deficiency so that we may return to more regular in-person educational presentations with acceptable attendance numbers.
In seeking to educate working and oppressed people in our community, the Brigade has also produced numerous pamphlets and zines, articles for our publication, The Class Struggle Chronicle, and social media posts dedicated to this goal. These have been well-received, but the Brigade will be continuing to make adjustments where necessary to expand the reach, efficiency, and scope of these educational projects.
TO SUPPORT.
One of the first opportunities the Brigade had to support local working people was in May when we mobilized support for local TARC drivers organized with ATU Local 1447; on May 23rd, we helped publicize and attended a rally to support the TARC workers who were (and still are) facing severe neglect and abuse from the city’s leaders. Since that first rally, the Brigade and our organizers have also attended CWA, IBEW, UA, and IAMAW picket lines, donated to strike funds, platformed striking workers’ grievances, and attended a number of other solidarity actions, including a SBWU sip-in and the certification celebration for workers at Quills Coffee. As mentioned before, we also platformed local workers negotiating their first contract at our June educational and had a representative from the Louisville Professional Firefighters (IAFF Local 54) speak about their struggle for a new contract with the city.
The Brigade has also supported the work of other progressive groups and individuals in our community. Our organizers have participated in a direct action with the Louisville Tenants Union, offered mutual aid to local organizers, helped to support a Kentucky prisoner, and conducted a workshop for the Louisville Youth Group’s Rainbow Revolution Youth Summit. We tabled at the Louisville Pride Festival where we were pleased to offer booth space to our friends with Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare and signed on to help lead Louisville’s participation in SHUT ‘EM DOWN 2024, a national prison abolition campaign organized by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.
Most importantly, the Brigade has provided free, confidential consultation to working people seeking options for unionizing their workplaces. We have spoken to workers in nonprofit, healthcare, entertainment, and government sectors. Some of these folks are now connected with international unions and are well on their way to unionization. We are excited for these campaigns to go public so we can more candidly speak about these exciting organizing drives!
In analyzing the Brigade’s work towards supporting working and oppressed people in our community, our self-criticism primarily centers not on what we’ve done, but on what we have yet to do. Moving forward, the Brigade strives to move beyond the “low-hanging fruit” of workers who proactively reach out to us for assistance (though we certainly continue this work!); building upon the work we’ve already begun, we hope to begin intentional, scientific, well-planned agitation campaigns to actually cultivate new organizing campaigns in local workplaces. This will be another major point of analysis for Brigade organizers this month.
TO UNITE.
The Brigade has organized five public Community Socials and two invite-only Socials since our founding. These events have been held for the purpose of building community, uniting disconnected portions of our city’s working class, and to foster communication between workers, organizers, and community groups. We have also sought to erode the needless divisions between workers within our class through education. As anyone can see, much of our work outlined in the previous two sections has also contributed to this goal of uniting working and oppressed people within our city.
In analyzing this final component of the Brigade’s mission, we reiterate the need for our organizers to scientifically and strategically assess our approach to mobilizing attendance, including at our informal social events. During this period of analysis, the Brigade will be evaluating our scheduling of such events, the activities (or lack thereof) offered at these informal get-togethers, and other factors which may contribute to the success of or lackluster turnout at such events. We will also be seeking new and creative ways of bridging divides between working and oppressed people in our community.
CONCLUSION
The first six months of the Louisville Workers Brigade have held many successes, setbacks, failures, and surprises. The Brigade must never “rest on our laurels,” but instead must continue to utilize a scientific approach to perfect our work. Discipline, care, responsibility, study, mentorship, practice, analysis, strategy, self-criticism, correction—these are the qualities which we believe will carry the Brigade forward to greater campaigns, endeavors, and organizing.
We offer our deepest gratitude to all who have followed us on social media, liked and shared our posts, attended our events, reached out to us for help or with encouraging words, and shown us solidarity. Brigade organizers have strived to fulfill our mission of educating, supporting, and uniting working class forces in our community, often through sleepless nights, exhausting schedules, internal disagreements, and external pressures; despite numerous obstacles, surprises, and setbacks, we’ve attempted to keep our mission first and foremost, placing principles before personalities, keeping our eyes fixed on our shared vision of liberation for all working and oppressed people.
We are grateful for all of the opportunities that the Brigade’s first six months have afforded us and look forward to the future where we hope to further educate, support, and unite working and oppressed people here in Louisville, Kentucky and beyond!
Solidarity Forever! Power, Liberation, and Peace to All Working and Oppressed People!