If you otherwise have the fundamentals of organizing in place but you’re still struggling to reach more people, make sure you’re paying attention to your list and not leaving an opportunity on the table.

KEY COMPONENTS

What is a list? Well, it’s a list of your co-workers. It should contain their names, of course, but also each person’s job, their department or shift, and how to get in touch with them, especially their phone number and email address.

Your list should also track their level of support for your particular organizing effort, whether it’s a union drive, a health and safety petition, or a campaign for union office. If you’re building a list over time, such as over the course of a unionization campaign or as part of building a union reform caucus, you should also track their support for past actions.

If you’re new to list-building and you’re a pen-and-paper type, start there. If you’re organizing with a group or in a large workplace (or across multiple worksites), however, it’s a good idea to store the information in a spreadsheet that trusted organizers have access to.

Make sure all the information ends up stored in one place, even if you have multiple people collecting it. You can find an example of what a list (sometimes called a chart) might look like, at bit.ly/MakeAChart.

WHO NEEDS A LIST?

Every organizer needs a list. If you’re in the leadership or staff of your union, you hopefully already have access to a list of the members. Probably it could use some improvement, such as updating contact information or adding columns to track support for union actions.

Frequently, union reformers or workers just starting out to form a union are not in a position where they already have a list, and must build one from scratch.

Lists are vital for union reformers who need to organize with other rank-and-file members, or for members running for union office, who will need to make sure their co-workers vote.

In these scenarios, your list may not contain everyone in the workplace (although it would still be useful to have such a list), but it definitely needs to contain your supporters.

A good, well-maintained list, and knowing how to use it, can be the difference between a failed campaign and a successful one.

HOW TO BUILD IT

Any campaign that’s grounded in organizing fundamentals—addressing widely and deeply felt issues, with respected workplace leaders at the helm—is also a list-building opportunity.

A petition can be a good way to build a list. So can a survey or pledge. Circulate forms in person during your conversations and meetings, and in online spaces or chats where members congregate.

Even before you launch a campaign, however, think about your personal networks. Whose contact info do you have already? For workers who don’t always work at the same site, or whose work sites change frequently, such as in construction or the entertainment industry, think of people you worked with on past projects.

These contacts are the start of your list. Everyone on the organizing team can pitch in to build the list with their connections.

Sign-in sheets for in-person events, or registration data for Zoom events, are also useful. Require attendees to provide their contact info. Getting these sign-ups should become a key task of the organizers on your team. Also, try to upload the data from sign-in sheets promptly into your main list, rather than leaving them to collect (digital) dust.

There are also more passive ways to build a list, such as through a campaign website or social media. Always make it easy for someone encountering your web presence to sign up for email updates, or to give you their contact information in some form.

Don’t get too obsessed with tracking your social media engagement, especially if it’s not translating into actual contacts you can invite to get more involved. (But if someone leaves an incisive comment or seems like a good potential activist, do reach out to set up an actual conversation.)

Finally, set a time each week to maintain your list, and continue to build it. Make sure you have assigned clear responsibility within your team for this essential work.

HOW TO USE IT

You’ve built a good list—now what do you do with it?

Communicate with people on your list. In addition to one-on-one conversations, most organizing campaigns these days use mass emails and texts.

While it’s a mistake to rely solely on one-way mass communications, a good communications strategy and well-timed outreach to your supporters can be an important supplement to strong organizing. It can convey updates, help turn out supporters to events and actions, and raise money. So communicate regularly with your list.

Use it to assess the areas where your organizing is strong or weak. Which departments do you have a lot of support in? Are there key departments where you have not a single contact?

Do your supporters seem to skew in ways that could affect your success, like identity, job title, location, or language spoken? Your list should have representation from the groups that you have previously identified as important to your organizing. If you’re missing some groups, figure out how to get them involved.

Use it to identify potential leaders, and to turn supporters into activists. You need to work through your list—through in-person conversations or phone calls—to identify the people you want to recruit into more active roles.

Remember that real leaders take action, and aren’t necessarily the loudest or most radical-sounding in the group. Most important, real leaders have followers, meaning they have influence with certain co-workers. Make an organizing “ask” of them, such as inviting them to an event, and see if they not only follow through, but can also recruit co-workers to join them.

Building lists—and making good use of them—takes some work and attention to detail, but if you make it an automatic part of your organizing, it will pay off!

“They just do not treat us like people,” Dodge said. “We are often referred to as bodies, like they don’t even want to give us credit for having a pulse. They do what they call ‘manpower moves,’ and they say, ‘We just need bodies over here.’”

United Auto Workers Local 2093 members at American Axle, a parts supplier for the Big 3 automakers, in Three Rivers, Michigan, are in gear after authorizing a strike in a 98 percent vote ahead of their May 31 contract expiration.

If nearly 1,000 UAW members move their bodies to picket lines at the end of the month, then the wheels on General Motors trucks won’t have axles to run on the road. UAW buttons read, “No Axles, No Trucks.”

SAVED THE PLANT

Workers haven’t recovered from when their wages were slashed in half in 2008, as part of concessions they made to save the axle plant from closure during the Great Recession.

Electrician Jon Krause, a 32-year employee on the bargaining committee, said 90 percent of local members participated in the strike authorization vote because workers are hungry to fight back. He said the high participation showed they were confident about holding the line for no concessions, no tiers, and increasing job security by securing new product for the plant.

In order to save American Axle, Krause said, “we took the concessions. Some people went as low as $14.50 an hour, and then we were hiring at 10 bucks an hour.

“The economy was in the tank,” said Krause. “There was not a lot of leverage; GM had plenty of vehicles, and we were just kind of left hanging. There was no real strategy behind it, but there wasn’t a lot to put there anyway.”

Workers lost their pension; it was replaced by an inferior 401(k)-style plan, with a 3 percent company match after workers contribute 6 percent. The company also introduced tiers for health care and retirement. Today, after a five-year progression, workers top out at $22 an hour, including a shift differential.

Workers have taken note of the lucrative management compensation packages and all the companies American Axle has bought over the years, while workers were fed a steady diet of concessions and closure threats. “To our members’ credit, they’ve had enough,” Krause said. “They can’t afford to live like this, so at this point, they’re willing to fight.”

NO SICK TIME

American Axle is headquartered in Detroit, but its operations span two dozen countries, employing 13,000 hourly workers globally; 9,980 are represented under collective bargaining agreements with various unions, according to a 2025 Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The UAW represents nine of American Axle’s 24 U.S. facilities. North America is the company’s profit center, generating over 70 percent of its revenue. In 2024, its sales were 42 percent to GM, 13 percent Ford, and 13 percent Stellantis.

Dodge said one of her top issues is time off: workers don’t have sick days. Last year Michigan passed the Earned Sick Time Act, requiring employers to provide paid sick time accrued at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked.

“When the law passed, they gave 72 hours to the managers, and we still got none,” Krause said. “Now they want us to carve it out of our vacation time, and we have no interest in doing that. They really do not care. They would just as soon have you there 10 hours a day, seven days a week, if they can.”

WORKING TO RULE

The U.S. auto sector has shrunk and restructured over the past two decades. Companies have shuttered some plants and moved factories to Asia and Mexico, where auto plants and suppliers have integrated their supply chains to create a strong national market. In May, GM announced it will invest $1 billion in Mexico and shift production there from Asia to produce 80,000 cars per year, incorporating parts and components manufactured in the country, further strengthening Mexico’s integrated supplier network.

Within the U.S., since the 1980s, new auto plants and suppliers have set up shop in the non-union South, represented by international companies in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. The UAW has struggled to organize these parts suppliers and assembly plants, though it did finally unionize Volkswagen in Chattanooga after a decade of failed attempts.

Even so, the UAW has leverage in the current political environment, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “At American Axle, one of their products is for heavy trucks, and those things still sell,” he said.

President Donald Trump has rolled back electric-vehicle tax credits and gutted clean-air rules. That means the Big 3 can sell more gas guzzlers, creating an incentive to expand production of heavy-duty axles.

In a February letter to shareholders, CEO David Dauch underscored how “North America large truck and SUV driveline systems” are profit centers for the company.

The Trump administration has “waved their magic wand and said climate change doesn’t exist anymore,” Wheaton said. With the elimination of Environmental Protection Agency restrictions on emissions and fuel economy, “now truck sales are doing quite well, and American Axle will benefit from that. And those trucks, most of them are made here in North America, with a big chunk of them here in the U.S.”

Because these workers have leverage, management has been “trying to bank parts just in case we do strike,” Dodge said. On a typical shift, workers make about 800 axles. Management has mandated weekend work and pressured workers to extend their shifts, boosting production to about 900 per shift.

In response, workers have deployed work-to-rule tactics. “We’ve been working safely and following our job instructions,” Dodge said, “making sure that we make what is needed and not more.”

A SERIOUS CAMPAIGN

Unlike in previous rounds of bargaining, Dodge said, this year the reform leadership of the UAW is mounting an actual contract campaign.

In past rounds, workers got no updates on how bargaining was proceeding. Top leaders made clear that the parts sector wasn’t a priority for the union. In 2021, Dodge said, the leadership agreed to health care concessions, including giving up zero-cost premiums.

“This time around, we really have the backing of the International, which I didn’t see in the last contract, so it’s really refreshing,” she said. “Before it was all hush-hush and secret. We only got to see the proposed contracts after negotiations, and even then, sometimes what they presented to us wasn’t what was in the contract.”

Union meetings that used to draw a dozen people now include hundreds.

“This time, we’ve had help from our local committees to our regional committees,” Krause said, “all the way up to Shawn Fain’s office.” The UAW created a Department of Bargaining Strategies after its 2023 Stand-Up Strike against the Big 3, to support corporate research into employers and involve members in escalating campaigns.

A sharper power analysis of corporate profit centers and growth plans has informed the UAW’s focus on parts suppliers, both as new organizing targets and in contract fights.

Local 699 members at Nexteer Automotive in Saginaw, Michigan, voted down two tentative agreements and on May 21 authorized a strike by 86 percent. Other UAW parts supplier expirations coming up include thousands of workers at Dana across multiple states, Bridgewater Interiors in Lansing and Detroit, Magna seating in Highland Park, and Allison Off-Highway in Indiana.

COMPANY CALLS COPS

“Eighteen years ago, the workers at American Axle made massive sacrifices,” UAW President Shawn Fain told the crowd at a contract fight kickoff rally in April, where the mayor and lieutenant governor also lent support. “These sacrifices weren’t for the company to make $8.4 billion in the last decade and keep it all for themselves.”

American Axle CEO David Dauch has been paid $111 million in the last decade, the UAW says. In 2024 alone he raked in $11 million, mostly in cash bonuses and stock options, according to the AFL-CIO’s Paywatch.

Meanwhile the union says workers are sleeping in their cars or living in motels, and biking to work because they can’t afford the very vehicles they supply parts for.

In response to the robust contract campaign, management is taking the gloves off. In April, workers were talking to their co-workers on non-work time outside the employee entrance and distributing UAW literature, buttons, and stickers when management called the police to escort them off the property, and threatened workers with termination and trespass if they continued leafleting. The union has filed unfair labor practice charges.

“They want you to be afraid,” said Fain at the rally. “But we can win, because we’re gonna fight like hell to get what we deserve. It’s our time, and we’re coming for ours. Are you ready to square shit up?”

The book has provided inspiration and practical tips to workers across the globe attempting to revitalize their unions and build collective power in their workplaces. The English edition has sold over 50,000 copies.

The Korean version was published as an ebook in early 2026 by the Korean Union of Public Science and Technology Workers (KUPST). The union has made the ebook free for all Korean union activists.

The Quebecois French version was published in August 2024 and is available in bookstores throughout the province. French speakers across the world can order the book, titled Organiser, mobiliser, gagner: Guide de renouveau syndical (Organize, Mobilize, Win: A Guide to Union Renewal), from the publisher Écosociété’s website, ecosociete.org.

Alain Savard, who translated it, is an organizer with the Fédération du Commerce (FC), which represents 30,000 workers in tourism, food processing, and retail. Savard hopes the translation will encourage unions to adopt an organizing model that puts workers in the driver’s seat, as opposed to an advocacy model that relies on lobbying, media attention, and negotiations behind closed doors.

“The emphasis on collective action during the contract, emphasis on one-on-one conversations, the leader identification process—these are not things that are widespread in Quebec,” Savard says. The book provides “an accessible first step toward developing unions as collective organizations that build class power.”

FC has been holding trainings based on Secrets of a Successful Organizer over the past five years; it now gives them to all its activists and staff. Savard said these sessions have been helpful in encouraging workers to take collective action outside of contract negotiations. “Especially during the pandemic, workers realized we don’t have to wait for the contract renewal to mobilize ourselves—we can push to get Covid bonuses,” he said. Many workers won raises of $2 an hour or more.

To make the book more relevant to Quebecois workers, Savard switched out examples from the U.S. for stories of workplace organizing in Quebec. Many of these stories come from workers who participated in a Secrets training and then won a victory through collective action.

For example, at a food processing factory, workers on the night shift had a supervisor who made their lives miserable. “The union brought it up with the labor relations committee, but nothing would happen,” says Savard. “The labor relations committee meets in the late afternoon—so the union invited the whole night shift to come in before their shift and voice their concerns at the meeting.” That pressure helped get the bad boss fired.

“A lot of workers have problems with toxic bosses, and the union has a lot of problems figuring out how to deal with these issues,” says Savard. Being willing to take collective action and think creatively—”based on identifying an issue that was winnable and important for the workers”—helped build their power.

DANISH VERSION AND PODCAST

Danish union activists published their own version of Secrets of a Successful Organizer in 2023 (En Succesfuld Organisators Hemmeligheder – En Håndbog for Faglige Ballademagere, available from left-wing publisher Solidaritet). The translator, Jakob Matthiassen, was an ironworker for 20 years—”a rank-and-file rabblerouser,” he says—before getting hired as an organizer with his union 3F in 2019. (3F, Denmark’s largest union, also has members in transport, manufacturing, hotels, and restaurants.) Within a year, the book had already sold 1,000 copies and is now available in 22 Danish libraries.

Sixty-four percent of Danish workers belong to unions. Though that number has been slowly declining over the past few decades, Danish unions still have significant institutional power. A strong service model of unionism dominates, based on the idea that the role of the union is to solve workers’ problems for them, rather than organizing workers to solve their own problems.

“Why should we even look at the American trade movement? In the United States, despite their historically low percentage of union members in the private sector, they have tried to spread and devise new methods of turning the tide,” writes Rasmus Emil Hjorth, a leader of the union among food delivery workers at Just Eat DK, in a review. “This is something I think we can be inspired by in Denmark.”

Matthiassen said that some Danish unions have been familiar with the organizing model of unionism for nearly 20 years, as they attempt to overcome their own stagnation and respond to changes in the economy. But most of the handbooks on organizing published in Denmark were academic or aimed at staff. “What we needed was a guide for the rank and file, easy to use for people on the worksite starting from the bottom up.”

So Matthiassen bought 20 copies of the English version of Secrets and began to distribute them in Denmark, before deciding to translate the book himself.

Part of the inspiration came as he wrote a report on how the union was trying to organize migrant workers on a major construction project, expanding the light rail system in Copenhagen.

“I realized very quickly that the union movement lacked the methods and skill to engage the migrant workers,” he says. “They have learned how to get them enrolled in the union, how to get them to pay their dues—that was very innovative—but they completely lacked the ability to involve the migrant workers in the daily union work on site,” including involving them in negotiating local agreements that improve upon the national collective agreement and building a union club at the worksite.

Matthiassen incorporated Danish examples into the book. He also added a new secret: “Nobody negotiates alone.” In the Danish system, Matthiassen says that union representatives are constantly negotiating with managers—even in workplaces without a collective agreement or a shop steward. “But in my experience two bad things happen,” he says.

“One, the other workers are very happy to let you as the union activist or representative go and negotiate and [be the one to] take a chance” while they sit on the sidelines, and “two, the negotiators quickly develop confidentiality,” not updating workers on the negotiations until an agreement has been reached. That undermines workers’ sense of collective power and reinforces the idea of a union as a service.

Matthiassen has also started a podcast based on the book, featuring interviews with Danish union activists. The series is on its 26th episode as of May 2026!

A TENANT ORGANIZING MANUAL

It’s not just workplace organizers who are translating the book. In Spain, the Madrid Tenants’ Union (el Sindicato de Inquilinos e Inquilinas de Madrid) published a tenant organizing manual inspired by Secrets of a Successful Organizer in 2024.

“The current system prioritizes the profits of landlords over the rights of renters to remain in the neighborhoods and cities that we have helped to build,” writes the union. “Those of us who rent our homes have little power as individuals against our landlords, just like individual workers when they fight against their bosses. But organization turns shared vulnerability into collective strength.”

The manual includes advice on going door-to-door in your building to meet neighbors, mapping your apartment complex, and researching your landlord, as well as numerous examples drawn of successful organizing by Madrid tenants.

It also adds a useful section on avoiding burnout (“No te quemes”). “On many occasions, when we begin to take the first steps, we have so much energy that we don’t notice that we are doing all the work ourselves: calling meetings, thinking about the agenda, planning actions, going to all the union trainings… The problem with this model is that it’s unsustainable and, therefore, incompatible with a long-term struggle like ours.

“Rather than burning yourself out at the beginning,” the union writes, “it’s more useful to focus on building alliances within our building so that we aren’t the only ones in motion.” That also means having a good division of labor among union activists—one that is both “efficient and inclusive.”

Where to purchase or download the books:

English: labornotes.org/secrets. $15. More than 40 handouts and exercises that accompany the book are also available for free download at labornotes.org/secrets/handouts, and the accompanying trainer’s guide is available for purchase on the Labor Notes website. Bulk discounts from 10 to 40 percent are available.

Spanish: labornotes.org/secretos. $15. Links to Spanish translations of all of the handouts from the book are available there as well, and we hope to make a Spanish version of the trainer’s guide available later this year. Write to dan[at]labornotes[dot]org for info on bulk purchases or to get a free PDF of the Spanish translation.

The Madrid Tenants Union (Sindicato de Inquilinos e Inquilinas de Madrid) also published a shortened version, adapted for the tenants’ movement. Find it at inquilinato.org/manual-organizacion-inquilina.

Chinese (simplified): Download a free PDF here.

Chinese (traditional): Download a free PDF here. The book was translated by activists in the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, which was forced to disband due to repression by the Chinese government.

Danish: En Succesfuld Organisators Hemmeligheder – En Håndbog for Faglige Ballademagere. Available from solidaritet.dk, 200 DKK. Direct link here: bit.ly/danishSSO. There’s a Facebook page for the book, too: facebook.com/successfulorganisator. Find the Succesfuld organisering podcast, inspired by the book, here.

Quebecois French: Organiser, mobiliser, gagner: Guide de renouveau syndical. ecosociete.org/livres/omg. $27CAD.

German: Geheimnisse einer erfolgreichen Organizerin. The book was translated by a Labor Notes-style organization, OKG, which, in German, stands for Organizing, Fighting, Winning (Organisieren-Kämpfen-Gewinnen). It can be purchased from the publisher Schmetterling Verlag here (16.80€).

Japanese: 職場を変える 秘密のレシピ47. Buy the book for 1500 yen and download free handouts at: roudou-bengodan.org/secrets/

Korean: 성공적 조직활동가의 비밀. Download the free ebook here.

Swedish: Organisatörens handbok: Tips och trix för facklig organisering. Available at adlibris.com/se/bok/organisatorens-handbok-9789186474768 (128 kr). For info on purchasing multiple copies, write to: kontakt[at]federativsforlag[dot]se.

For any questions about translations, contact Dan DiMaggio of Labor Notes: dan[at]labornotes[dot]org.

In that work, I’ve come to rely heavily on the writing of Les Leopold. Whether it was running workshops based on his Reversing Runaway Inequality in the lead-up to the 2016 Verizon strike, or using Wall Street’s War on Workers as a teaching text with union apprentice electricians, Leopold’s work has helped me translate complex political economics into something workers can engage with, debate, and act on.

With his latest book, The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own: How Working People Can Build Independent Political Power, Leopold challenges us to not just understand the system, but confront it. He’s challenging labor movement folks to rethink how we are organizing politically, who we are organizing for, and whether we are actually building the independent working-class power this moment demands.

REENGAGING UNION MEMBERS

I read this book with two questions we in the labor movement are dealing with in real time: How do we reengage union members who have drifted away from our political program? And how do we make political education part of our organizing strategy instead of something that only appears during elections?

The Billionaires Have Two Parties starts with working people’s actual experiences, drawn from a sizable survey Leopold and colleagues conducted of voters in four “rust belt” states. The survey asked them about what they want, what they’re angry about, and what kind of political organization could actually represent them. From that foundation, Leopold shows that solidarity around economic issues may be the clearest way forward.

Drawing on the survey’s findings, Leopold shows that working people broadly support an economic populist agenda that includes taxing the wealthy, stopping corporate price-gouging, capping prescription drug prices, protecting Social Security, and preventing layoffs at companies that receive public money. They even support policies that are often labeled “radical,” like a federal jobs guarantee.

One proposal that stood out to me was prohibiting corporations that receive taxpayer support from conducting compulsory layoffs. Layoffs would have to be voluntary, based on buyout packages. The proposal directly addresses the crisis described in Leopold’s earlier book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, about mass layoffs, stock buybacks, and the decline of worker political power. This line captures the book’s moral core: “The people of our country should be the center of our economic system, not a source of wealth extraction for the few.” This is the change we are all organizing for.

'INDEPENDENT’ POLITICAL POWER

As an organizer, I am not surprised that the economic policies Leopold highlights are popular. Job security—and economic security in general—is a key reason why workers organize.

But I’ve thought a lot about why workers aren’t as supportive of their union’s political program as they were in the past. Many members are disengaged because they don’t trust the institutions claiming to represent them—including their own unions. Partly it’s because even with a union, workers have become less economically secure. And yet we union activists continue to tell them to support union-backed candidates. Understandably, some workers see this dysfunction and decide not to vote the way their union is telling them to.

The book names that the Democratic brand itself has become a barrier. Workers may agree with a populist economic program, but react negatively when that same program is attached to a party they see as elitist and out of touch. When unions operate only inside that partisan frame, we’re asking members to choose between institutions many of them already distrust.

The book points to a different approach: grounding political discussion on shared economic interests, collective power, and what workers can win together. It also calls for framing our political power as “independent” rather than dependent on the Democratic Party.

One important lesson organizers can take from this book is that unions’ political power is not bestowed upon us by whoever happens to be in office. It is created by worker solidarity and collective political action. The fight in the workplace and the fight in the legislative halls are not separate. They are different arenas of the same conflict over who has power, who writes the rules, and whose interests the government protects. And shouldn’t we, as a union movement, be inherently independent? Aren’t we, through our unions, our own political organization?

MEET WORKERS WHERE THEY ARE

The book does not avoid hard questions. Leopold takes on the sometimes competing nature of economic justice and progressive movements. He points to a debate in which Hillary Clinton pushed back against Bernie Sanders’ economic populism by asking whether breaking up big banks would end racism, sexism, or other discrimination. Leopold does not dismiss these struggles. But he argues that economic populism provides a broad base for solidarity, and that a working-class movement cannot require total agreement on every social issue at the outset.

As a union organizer, I understand this dynamic. Long ago, I learned that organizers cannot be partisan or ideological in their approach. We need to meet workers where they are, find ways to unite them, and identify widely felt issues that can bring people into collective action.

Unions can be a place where people actually change their views. Many times, the act of coming together and acting together opens up people’s worldview. It moves them out of individualistic attitudes and helps them see the power of solidarity. But that’s less likely to happen if we start by judging workers who don’t already agree with us, or who identify with a party that is hostile to unions.

To unite members, we can’t begin with party labels. We begin with issues that everyone can understand and feel: job security, staffing, fairness, health care, and pay.

One of the book’s most concrete contributions is when it begins mapping political terrain. Leopold is not arguing for third-party campaigns everywhere. Instead, he identifies specific openings—like Republican districts where Democrats are uncompetitive. Here, an independent working-class candidate may not function as a spoiler at all. Here, class-based independent politics can take root without the usual constraints.

Leopold’s emphasis on political education, worker-to-worker discussion, small-group engagement, and collectively developing demands aligns closely with good organizing practice. If workers are going to build independent political power, they need spaces to think together, debate, and define their own agenda. They need to move from being an audience for politics to being active participants in shaping politics.

A HELPFUL FRAMEWORK

The book is not without limitations. Economic populism has broad appeal, but agreeing on economic issues does not automatically produce organization or sustained solidarity. Building a new political association that includes the broader non-union working class won’t be easy for many unions. And running candidates isn’t the same as building an organization. The book is clearer on where independent politics might emerge than on how it becomes durable.

But the book does push organizers toward a helpful framework and narrative. It challenges us to stop treating politics as something we do for members and start treating it as something we build with them—independently of the two parties. It asks us to consider whether our current political approach is developing power or simply maintaining relationships with institutions that no longer command workers’ trust.

The Billionaires Have Two Parties ultimately argues that workers need their own political voice, their own platform, and their own organization. Whether or not one agrees with every part of that argument, the underlying point can’t be ignored: We need independent working-class power to change the status quo.

Steve Lawton is a former president of Communications Workers Local 1102 on Staten Island and now an organizer with CWA District 1. Buy The Billionaires Have Two Parties here.

Hay veces que yo no tenía para mi renta ni para los biles ni mucho menos para la comida de mis niños,” le comento a Labor Notes. En tal caso, podría saltarse una semana de pago, pero debería $200 la siguiente semana.

Petronila, otra extrabajadora en Marder, describió una experiencia similar: “Uno trabaja duro, y deja sus hijos con personas para ir a trabajar, todo eso para que el señor nos ande quitando dinero,” dijo. “Nadie se merece que lo traten así.”

Evelyn y Petronila solicitaron que no se utilizaran sus nombres completos, por temor a ser incluidas en una lista negra.

Después de hablar sobre sus experiencias con el Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores de New Bedford, trabajadores presentaron una demanda en octubre contra Marder, la agencia de empleos a través de la cual fueron empleados (Workforce Unlimited) y su exgerente, Francisco Ixcotoyac Dionicio, quien dicen los trabajadores que les impuso los pagos semanales. Los abogados que representan a los trabajadores estiman que se les extorsionó más de medio millón de dólares entre el 1 de enero de 2021 y el 27 de mayo de 2025.

“[Ixcotoyac] categóricamente niega haber forzado a los empleados que les pagarle cualquier suma para conservar sus puestos en Marder Trawling,” comentó su abogado en un comunicado enviado por correo electrónico, calificando a las acusaciones como “una conspiración entre un grupo de trabajadores” y “una organización comunitaria”. En junio de 2025, Ixcotoyac reembolsó a algunos trabajadores sumas de entre 4.500 y 7.000 dólares, firmando múltiples documentos de pago en que reconoció haberles cobrado $100 por semana para mantener sus empleos. En total, pagó aproximadamente $100,000, según indicó su abogado. Los trabajadores mantuvieron el derecho de demandar a Ixcotoyac y a Marder.

Días después de que se presentara la demanda, la agencia de personal informó a seis trabajadores involucrados en el litigio que habían sido despedidos de sus trabajos en Marder, en lo que Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores fue una represalia.

“La agencia de personal es el empleador y es responsable de la incorporación, los contratos laborales, la nómina y sus propias decisiones de personal", comentaron los representantes de Marder en un comunicado enviado por correo electrónico. “Dado que estas personas no eran empleados de Marder, la alegación de que Marder ‘despidio’ o ‘amenazó con despedir’ a algún empleado de la agencia de personal es una caracterización errónea.”
En la demanda, representantes de los trabajadores sostienen que los trabajadores eran “empleados conjuntamente” entre Marder y Workforce Unlimited, y que Marder “supo o debía haber sabido” sobre el esquema de soborno.

Representantes para Workforce Unlimited no respondieron a solicitudes de comentarios.

INHALANDO VÍSCERAS DURANTE 12 HORAS

La industria de procesamiento de productos del mar es notoria por su impacto en el cuerpo. Entre 2011 y 2017, los trabajadores de procesamiento de mariscos tuvieron una tasa mas alta de lesiones o enfermedades no mortales que cualquier otro grupo de trabajadores del sector marítimo, según la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales.

Las tareas repetitivas son la norma, y con ellas llegan las torceduras y el desgaste muscular. Los trabajadores inhalan partículas aerosolizadas de músculo, branquias y piel, que los expone al riesgo de padecer asma ocupacional. Los trabajadores que procesan crustaceos—como en Marder que se dedica principalmente en el procesamiento de escalopas—corren un reisgo especialmente elevado; se estima que las tasas de asma alergia de origen laboral alcanzan hasta un 36 por cientot en este sector.

“Se cansa uno de estar parada, se cansa la espalda,” dijo Petronila, quien enrollaba escalopas en tocino durante turnos de hasta 12 horas.

La industria de procesamiento de productos de mar de New Bedford ha sido un sitio de actividad organizadora durante años. Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, un centro de trabajadores fundado en 2006, ha apoyado a muchas de estas luchas durante la última década. “Nosotros nunca nos metemos en una agencia, una compañia, en nada, si no es que llega una queja a nosotros,” dijo Adrian Ventura, director ejecutivo del Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores. “Los trabajadores son los que estan tomando las decisiones.”

Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores ha logrado victorias. Por ejemplo, en 2019, los trabajadores lograron un acuerdo de 675.000 dolares con Atlantic Capes Fisheries y la agencia de personal BJ’s Service Company a raiz de acusaciones de acoso sexual flagrante.

‘NO NOS VAMOS A DEJAR’

Pero con frecuencia, el uso de agencias de empleo permite a los empleadores a evadir a sus responsabilidades bajo la ley laboral, Laura Padin, abogada superior para el Proyecto Nacional de Derecho Laboral, declaro a Labor Notes en 2023, después de que 100 trabajadores de procesamiento de mariscos en New Bedford fueron despedidos en lo que, según ellos, era represalia por haberse organizado. “Es lo que hacen las agencias cuando se sienten amenazadas por las violaciones de derechos laborales; lo que hacen es despedir a la persona o intimidarlos,” dijo Ventura.

“[Alguien] que yo conozco me comentó, ‘¿Por qué no hablar? Eso es ilegal,’” dijo Petronila, “pero yo tenía miedo, pensaba que solo éramos nosotros. Hasta que fuimos a CCT nos dimos cuenta que a todos les estaba quitando dinero.”

Saber que no estaba sola le dio fortaleza. “Había un compañero que se atrevió a hablar en frente de toda la gente y contar todo,” dijo. “Se sintio asi mas facil de hablar. Cuando él habló, se hizo más fácil, me dieron más ganas de hablar.”

Días después de que se presentara la demanda, Evelyn y Petronila fueron informadas por un representante de la agencia que su trabajo en Marder había concluido. “Me dolió,” dijo Evelyn, “porque siempre hacía mi trabajo como debe de ser.”

“Me sentí furiosa,” dijo Evelyn. “Le dije [a mi exgerente]: tal vez lo que usted hizo para usted está bien. Pero aquí hay un Dios que mira que todo lo que usted nos hizo no es justo. Usted está a favor de Francisco y de la compañía. Solo porque levantamos la voz y pedimos que nos respeten como trabajadores, y solo por eso nos despidieron. Pero no nos vamos a dejar.”

TRABAJADORES DESPEDIDOS MARCHAN ANTE EL JEFE

En febrero, abogados para Marder presentaron una moción para exigir un arbitraje individual respecto a las reclamaciones de los trabajadores en la demanda colectiva, alegando que todos ellos habían firmado acuerdos de arbitraje con Workforce Unlimited. Poco después, representantes de los trabajadores presentaron una moción opuesta, argumentando que los demandantes fueron “obligados a firmar los acuerdos sin haber tenido jamás la oportunidad de revisarlos ni recibir una copia de los mismos.”

Extrabajadores y apoyantes comunitarios se reunieron en Marder el 9 de abril para presentar cargos de la Junta Nacional de Relaciones Laborales a la gerencia, y exigir su reincorporación.

“Tengo un mensaje para Marder: ¡Qué vergüenza!” dijo el representante estatal Christopher Hendricks en la manifestación. “Extorsionaron a sus propios trabajadores, y los despidieron por utilizar sus derechos. Es una vergüenza, y es por eso que estamos aquí hoy.”

“Estoy aquí porque no se trata de un solo lugar de trabajo,” dijo Ricardo Rosa, subdirector ejecutivo de la Asociacion de Maestros de Masachusetts, “pero un patron en que los trabajadores inmigrantes son tratados como si fueran deshechables.”

Evelyn dijo que ser parte del Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores le enseñó que “no hay que dejarse uno. Hay que seguir luchando hasta ganar.” Piensa en el día en que regresara a trabajar con la frente en alta. “Me motivo de seguir luchando para que entiendan que todos tenemos los mismos derechos, y para que ellos no sigan haciendo lo mismo con los demás.”

“There were times I didn’t have money for rent, bills, or food for my kids,” she told Labor Notes, but her manager was happy to oblige: she could skip a week’s payment, and owe $200 the next week.

Petronila, another former Marder worker, described a similar experience. “You work hard, you leave your kids with someone to go to work, just to have this man take money from us,” she said. “No one deserves to be treated this way.”

Evelyn and Petronila requested that their full names not be used for fear of blacklisting.

After talking about their experiences with New Bedford’s Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (Workers’ Community Center), workers filed a class action in October against Marder, the staffing agency through which they were hired (Workforce Unlimited), and their former manager Francisco Ixcotoyac Dionicio, who they claim imposed the weekly payments. Lawyers representing the workers estimate that more than half a million dollars were extorted from them between January 1, 2021, and May 27, 2025.

“[Ixcotoyac] categorically denies forcing employees to pay him any amount to keep their jobs at Marder Trawling,” the manager’s lawyer said in an emailed statement, characterizing the allegations as “a conspiracy between a faction of workers” and “a community organization.” In June 2025, Ixcotoyac paid back some workers between $4,500 and $7,000, signing multiple documentations of payment in which he acknowledged that he charged them $100 a week to keep their jobs. The total payments approximated $100,000, his lawyer said. Workers maintained the right to sue Ixcotoyac and Marder.

Days after the lawsuit was filed, the staffing agency informed six workers involved in the suit that they had been let go from their jobs at Marder in what CCT alleges was retaliation.

“The staffing agency is the employer and is responsible for onboarding, employment agreements, payroll, and its own personnel decisions,” wrote representatives for Marder in an emailed statement. “Because these individuals were not Marder employees, the allegation that Marder ‘terminated’ or ‘threatened to terminate’ any staffing-agency employee is a mischaracterization.”

In the suit, representatives for the workers assert that the workers were “jointly employed” between Marder and Workforce Unlimited, and that Marder “knew or should have known” about the kickback scheme.

Representatives for Workforce Unlimited did not respond to requests for comment.

BREATHING GILLS FOR 12 HOURS

The seafood processing industry is notorious for its toll on the body. Between 2011 and 2017, seafood processing workers had a higher rate of nonfatal injury or illness than any other maritime workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Repetitive tasks are the norm, and with them come sprains and tears. Workers breathe in aerosolized muscle, gills, and skin, putting them at risk of occupational asthma. Workers who process shellfish—like those at Marder, which primarily processes scallops—are at especially high risk, with rates of work-related allergic asthma estimated to be as high as 36 percent across the industry.

“You get tired from standing; your back starts to hurt,” said Petronila, who would wrap scallops in bacon for up to 12-hour shifts.

New Bedford’s seafood processing industry has been a hub of organizing activity for years. Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, a workers center founded in 2006, has supported many of these fights over the past decade. “We never get involved with an agency or company without getting a complaint [about working conditions],” said Adrian Ventura, CCT’s executive director. “Workers make the decisions.”

CCT has notched some wins. For example, in 2019, workers reached a $675,000 settlement with Atlantic Capes Fisheries and staffing firm BJ’s Service Company over allegations of “egregious [sexual] harassment.”

‘WE WON’T BE PUSHED AROUND’

But often, the use of staffing agencies allows employers to evade their obligations under labor law, Laura Padin, a senior staff attorney for the National Employment Law Project, told Labor Notes in 2023, after 100 New Bedford seafood processing workers were fired in what they said was retaliation for organizing. “When agencies feel threatened over labor law violations, they fire the person or intimidate them,” said Ventura.

“Someone I know asked me, ‘Why don’t you speak up? This is illegal,’” Petronila said, “but I was afraid. We thought it was just [a few of] us. It wasn’t until we went to Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores we realized he was taking money from everyone.”

Finding out she wasn’t alone gave her strength. “One worker dared to speak in front of everyone, and tell it all,” she said. “When he spoke, it got easier: it made me want to speak up too.”

Days after the lawsuit was filed, Evelyn and Petronila were informed by a staffing agency representative that their work at Marder had concluded. “It hurt me,” Evelyn said, “because I always did my work like I was supposed to.”

“I felt furious,” Evelyn said. “I told [my former manager]: ‘Maybe you think what you did is ok. But there is a God who sees that what you did isn’t fair. You fired me and my co-workers unfairly for raising our voices. But we won’t be pushed around.’”

FIRED WORKERS MARCH ON THE BOSS

In February, lawyers for Marder filed a motion to compel individual arbitration over the workers’ claims in the class action suit, asserting that they had all signed arbitration agreements with Workforce Unlimited. Soon after, representatives for the workers filed a response opposing the motion, arguing that plaintiffs were “compelled to sign the agreements without ever having an opportunity to review them or receive a copy of them.”

Fired workers and community supporters rallied at Marder on April 9 to deliver National Labor Relations Board charges to management and demand their reinstatement.

“I have one message to Marder: Shame on you!” said State Representative Christopher Hendricks at the rally. “They extorted their own workers and then fired them for using their rights. That is shameful, and that’s why we’re here today.”

“I’m here because it’s not just about one workplace,” said Ricardo Rosa, Deputy Executive Director of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, “but a pattern, where immigrant workers are treated as if they’re disposable.”

Evelyn said that being a part of Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores taught her “you’ve got to keep fighting until you win.” She thinks about the day she’ll return to work with her head held high. “I’m fighting so they understand we all have the same rights,” she said, “and so they don’t do the same to someone else.”

So it was hard for stonecutter Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, 35, to get a clear diagnosis in 2019 when he first developed a cough and shortness of breath. It wasn’t until two years later that he was told he had silicosis—and only had a year to live.

Reyes Gonzalez had worked for 15 years in a fabrication shop cutting and shaping the manufactured stone now commonly used for countertops and showers (also known as quartz or engineered stone).

Around the time Reyes Gonzalez started working as a stonecutter, the material was becoming popular in the U.S. as a cheaper, more durable replacement for natural stone (marble or granite). But manufactured stone, which is made of crushed quartz and resin, contains much more silica–it comprises up to 95 percent of the material, compared to 5 percent for marble or 10 to 50 percent for granite. This makes manufactured stone much more hazardous for workers to cut, grind, and polish. These processes release silica particles that can embed themselves in the lungs, causing scarring and ultimately lung failure.

As many as two million workers may risk exposure, from manufactured stone as well as from mining, quarrying, sandblasting, and another new hazard, “frac sand” used in hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry.

NO PROTECTION IS ENOUGH

Only now, after many workers have spent decades working with manufactured stone, is the horrible truth coming out—no amount of protection is safe. There is no treatment for silicosis other than a lung transplant, and even transplants may only prolong life by 5 to 10 years. Many workers are getting sick in their 20s or 30s.

For Workers Memorial Day in the U.S. this year, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) raised the alarm. They named the Minnesota-based Cambria Company, the nation’s biggest manufacturer of engineered stone slabs, as one of their “Dirty Dozen”—a badge of shame awarded annually to companies with terrible work safety records.

After Cambria was hit with lawsuits by workers whose lives are being cut short by its product, the company tried to deflect blame to the fabrication shops that customize orders. These shops are small and often have only a few workers. There are around 1,300 fabrication shops in California, according to National COSH, and thousands more around the country.

Many fabrication shops do have poor workplace safety practices. Some workers report being told to use only surgical masks against the dust. “I didn't receive any type of training, any type of warning, on the risk of its use,” Reyes Gonzalez said about the Cambria product used in his shop.

But even when fabrication shops use strong measures to keep the dust down and protect workers, the higher silica content in engineered stone means these measures are not enough. Even with strict dust controls, National COSH warns, “cutting, grinding, and polishing artificial stone releases respirable silica at levels that overwhelm existing protections.”

Respirators, wet saws, and wet cleanup that might be adequate for other types of stonecutting do not make manufactured stone safe. Even powered air-purifying respirators are inadequate, safety experts say. And the best equipment and procedures may be abandoned during on-site installations involving cutting and shaping.

Radio station KQED quoted Aki Vourakis, former large fabrication shop owner, who said that even with excellent safety equipment and protocols, eight of his workers fell ill, and one died. “Even one of the best-run, best-capitalized, award-winning shops in the country cannot keep its workers safe,” Vourakis said.

Still, Cambria insists that the fault lies not with the product, but with those running the fabrication shops. Rather than change, Cambria is pushing federal legislation to make itself immune from lawsuits.

BANNED DOWN UNDER

In Australia, regulators banned all use, supply, and production of manufactured stone in 2024 after tightened workplace rules failed to prevent workers from developing silicosis. The ban came thanks to campaigning by the Construction, Forestry, and Maritime Employees Union and the Mining and Energy Union. They argued that there is no safe exposure to engineered stone. Even before the ban, the Swedish furniture giant Ikea stopped buying the material in Australia and the U.S. in response to reports of its deadliness.

Now California regulators are considering a ban, over the objections of Cambria. The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is considering a petition from occupational safety doctors to ban any manufactured stone with more than 1 percent crystalline silica.

Meanwhile, COSH committees around the country are working to find fabrication shops in their areas and let the workers know they need to get screened for silicosis.

Reyes Gonzalez was able to get a double lung transplant. The doctors now tell him that he could live “maybe 5, 10, 15 more years. We don't know.” He said the medication he has to take causes damages to other organs.

“It is possible that I could get a second transplant, but it is very challenging to go through that process,” he said.