Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee: Reviving the American Labor Movement, Pt 1 Class

This episode features a panel discussion from the Socialism 2022 Conference in Chicago, moderated by Daphna Thier and discussing the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Panelists include Elce Redmond, Tristan Bock-Hughes, Gabriel Winant, Teagan Harris, and Olivia Prager.


Elce Redmond is a muckraker who has been both a community and union organizer for the past 36 years. For the last two years he has served as a volunteer organizer with EWOC that has built a distributed remote model to support workers organizing in their workplace. Elce is proud to be an organizer who is open to learning new organizing methodologies regardless of his organizing history.


Tristan Bock-Hughes is an organizer with the Illinois Nurses Association and formerly one of two staff with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Through EWOC, other staff positions, and volunteer efforts he has worked with dozens of union locals and worker organizations throughout the country. He wants to organize himself out of a job.


Teagan Harris is a former student at the University of Chicago’s Masters in the Humanities Program where she studied indigenous art and curatorial work. While studying there, she worked at a local tea shop. She and her coworkers organized their workplace with the help of EWOC, earning them better workplace conditions. Teagan recently graduated with her MA in the Humanities and currently works at a non-profit in Chicago.


Olivia Prager is a current Medical Case Manager working with adults living with HIV and AIDS at Howard Brown Health Center. She was one of the initial staff members brought into the organizing campaign for Howard Brown Health Workers United shortly after EWOC helped re-connect them with INA who currently represents their nurses union. HBHWU won their union in early August, successfully unionizing nearly 500 staff members across the organization.


Gabriel Winant is a labor historian at the University of Chicago. His book “The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America” came out last year. He’s a former member and organizer with UNITE HERE and currently a volunteer organizer with EWOC. I also recommend his essay on one of my personal favorites, but also one of DSA’s founding members, Barbara Ehrenreich in n+1. 


Daphna Thier is the Labor Education Coordinator for Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC). She's also a longtime bartender based in Brooklyn, and the current Labor Education Coordinator at EWOC. You can find her written work at Jacobin.com, and a chapter she contributed in the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction.


Gabriel Winant and Teagan Harris 
Jacobin
Socialists Are Trying to Revive the American Labor Movement
https://jacobin.com/2022/05/emergency-workplace-organizing-committee-ewoc-dsa-labor


Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)- If you need help organizing your workplace. 
https://workerorganizing.org/support/


Donate to Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)
https://workerorganizing.org/don

Credits:
Producer: Elton LK
Logo by Michaela Brangan
Sound Engineer & Opening Music by Casey Sticker
Additional Assistance by Palmer Conrad
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