The Inside Organizer Collective
The dramatic rebirth of union organizing among Gen-Z grew from a spark lit by an experimental program called the Inside Organizer School (IOS), which began in 2018 as a series of retreats led by a diverse group of young workers with support from seasoned organizers.
More than 500 participants have participated in the IOS, most of whom have gone on to start organizing campaigns in their own workplaces.
The IOS is responsible for training “salts” who have participated in some of the most exciting campaigns in this century, including Starbucks, Chipotle, Amazon, REI, and Ben & Jerry’s. Individuals who attend the IOS receive the skills and resources to organize their workplaces or to”salt” at new jobs.
Our diverse trainers teach techniques for winning unions, including committee-building, one-on-one conversations, responses to the employer’s anti-union campaign, bargaining training, and community mobilization.
Our Principles
The principles underlying the IOS are uniquely reflective of this generation of workers and a radical departure from conventional union approaches. These principles are:
Commitment to autonomous, local decision-making by rank-and file workers;
Opposition to bigotry, racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and any system that oppresses individuals and a commitment to organizing through a racial justice lens;
A geographic-based organizing model rooted in local communities;
A belief in collective bargaining for sustainable empowerment of workers;
The conviction that there is no unorganizable workplace, only workplaces that haven’t been organized yet;
Recognizing that much of the existing union establishment has shown great reluctance to organize the unorganized, and a pragmatic commitment to build new unions capable of transforming society;
Maintaining a network of IOS participants who continue to receive tactical advice and emotional support after the training.
