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Organizing Working-Class Communities: Lessons from POWER'S Experiences
Abstract
I want to thank the Socialist Project, and in particular Leo Panitch andSam Gindin, for making it possible for me to be here. I also want to thankthe Canadian people for allowing me to be in a country where I can proclaimmyself a socialist and not have to fear that I will end up on Fox News.People Organized to Win Employment Rights’ (POWER’s)1 mission isto eradicate poverty and oppression once and for all. When we wrote thatmission statement in 1997, we were very clear about its implications. Backthen, we were seeing an increase in the level of structural unemployment,which forced more and more people out of working-class industries thatpreviously had allowed them to make ends meet, to raise families, and tothrive in urban communities. More and more people were winding uphomeless on the streets. More and more people were winding up withouthealth insurance. More and more poor people were being criminalized andvilified for being poor as a result of capitalist accumulation, but in the faceof these injustices, there was silence from the centres of power in our country.We felt it was critical, absolutely critical, for working-class folks, low-incomepeople of colour, to have a space to be able to weigh in on the public policydecisions that were affecting their lives, so five welfare recipients and I wentabout building such an organization.
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