On this week’s episode of Talking Radical Radio, worker/organizer David Stannton talks about his involvement in building a successful shop-floor response to counter management attempts to impose significant concessions on workers at the immigrant-serving not-for-profit agency where he works.
The non-profit sector poses particular challenges to workplace organizing. Stannton recently wrote about his experience with some of those challenges in a piece called, “Beyond the Martyr Complex: Confessions of a ‘Pink Collar’ Militant”. By “martyr complex”, Stannton means a willingness on the part of workers to accept poorer wages and working conditions than might otherwise be the case, out of concern about the impact that disruption to the services they provide would have on the people who depend on them. In both the artaicle and the interview, he talks about a successful instance in the past year in which a very bottom-up, rank-and-file approach to organizing the shop floor succeeded in staving off demands for major concessions from management.
[audio:http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/309435840-scott-neigh-talking-radical-trr-ep-6-apr-32013-shop-floor-organizing-in-the-non-profit-sector.mp3]Talking Radical Radio brings you grassroots voices from across Canada through in-depth interviews that concentrate not on current events or the crisis of the moment, but on giving people involved in a broad range of social change work a chance to take a longer view as they talk about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. To learn more about the show in general, click here.
You can also learn more about ways to listen or go to the show’s page on Rabble.ca. To learn more about suggesting grassroots groups and organizations for future shows, click here. For details on the show’s theme music, click here.
Talking Radical Radio is brought to you by Scott Neigh, a writer, media producer, and activist based in Sudbury, Ontario, and the author of two books examining Canadian history through the stories of activists.
