The Next Step for Organized Labor? People in Prison

*

*

The Industrial Workers of the World is calling for a nationwide prison strike in September.

Moorbey'z Blog

The Industrial Workers of the World is calling for a nationwide prison strike in September.

By Mike Elk

Inmates on the Gwinnett County, Georgia, work crew cut grass off Highway 124. (AP Photo / Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Johnny Crawford)

In the early 2000s, the small but militant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) launched union drives at Starbucks and Jimmy John’s. At the time, many in the mainstream labor movement scratched their heads. Traditionally, labor groups believed that the high turnover of fast food workers would make them impossible to organize.

Nearly a decade later, fast food workers and the Fight for $15 are a central focus of the mainstream labor movement. And, given IWW’s ability to unionize workers who once seemed out of reach, many labor organizers now look to them as an incubator of new organizing strategies.

Now IWW faces one of the biggest challenges in its history: convincing…

View original post 804 more words