The First Workshop for
Direct Production Workers
In March 2019 we held the first RC workshop for direct production workers.
A primary point of the new Goal for Ending Classism—in the 2017 Guidelines for the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities—is to get the theory and practice of RC into the hands of direct production workers and poor people—both underrepresented groups in the RC Community.
We are using the new term “direct production workers” to describe the group of people who are currently doing working-class jobs. This group is distinct from what RC has until now referred to as the working class. For this workshop, we mostly did not invite people who were raised middle or owning class and were now doing working-class jobs, or people who had done these jobs in the past.
The workshop was a first step in organizing direct production workers across the RC Communities. It was held at my house. We limited the number of participants to eighteen, the number that can fit in the largest room in my house, sitting shoulder to shoulder. (We had to remove most of the furniture.)
We intended to have just a few people participating remotely with the Zoom app. But news of the possibility traveled, and we ended up with ten U.S. remote participants and eighteen from six other countries. Nine People of the Global Majority and Native people participated.
Eight time zones were represented, so people were joining the workshop at different times. Some of them would have usually been sleeping at the time of the workshop. All of this presented challenges, but mostly it worked out okay.
The biggest contradiction [to distress] for the group was that people from around the world were participating and that for the first time we had our own workshop.
Direct production workers are generally isolated in the RC Communities. Prior to the new goal, little had been done to organize this group and get them in touch with each other. The way we’d defined “working class” had been confusing and caused us to not notice that this, the largest segment of the working class, was greatly underrepresented in RC.
We spent much of the time at the workshop doing introductions, using these questions: Name? Where are you from? What do you do for work? What do you love about your job? What do you hate about it? How will RC be different when direct production workers dominate RC leadership? Sexism, racism, and anti-Jewish oppression were clearly described in the introductions, and on the panels.
Since the workshop I’ve done panels with a total of eighteen direct production workers at two ending-classism workshops—one in Manchester, England, and one in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada—using the questions above. A combined total of sixty-four direct production workers attended those workshops and the workshop for direct production workers. They included twelve workers in the building and construction trades; two retail workers in building and construction supply; three heavy-equipment or truck operators; six childcare workers; six workers who provide personal care to elders or people with disabilities; eight administrative assistants, typists, or data-entry or customer-service workers; three house cleaners; two food-service workers; two hairstylists; two postal workers; two automobile-service workers and mechanics; two retail-sales workers; three workers at food markets; two nurses; and one bicycle delivery worker.
At the workshop for direct production workers I talked about the powerful role our group plays in the capitalist economic system. We create the wealth that other classes live on. We in the basic industries can shut down the means of production. Should we ever unite against the patterns of racism, sexism, anti-Jewish oppression, Gay oppression, or nationalism, for example, we could demand any change we want simply by withdrawing our labor. Here are some examples that were shared:
- Demonstrating airport workers got their demands recognized in one day. (Think of the millions of dollars generated at a major airport during any hour of the day.)
- Thousands of mostly Global Majority hotel and hospitality workers around the world
simultaneously won improved work contracts by stopping work and filling the streets of major cities. - A dock workers’ union refused to unload an arms shipment at a major port—and fellow union members, in solidarity, refused to unload it at any other port in the country. (You could feel the change in attitude at the workshop when this story was told. It was like we all stood a little taller.)
- The same union refused to unload a ship until fifty crew members from an Asian country were paid. It was not clear whether these crew members were being “trafficked” as enslaved labor or it was simply bad practice. But in any case the action was a good example of unionized workers standing up for the vulnerable and unorganized workers of the world.
Jeannine Giguerre-Gagnon, of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, USA—formerly a carpenter and currently a retail representative at a building supply store—did a great job of organizing the workshop. She is also putting together a database of direct production workers in RC.
Rachel Winters, of North Carolina, USA, made good use of the one hour of training on Zoom she’d received at her job as an administrative assistant. She set up practice sessions with Zoom before the workshop and managed our complicated schedule, and sometimes limited technical experience, so that everyone who wished to participate could.
I encourage other RC working-class leaders, in particular, to lead panels of direct production workers in classes and at workshops. Leaders from other class backgrounds can do this as well, as long as they’ve discharged to where they can clearly see and appreciate “the intelligence, strength, endurance, and goodness of working-class people everywhere.” (The quote is from the RC Commitment for Working-Class People.) It often does take some work to create enough safety that these qualities can be in full view.
Please contact me if you are a direct production worker. Also, please help us make contact with other direct production workers in the RC Community.
Thanks to all of you for the work you are doing to eliminate classism.
Freeport, Maine, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion
list for leaders of wide world change