Tacoma IWW Organizing Tip #6 - Organizing Solidarity

(Part 2 of 4)

Submitted by Arthur J. Miller on August 10, 2008

E. E-mailing and e-mail lists

1. Important!! No e-mail is secure and thus no e-mail list is secure. Maybe a server could be secure but e-mail lists go out to e-mail addresses and those can be tapped into. So don't send information out by e-mail that could harm your cause.

2. If you get information that you don't know who it is from or there could be reason to question it try to find other ways to conffirm it. Those on the other side of things to play their games. I'll give an example. One year as we were pushing hard for Leonard Peltier, the defense committee was coordinating, and we were helping with it, an international day in solidarity. There were locations in different parts of the world that was going to hold marches. A few weeks before that day of solidarity, someone or someones (my guess they wore suits) sent out a bunch of e-mails to the radical media that Leonard Peltier had been paroled from prison. Many people that were unconnected to the support network passed the false information along not bothering to check it out or wonder why the information was not coming from the defense committee. So people started to cancel their marches. Even people who should have known better got caught up in it. I had a rather nasty public debate on a college radio station when the person putting out the false information challenged me over the issue, never mind the fact that I was a northwest co-coordinator for Leonard and in direct contact with his lawyers and defense committee. Later when the person realized that he had made a fool out of himself he told me he was sorry. The poiint is if you are doing solidarity work don't just take some e-mail as being the truth unless it from the folks who would be directly involve with what ever the struggle is. Send them an e-mail and ask about what is happening.

3. Each branch should have its own e-mail list.

4. Creating a local solidarity list. In a lot of areas there are a number of e-mail lists that target groupings of people, ant-war, Native, environmental, anarchists and so on. Often they include discussion and thus are high volume at times. Most people get on these list by word of mouth. I have seen few lists that really promote themselves. These lists are mostly good but are limited. In doing solidarity work you want to reach as many people as possible. So here is an idea that could help. Set up a regional Solidarity list for solidarity appeals and announcements of events only and then promote it to groups, organizations. Past out fliers on the list and handout fliers at protests and other such events. Such a list would need to be monitored to keep spammers off it. All your e-mail statements should have at the bottom information on how to get on to the solidarity list.

5. Have your branch make up a list of e-mail lists that you could post your solidarity or event messages to and have people sign-up to post to different lists.

6. At all of your events pass around a sign-up sheet for mailing addresses and e-mail addresses. It is a good idea to state at the top "Please print clearly."

7.. As I stated above: each statement should have "Please Post Widely" at the top and then under it who the statement is from. And remember to always include your contact information.

8. Follow-up messages are important.

9. In doing events I will post to lists as soon as the group decides on a date and things are set up. That lets people know you are doing something on that date. Then I'll post about two weeks before the event with up-dated information. Then I'll post a few days before the event as a reminder.

F. Calendars:

News web sites and some publications will have communitiy calendars. It would be good to make a list of them. In planning an event it is good check out these calendars to make sure your event is not on the same date as something that could draw people away from your event. Then send your event information as soon as you can. Event information to calendars need to be short and to the point.

G. The alteranative/radical papers, tv and radio::

With papers find out their deadlines. To all I'll send out a complete article and flier. For papers I'll include a short piece for their calendar. There are some more radical tv stations and radio stations, for them I'll include a PSA and information on interviews. And again, signed articles get printed far more often than unsigned articles. Having good artwork and photos is also good.

H. News web sites:

There are a lot of news web sites. Go to

I. Fundraising:

A. E-mail and smail: Most all solidarity work will cost some money so everything you send out include information on how people can donate money. Some people say that you cannot raise money by e-mail. That is not true. I have done a lot of fundraising by e-mail. What I have found over the years, though I can't explain it, is that your first appeal, by e-mail or smail, will most of the time not bring in much of a responce or money. Your second appeal will bring in more and your third appeal will bring in the most. I did such fundraising for Tacoma Peltier marches for 14 years in a row and each year it is the same. Each appeal should include background information and up-dated information and explain what you need funds for. Always explain how to write out checks. I know that some groups like to use Paypal, even though they have acted against on group for political reasons (The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, LPDC), but don't have this as your only means for donations because some working people don't have the means to us it and there are others, like me, who support the boycott on Paypal because of what they did to the LPDC.

2. If you can send a thank you letter to each person who donates. That will help them want to donate again some time.

3. Benifits:

a. Benifits are good for both raising money and getting out information on the cause you are working on.

b. Even if you raise money off the door, still pass the hat for donations. Have someone speak announce that donation cans are going around and then speak directly to the need of donations. If that speaker is good you can raise a lot through the donation cans. I have worked on a number of benifits where we rasied more money from donation cans than we did from the door. I suggest not having the speaker for donations speak first. Your openning and first speaker gets people's attention then have you speaker for donations.

c. The bigger the benifit is often the more that it will cost to put it on. I have worked on some rather large benifits that because of the costs we did not make much money. Also, large benifits can use up the time that people would be using on doing the solidarity work. So you must judge the right size of the benifit. How many people do you think you can draw?, how much that will cost?, and how much work will go into it?

d. Doing movies it is good to have someone introduce the film and then have someone after the film to up-date things and take questions. With this I would normally pass the donation can after the film.

e. The benifit that I worked on that raised the most money was a yardsale/block parity. We raise over $5,000 after costs (which was low). Even just a yard sale can raise good money without a lot of work. It can be done quickly and just have members of your group and supporters donate stuff for it and advertise it like any other yard sale, sings up and in the papers and to e-mail lists. You don't even have to say it is for some cause.

f. Getting others to do benifits for you: If you put out in your statements a request for benifits you may find some groups willing to do that for you that costs you no money or work. When I was doing food/supply runs to Big Mountain a music club did a benifit for us. They had their own promotion and bands and all we had to do is show up.

g. In the IWW assessment stamps are good.

h. Publishing literature: Not only is this good to get your information and ideas out but it can raise money. In one organization that I worked with, the Survival Network, we made most of our operating money by sell literature to libraries.

J. Press conferences;

First make sure that your struggle is something the press will cover. Then do your media contacting. Set the press conference somewhere that is easy for the media. Us a banner or large sign behind you that will show up in photos or on tv. Though it can be useful to have supporters there but make sure they don't block the media access. Have your spokepersons, maybe someone directly involved in the struggle and maybe some well known person if you can. Make sure that those answering questions know what they are talking about. Press conference are sometimes useful to build for other events like rallies and marches. Sometimes they can be used right before something happens, for example, you have a lot of signatures on petitions that you are going to hand deliver having a press conference right before you do that adds pressure.

K. Events and actions to promote:

1. I have already writen about benifits above. But benifits are useful to have before some planned big event like a march so that part of the purpose is to promote the up-coming event.

2. If what you are doing is supporting a strike or organizing drive it is good to tap into the families and friends of the workers. Often the greatest amount of pressure on a worker during a strike or organizing drive comes from their families and friends. A lot of workers are not activists where doing the work of a struggle is not a part of their normal life. In such a case family and friends can be a bit puched to the side and left feeling leftout. The answer to this is to get hem involved. First, I whold suggest holding an information meeting for families and friends, to explain things and take questions and concerns. Then organize those who are willing into a family and friends support committee. Not only can that committee deal with needs and concerns, but they can organize support events. Things like benifts, educationals, social events, marches, picketing, and even picnics. These things not only build support but by getting the families and friends involved. you are build a bond of solidarity. With the families and friends strongly behind the workers you will have created something that is very hard to break your organizing drive or strike.

3. Rallies and marches:

Rallies and marches if done right can help promote the struggle you are doing solidarity work for. It is also a good way to involve families, friends and supporters. It also can boost the spirits of strikers or other directly involved in a struggle. Though you may have to start off small, because sometimes it takes time to build support, you still want to do as much to promote the event as possible and use the promoting of the event as a means to promote your struggle.

But at some point small is not good enough. There comes a point in what you do where it will show good support for your struggle or it will show the other side a lack of support for your struggle.

What I do is:

a. First give good time to organize the event, do all the promoting that I can.

b. In picking good speakers you have a few that outline the situation for which the event is being organized for. And then have speakers of people who can put a human face to the struggle and then you have your solidarity speakers. (See part on event programs).

c. Be very clear in the purpose of your event. Some folks like to see every event as about the same and thus want to use some tactics that are not good for every event. Maybe in times of great outrage against something it could be useful to have more forceful tactics. But if your purpose is to inform the public by a public show of support for a struggle you don't want tactics that will overshadow your purpose or alienate people.

d. Getting arrested. Some folks like to think that CD and getting arrested is a great tactic. There have been times when it has been a good tactic, but like many tactics if it is overused it loses its impact. It takes a lot of people getting arrested to overload the system. It ain't no big deal for cops to arrest people, it is rather like asking a pipefitter to fit pipe. Arresting people is what cops do. And you will find sometimes they will arrest people at events just to help disrupt the event. Don't play into their hands. Don't be reactive and let arrests become the new focus of your event because if you do that then the cops win. If you have people arrested turn that from just defending them to an offensive actions to give light to the fact that the government and its agents are seeking to repressive your struggle. KEEP THE FOCUS ON THE STRUGGLE!

e. Security: I don't organize so-called "peacekeepers" rather I organize a security team. The purpose of a security team is the well-being of the people at your event. They are not there to help be cops. Most of the time there is little for the security team to do but when they are needed it is well worth having them. In doing this first outline possible problems, like cars. Unless it is a huge march I don't like taking up more than one land of the street. Both so that those in cars can see the march and so that they will not see the march as something that is keeping them from where they are going. Also using a single land makes your march longer. So in this case you want your security team between the marchers and the cars. You want your security team to be at intersections to keep cars from pulling out into the march. If you have hecklers post a few security people infront of them so that they can do no harm. Your security should have medical supplies and know how to use them. Our Pethier security team always wears red armbands. I will also have organized, when I can, a back-up security team. Sometimes the cops will try to draw away security people fron a section of the march and then move against that section. So we have back-up people to put armbands on and take their place if that happens. Sometimes your security team is there to make a statement to the cops about harassment. One year with the Tacoma Peltier march the cops did a lot of harassment. So the next year we made a strong statement for the cops. We had an all Native security team of about 40 people. Our march started at a park and then took one lane of the street. The security team marched out first into the street on the outside of the lane and when they were all out in the street they ceated a buffer between the cops and our one lane and then the march came out (around 400 people) and they then spreadout. The message to the cops was that though we wanted no trouble, our security team were not pacifists and would defend our people if attacked. It worked they cops backed off. It was quite a sight, you could see the cops getting nervous, this was not like peace marches. And because of that I believe we had a much safer march.