May 2024
LABOR’S “MOVEMENT MOMENT”
The movements we are helping sustain are having quite a year. Even the corporate media are talking about “labor’s movement moment.”
We are proud to be part of it.
But this bright beam of hope exists in the bleak political environment of the 2024 election. The mission of the Social Justice and Solidarity Fund (SJS Fund) is to help build and unite movements so that the political environment of the 2028 election will look different.
We are committed to strengthening the strands of a diverse working class movement and weaving those strands into something greater than the sum of its parts.
To defeat the right wing, we are funding groups that are building a powerful alternative, rooted in the working-class movements.
Projects We Are Supporting in 2024
The SJS Fund exists to support workers’ movements over the long haul, in exciting times like the present and in the inevitable troughs as well.
If you weren’t there in person, you’ve probably read about the Labor Notes Conference—the largest yet at 4700 people and the most optimistic and spirited. This Nation article captures it well. The wide array of workers’ movements represented included auto workers, teachers, flight attendants, retail workers, Teamsters, health care workers, higher ed folks—not to mention the hundreds of international attendees. SJS helped make it possible with a $55,000 grant to Labor Notes’s sister organization, the Labor Education & Research Fund, in 2024.
SJS supports two other important strands of the movement: Teamsters for a Democratic Union and Unite All Workers for Democracy. Both of them played major roles at the Conference, providing guidance, workshop leaders, inspiration, and lots of organizational help, including the big Friday evening reception and Saturday fundraiser. UAW President Shawn Fain headlined an overflow session to close the conference and held up his tattered copy of Labor Notes’ 1991 Troublemaker’s Handbook as his “other Bible.”
UAWD and TDU are on the cutting edge of insurgent labor and serve as examples for other budding movements. From organizing Amazon to organizing the South, TDU and UAWD are critically important to making their unions the best that they can be.
TDU’s sister organization, TRF, received an SJS Fund grant in 2024 and so has UAWD’s sister fund. We are committed to give more over the next few years to help these movements strengthen their organizations at this crucial moment and to broaden their leaderships to take on the bigger battles to come.
SJS Fund has made grants to four additional promising organizations this year:
The United Caucuses of Rank-and-file Educators (UCORE), which received $15,000, met for an entire day at Labor Notes—175 leaders and activists from 30 caucuses and proto-caucuses in teachers unions (and representatives from Puerto Rico, France and the UK). With monthly meetings and cross-local mentoring, UCORE supports educators who are trying to put their unions at the forefront of defending public schools. In Virginia, public employees just won the right to collective bargaining if they can get their bosses to agree; this has happened in four school districts where UCORE groups have won union leadership. The progressive potential of school workers is an important element of our strategy.
Rideshare Drivers United (RDU) is a California based membership organization of Uber and Lyft drivers organizing to win better working conditions, including employment rights.. RDU organizes drivers and partners with unions to build a broad-based effort to win employment rights for drivers through a combination of worker mobilization and legislation. They created an app which allows drivers throughout California to talk with a local worker-organizer and connect to a local chapter. The method is so effective they’re now sharing it with rideshare driver groups across the country. We gave $10,000 to RDU to deepen their work.
The Southern Worker Justice Campaign organizes mostly Black public employees in the South. They achieve remarkable results without the benefit of bargaining rights. Twice a year they hold schools for 150 workers where they learn how to represent fellow employees on the shop floor and intervene in municipal budgets. They train workers how to do budget surveys among coworkers and elect a “negotiating committee” to meet with city councils. A six-day strike in Durham won $5,000 bonuses. We gave $10,000 to broaden SWJC’s work.
The Rank & File Project is a new project that recruits young people to take union jobs and educates and mentors them on how to become workplace activists. In their first cohort RFP has 55 members in three areas, studying an activist curriculum and meeting together. We’ve granted $17,500 to support RFP as it grows into other cities.
The SJS Fund was at Labor Notes, too, with all four board members playing important parts in the Conference. The Fund hosted a lunch to brief philanthropists and supporters, and we networked with organizations doing important work and breaking new ground.
Funding Goals for 2024
At our Board meeting in May we issued two additional grants; we have awarded $218,000 so far this year. We plan to issue additional grants in 2024 to important struggles and organizations.
We have committed to support TRF, Labor Notes and UAWD-MA with additional funding this year to aid their plans to expand staffing to meet the opportunities the current moment presents.
Thanks to our growing list of contributors, we have received $401,000 in contributions in the first five months of 2024. Our total assets are $1.7 million – and growing.
We invite you to contact any of our board members to discuss current and potential future projects and plans.
We are grateful to our donor-supporters – and even more grateful to see the fruits of our labor. If you have devoted time and energy to supporting workers’ movements, you know how gratifying it is to see our efforts winning. Join us!
You can read About Us for background. Your feedback is not only welcome, but critical to our work.