November 2024
Weaving Together a Movement to Defeat the Right
There’s no sugar-coating it: working people and immigrants are going to have it tough for the next four years. We at the Social Justice and Solidarity Fund are committed to supporting movements that can not only stick it out—but can grow stronger during these tough times.
To defeat the right wing, we are funding groups that are weaving together an alternative, rooted in working-class movements.
We remind ourselves that the famous “red state revolt”—winning (and illegal) strikes by teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona—took place in 2018, and that those brave teachers touched off a wave of teacher strikes that inspired others throughout the labor movement. We remember that it was just a year ago that 76% of the public backed the Auto Workers in their epic battle against the auto corporations.
Despite a welcome uptick in organizing this year, unions are nowhere near strong enough to tip the balance in presidential elections. Our answer is to help build unions that their members, and the rest of the working class, care about when they pull the lever in the voting booth.
We aren’t saying we know just what unions should do in politics. But we know they won’t be strong in politics until they are strong in internal democracy, militancy, and the hearts of their members. That’s where SJSF aims to make a crucial difference.
Our Grants: Making a Difference
With your help, the SJS Fund continues to expand and diversify our grants to organizations that are promoting worker self-organization and struggle from below. We have raised more money and issued more grants every year since our founding in 2022—with an expansion of our grantmaking planned for 2025.
This year, our Board approved $393,000 in grants. This is nearly three times what we paid out in 2023. We are proud of this growth, with more to come.
Our supporters have donated $608,000 in 2024, and end-of-year donors will push that closer to $700,000. That means we can expand our grant-making next year, while continuing to build our war chest to grow the fund and earn investment income. Our total assets just this month hit $2 million.
We want to acknowledge a generous grant to SJSF from the 128 Collective, a climate equity funder that shares our goal of supporting rank-and-file movements as catalysts to revitalize the labor movement; this grant has helped us reach out to seed some important new movements, described below.
Supporting Promising New Movements
We are awarding first-ever seed grants to organizations among teacher unionists in Virginia and New York, construction electrical workers, stagehands and technicians, and to supermarket, retail and meatpacking workers. The organizations we are proud to support (with a total of $103,000 in first-time grants) are:
Essential Workers for Democracy (EW4D), the progressive movement in the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW); UFCW has nearly a million supermarket and retail workers and a couple hundred thousand meatpacking and food processing workers.
Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers (CREW) in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who will be holding their first national meeting with support from our grant.
The Virginia Caucus of Rank and File Educators (VCORE) and the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) in New York, working to support teachers’ movements to protect public education for all.
The IATSE Caucus of Rank and File Workers (IATSECREW), working to build rank-and-file power in the film and entertainment industry, including a small seed grant to the Rank and File Caucus of ACTRA performers.
We continue to support Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) in the United Auto Workers, where insurgents are allied with UAW President Shawn Fain in taking on corporate power, organizing in the South, and fighting the right wing.
We continue to fund the expansion in organizing capability of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, the mother-ship of labor insurgency. TDU just this month hired an additional organizer, Sunrise Movement founder Sara Blazevic, to expand outreach and the scope of their work. TDU’s recent Convention was by far their largest, youngest and most diverse ever. And it included over 50 Amazon workers who are organizing nationwide. As Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson told the TDU Convention, “You put the strike back in the labor movement, you put the movement back in labor, you are doing very serious shit to wake up this labor movement to organize everybody." Our grants support the work of TDU’s sister organization, the Teamster Rank and File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF).
We continue to support the Labor Education and Research Project (Labor Notes), whose staff and network of experienced leaders works with all the organizations we support to assist with networking, educational programs and leadership training. Labor Notes is recognized as the leading edge of the progressive labor movement.
Looking Ahead
Thanks to our growing list of donors, we project increased grant-making capability in 2025, with a goal of awarding even more to build working-class power.
We invite you to contact any of our board members to discuss current and potential future projects. You can read About Us for background. Your feedback is not only welcome, but critical to our work.