Netroots Nation: Why Alt-Labor is Important

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Organizing-Bargaining/Netroots-Nation-Why-Alt-Labor-is-Important

It's hard to argue with fairness. Pointing out the injustices for dancers in the music video industry is exactly how choreographer and chair of the Dancers' Alliance Galen Hooks found momentum around gaining basic workplace safety and benefits. Something as simple as a water break during an eight-hour video shoot (sometimes in the desert) and access to chairs were workplace safety and health basics dancers simply did not have. But that all changed when the power of collective action spread across the dancer community, which often was hard to organize because of the nature of the business: multiple employers, different jobs every day and competition from fellow dancers who'll take any job (even if it's unpaid).

Hooks spoke on a panel yesterday at the Netroots Nation 2013 conference in San Jose, Calif., where speakers talked about "Alt-Labor," a term coined by writer Josh Eidelson in an American Prospect piece earlier this year. Workers are starting to organize outside of traditional unions in worker centers and other community organizations. While the Dancers' Alliance now has the benefit of support from SAG-AFTRA, the group existed for 20 years before it was able to gain a meaningful collective bargaining agreement for its members with the record companies.

With the rapid rise of worker centers and alternate ways to gain a voice on the job, a traditional union is no longer the only way to organize and bargain for paid sick leave, a raise and other workplace rights. Just look at the Walmart strikers and restaurant workers speaking out about the need for paid sick leave. Worker centers representing domestic and food service workers and groups like the Dancers’ Alliance and Working America, the AFL-CIO's community affiliate, are expanding the definition of what it means to be part of the labor movement.

Digital organizer and co-founder of Coworker.org Jess Kutch moderated the Alt-Labor discussion. Organizing Director David Wehde of Working America, Jennifer Angarita, who runs the AFL-CIO National Worker Center Partnership program and Gregory Cendana, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and Institute for Asian Pacific American Leadership & Advancement, were also on the panel.

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The link at the AFL-CIO site that says it goes to the video isn't a good link. Here is the link on Netroots' website:
http://www.netrootsnation.org/nn_events/nn-13/the-rise-of-alt-labor-organizing/

I was in the audience for this panel at the conference and it was very energizing and I kept wishing my DUer fellow labor nerds were there too, so I thought I'd post it.