A More Perfect Union

Nonviolence Radio

It seems there is a cultural myth that union organizing is inherently nonviolent. On the one hand, any demonstration of the power of “people” versus greed and corruption in the workplace seems to tick the box in our cultural imagination about what nonviolence looks like. Images of warehouse workers from Amazon or coffee baristas advocating for better work conditions and better pay are poignant and tell a story of The People fighting against exploitation. Cultural memories of the Farm Workers Grape Boycott are iconic in nonviolence imagery. It all seems so cut and dry. But for those on the inside, who participate in or are considering participating in unions, they find themselves in a more nuanced situation, where the structures of organizing have embedded inequalities that are hard to overlook, or the methods of bargaining and protest tell an ‘old story’ of us versus them, creating enemy images and perpetuating a cultural story of good-guy/bad-guy victimization, instead of using strategies of conflict escalation, de-escalation, and transformation rooted in an ethic of bridge building and belonging. This has led to many, especially in younger generations, feeling discontent with unions, and seeking out new ways of building Social Justice methods into labor organizing if they will join one at all.

Erik Olson Fernández is proud that while he has had many years of experience organizing for nonviolent social change as a community organizer and in the labor movement with healthcare and public education unions, he began his training like Gandhi, as an attorney. Committed to bringing out the true sense of “union” in his union organizing work, he is currently working with the California Teachers’ Association and educators in Sonoma County, California, emphasizing systemic change within unions and the social structures that target the most vulnerable.

I originally got into labor organizing when I was doing community organizing work. I had gone to law school, but I had always focused more on organizing people, having grown up poor in the United States with a single mother from Mexico who struggled economically.

I was looking for a way in which to change the social structure that created the poverty that I grew up in and that others were forced to live with. So, I began studying previous social movements and looked to Gandhi and King as models and studied how they did the organizing. You know, what Gandhi did in South Africa, what King, and particularly the young leaders in the 1960s Freedom Movement, did to organize their communities in the South.

On this episode of Nonviolence Radio, Erik discusses the power of Unions when they are woven through and through with the principles and strategies of nonviolence.