Poverty: The Struggle for Justice

As the working class and unemployed, we are the victims of theft everyday. We continually live on the edge of survival, hoping that we may someday, through hard work and perseverance, achieve the simple dignity of security. At the same time, a few elites enjoy a life of luxury without worry for themselves or their children. It’s a vulgar arrangement that we all know to be unjust in which they gain their wealth. We spend precious hours of our lives working to produce all of the wealth of the world only to see it stolen with a pitiful portion returned to us in the form of wages. Poverty forced on the unemployed and homeless is needed by those in power to threaten working people into accepting this terrible deal.

This bleak state isn’t one that we have to endure forever. The incredible truth is that those of us that are the victims of this theft have much greater power than the thieves, if only we’d learn how to use it. Let’s begin by better understanding the tools of the elite so that we can build our power to create genuine change - our only real hope for a life that is more than meager survival.

The Great Theft

Many of us know the system that allows the rich to rob the poor – its capitalism! Capitalism is the foolish system that puts profit before people and promotes the ridiculous belief that if we compete against one another, it will create the greatest outcome for us all. Under this system, just a few people control massive amounts of property and wealth that make up our economy. These people own the factories, hotels, banks, shopping malls, etc. where we work. Unfortunately for them, simply owning a workplace doesn’t produce any wealth. People are needed to labor in that workplace. This group, the working class, is in a desperate situation- they have nothing but their labor to sell. Property owners use this desperation to make their money; and in order to survive, the worker will produce wealth for their new boss instead of themselves. As we work, we can see the real wealth we create. Service workers will put huge stacks of money into a register. Factory workers watch as the product of their labor is sold. Then, the boss will return a very small portion of the wealth we produced for him and call it our wage. The larger portion is kept and used to buy and control more property to create more wealth to steal from more workers and so on. This repulsive cycle maintains the power of the wealthy and forces more working people into wage slavery, where the great potential of our lives is lost.

Robbery Requires Threat

As all workers understand, working isn’t a choice. We are forced into working by a lifetime of constant threat. This threat is the “choice” between poverty, starvation and homelessness or wasting our days creating wealth for those at the top. And we know it isn’t an empty threat. We see crushing and brutal poverty around us all the time. These threats come from hundreds of fronts and we are constantly shown the reality of such threats. Will we be able to feed our children? Can we go to a hospital when we need? Could we end up homeless? How can we afford heating in winter? Can we educate ourselves and our children? These questions beat us like the waves of an incoming hurricane. We watch as our brothers and sisters get pulled under and drown until even those in the middle class are forced into constant fear that they may fall into the coming surge.

If the rich are to hold onto their armies of poor ready to work for their crumbs, this threat must be maintained. A certain level of poverty is required of any capitalist society. While we have won some advances to soften the blow of poverty, politicians and businessmen have worked together to ensure that services available for the poor don’t actually rid the world of poverty. We are purposefully deprived of the tools to empower ourselves and our communities to solve our own problems. Fearing independence from their system of theft, we are kept in a stasis of lifelong struggle.

Hope Begins Within

How long will this inequality exist for us? The answer is the same as it has always been: for as long as we permit it. We as common people throughout the world have a power of spirit that is anything but common. Facing a callous onslaught of insult and corruption from bankers, bosses and government lackeys, we still maintain pride and courage that brings us into the next day. Despite the forces of oppression that surround us, we fight to raise our families with optimism to see better days. In our dance, music, art, families, and friendships we see the great force of our common spirit.

If we ever hope to achieve a life of true equality, we need to understand that spirit alone will not move us forward. Common purpose and collective action are the foundations of social change. We as working people must realize individuals acting alone will not solve problems of poverty and exploitation. It’s working together in a common struggle that will free us all. Those of us in work need to organize ourselves into a labor movement, joining and actively participating in our unions. Those of us that are unemployed need to form our own organizations capable of truly destroying poverty. We need to join or form community organizations that will guarantee us quality housing, transportation, health care, education, and all of the other rights of a liberated people.

There is undeniable power in the hands of organized people. Especially, when those organizations are run democratically and aggressively pursue an uncompromising goal of absolute freedom and equality. These are the realistic first steps that we have to take on the course to future free from the theft of the bosses and the oppressive state that grants them power. As has always been the case, we will win what we are willing to fight for!

Resistance and Recovery Speaking Tour comes to Buffalo

In the most stirring recent victory of the US labor movement, workers at the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors militantly fought the company as it closed. On the last day of scheduled work, these members of UE Local 1110 chose a tactic from a different era of labor and occupied the factory. In six days they won an agreement with the company and its financier, Bank of America, which gave the workers $1.75 million in severance and vacation pay. In these six days the Republic workers provided an inspiring example of how organized workers can respond to the layoffs and cutbacks forced upon them in a recession. Since this victory, they’ve organized a speaking tour to share their story with activists and workers throughout the country.

The UE Comes Home

On February 12^th this tour made a stop in Buffalo. Organized by the Coalition for Economic Justice, the event had around 100 people in attendance with people from People United for Sustainable Housing, United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, Buffalo Class Action, and University at Buffalo Students Against Sweatshops.

It was Emanuel Fried who started the night off. Fried is an activist and playwright from the Buffalo area and former organizer with the UE that had once been forced to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. He reminded each of us of Buffalo’s legacy as the birthplace of the militant and member-run UE. Fried spoke about the important role the UE has consistently played in reminding the US labor movement that their role is to take powerful and daring collective action to win the demands of their members rather than treat their members like clients of a service organization.

Chicago Shows Us How It’s Done

After screening a brief documentary about their experiences, Ron Bender, a Republic worker spoke about the UE’s most recent reminder that a real labor union is one that fights. He spoke of his experiences organizing the occupation with other rank and file members, how workers maintained a 24-hour watch over the factory equipment, and how the community came out to support their efforts. Through his words and actions we were reminded that it’s in uncompromisingly and courageously asserting our demands with a willingness to take aggressive action that will assure the broader working class the victories that we need. In the first days of negotiations the Bank of America made it clear that they were a business that needed to make money and that the Republic workers were not their concern. However, in only a couple of days Bank of America had completely different priorities, even saying that the well-being of the Republic workers was a primary concern. This change in priorities comes from a change in power dynamic, as more people came out to fight alongside the UE local.

This fighting mentality didn’t appear from nowhere. It is no coincidence that the first union to act this boldly in the interest of its members is a union clearly controlled by its rank-and-file. As Ron said, “The UE really is the rank-and-file union.” Strategic decisions leading up to and throughout the occupation were made democratically by members on the shop floor. This ownership of the organization that members feel is an essential ingredient in the militancy that followed, empowering workers to take greater risks than they normally would and allowing them to trust that their actions wouldn’t be used to sell them out at any point in the struggle.

Moving Forward as a Movement

Throughout the evening it was repeatedly stressed that the importance of the Republic workers victory is not simply to a single factory, but an example to an entire movement. We are in a critical moment for working people throughout the world and we need to act with the serious urgency that these moments deserve. Spreading their story now becomes an essential task. Every militant throughout the country should know the story of UE Local 1110. In our organizations we should be organizing discussions of the struggle at Republic, distributing their documentary outside of workplaces threatened with layoffs, and organizing rank-and-file resistance groups within our workplaces. UE Local 1110 workers have offered an inspiration to us that can help to unify the left and thrust existing worker discontent into a commanding movement of aggressive collective action. Now, the responsibility falls on the rest of us to continue the struggle that they have so powerfully pushed forward.

How Republic Workers Occupied Their Plant

By Leah Fried, UE Organizer. From Labor Notes

December 5 was to be the last day of work at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. But managers soon realized that workers would not go quietly: they had voted to occupy the factory.

Members of United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 1110, they’d made plans to scatter throughout the plant, chain themselves to machines, and risk arrest. This is the story of how they did it.

The occupation that won workers their back pay and the admiration of union members around the world didn’t happen out of the blue. It was the culmination of years of struggle to build a democratic, fighting union able to take on the boss.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

In early 2004 workers at Republic suffered under a gangster “union” that represented the boss more than the workers. Chicago is one of the last bastions of these old-school outfits that help companies keep workers down.

Workers had their wages frozen at $8 an hour for three years and had seen hundreds of their co-workers fired for no good reason. Discrimination, unfair treatment, and low wages were the hallmark of their former union, Novelty and Production Workers Local 16. So workers sought a change.

First they approached several worker centers, which arranged a meeting with UE organizers. Workers were impressed with UE’s record of democratic, aggressive unionism. In November 2004 they organized an election, joined UE, and went on to win their best contract ever.

In the contract fight of 2005, workers regularly wore UE buttons and stickers with contract demands. They organized marches to the boss’s office, practiced picketing, and voted and publicly vowed to strike if necessary. A contract was won on the eve of the planned strike, with raises of $1.75 immediately and improvements to working conditions and benefits. This struggle set the tone for years to come.

Unity, however, wasn’t automatic. Democratic unionism doesn’t exist without some growing pains.

Republic workers are a diverse workforce: 80 percent Latino, 20 percent Black, and 25 percent women. Hotly contested elections for stewards and officers, intense debate, divisions based on race or gender—all took place in this local.

Leaders had to work hard to build black-brown unity, overcome factionalism, and be willing to lose some debates (such as one over a dues increase) in order to create a local in which all the workers felt ownership.

Some leaders of the occupation had campaigned against each other in elections and each had their own following. But in the end, the workers were able to come together every time they needed to fight the boss.

UE had also been dedicated to building alliances in the community and the labor movement. Years of work to forge links with worker centers, religious groups, community organizations, and immigrants rights organizations laid the base for solidarity.

Rank-and-file members’ longstanding participation in solidarity activities, Jobs with Justice, and immigrant rights marches in Chicago helped local leaders get to know UE better. And regular participation in national political action helped lawmakers know UE as well.

PLANNING AHEAD

UE began planning for a possible plant occupation in November, when machinery started disappearing from the plant. Local leaders were prepared for the worst-case scenarios.

We bought chains with locks and organized a core group committed to civil disobedience if necessary. We knew it might come down to getting arrested. Workers understood they had to keep the company’s assets from leaving the factory.

As workers met again and again to talk over what might happen and organize for a fight, we developed a strategy that focused on Bank of America. The bank, which had just received $25 billion in bailout funds, would decide whether Republic would continue to receive financing.

UE reached out to allies and elected officials to mobilize public pressure on the bank, including a big picket of its offices in Chicago two days before the occupation. Members of Congress, most significantly Representative Luis Gutierrez, pressed the bank to negotiate with the union.

The occupation was launched after the company didn’t show up to a meeting with the bank and UE. Workers came to their last day of work and decided unanimously not to leave until their demands were met: vacation pay, 60 days’ severance as the law required, and two months’ health insurance.

The company was informed of the workers’ vote to occupy the factory. They knew they faced more than 200 angry and organized workers who were not about to leave quietly.

Management called the police, but at the same time our longstanding allies mobilized hundreds of supporters, via urgent alerts and phone calls, to come to the plant.

By this time the press had become a steady presence. The idea of the whole world seeing 200 workers dragged out by the cops in front of a supportive crowd rallying outside the factory—it all helped the company decide not to fight the union.

The police left, and the chains stayed in their bags. The workers had taken the plant.

As word of the factory takeover spread, solidarity started pouring in, from unions and community, religious, immigrant rights, and civil rights organizations. The messages visitors left on posters in the plant lobby, the donations, and letters from all over the world were key in strengthening the workers’ resolve.

But most important was the unity of the workers, who despite their differences, rose to the occasion and showed incredible strength.

The day the occupation began the local executive board and stewards organized their co-workers into three shifts, round the clock. UE organizers also took shifts (although those tended to last 20 hours).

Rules were agreed upon and posted in the cafeteria: No alcohol, smoking, or drugs. Non-UE members, unless immediate family, were not allowed onto the factory floor.

Committees for welcoming and security at the door, clean-up, food, and patrols to keep the assets safe were staffed in eight-hour shifts. At the beginning of each shift all the workers and organizers would meet to give updates, take volunteers for each committee, and review what would happen that day.

Workers kept busy with rallies and press interviews outside the plant in addition to their committee responsibilities. Children accompanied their parents, doing homework and playing amid the adults’ work. Donated food, blankets, and two TVs (one for news, the other for sports) were shared equally by all.

After six long days, the lead committee made up of shop leaders and UE reps came back with a settlement that workers voted enthusiastically to accept. We had won all our demands and then some.

Now, we are working to reopen the factory with all the workers back on the job. But we know that something beyond jobs or money owed has been won. We have inspired millions to know that the world is what we fight to make it, that we can win.

Buffalo Solidarity Demonstration with UE Local 1110

Today there was a rally in front of the downtown Bank of America in solidarity with the workers of UE Local 1110, who are occupying their factory in protest of previously announced layoffs. The protest was attended by members of the Western New York Peace Center, Buffalo State Students for Peace, the International Action Center, and Buffalo Class Action. It was one event in a series of nationwide solidarity demonstrations outside of Bank of the Americas. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Victory to the Workers Occupying Republic Windows and Doors

“My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production.”

-Lucy Parsons

On December 5^th, workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory – members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) Local 1110 – were told by owners that the plant would be closing. In the midst of a global economic crisis, this isn’t an unfamiliar story. Despite the billions of dollars in bailout money that Bank of America had received it told Republic owners that they wouldn’t be giving them the loan needed to pay the 75 days severance pay legally required.

It’s at this point that the story departs from the familiar. Rather than accept the factory closure and enter what would undoubtedly be a prolonged legal battle for back wages, workers in UE 1110 defiantly began a sit-down strike, occupying the factory. Throughout the world people began to take notice as workers in the United States began to militantly and collectively resist the side-effects of the economic crisis, using tactics that haven’t been seen in the US labor movement in decades. Statements of solidarity from social movements and political organizations throughout the world are flooding into the Chicago factory that has now been constantly occupied for over five days.

We in the American working class have to recognize the urgency of these moments. This factory occupation has become the first collective defiant act to fight the layoffs and cutbacks that we are facing as the economic hard times get shifted onto the same people that always suffer when the economy contracts. A victory at this plant could serve as the inspirations to workers facing layoffs throughout the country. With this capacity to set the tone for the course of this recession, it is essential that these workers win their demands. And that will only happen with the active solidarity of other working people around the world.

However, to truly recognize the importance of this moment, we need to begin to think beyond it. We need to be there to spread the story of the Republic Windows and Doors workers and their courage. The inspiration granted to us by UE 1110 needs to be used to make this kind of militant resistance to layoffs and cutbacks the standard. Imagine the Big 3 auto companies facing similar sit-down strikes to those they faced in the 1930’s. Imagine that during one of those factory occupations, the workers decide to continue producing.

It’s amazing to me that only one year after returning from Argentina, I am already writing about a worker-occupied factory in the United States. What’s more amazing is how similar this story sounds to those told to me by workers at FaSinPat and other recuperated businesses. Just as in Chicago, workers there said that they were occupying the factory to guard against the selling of the machinery and products held within. They were watching this property because it was their only assurance that they would eventually get what was owed. In many cases, workers decided that rather than wait to salvage the left over products to help make their severance pay that they no longer wanted to lose their jobs in the first place. Instead, they decided that the factory itself was acceptable compensation for their lost wages and began to self-manage the factories and resume production.

They had taken the first steps toward a truly liberated society where bosses and exploitation are replaced with community and cooperation. Let’s begin to organize toward that same world. It starts with ensuring a victory at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, Illinois.

Housings Rights Movement Demands Community Control of Resources

Buffalo is a city with a shrinking population, a third of the city living in poverty, with 1 in 5 homes in the city vacant. We are consistently hearing about the reality facing Buffalo. Generally it’s told to us in a hopeless narrative, with no expectations of city or state leadership planning to help and no other alternatives available. However, in recent years a new narrative has begun that makes community control central.

People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) has been organizing for the last three years on the west side of Buffalo, a neighborhood powerfully impacted by poverty and abandoned housing. Through the use of community assemblies and meetings they have developed an anti-poverty housing platform. This platform demands that the city begin to reinvest in its poorer neighborhoods using a variety of tools that can begin to address rampant and devastating poverty. The plan that the neighborhood developed includes:

• The city should provide funding to rehabilitate 100 houses, identified by community organizations, each year.

• The city should provide funding to weatherize 400 houses per year to help reduce often obscene heating costs and unsustainable energy use.

• The city should demolish the worst 100 abandoned houses per year. Again, these properties should be identified by community organizations.

• To help alleviate poverty in the city, at least 50% of the workforce on each project should live in the neighborhood they are helping to revitalize.

This platform has been in direct opposition to plan put forward by the mayor which puts funding towards demolishing over 5,000 properties in 5 years. This “5 in 5” plan had been the plan for redevelopment coming from city hall for over two years, until Wednesday October 8^th, the same day as a planned march on City Hall demanding that the PUSH anti-poverty platform become city policy.

On that day, after two years of community organizing and struggle, the mayor gave in before the rally had even taken place. In the rain, 200 community members from the west side and throughout the city gathered to celebrate their victory against city hall and the mayor. At the last minute, the march plan changed to head to the state and federal buildings to announce the continuation of our community struggle. Community members spoke out against the $700 billion financial bailout and demanded that state and federal actors begin to address the needs of our neighborhoods rather than the needs of the rich.

As the rally came to a close, I left energized from a victory that helps to remind us of the power that an organized people can have. Victories like these are important not only for the positive nature of the gains won, but to help provide momentum for the much longer struggle for true social and economic justice.

This moment represents a critical point for anarchist ideals in the city as well. After months of organizational development and activity, Buffalo Class Action members acted as an important part of the rally planning and outreach. For the rally itself the group had committed to turning out a group of 25 and exceeded that number. Participation in this rally has provided an important step in showing the potential for specifically ideological and revolutionary organization as a part of building and strengthening our broader social movements.

I hope that we can continue to grow and gain legitimacy as a relevant and positive force in the social movements of our city. In doing so, the previous narratives of hopelessness can begin to be replaced by a radical narrative of using popular direct action to gain community control of the wealth that rightly belongs to all of us. Maybe then we can move from alleviating the impacts of poverty to destroying it all-together.

The Beginnings of Buffalo Class Action

During the beginnings of 2008, a couple of us in Buffalo, NY felt there was a need to begin building specifically anarchist organization in our city. With some experience in local social movements in the second poorest city in the nation, we felt there was a need to start having some explicit conversations about where the efforts of these movements were taking us in the long-run. In a city where capitalism has so spectacularly failed and over 1/3 of the population lives in poverty, a revolutionary perspective seemed essential. After about eight months of effort to build an organization, it seems like time to document the work that went into our emergence, the success we’ve had, and the challenges we’re facing.

Experiences with Ideological Organizations

Of course, the idea of a specific ideological organization isn’t new and in my time with local and national social movements there had been experiences with that style of organization. Those experiences were mostly negative and that context is important to understanding why so many people don’t participate in ideological organizations. So often ideological organizing comes from self-alienating subcultures or counter-productive dogmatists.

There were previous attempts to build an anarchist collective in Buffalo that exhibited both of these problems. These attempts were incredibly short lived. In each case, the only decisions made were about the name of the group. These groups had very little political agreement. Some members argued that we needed to work with different movements in the city. Others argued that those movements were reformist and not worth our time. Others argued that we shouldn’t even be an organization that makes decisions. In the end they only had about two months of debate at meetings and contributed nothing to the strength of movements in our city.

Despite identifying as an anarchist for years, these were the only types of ideological organizations that I felt existed. Myself and a number of other anarchists spent our time working in an individual capacity in a number of local groups, rarely talking about the ideas that brought us to participate in those movements.

Argentina, Social Insertion, and Inspiration

Throughout 2007 I was lucky enough to be able to spend the year in Buenos Aires, Argentina watching and learning from the social and political movements there. I had gone with the intention of understanding the strength and radical nature of the labor movement, which in some places had expropriated their workplaces and in others were running powerful and militant struggles against the bosses. It was quickly apparent that much of the movements’ radical nature had come from constant and direct participation on the part of a number of revolutionary ideological organizations. Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists all offered valuable solidarity to the struggles around them while also (usually) humbly offering potential directions for a group of workers in struggle.

One of the groups that seemed to be active was the Red Libertaria (Libertarian Network) of Buenos Aires. They were an especifista, anarchist-communist organization and had coherent politics that clearly spoke to people struggling throughout the city. They engaged in frequent political education work, holding discussion series relevant to both anarchism as a theory and a path for effective struggle. They were often seen around town engaged in propaganda work, setting up regular literature tables throughout the city and distributing their paper, Hijos del Pueblo. And, most importantly to me, they were actively engaged in productive organizing with neighborhood assemblies, worker struggles, student organizing, and recuperated businesses.

It was witnessing the strength of both social and political movements and how they effectively strengthened each other through effective social insertion that inspired my interest in building specifically revolutionary anarchist organization back home.

Buffalo Anarchist Discussion Series

From past experience in Buffalo organizing, it was clear that in building an anarchist organization would require some serious political education. Social movement organizers would need help seeing the possibilities of how a serious ideological organization could benefit their work and local anarchists would need to develop a stronger sense of what anarchism meant and how anarchists should organize. To begin to develop this understanding and try to find a base of people to build an organization, myself and a couple of other anarchist organizers in the city decided to organize a discussion series based on the model I had seen in Buenos Aires.

The discussion would be seven weeks long. The first week, we would introduce the discussion series and its purpose to develop concrete organization with a stronger level or political education, hand out the 75 page readers, and watch an inspirational movie. The next week would be the first of 5 weeks of thematic discussions. Participants would be expected to come having read about 10 pages of articles on that weeks theme and discuss. The themed discussions each week were: Anarchism What Is it and What Isn’t It, Why Anarchist Specific Organization, Anarchism and Class Struggle, Anarchism and Systems of Social Oppression, and Platformist vs. Synthesis organization.

The first week had over 60 people come through and pick up the readers and by the first week of discussion attendance dropped to about 20 and stayed more or less stable for the rest of the series. The space reserved for the discussion only allowed us two hours of discussion and each week a number of participants would head to a bar together and continue discussion for another hour or two. It was clear there was some energy and excitement to discuss these ideas. After the 5 weeks of energetic discussion it was evident that the average level of political analysis in the room had clearly gone up and some basis for anarchist organization was emerging.

The last week of the series was for participants to bring in proposals for the next step of the anarchist movement in Buffalo. One of those proposals was to form a platformist, anarchist-communist organization that would actively engage in social insertion with local movements. This has been the proposal that was the most actively accepted.

Building Buffalo Class Action

After the discussion series a group of just over 10 of us came together to begin building our organization. Six weeks were spent developing Aims and Principles, a structure, and a plan of action. We read the politics of NEFAC, Common Cause, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, Red Libertaria de Buenos Aires, and the Worker Solidarity Movement to help us develop our own Aims and Principles. We developed a local constitution putting power in the hands of a monthly general assembly. We elected officers (a general secretary, a treasurer, and organizers for each of the three committees).

It was felt that for the organization to be valuable to strengthening local struggles that we would need to act toward three different goals. We needed to continue our efforts at both internal and community-wide educational efforts. An education committee was organized to take on this task. It was made clear that education should include discussion of theory, historical and current movements, and developing organizing skills. We developed a propaganda committee that would focus on development of literature distribution as well as helping to reform Buffalo Indymedia. It was also essential that we had some coordinated effort in local movements. We decided that the place we could most effectively engage in local class struggle was to participate in the struggle for housing happening on the west side of the city and a housing rights committee was organized to determine how best to participate.

In the beginning of July, we felt we had enough of a basis for our organization to hold a public general interest meeting. Posters were put up throughout the city to announce our presence. In the back room of a local radical book store, we gathered with food and presented the basis of our organization and the membership requirements.

Successes and Challenges

Since our public meeting we have grown to just over 15 members. We are actively engaging in a local housing rights organization. A literature table with a number of pamphlets has been developed and printed. Tabling around town is just now beginning and a website is developing as we go. Our general assemblies now include internal educational components and we have held important internal conversations about systems of social oppression.

We are definitely facing challenges, but working to collectively take them on. We are still working on understanding the nuanced world of social insertion and how exactly we should be participating in a community organization while simultaneously belonging to an organized anarchist group. So much of the building of the group took part through mostly theoretical discussions, and now that we are actively organizing we’re finding that much of the group has little organizing experience. There will definitely be a need to train some of our members in how to effectively organize. At the same time, we are a relatively small organization that is split into three different committees. This means that each of those committees is very small at the moment and this has made accomplishing some of the goals we’ve set for ourselves difficult. The propaganda committee has already had to table rebuilding Buffalo Indymedia until we have the capacity to do that well. With most of our activity going towards supporting a housing rights group, we have done little in the way of specific outreach and events for Buffalo Class Action itself.

These challenges are faced by organizations all the time, and some of us have experience in effectively responding to them. We are confident that we can address these challenges within our group, begin to offer an example of positive ideological organizing, and offer increasingly credible revolutionary ideas and directions to the movements in our city.