Using Workers’ Inquiry to Organise and Fight the Boss

Workers are on the move—fighting bosses and organizing unions, demanding control over housing, speaking about their working lives, and demanding workplace and real democracy. One of the tools to understand and amply these struggles is workers’ inquiry. Workers’ inquiries are strategic interventions to grasp power in the workplace, informal work groups and divisions within the class, forms of mutual aid and informal organization, “organic” leadership, and can aid organising efforts and develop workers’ own class consciousness.  In this workshop participants will learn about various strategies and tactics for developing, implementing, and circulating worker’s inquiries grounded in historical and contemporary examples; partake in large group reading and listening exercises; and craft a sample plan to use workers’ inquiry in an organising context. 

Kevin Van Meter is an author, labor educator, and union organizer.  

At the Trade Union in Communities Hub in Edinburgh…