I.O.N. has been hard at work, building trainings and educational resources, supporting workers in different stages of the unionization and bargaining processes, and conducting research on the changing state of labor law and how best to organize around it.
– Trainings and Educational Resources: I.O.N. has built and offered training on filing unfair labor practices, defending against union-busting, invoking Weingarten rights, and incorporating key language in bargaining agreements to create a safer and more democratic workplace. More trainings are currently in development, such as identifying and filing claims for wage theft, promoting health and safety and anti-discriminatory practices, and we’re looking to similarly create resources around pro-LGBTQ+ contract language and protections from ICE raids and anti-immigrant policies.
– Worker Support: The primary campaign we’ve been supporting directly has been the Blue Bottle Independent Union (B.B.I.U.), which successfully organized all six stores in Massachusetts and are currently in bargaining with the company. Additionally, we’ve assisted different campaigns with various parts of the organizing struggle, from nonprofit workers in New York who are actively bargaining, to camp counselors in northern california who won a contract and are about to enter negotiations for the upcoming season. We’re also working with other campaigns that are not yet public but will be launching later this year. We are also developing an organizing support team, comprised of workers from independent unions throughout the country, who will help train and assist new independent union campaigns.
– Research Projects: We are currently in collaboration with a team of U.C. Berkeley law students, as well as organizers and I.O.N. volunteers from all over the country, to put together the first volume of “The Post-NLRA Project,” which analyzes the current attack on the National Labor Relations Act and related labor and employment laws and develops key strategies for how we can best resist these attacks while continuing to build worker power. The target release date for Volume One is sometime in early-to-mid March.
– Additional Activities: In addition to the above, I.O.N. has a lot more planned for 2025. First, we’ve been developing a website, which we anticipate launching at the end of the month. Next, we’re also putting together a podcast with Jon Melrod, author of the book “Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War.” Jon is a co-founder of I.O.N. and his book is full of brilliant strategies and experiences that relate perfectly to the modern day fight against capitalism, imperialism, and fascism more generally. We’ll also be working on a second volume of “The Post-NLRA Project,” building more trainings, and launching more worker campaigns.
If you’d like to get involved with I.O.N., please email us at info@poweredbyion.com or fill out our volunteer form here: https://forms.gle/mDnqXAwsK8exosNn7.
P.S. If you expressed an interest via the Guild in being involved with us, we’ll be emailing you soon!
