AK, a founding member of ATX Solidarity Network, discusses their experience organizing immigrant workers to confront wage theft and other issues in right-to-work Texas.
Increased ICE enforcement has raised fears about fighting back, turning many to seek services in a field dominated by nonprofits. In this interview we explore the tensions organizing for direct action amid these conditions.
Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN): We understand that you all in Austin, Texas have begun to build a solidarity network. What is that? How is it structured?
AK: A solidarity network is basically made up of workers and tenants from all over the city (or, in some cases, parts of a city) who have or may have issues with their bosses and landlords. Instead of organizing with our immediate coworkers or neighbors, we are individuals from different workplaces and living in different areas of town who fight for each other where we are at. Solidarity networks are meant to fill the void where workplace unions and tenant unions don’t exist. Since Texas is a “right to work” state, capital strategically undermines workers from building fighting organizations like unions. Solidarity networks are flexible enough to meet one or a few workers at one workplace or tenants at a complex, and temporarily bypass the immediate need for longstanding organizations.
When you meet someone with a workplace or tenant issue, the whole solidarity network takes on the demands of the case, with those with the grievance–the issue(s) they want to fight around that directly affects them–being core organizers of their own campaign. We use direct action tactics, which means we don’t go through the courts or ask the cops or nonprofits to take care of the situation for us; we rely on just us to get the demand met by putting pressure on the boss or landlord until it becomes so unbearable they have no choice but to give in.
Like most solidarity networks there is a small group of core organizers who respond to the day- to-day needs of the organization. The people with the demands must be a part of this group. Then, there is a larger membership which is involved in many of the functions of the organization, but not all of its functions. They may pass out flyers with us, make phone calls, or research campaign targets, for example. Then there is a much larger network of people who will come out to actions when called on.
BRRN: Walk us through how you started it. Why this kind of organization, and what kinds of fights do you take on?
AK: Our specific solidarity network wanted to take on wage theft campaigns as our main, but not exclusive, area of struggle. We began working with another organization here that works in immigrant communities around stopping deportations. They were getting a lot of calls about wage theft, and helped us start the solidarity network to meet this need. Most of our initial calls came directly from them, and our first campaign came out of one of these calls. We also understand that the immigrant community, especially here in Texas, is very vulnerable to wage theft, and they often feel they do not have a lot of options for getting back stolen wages. We want to change that! Eventually, we want to create a citywide network of people who can respond to wage theft grievances, and other workplace and housing issues. We want to make bosses and landlords scared to even think about messing with us!
In ATX, we have a small and unorganized left with a larger activist scene. A solidarity network is one form of organization that can work well under these conditions because you really only need a handful of core organizers and access to lots of people to show up to actions. We also see this form of organization being one in which committed leftists can develop relationships with other members of the working class. We see a lot of the left in ATX being very insular and removed from other everyday people. We feel it is important to be organizing in working-class communities since it is us as a class that are capable of transforming society.
We also want to help normalize direct action tactics to push our collective ability to struggle even further. Ultimately, we would like to see more working-class organizations in our neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and more. The solidarity network isn’t meant to be the form of organization for widespread worker rebellion, but it is one form of organization that can respond to specific conditions that exist in this moment to help take us to the next.
BRRN: You mentioned you worked on recovering stolen wages with a worker who is an immigrant. Tell us about it. How are you building this campaign?
AK: Our current case is with a married couple. The husband is owed over $4,000 in stolen wages. He was working with a contractor remodeling apartments and houses before the owner of the remodeling company decided to not pay him for weeks worth of work and stopped answering his calls. We are demanding the contractor pay all of the wages due.
We started with delivering a demand letter to the company to pay back the due wages by a certain date or else they would face further action. We went with a large group of people to the boss’s house to show that we are a force to be reckoned with. From there, we waited for the date to come and go. Since the company didn’t pay back the wages, we started to escalate. We did a phone blast where tons of people called the boss and company phone to demand repayment of wages. This both put pressure on the contractor, but also tied up the company phone interrupting business calls. We also showed up at the boss’s house to talk to his neighbors and flyer his neighborhood about his poor treatment of this worker.
We were going to escalate again by going to his church with a flyer to pass out to the congregation with a picture of his face and exposing all of his sins. But the worker and his wife recently decided to work with a nonprofit organization Proyecto Defensa Laboral (PDL) who is providing legal assistance. They had been waiting a year to hear back from PDL, and when they did, they decided to try the legal route for now.
BRRN: So it sounds like even though the campaign started by using direct action tactics, that shifted. Why do you think that is?
AK: These organizers see the legal route as more of a sure thing: if they can win in court, this will be an official mandate by a judge that their wages are owed. Fighting through direct action tactics isn’t seen as solid of an outcome. Maybe the boss gets tired of dealing with us and being embarrassed in front of their neighborhood and church, but maybe they dig their heels in and never give in. $4,000 is a lot of money, and if they think the court is a more sure victory they may feel like doing whatever ends in the result of them getting their money owed is the best way to go. Ultimately, they may win. But even winning does not guarantee they will get paid.
Initially, we would get more calls about wage theft especially. In fact, we heard of other people who worked with the same contractor also having their wages stolen, but we weren’t able to get any of them to work with us. Now with ICE being so present in our city the calls have really slowed to a halt. People are really scared to make noise or draw attention. While we haven’t seen this happen in our current campaign, we wouldn’t put it past bosses and landlords to use the threat of ICE to prevent people from trying to win demands. In ATX, there are daily kidnappings, so the threat is very real here. We totally understand how scary it is at the moment for folks to speak up when ICE is terrorizing our communities and kidnapping our people. So it is understandable that direct action tactics seem more risky than they are worth for some people.
BRRN: What lessons do you hope to leave with other organizers launching similar kinds of efforts?
Our biggest issue is trying to adapt to ICE becoming a major persistent threat in immigrant communities, making direct action more risky for folks. We haven’t cracked the code on this yet, but would love to hear from other organizations doing similar work who may have had success with this. It was always a risk for undocumented workers to stand up against corrupt bosses, but now it is a matter of life or death. We know that there are daily kidnappings, and we have seen that ICE is responsible for straight up murdering people. It is hard to ask people to fight back anyway.
Another major lesson for us now is dealing with a lot of turnover from our core organizers. Over the year, we have had upticks in participation before a lot of folks stop participating. We know from past experiences that oftentimes people who participate in campaigns don’t always stick around, which can also make it challenging to find core organizers. This happens in most or all organizations from time to time, but we are having to decide how to move forward now that we have so few core organizers.
All that said, we think about winning in a different way. Of course, winning the stolen wages or similar demands is the immediate goal. For us the larger vision is to build our capacity to fight against bosses and landlords. We see the fight itself as a victory. We also see that we have built relationships with the family and other local immigrant organizations. We have shown another way of getting what we deserve is possible through popular power. But how do you balance that with material needs? We have thought about what we do if we don’t win. Maybe we could have a fundraiser to spread awareness about the solidarity network while also getting funds to the organizers. But it does raise questions around what we consider a win, and how to sell the vision that we need to fight ourselves, especially when nonprofits like PDL exist in abundance in places like Austin.
If you enjoyed this article, we also recommend: “A Dense Web of Solidarity”: How Chicago Public School Workers Defend Students Against ICE and How Teachers, Students, and Parents are Organizing to Keep ICE Out of Durham Schools.