Secrets of a Successful Organizer Now Available in Seven Languages

We are happy to report that Secrets of a Successful Organizer has now been translated into seven languages: Spanish, Japanese, German, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Swedish, and, most recently, Danish and Quebecois French. (See below for details on how to get copies.) We’ve also heard from union activists in Brazil, Norway, and Poland who are interested in translating it.

The book has provided inspiration and practical tips to workers across the globe attempting to revitalize their unions and build collective power in their workplaces. The English edition has sold 40,000 copies.

The Quebecois French version is the latest, available in Quebec bookstores on August 27. French speakers across the world can order the book, titled Organiser, mobiliser, gagner: Guide de renouveau syndical (Organize, Mobilize, Win: A Guide to Union Renewal), from the publisher Écosociété’s website, ecosociete.org.

Alain Savard, who translated it, is an organizer with the Fédération du Commerce (FC), which represents 30,000 workers in tourism, food processing, and retail. Savard hopes the translation will encourage unions to adopt an organizing model that puts workers in the driver’s seat, as opposed to an advocacy model that relies on lobbying, media attention, and negotiations behind closed doors.

“The emphasis on collective action during the contract, emphasis on one-on-one conversations, the leader identification process—these are not things that are widespread in Quebec,” Savard says. The book provides “an accessible first step toward developing unions as collective organizations that build class power.”

FC has been holding trainings based on Secrets of a Successful Organizer over the past five years; it now gives them to all its activists and staff. Savard said these sessions have been helpful in encouraging workers to take collective action outside of contract negotiations. “Especially during the pandemic, workers realized we don’t have to wait for the contract renewal to mobilize ourselves—we can push to get Covid bonuses,” he said. Many workers won raises of $2 an hour or more.

To make the book more relevant to Quebecois workers, Savard switched out examples from the U.S. for stories of workplace organizing in Quebec. Many of these stories come from workers who participated in a Secrets training and then won a victory through collective action.

For example, at a food processing factory, workers on the night shift had a supervisor who made their lives miserable. “The union brought it up with the labor relations committee, but nothing would happen,” says Savard. “The labor relations committee meets in the late afternoon—so the union invited the whole night shift to come in before their shift and voice their concerns at the meeting.” That pressure helped get the bad boss fired.

“A lot of workers have problems with toxic bosses, and the union has a lot of problems figuring out how to deal with these issues,” says Savard. Being willing to take collective action and think creatively—”based on identifying an issue that was winnable and important for the workers”—helped build their power.

DANISH VERSION

Danish union activists published their own version of Secrets of a Successful Organizer last year (En Succesfuld Organisators Hemmeligheder – En Håndbog for Faglige Ballademagere, available from left-wing publisher Solidaritet). The translator, Jakob Matthiassen, was an ironworker for 20 years—”a rank-and-file rabblerouser,” he says—before getting hired as an organizer with his union 3F in 2019. (3F, Denmark’s largest union, also has members in transport, manufacturing, hotels, and restaurants.) The book has already sold 1,000 copies and is now available in 22 Danish libraries.

Sixty-four percent of Danish workers belong to unions. Though that number has been slowly declining over the past few decades, Danish unions still have significant institutional power. A strong service model of unionism dominates, based on the idea that the role of the union is to solve workers’ problems for them, rather than organizing workers to solve their own problems.

“Why should we even look at the American trade movement? In the United States, despite their historically low percentage of union members in the private sector, they have tried to spread and devise new methods of turning the tide,” writes Rasmus Emil Hjorth, a leader of the union among food delivery workers at Just Eat DK, in a review. “This is something I think we can be inspired by in Denmark.”

Matthiassen said that some Danish unions have been familiar with the organizing model of unionism for nearly 20 years, as they attempt to overcome their own stagnation and respond to changes in the economy. But most of the handbooks on organizing published in Denmark were academic or aimed at staff. “What we needed was a guide for the rank and file, easy to use for people on the worksite starting from the bottom up.”

So Matthiassen bought 20 copies of the English version of Secrets and began to distribute them in Denmark, before deciding to translate the book himself.

Part of the inspiration came as he wrote a report on how the union was trying to organize migrant workers on a major construction project, expanding the light rail system in Copenhagen.

“I realized very quickly that the union movement lacked the methods and skill to engage the migrant workers,” he says. “They have learned how to get them enrolled in the union, how to get them to pay their dues—that was very innovative—but they completely lacked the ability to involve the migrant workers in the daily union work on site,” including involving them in negotiating local agreements that improve upon the national collective agreement and building a union club at the worksite.

Matthiassen incorporated Danish examples into the book. He also added a new secret: “Nobody negotiates alone.” In the Danish system, Matthiassen says that union representatives are constantly negotiating with managers—even in workplaces without a collective agreement or a shop steward. “But in my experience two bad things happen,” he says.

“One, the other workers are very happy to let you as the union activist or representative go and negotiate and [be the one to] take a chance” while they sit on the sidelines, and “two, the negotiators quickly develop confidentiality,” not updating workers on the negotiations until an agreement has been reached. That undermines workers’ sense of collective power and reinforces the idea of a union as a service.

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It’s not just workplace organizers who are translating the book. In Spain, the Madrid Tenants’ Union (el Sindicato de Inquilinos e Inquilinas de Madrid) published a tenant organizing manual inspired by Secrets of a Successful Organizer earlier this year.

“The current system prioritizes the profits of landlords over the rights of renters to remain in the neighborhoods and cities that we have helped to build,” writes the union. “Those of us who rent our homes have little power as individuals against our landlords, just like individual workers when they fight against their bosses. But organization turns shared vulnerability into collective strength.”

The manual includes advice on going door-to-door in your building to meet neighbors, mapping your apartment complex, and researching your landlord, as well as numerous examples drawn of successful organizing by Madrid tenants.

It also adds a useful section on avoiding burnout (“No te quemes”). “On many occasions, when we begin to take the first steps, we have so much energy that we don’t notice that we are doing all the work ourselves: calling meetings, thinking about the agenda, planning actions, going to all the union trainings… The problem with this model is that it’s unsustainable and, therefore, incompatible with a long-term struggle like ours.

“Rather than burning yourself out at the beginning,” the union writes, “it’s more useful to focus on building alliances within our building so that we aren’t the only ones in motion.” That also means having a good division of labor among union activists—one that is both “efficient and inclusive.”

Where to purchase or download the books:

English: labornotes.org/secrets. $15. More than 40 handouts and exercises that accompany the book are also available for free download at labornotes.org/secrets/handouts, and the accompanying trainer’s guide is available for purchase on the Labor Notes website. Bulk discounts from 10 to 40 percent are available.

Spanish: labornotes.org/secretos. $15. Links to Spanish translations of all of the handouts from the book are available there as well, and we hope to make a Spanish version of the trainer’s guide available later this year. Write to dan[at]labornotes[dot]org for info on bulk purchases or to get a free PDF of the Spanish translation.

The Madrid Tenants Union (Sindicato de Inquilinos e Inquilinas de Madrid) also published a shortened version, adapted for the tenants’ movement. Find it at inquilinato.org/manual-organizacion-inquilina.

Chinese (simplified): Download a free PDF here.

Chinese (traditional): Download a free PDF here. The book was translated by activists in the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, which was forced to disband due to repression by the Chinese government.

Danish: En Succesfuld Organisators Hemmeligheder – En Håndbog for Faglige Ballademagere. Available from solidaritet.dk, 200 DKK. Direct link here: bit.ly/danishSSO. There’s a Facebook page for the book, too: facebook.com/successfulorganisator

Quebecois French: Organiser, mobiliser, gagner: Guide de renouveau syndical. ecosociete.org/livres/omg. $27CAD.

German: Geheimnisse einer erfolgreichen Organizerin. The book was translated by a Labor Notes-style organization, OKG, which, in German, stands for Organizing, Fighting, Winning (Organisieren-Kämpfen-Gewinnen). It can be purchased from the publisher Schmetterling Verlag at bit.ly/germansecrets (16.80€).

Japanese: 職場を変える 秘密のレシピ47. Buy the book for 1500 yen and download free handouts at: roudou-bengodan.org/secrets/

Swedish: Organisatörens handbok: Tips och trix för facklig organisering. Available at adlibris.com/se/bok/organisatorens-handbok-9789186474768 (128 kr). For info on purchasing multiple copies, write to: kontakt[at]federativsforlag[dot]se.

For any questions about translations, contact Dan DiMaggio of Labor Notes: dan[at]labornotes[dot]org.