A1. Favorites

Read and subscribe to our monthly newsletter and support our work.

The post Latest Newsletter first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Muzammal is a Muslim Kashmiri-Pakistani immigrant to the United States whose work is rooted in a deep commitment to socio-economic justice and development, with a focus on building working class power. Muzammal grew up as a refugee in Pakistan during the United States’s war on terror and the Pakistani Army’s dictatorship rule.

Muzammal holds an undergraduate degree in Economics, an MPhil in Economics, and a second master’s in Labor and Global Workers’ Rights—fields that inform both professional work and personal philosophy.

After a decade-long movement organizing in Karachi, Pakistan, Muzammal has recently worked with the Asian American Community Fund of Pennsylvania and the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, where they led initiatives that uplifted Asian American communities across Pennsylvania. Muzammal is currently working as Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Jobs With Justice, a coalition of unions, community organizations, students, and faith groups where they launched Power School 2026, an annual, free, week-long, in-person advanced and comprehensive organizer training program which also provides Spanish interpretation and scholarships to participants.

Fluent in eight languages and well-versed in the diverse cultures of South Asia, Muzammal brings a rich global perspective to the labor movement. Their extensive experience spans community and labor organizing in both South Asia and the United States. Muzammal finds joy in sloganeering, dancing, fashion, cooking and Muay Thai.

The post October LNS Spotlight: Muzammal Afzal first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Worried that Trump and MAGA may steal the upcoming mid-term elections? LNS co-sponsored a September 22 webinar on “Building and Defending Democracy in November’s Elections” that addresses the fightback to block attempts to interfere with free and fair elections. This webinar was designed to help frame priorities, including actions as well as policy commitments, that state and community-based movement leaders should be thinking about as we approach November’s elections. It features LNS co-founder and senior strategic advisor Jeremy Brecher.

To watch the webinar: https://cpdcs.org/watch-building-and-defending-democracy-in-novembers-election/

LNS has also just published Brecher’s commentary “ Election Protection vs. MAGA Tyranny.” Here’s an excerpt:

Trump, MAGA, and their supporters want to ensure that the upcoming mid-term elections are not free and fair, but rather a vehicle to perpetuate their power. Their goal is permanent and uncontested power – an equivalent to Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich. Trump/Republican attempts to prevent free and fair elections have been going on for years, and have escalated since his inauguration. Successful recent actions have included the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and extreme gerrymandering. Key methods include intimidation, confusion, induced hopelessness, physical obstruction, and legal obstruction. There is a wide swath of groups organized to defend a free and fair election against authoritarian subversion. They represent not one or the other political party, but rather nonpartisan social self-defense. I have described them elsewhere as a “Movement-Based Opposition.” Many of these groups are initially focusing on training. For example, Indivisible and the ACLU are collaborating on a series of “Hands Off Our Vote” online webinars. The Freedom Trainers network of nonviolence trainers has run in-depth trainings for thousands and makes available an 83-page handbook presenting possible scenarios and how to deal with them. The May Day Strong coalition has held 750 “Solidarity Schools” and actions from late August through mid-September nationwide, bringing together labor organizers and community members. The Voter Advocate Network is building a nationwide network of trained and certified voter advocates. According to Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation, “Over one million people have been trained in organizing and nonviolence over the last year.”

The commentary lays out the details for six “lines of defense” for unions and communities to ensure free and fair elections:

1. Make clear to people why they need to vote against Trump and MAGA.
2. Encourage an overwhelming turnout to oppose Trump and MAGA.
3. Forestall interference with elections.
4. Contest intimidation through rapid response.
5. Foil electoral coups.
6. Lay the groundwork for democratization.

To read the full commentary: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/election-protection-vs-maga-tyranny/

To hear the webinar: Building and Defending Democracy in November’s Elections

The post Unions and Communities Fight for Free and Fair Elections first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

LNS president Joe Uehlein’s book-and-music tour continues with dates around the country. Here is the schedule for the entire tour:

The post “With the Sincerity of a Prophet”: Uehlein Tour Rolls On first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Joe in Amherst

By John Harrity

John is the former President of the CT State Council of Machinists and a long-time member of the LNS Board.

On Monday, September 14, I attended the Amherst stop of Joe Uehlein’s cross-country book tour, in support of his newly published Three Roads: Labor, Music, Ecology. Joe tells the story of a life-long love of the union movement, songs, and nature fostered first as a boy outside of Cleveland. Both his parents were dedicated trade unionists. Free time was spent listening to or singing the songs of working-class artists like Woody Gurthrie and Leadbelly, while the lakes provided good fishing until the fish started floating belly-up due to the runoff from the steel mills that kept everyone working.

Joe does not simply tell his tale; he sings it too. The stages, and stories, of his life roll out through plenty of great labor music. Joe is a skilled guitarist with a strong voice. There’s a union song appropriate to every step in his journey, and Joe sings out the truth in these verses with the passion and conviction they deserve.

Joe’s life is guided by principles propelled forward by genuine courage. He spent many years in the South as a union organizer, a sometimes-harrowing occupation. With a family to raise he came off the road, ending up highly placed in the AFL-CIO, as head of the Industrial Department. But when he became fully aware of the dangers to the world from climate change, and the AFL-CIO’s obstinate denial of the problem, Joe left a cushy job behind to found the Labor Network for Sustainability. As Joe conveys to the audience with the sincerity of a prophet, the Labor Network for Sustainability works every day to raise awareness in the labor movement about the absolute necessity of confronting the climate crisis.

The audience in Amherst was visibly moved by Joe’s engaging presentation. Many of the fifty-or-so in attendance lined up to buy signed copies of the book. The presentation took place at UMass, sponsored by the UMass Labor Center and the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), and many faculty and staff members were in attendance. Not all of them were familiar with LNS before Joe’s talk, but they had all gained a healthy respect for the group after hearing Joe Uehlein.

The post “A Life-Long Love of the Union Movement” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Joshua Dedmond, Labor Network for Sustainability Executive Director

The Black Climate Leadership Summit, co-hosted by Taproot Noire (a global Black climate network rooted in Taproot Earth) and SOL Nation as part of the Queen City Climate Convergence on September 16–17 in Charlotte, North Carolina, brought together Black-identifying frontline and environmental justice leaders, organizers, and advocates from across the globe. The gathering focused on building the trust, deep relationships, shared power, and principles for collaboration needed to advance a unified, Black-led Just Transition Strategy rooted in land sovereignty and human connection that centers Black liberation.

Joshua Dedmond, Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability, participated in the summit. This enriching gathering provided LNS with a vital platform to connect labor movement entities and labor-climate strategies directly with other Black-led formations and movement spaces. Throughout the summit, participants engaged in facilitated wisdom circles, strategy workshops, skill-building sessions, and panels that illuminated collaborative pathways toward economic and climate justice.

Special gratitude goes to LNS Board member Colette Pichón Battle and her dedicated krewe at Taproot Earth for hosting, as well as Tiffany Fant and the SOL Nation team for warmly welcoming Black climate leaders to Charlotte.

The post Queen City Climate Convergence first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo collage: Background photo by Tedder, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

By Tyler Turner

(Tyler Turner is president of the Office and Professional Employees International Union which represents 90,000 workers in industries ranging from tech and healthcare to higher education and non-profits.)

Opposition to datacenters grows on both sides of the political aisle as developers plan to invest $8tn to build them in the coming years. The bet is massive – roughly a quarter of our country’s entire GDP – but AI CEOs think it will pay off because they believe this technology will allow businesses across industries to rake in profits by cutting out their largest expense: labor. If all goes according to their plan, AI data centers will enable corporations to redistribute workers’ salaries to themselves.

This is why I have been so concerned to see the North American Building Trades Unions (NABTU) sign agreements with corporations such as Blackrock, Meta and OpenAI to collaborate on this massive data center expansion. While I applaud the NABTU’s success at securing well-paying temporary jobs for their members, these deals ignore the fact that all workers, including construction workers, are part of a class whose replacement is the explicit purpose of AI, and that data centers themselves produce a minuscule number of long-term jobs. With these deals, union members will build the factories of computerized labor that put millions of other workers out of jobs – potentially even themselves.

Until strong regulations are enacted that ensure our livelihoods, community and planet are permanently protected, unions should focus on passing the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, introduced in Congress by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and support statewide moratoriums like the one recently signed by the New York governor, Kathy Hochul. Once we have achieved a moratorium, the labor movement must unite around a set of demands to ensure workers across industries receive our fair share of AI’s potential benefits.

The AI revolution means nothing but loss for the average person if its benefits are concentrated among the already-wealthy. In a survey of the Office and Professional Employees International Union’s membership last year, we found members are already being adversely impacted by AI in myriad ways ranging from layoffs to surveillance to being punished for errors created by AI models.

We should not allow corporations to balloon our energy consumption while wildfires, superstorms and extreme heat ravage our country. If unions worked together rather than pitting our members against each other, we would not be begging billionaires for temporary jobs that will poison us and our children.

At the end of the day, our data fuels their algorithms, our taxes fund their development, and our communities host their hardware. The least we should demand is our fair share.

Excerpted from an article in the September 14th Guardian. For the full article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/14/labor-unions-ai-datacenters

The post Union Prez Sez “Labor Unions Must Unite Against AI Data Centers” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

UE’s Green Locomotive Project is an innovative model for grassroots union initiative to create good union jobs, address climate change, and clean up pollution in the low-income communities and communities of color which bear the brunt of pollution from rail yards. The project came about through conversation with members who build locomotive engines that currently run on diesel fuel. These members know their own jobs have been tied to fossil fuels but also understand the threat of climate change. They see opportunities for a different path in the future, one that creates good union jobs and improves air quality, particularly in and around rail yards where these idling engines pollute the air. The technology already exists to run cleaner and more energy-efficient engines on our rail lines; zero-emissions technology is available for use in rail yards. The Green Locomotive Project builds the worker and community power necessary to compel the railroads to upgrade their locomotive stock and adopt green technology, and to ensure that new technologies lead to jobs at existing union factories.

Here are initiatives the Green Locomotive Project has taken so far this year just in California:

• The Barstow International Gateway (BIG) is a heavily subsidized, $1.5 billion rail expansion project being pursued by the Class-I railroad BNSF. Together with EarthJustice and other allies, the GLP mobilized 50 workers and residents to speak out at a Barstow city planning commission hearing to demand clean technology on the BIG. GLP is also supporting a local leader who is holding weekly community gatherings and mobilizing residents to Barstow City Council meetings.
• The Alameda Corridor, which serves the dual ports of LA and Long Beach, is a prime candidate for electrification. To make it happen, the GLP partnered with the Moving Forward Network and Californians for Electric Rail to form the Communities for Electric Rail Only (CERO) Coalition. In March, CERO secured the CA Air Resources Board’s commitment to work with them on electrifying the Alameda Corridor. Air quality is a major issue for railyard workers and nearby communities. The GLP is advocating to add stronger emissions reduction measures to the Clean Air Action Plan for the ports of LA and Long Beach and supporting our allies’ push for AB 1777, which would grant CA Air Resources Board (CARB) the power to create Indirect Source Rules for railyards. It is also monitoring the progress of In-Use Locomotive Rule II, which would ban the use of outdated, heavy-polluting locomotives in CA.

For more on UE’s Green Locomotive Project, visit https://www.ueunion.org/green-locomotive-project

The post UE’s Green Locomotive Project Steaming Ahead first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Collage (Art: alonesbe, Envato | Photo Credit of Trump: Gage Skidmore, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

In a new commentary, LNS co-founder and senior strategic advisor Jeremy Brecher warns, “As long as the US opposes rather than joining the Greentech revolution, it portends not only climate catastrophe, but economic catastrophe as well.”

“The Greentech revolution is transforming energy production and use worldwide. Along with its other advantages, fossil free energy has become radically cheaper than fossil fuel energy. More than 90% of utility-scale renewable projects commissioned in 2025 delivered power below the cost of the cheapest new fossil-fuel plant built in their market. Natural gas energy is currently 3–4 times more expensive than solar and wind. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are increasingly vulnerable to disruptions like the Ukraine and Iran wars, which destabilize whole economies with shortages and higher prices for energy, food, and other necessities of life.

“Donald Trump and the US government are doing everything possible to shut down fossil free energy and to expand our dependence on fossil fuels. That is already having a devastating effect on American workers and communities, and it is likely to get far worse in the future. We are being marooned on what two energy experts call a fossil fuel “energy island” as the rest of the world turns to an ‘electric world order.’

“If Trump and his fossil fuelers succeed in defeating the Greentech revolution in the US, the result is likely to be a growing affordability crisis; devastation for the most fossil-fuel dependent industries like autos, coal, iron, and gas; a general decline of the fossil-fuel intensive US economy; disinvestment; a loss of international competitiveness; and macroeconomic effects like inflation and recession or both.”

To read in full: “America’s Future: Fossil Fuel Island in a Greentech World?”

The post Will the US be a “Fossil Fuel Island” in a Greentech World? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

This September, as part of the Global Day of Action Against WTO and Free Trade Agreements, La Via Campesina hosted a global webinar featuring a lecture by renowned author, academic, and activist Raj Patel.

The post Trade, Capitalism and the Food System – Study Session with Raj Patel appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Agrarian reform is historical reparation. It is not only about economic restitution, although that is also important. We want the right to access land to be guaranteed.

The post Brazil: Agrarian Reform is Historical Reparation and a Condition for Democracy appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

According to AOP, these negotiations could pave the way for amendments to laws that would facilitate accession to the 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991).

The post Thailand: Assembly of the Poor (AOP) protests the EU-Thailand free trade negotiations, denounces backdoor manoeuvres to join UPOV 1991 appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

The Democratic Party has been spectacularly ineffective in providing an opposition to Trump’s drive for authoritarian domination. Merely electing Democrats is no solution to the crisis of American democracy. But popular defense of free and fair elections, and a massive electoral repudiation of Trump and MAGA in November, can play an important role in the struggle to democratize the U.S.

With a few honorable exceptions, Democrats have done little to resist Trump’s juggernaut or to present an alternative program to meet the needs of the American people and reverse the damage Trump and his minions have done to them. Far less have they mobilized their constituents to stand up to Trump’s depredations.

In democratic theory, elections give every person equal weight in deciding political outcomes. Of course, we all know that the reality of actually existing democratic systems barely resembles this. The power of money, oligarchical control of parties, institutional skewing of the playing field, disorganization of subordinate groups, and many forms of racial, gender, and other inequality make our so-called “democracies” highly undemocratic.

That doesn’t mean that elections are meaningless. Rather, they are part of the jostling through which various dominant and subordinate groups negotiate their relationships. They are part of the process that Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci characterized as “hegemony” — the way a ruling class maintains power through the active consent of the public, rather than through military force or physical coercion alone. To exercise hegemony, ruling groups must engage in negotiation and compromise with subordinate groups. Elections and the ecological systems surrounding them are part of the way such compromise is negotiated and implemented.

MAGA’s Strategy for Unending Domination

Trump, MAGA, and their supporters want to ensure that the upcoming mid-term elections are not free and fair, but rather a vehicle to perpetuate their power. Their goal is power that is permanent and uncontested – an equivalent to Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich.

Trump/Republican attempts to prevent free and fair elections have been going on for years and have escalated since his inauguration. Successful recent actions have included the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and extreme gerrymandering. Key methods include intimidation, confusion, induced hopelessness, physical obstruction, and legal obstruction.

A just-released report called “The American Crisis” by a group of progressive scholars lays out what we can expect going forward:

• In the months and weeks preceding Election Day, we anticipate that election administration roles and responsibilities will be seized from states and cities, or attempts will be made to disrupt, sabotage, or seize their administrative powers. That could include the seizing of voter rolls, the threatening of election officials, and the disruption of vote-by-mail systems.
• In the days leading up to Election Day, and on the day itself, we anticipate a substantial increase of voter intimidation and election disruption tactics, with new deployments of military and paramilitary forces across U.S. cities, elections offices, and polling stations. The National Guard occupation of Washington, DC and the “Memphis Safe Task Force” provide proving grounds for these tactics, including street patrols, traffic stops, warrant service, fugitive apprehension, and court-authorized searches of residences. We expect that “state of emergency” declarations by federal and state officials will increase as well, to enable immediate deployments of military and paramilitary forces, and with fewer restrictions on those deployments.We expect these military and paramilitary intimidation tactics to extend to other non-state or subnational actors, like nonprofit and community-based organizations, unions, and universities, who are involved in monitoring and maintaining free and fair elections. We also anticipate a significant increase in disinformation and misinformation campaigns about polling places, hours, and practices, as well as voter intimidation at polling locations by national, non-state, and paramilitary actors.
• On and after Election Day, we anticipate major obstacles to a democratic transition of local, state, and federal seats and offices. At the state and local level, efforts to impede the post-election transfer of power include interference with vote tabulation and election certification by state and local governments through the use of force or police force or by other means, e.g. by proxy through militias or so-called “sovereign sheriffs” groups. At the federal level, efforts to obstruct or delay the swearing-in of newly elected officials include the removal of the Clerk in the House of Representatives or the refusal of the U.S. Vice President and outgoing House Speaker to swear in newly elected Members of Congress.

Current house speaker Mike Johnson told the September Republican Convention, “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in Congress. We’re not gonna do it.” The midterm elections will kick off an ongoing struggle that is likely to continue indefinitely – or at least until the next presidential election.

Social Self-Defense Against Election Subversion

The struggle to defend society against Trump and MAGA is likely to be long and difficult. It will require the self-organization and action of tens of millions of people. It is likely ultimately to require forms of resistance like social strikes that make the country impossible for MAGA to govern.

The struggle around the 2026 mid-term elections is only one piece of the struggle against Trump and for democratization – but it is an important one. It is a struggle not primarily between political parties, but for the protection of society against the MAGA attack. It is part of the broad defense of society against fascism – what I have elsewhere described as “Social Self-Defense”:

The protection of that which makes our life together on earth possible. It includes the protection of the human rights of all people; protection of the conditions of our earth and its climate that make our life possible; the constitutional principle that government must be accountable to law; and global cooperation to provide a secure future for people and planet.

Ending Republican control of the House and, if possible, the Senate will put a brake on the U.S.’s wild ride into fascism – especially if the scale of the turnout and the majority are overwhelming. That will show that a post-election coup is futile. It will also be an important marker on the road to a repudiation of Trump and all he stands for – an indication to all that not only is he vulnerable, but that he is doomed.

Recent polls indicate that such a massive repudiation is within reach. In a September New York Times poll,  a majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of every major issue included in the poll: the economy, immigration, tariffs, the war, and the cost of living. Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by close to 9 percentage points in their congressional district.

There is a wide swath of groups organized to defend a free and fair election against authoritarian subversion. They represent not one or the other political party, but rather nonpartisan social self-defense. I have described them elsewhere as a “Movement-Based Opposition.”

Many of these groups have initially been focusing on training. For example, Indivisible and the ACLU are collaborating on a series of “Hands Off Our Vote” online webinars. The Freedom Trainers network of nonviolence trainers has run in-depth trainings for thousands, and makes available an 83-page handbook presenting possible scenarios and how to deal with them. The May Day Strong coalition has held 750 “Solidarity Schools” and other actions from late August through mid-September nationwide, bringing together labor organizers and community members. The Voter Protection Advocate Network is building a nationwide cohort of trained and certified voter advocates. According to Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation, “Over one million people have been trained in organizing and nonviolence over the last year.”

Lines of Defense

HANDS OFF THE KENNEDY CENTER!!! Youtube short @tevindavisactor

The strategy for defending free and fair elections resembles the military strategy known as “concentric lines of defense.” That entails layered rings designed to “delay, detect, and respond to threats.” Diverse elements of the movement-based opposition are implementing such a strategy. Drawing on a review of their materials and presentations, here are the overlapping rings:

1. Make clear to people why they need to vote against Trump and MAGA. People need to understand that voting in this election is essential for their current and future self-protection and protection of their rights and wellbeing. Some Democrats are doing this quite forcefully, but much of the party is trying to sleaze by with vague promises about “affordability”; many Democrats are even advocating hyperscale data centers, despite the harm they do and their overwhelming unpopularity. Fortunately, civil society groups and the movement-based opposition can take actions that call out Trump’s depredations without waiting for Democrats to lead. Community-based actions against ICE transformed public opinion not only on ICE but on immigration as a whole; the Tesla Takedowns turned Elon Musk into a public pariah.

Such voter-education-through-action can be done locally and on short notice. For example, on September 18th thousands filled streets in Washington, DC and locked down traffic as they walked in a “Hands Around the Kennedy Center” action protesting Trump’s threats to shut or even tear down the iconic Kennedy Center. Indigenous groups have established the Thunderbird Nest resistance camp in Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula to protest a planned copper sulfide mine which is backed by a $50 million taxpayer subsidy. May Day Strong is organizing “Corporate Campaigns to Reject Trump’s Attack on the Elections”; when an ICE agent shot a DoorDash driver making a delivery, May Day Strong among others called for people to “delete DoorDash” until the company issues a public statement against ICE targeting delivery drivers and calls for Trump’s occupation agents to leave DC.

Local demonstrations and protests can select locations like supermarkets with tariff-induced price increases; corporations supplying the Iran war and Israel; banks financing AI data centers; ICE facilities; agencies involved in voter suppression; and hospitals and clinics whose budgets have been cut. Such actions need not be large: Two dozen people with signs and leaflets at a local supermarket or Social Security office can reach voters directly and through local news coverage and social media. Such actions can connect the dots between the deprivations people are feeling, the machinations of Trump and MAGA, and the power people have to fight back through the vote.

2. Encourage an overwhelming turnout to oppose Trump and MAGA. This includes conventional get-out-the-vote methods, such as phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, registration drives, encouraging people to check that they are registered, providing transportation, and escorting voters. In the era of voter suppression, it also involves countering all kinds of misinformation that is being used to discourage people from voting, ranging from false information about when, where, and how to vote to threats of violence and arrest at polling places. The organizations listed above can provide information to counter such voter suppression.

3. Forestall interference with elections. Most direct vote suppression takes place on election day itself. To forestall this, election protection efforts are focused on encouraging people to vote early. The No Kings Coalition is organizing a massive “No Kings: Vote Early” day of action October 17. It will include block parties, rallies, and walks to the polls.

Voter suppression can include among other things openly biased poll workers, attempts to discourage or block voter registration, incorrect or unevenly applied requests for voter ID, misinformation about where, when, or how to vote, and similar abuses. The abusers may be election officials or MAGA vigilantes.

Hundreds of thousands of “Nonpartisan poll monitors” are being recruited to prevent vote stealing. These volunteers will observe the voting process on election days. They are trained to assist any voters whose votes are not being allowed or counted; to document any infractions and immediately report them to voting officials; and to immediately contact the Election Protection 866-OUR-VOTE hotline or the Election Protection website 866ourvote.org, both staffed by lawyers and law students, for help and guidance.

4. Contest intimidation through rapid response. Community based rapid response networks are a crucial part of election protection. According to the ACLU/Indivisible Election Protection Training 201:

When something happens that risks someone’s vote or risks impacting the election, the single most effective way we can counter it is by responding fast. Half a dozen people outside their local elections office with a few signs just a few hours after something happens are more powerful than a bigger protest that happens later after the news cycle has moved on. So, whether your goal is to have volunteers ready to redirect voters to a correct polling place if they have been misled, if you’re looking to speak out in support of targeted local election workers, if you’re thinking to shine a spotlight on misinformation or bad behavior, what we want to do is be ready before it’s time to actually respond.

Rapid response networks, utilizing mobile communications and trained volunteers, have been central to the protection of American cities against ICE attacks – think Minneapolis. Many immigrant justice rapid response networks are repurposing their organizations for election protection. Immigrant defenders in Wisconsin, for example, are repurposing the Signal infrastructure they built for ICE to arrange for rides to the polls.

Part of the preparation for rapid response is for local groups to reach out in advance to plan coordination with others in their area. They also need to connect in advance with regional and national networks that can provide support in a crisis.

We can assume that Trump/MAGA will attempt to covertly or overtly disrupt our election protection efforts. Community-based rapid response networks are likely to be the most powerful tool for exposing and defeating their machinations – and for publicizing them as one more example of MAGA’s attempt to destroy democracy.

Election Defense 201 training by Hands Off Our Vote

5. Foil electoral coups. We know from the January 6, 2020 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Trump and his supporters are likely to stop at nothing to retain power even if they have met a devastating electoral defeat. In such a case, only an unprecedented national popular resistance is likely to stop them. Indivisible refers to this as a “peaceful nonviolent sustained mobilization,” aka a “national freak-out.” Others call for a general strike and other forms of resistance.

Some kind of “all in” action has been widely advocated as a response to another attempted electoral coup, though advocates have been somewhat reticent about specific plans for such action. We now have a model for such sustained mobilization in the resistance to ICE in American cities, highlighted by the “No Work, No School, No Shopping” days of action in Minneapolis. Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter told the ACLU/Indivisible Election Protection Training 201,

What do we mean by sustained mobilization? We mean a situation where everyday people are maintaining an in-person presence at a significant or symbolic location to demand action until it is met. Like a multi-day protest at someplace like the state capital. This might be the appropriate response if Trump or his administration refuses to concede power.

This wouldn’t be just like other protest moments. It would be a rapid response thing rather than something that’s pre-planned. It can’t just be a 2-hour march on a Saturday and then everybody goes home. Building momentum over time, more and more folks gathering in whatever location, not leaving until every vote is counted and the winners of the election are seated.

Cliff Albright conceded that “there’s a lot of possible unknowns around this.” Writer Micah Sifry identified some pertinent unanswered questions about this strategy: Who will be making the decision to go “all in”? How will demands be conveyed to the relevant authorities? If the Trump administration refuses to concede, then what? I have discussed at length the possibilities, problems, and strategies for such action in my report Social Strikes: Can General Strikes, Mass Strikes, and People Power Uprisings Provide a Last Defense Against MAGA Tyranny? It addresses in detail such questions as bases of power, organization, decision-making, negotiations, strategy, and tactics for a “people power” response to an attempted Trump coup.

6. Lay the groundwork for democratization. Long before Trump and MAGA, the U.S. and its electoral system were far from fully democratic. Trump’s efforts to establish tyranny have aimed to demolish their remaining democratic elements– with considerable success. Social self-defense requires more than just reestablishing the marginally democratic system that preceded Trump’s juggernaut. It requires accountability for those who have tried to destroy our human, democratic, and environmental rights. It requires structural change that reinforces the democratic aspects of our political system and that eliminates the undemocratic and authoritarian ones. That requires a process of democratization that builds popular power from the grassroots. The election protection movement can provide a propitious starting point for that democratization from below.

Note: If you are not already connected to local election protection efforts, you can go to Ground Control to find volunteer opportunities near you.

Get “Strike!” via EmailGet “Strike!” via Substack DONATE ONLINE

The post Election Protection vs MAGA Tyranny first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Omnibus X is a legislative package which, under the usual pretext of simplification to streamline the pesticide approval system, weakens the precautionary principle at the heart of European pesticide regulation.

The post OMNIBUS X, a toxic proposal for health and biodiversity. MEPs should not vote for it: ECVC appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The event brought together peasant union leaders, researchers and lawyers from five South Asian countries to discuss the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) and its implementation nearly eight years after adoption.

The post Sri Lanka: South Asian Movements Call for Policies on Agroecology, Seeds and Trade Aligned with UNDROP appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

It was during the dictatorship of François and Jean-Claude Duvalier, from 1956 to 1986, that Tèt Kole took shape, long before its official birth.

The post Haiti: Haitian Peasant Movement “Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen” Celebrates 40 Years of Struggle appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

We call upon our member organizations and allies to mobilize against the damaging role that global financial institutions, including the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), play in undermining democracy and food sovereignty.

The post 16 October Call to Action | The International Day of Action for People’s Food Sovereignty and against Transnational Corporations | #16Oct26 appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

'Bartolina Sisa' reaffirms their commitment to continuing the struggle as socio-economic and political challenges persist, rejecting the IMF loan, which they argue is plunging Bolivians deeper into debt.

The post Bolivia: ‘Bartolina Sisa’ reaffirms its mobilisation and denounces the lack of constitutional freedoms appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

This law marks a new chapter and brings new hope for the implementation of agrarian reform - a long-awaited step toward achieving a fairer restructuring of agrarian relations that favors farmers and the people

The post Indonesia: Agrarian Reform Regulation Law Passed – SPI calls it a vital step for agrarian justice appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The return of the natural climate phenomenon is worsening the food crisis in Central America and on the African continent. This event could become the most powerful ever recorded.

The post El Niño starves the peoples of the Global South appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.