‘Standing Up’ Takes Courage…And Love

Standing Up: Tales of Struggle is out now from Hard Ball Press.

By Joe Maniscalco

Organizing working class power against entrenched systems of economic exploitation and oppression can take a lot out of you. But Standing Up: Tales of Struggle authors Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller also want you to know that it can fill you with something, too — love.

Indeed, part the reason for writing Standing UP, the couple tells Work-Bites, was to “normalize organizing” — and to show people doing that vital work also “fall in love, like sex and have joy in their lives.”

Says Bravo, “If the world is falling apart — there has to be a reason for us to say, ‘come join us.’ [Organizers] have to show we have….we can…and we will win.”

Love, after all, is the most courageous act. And in Standing Up, Bravo and Miller dramatically illustrate how they’ve not only utilized their love for one another — but also their love for the working class — to sustain and nurture a decades-long struggle for worker rights throughout the country.

“When we put this all together,” Miller says, “we really tried to look at what happened back then, and what would be good lessons for today.”

Standing Up opens during a labor dispute at Grady Hospital in Atlanta during a time in the nation’s history when Black employees were unionizing for worker rights — but more specifically, “against segregation and racism in the workplace.”

“We show it’s impossible to grow up in the United States, in a country like this and not have white supremacy, male supremacy and homophobia impact social justice organizations just like it impacts the public overall,” says Bravo. “But we show examples of people taking on those things.”

That’s why the couple especially likes the way Amazon warehouse workers have shown they “understand the importance of engaging everyone” — and “making sure their unionizing campaign is multi-racial, and that women, as well as men, are involved.”

“This is how capitalism works,” Bravo says, “the more they can try to divide us, the less they think we’ll be able to be angry at the right people, and threaten them. I think there’s much more awareness now [about that] and why you’re seeing a backlash.”

Despite the “courage and creativity” red state teachers, striking miners, Starbucks baristas and Amazon workers are showing pressing the fight for labor rights throughout the country — Bravo warns, “There’s a big structural problem.”

“The system is rigged,” she says, “the laws work in favor of the union-busters. The same companies that don’t want to budge on a dime for a raise are spending billions and billions on consultants for union-busting — and they often get away with it.”

Much of the reporting Work-Bites has done certainly bears this out.

What needs to change, according to the Standing Up authors, are the people making decisions in the U.S. Congress.

“And then we need them to pass things like the PRO Act, and acknowledge that the structure has been really flawed and needs to change to give workers a voice,” Bravo says.

The Standing Up authors fought hard to try and get Democrat Mandela Barnes elected to the U.S. Senate from their home state of Wisconsin, calling incumbent GOPer Ron Johnson “one of the most despicable senators we have.”

Despite the midterm elections, the couple does see more unions putting “more attention on organizing” than in previous years. And that’s in addition to “more leadership by people of color and by women,” as well as “more focus on low-wage workers,” they say.

“The AFL-CIO,” Bravo adds, “has made a real commitment to investing in organizing.”

Although they do not make predictions — preferring, instead, to “make plans and work hard” — the authors do see more tough times ahead for working class people.

“There’s a hard road ahead — there’s no question,” Miller says. “We see what’s going on around the country — the anti-democracy movement; the attempts to take away voting rights. Really core issues are going to be fought over for quite awhile.”

All the more reason for some love.

“Nothing is going to be easy,” Miller says, “but we like the resistance that's growing and the optimism of the young people and the organizers who are part of this.”