8 The Nation. May 28, 2018some adoptive parents can be disturbing,
Kennedy’s words seem to point the way to
a better future.Dear Liza,
I am an undergraduate student and
worker at a small public university in
North Dakota. In the past year, I’ve
realized that my fellow student workers
and I are underpaid, receive inadequate
training, lack access to mental-healthresources, and are underrepresented in
decision-making processes. Drawing from
my short time as a leftist, working toward
unionizing all student workers appears to
be the only option going forward for sub-
stantive and lasting change. Having said
that, in talking with fellow student work-
ers and friends, there seems to be little
understanding of the exploited nature of
our labor or interest in doing the necessary
work to unionize. Is the conservative cul-
ture of North Dakota the reason for theirapprehension? Should helping to unionize
student workers be the hill I die on? If so,
what are the steps forward? If not, what
does proper incremental change look like?
—Lost in NDDear Lost,I
t’s funny: When your letter came in
a few months ago, I had a few (now-
obsolete) thoughts, then got distracted
by other letters—and when I returned to it,
its political context had changed dramatically.
Now the kind of organizing you’re consider-
ing is widespread—perhaps the most hopeful
and important political work going on in
the United States. I’m talking, of course,
about organizing public-sector workers in red
states. With schoolteachers going on strike
or walking out in West Virginia, Kentucky,
Oklahoma, and Arizona, all the momentum is
with people just like you, who want to orga-
nize conservative communities against labor
exploitation and failed bipartisan austerity
policies. It seems that even many Trump vot-
ers are willing to take great risks for labor
solidarity and are inspired by the need to
revive our crumbling public institutions.
However, as you’ve realized, Lost, they
need to be organized. Do you have people
who can do this work with you? Are there
veteran socialists and labor organizers in
the area, as there are just about everywhere
in the country? Does your campus have any
chapters of nationwide socialist groups? Try
bringing in a speaker who has been active in
the recent teacher mobilizations—someone
who is coming from a similarly conservative
culture and facing the same issues as the
student workers would be inspiring, and
would also help them to better understand
their situation.
That said, it’s also important, when or-
ganizing, to listen to people: Do they not
understand that they are exploited workers,
or do they have other concerns that seem
more pressing to them? Maybe the problem
isn’t the conservative culture; after all, most
people in Berkeley, California, aren’t rising
up against their exploiters, either. Perhaps
the student workers see themselves more as
students than as workers, and would rather
organize around issues like tuition increases
and the need for more public funding for
their schools. If so, you and your fellow
organizers might consider shifting your em-
phasis. Don’t die on any hills! Remember
that no one issue or strategy is the “only
option going forward for substantive and
lasting change.” The future is collective,
and you and your fellow students will decide
together how to get there. Q(continued from page 5)Hell Toupee
OPPART / STEVE BRODNER Last month, this Steve Brodner illustration (which he did for
The Nation in 2015) was used as part of a rebuke to critics of
comedian Michelle Wolf after her pointed remarks at the
White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Activist Alan Marling
(@AEmarling) posted this image to Instagram after it was
projected on the side of the Federal Building in San Francisco.