Book Talk with Jaz Brisack: Get on the Job and Organize

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with author Jaz Brisack. Get on the Job and Organize tells the inspiring story of the fight to unionize workers at Starbucks and Tesla in an era of political and social unrest. As one of the exciting new faces of the American Labor Movement, Brisack argues that while workers often organize when their place of work is toxic, it’s equally important to organize when you love your job. They frame the struggle within the context of America’s long tradition of labor organizing and provide the nuts and bolts of a campaign — from how to educate yourself and your colleagues, to what backlash can be expected and how to fight it, to what victory looks like even if the union doesn’t necessarily “win.”

Jaz Brisack is a union organizer and co-founder of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize. After spending a year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping organize the first unionized Starbucks in the United States. As the organizing director for Workers United Upstate New York & Vermont, they also worked with organizing committees at companies ranging from Ben & Jerry’s to Tesla.

A Labor Studies event. Co-sponsored by the Labor Archives and Research Center.