Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer

Suffragist and labor leader Agnes Nestor (1880-1948). Source: Public domain

In response to workplace changes introduced by management, workers took action in many ways. Their strongest response was to form unions. In this lesson, students read about how people organized in a Chicago glove-making factory, and then went on strike.

Students read and discuss Agnes Nestor’s story “Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer,” and then are put in the role of strike participants, who must assess the importance of union recognition: Should they continue to strike for their union even if all other demands have been satisfied? In this activity, students will become aware of a range of causes for strikes, empathize with the problems of workers on strike, and weigh the importance of having a union or not.

The Power In Our Hands — Available for Download

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This is one of the 16 lessons available from The Power In Our Hands. Other lessons available for individual download are:

Opening

• Acknowledgments, Notes to the Teacher, and Introduction

Unit I: Basic Understandings

• Organic Goodie Simulation
• Who Makes History?
• What Rights Do We Have?

Unit II: Changes in the Workplace/”Scientific Management”

• Paper Airplane Simulation
• Free to Think, Talk, Listen, or Sing
• Modern Times
• “Taylorizing” Burgers: A Fantasy

Unit III: Defeats, Victories, Challenges

• The Homestead Strike
• Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer
• Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike

Unit IV: Our Own Recent Past

• It’s a Mystery — White Workers Against Black Workers
• Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?
• 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike
• Union Maids

Unit V: Continuing Struggle

• Shutdown! — Confronting Plant Closures
• Labor Songs

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