31 Maxims of Organizing

Principles and Practices of Successful Organizers

The 31 Maxims of Organizing is the follow-up companion to The Rank-and-File Union Leadership Field Manual by J.D. Thomason. The organizing principles contained in this small handbook also serve as stand-alone guides to building winning campaigns. The 31 maxims were developed using tried-and-true techniques that have shaped successful efforts to effect change the world over.
Thomason's premise: organized labor in America has operated on assumptions that are no longer relevant. Everything from how we engage our members, how we structure our organizations and how we engage our communities must be re-examined. The era in which labor unions emerged (the age of industrialism) and the era in which labor unions achieved legal status (the age of liberal capitalism) produced truisms that were historically relevant to those periods. But in order for organized labor to remain relevant in the twenty-first century, our unions must adopt a new analysis relevant to today's rapidly changing economic and cultural environments and new, decentralized, holistic techniques for organizing.