What’s happening on the federal level of our government right now is scary. Billionaires and corporations have consolidated their political power and are pursuing aims that were previously more obscure, openly profiteering from slashing public services that we rely on and dismembering regulatory agencies that protect us.
In many ways, the Action Center on Race and the Economy was founded precisely to meet this moment. We have years of experience supporting our basebuilding partners in building corporate campaigns with an explicit racial lens, looking beyond current political leaders to the corporations and billionaires behind them. Our corporate campaigns have focused on the finance and tech corporate actors who systematically target communities of color for their most extractive practices, ultimately harming all of us.
Bargaining for the Common Good emerged from that same political landscape. BCG was founded around the principle that labor fights and community organizing campaigns can leverage their collective power to win systemic change by building their campaigns together. Over the years, BCG has grown into a network of unions, community groups, and racial justice organizations across the country who work together to fight and win bolder campaigns against common targets.
Today, ACRE and BCG are doubling down on our vision to win campaigns that move power and resources from the most wealthy people and corporations to working people, poor people, and people of color. In order to make this liberatory vision a reality, ACRE and Bargaining for the Common Good are merging under one banner.
The only way to protect our democracy and defeat the coalition of billionaires, corporations, and racist right-wing politicians in power right now is to build alignments that are stronger in numbers, bolder in demands, and fearless in envisioning what’s possible for all working people. We know that bargaining for the common good is a crucial strategy to that end. We also know that these collective fights require an explicitly racial justice lens. That’s why, moving forward, ACRE is investing more of our resources to coordinate, build capacity, train, and support building BCG’s community-labor alignments in regions across the country.
The community-labor alignments represented in the BCG network have real power to win material change for the most vulnerable among us. For example, bargaining for the common good was used when the Chicago Teachers Union demanded that the Chicago Public Schools bar ICE from making arrests without a warrant on school grounds. Because those demands are explicitly included in CTU’s 2019 contract, today, students and their families are assured that they are still protected from unwarranted raids on school grounds.
Until this year, ACRE has co-convened BCG with the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University and the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at Rutgers University. For years, each organization has dedicated staff to building and supporting BCG coalitions in regions across the country, like California, Chicago, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Portland, and Tennessee. Here are some examples of what our partner organizations in the BCG network are doing:
- In California, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) is partnering with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and AFSCME Local 3299 on a campaign to solve the housing crisis in California by moving pension fund and university endowment investments out of fossil fuels and other extractive industries and into affordable housing.
- In Minnesota, community organizations and unions coordinated their contract expiration dates for over 10,000 members in 2024 to come together for a strategic week of action focused on dignified work, stable housing, a livable planet and good schools. Click here to read more about it.
- In Tennessee, BCG is supporting Tennessee for All (TN4All), which is a statewide community, labor, and faith coalition that is taking strides towards challenging and transforming Tennessee’s political and economic system through building community and worker power. We are organizing in rural communities to demand community benefits agreements from automakers and Elon Musk’s supercomputer and to fight for fully funded public schools in the face of a right-wing attack on the public education system.
To get a sense of what else is possible through bargaining for the common good strategies, take a look at other sample bargaining demands here.
Moving forward, Bargaining for the Common Good is the organizing arm of the Action Center on Race and the Economy. To that end, BCG’s dedicated organizing staff have moved to ACRE and ACRE’s organizing work will focus on strengthening and expanding the BCG network. Check out our updated staff page to meet the new staff and our updated About Us page for our refreshed mission!
Looking forward, we are excited and dedicated to continuing to build the people power needed to defeat corporations and billionaires. Together, we will win the affordable housing, clean energy, public education, and equitable healthcare we all deserve.
Onwards,
Saqib Bhatti