I'd like your opinion about this

[ellenrr]

I have a friend who is a paid organizer. (Paid well, not $10/hour.)

He is organizing retail workers at Starbucks and the like. He has put a call out for activists to join him. He is paid by some foundation.

Of course labor organizers get paid, and well paid.

But I'm somewhat uneasy at the idea that someone is being paid to organize.

Does anyone have thoughts?

[factsarenotfair]

1. It's very strange that you are uneasy about someone getting paid to organize workers.

n/t

[ellenrr]

2. to add--

I compare the Walmart workers who have expressed support for the striking Walmart workers in Florida.
These guys risk losing their jobs, in an economy where it would be a long time til another comes along.

Isn't such courage and risk-taking inspiring, but also perhaps necessary to forming a resistance movement?

I think that if we are too comfortable, we are not really going to resist. (the topic of the o.p.)

[Notafraidtoo]

3. It should be a full time job.

A lot of work to do it well, shouldn't have time to do anything else, if charity heads and church leaders can be paid huge sums for their full time jobs i think organizing workers should also get appropriate pay.

[rurallib]

10. Knowing all the laws makes it worth the pay

the corporations are armed to the teeth with lawyers waiting to jump with both feet on the guys neck + most likely his (or her) life is in danger wherever he goes.

[handmade34]

4. depends on

who is paying him... I don't see a conflict unless what he is paid to do is immoral

[djean111]

5. It is curious that perhaps we have bought into the rightwing meme that people on the Left

(or whatever the left has morphed into these days) are hypocrites if they earn good money for work.
For instance, they jeer at Michael Moore for making money from his films.

[barbtries]

6. everyone has to make living.

i think it's great when people can make a living do good work.

[TomClash]

7. Paid

Paid well, paid often, always paid.

How can you organize for better pay, benefits and the right to bargain collectively if you don't pay your organizers? Isn't that incongruous?

[MADem]

8. Is he a union organizer, paid by a union?

What's the problem if that's the case?

Isn't that how it is done?

[Squinch]

9. Organizing to increase the numbers of Americans in unions benefits all of us. It's

of a lot more benefit to all of us than, say, being a Senator from Texas who reads Dr. Seuss. Ted Cruz is paid and no one thinks twice.

Of course he should be paid. This is not a hobby. This requires expertise and education. It should be an extremely well paid job.

[99th_Monkey]

11. "Poverty Pimp" <-- what poor people call "do-gooders" trying to help them

I learned this years ago, when I became Dignity Villages only paid "poverty '
pimp" during the village's early organizing years, when it was just getting
started and needed to get incorporated as a 501c3, etc. so I was hired by
a local philanthropist to "get 'er done".

I may have been a poverty pimp, but I was THEIR poverty pimp, working
to insure that their self-governance model became reality. They are still
rockin' and rollin' 13 years later. We often joked about this together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village

Granted labor organizing is a bit different than organizing homeless people,
but still ... I guess my point is that there are some legitimate reasons to
wonder about people getting paid to "do good"; but given the situation we
are stuck in today, there is no good way around it imho.

[ellenrr]

13. that's great what you did. I wouldn't call you a poverty pimp..

when I used to work in Newark, we called people poverty pimps who took money, but did nothing - and there were a lot of them.

but then there were a lot like you and me too, who did good.

I think being paid to do good can often be legitimate, but I disagree that "there is no good way around it."
Take the civil rights movement, or the feminist movement, or the farm worker's movement, or the gay liberation or disability rights----
if anyone in any of these liberation movements was paid - it was a very few and a very little money.
I'm not saying there is glory in being poor - I am poor - I KNOW there is nothing to romanticize about it--
but I do think peoples' motives are important. Is the $ primary, or is the cause.

[99th_Monkey]

14. Like I said, we often joked about it.

When I say there's no way around it, I meant like in examples you gave:
where most people are fired up and dedicated to the fight, only needing
a small percentage of peeps to be paid organizers, like in the examples
you gave.

It is a great question you raised though, so thanx for that.

[gopiscrap]

12. Research the organization

and if it sounds ok, then help

[Vincardog]

15. I support it. Where can I get one of those jobs?