Here we translate an article, "Seize the Hospitals!" ...But How?",
published on the website of Black Rose / Rosa Negra (BRRN), our sisterorganization in the United States. -In May 2023, several Black Rose/RosaNegra (BRRN) activists working in the healthcare sector participated inthe Health Autonomy Convergence (HAC) in Durham, North Carolina. Here istheir collective reflection and analysis of the event and the prospectsfor radical union organizing in the health sector in general.Last May, 200 health care workers gathered in Durham, North Carolina,for the first Health Autonomy Convergence. Many other healthcare workerswanted to participate but could not, as capacity was reached in lessthan a day after registration opened. This is not surprising, given whatwe have experienced since the start of the pandemic, and the failures ofthe racist capitalist system that we see every day as we try to providecare in this broken world.It was important that this was a conference aimed specifically athealthcare workers, rather than a gathering to discuss healthcare in anabstract or theoretical way. We believe it is essential to encourage anorganizing orientation among radicals, which means shifting the focusfrom the WHAT (such as the health care issue) to the WHO (such as healthcare workers). health). As healthcare workers, we need spaces to connectwith others who share the same needs and struggles as us, and who facethe same bosses in the healthcare industry against which we must buildpower.Among anarchists in the United States, organizational orientation israre. It is more common for anarchists and related anarchists to beoriented toward the activist world of issue-based projects andideologically closed collectives. This is neither surprising nor limitedto anarchists alone, given that most American communities today are cutoff from any memory of lasting and transformative collective struggle.The norm on the American left is spectacle: protests or marches, oftenorganized by professional activists, that appeal to the media or "thepublic" without critical engagement with those who have the power torespond to our demands. American anarchists can take these protests tothe streets, but many of them still lack a coherent sense of how aprotest can build power for the mass of people. More recently,anti-authoritarian political projects are largely internally focused,emphasizing how we speak and how to decolonize our individual thoughtsand social relationships. There is an unmistakable sense of resignationthat the thing we need - a genuine anarchist social revolution - is ahopelessly unrealistic vision to be invoked purely as rhetoric, ratherthan something we can make practical progress towards in the here and now.Among anti-authoritarian health workers, political projects tend towardstreet doctor collectives, artisanal herbalism projects, efforts tochange the way we talk to our patients, or perhaps a writing andpropaganda project with other radical health workers. These types ofactivist projects also made up the majority of sessions at HAC. Theseprojects can indeed make useful contributions, but without a consciousplan on how to connect them to a broader movement that builds and usesthe power of health workers, and without an active process to reach outand bring about previously non-politicized health workers, theseprojects often end up creating an insular subculture: separated fromsociety, rather than engaged in struggle within it. Without a massmovement capable of actively embracing the vast swaths of dissatisfiedhealthcare workers by proposing a real strategy to challenge thehorrific conditions we face and, more broadly, to attack the healthcaresystem murderous capitalist who creates these conditions, we will remainisolated and largely powerless.As BRRN members, we were motivated to participate in the HAC to sharewhat an organizing perspective within healthcare can look like. Wewanted to show that there is an alternative to the default activistmodel, and share how healthcare workers can take simple steps toorganize - a necessary step in a systemic change strategy and ultimatelyof account, of social revolution.At the HAC, the slogan chosen by the conference organizers was: "Takeover the hospitals". We completely agree, both emotionally andpractically. We agree because taking over hospitals is something we canactually do, if we are powerful and organized enough to do it. If wewant to liberate our healthcare system and make it something that iscontrolled by workers, patients and neighborhoods, then as healthcareworkers we must physically take over hospitals. But at the HAC, weunfortunately have not seen how this slogan could become reality, apartfrom some historical discussions on past movements. The idea of radicalchange, of mass collective action, of the seizure of hospitals, of arevolution, remains an abstract slogan if there is no explicit link towhat we are doing here and NOW.To build our vision of collective organization in healthcare, we set upa convergence panel during which healthcare workers shared theirexperiences of organizing in the workplace. Participants shared theirdiverse experiences - a union nurse at a large urban hospital went onstrike and organized to transform the union, a non-union nurse at a homehealth facility spoke about her first steps in the organization, asocial worker spoke of a successful organizing campaign in a state withguaranteed labor rights, and a nurse spoke of the challenges of astalled campaign at a southern teaching hospital-our hope was to givepractical examples of what organizing in healthcare can look like and tomotivate to start something similar. Based on the conversations thattook place during the workshop and the responses that followed, it seemsthat it worked: participants were able to make connections with theirown experiences in the workplace and asked for advice to face their ownchallenges. After seeing how other healthcare workers were able to buildpower and make change in their hospitals, they said they felt moreinspired and empowered to take action.We paired this panel on organizing experiences with a workshopdescribing the stages of workplace organizing in the healthcare sectorand showing how it is an essential part of revolutionary struggle.Organizing in the workplace is not part of the experience of most healthcare workers at a time when unionization rates are at an all-time lowand online activism often takes the place of rooted social movements. Webelieve it is important to reintroduce workers to basic tools such asworkplace mapping, one-on-ones, and creating an organizing committee,and to practice these tools together so that we can overcome theanxieties of doing this difficult work with our colleagues. Thisworkshop went a little more unevenly. A few workshop participantsexpressed discomfort with the one-on-one organizing model, when we haveintentional conversations with our colleagues to listen, stir them up,and invite them to take action. Their concern was that it seemedmanipulative to start a conversation with a goal and the intention ofasking someone to join an organizing campaign. Since we can't do much inlife without asking other people to do things with us, this responseseemed disappointing and disempowering to them. But other workshopparticipants said they found the organizing skills useful and practical.Not only are these skills often not accessible to radicals, but whenthey are, they are generally disconnected from any revolutionaryproject. Unions use and teach organizing techniques, but most often todevelop their own top-down bureaucracies, and they sharply separateclass and class struggles to create movements that challenge the stateand capitalism.Participating in the HAC also allowed us to understand the conditions ofhealthcare workers across the country, as well as the organizingopportunities and challenges. We learned that there is a strong desirefor radical and activist organizing within the health sector. We sawthat a group of health care workers were willing to dedicate months ofwork to organizing this three-day conference, and that hundreds ofpeople were enthusiastic to come from all over the world. country toparticipate. We met some comrades who are organizing movements withunions or campaigns like the Do No Harm Coalition and DPH Must Divest.However, the majority of conference participants sympathetic toanarchism were not oriented toward mass organizing or strategic powerbuilding, whether through lack of interest or lack of 'opportunity.We see this orientation as reflecting a huge unmet need to buildstructures for mass organizing, for organizing outside of our narrowsocial circles, for organizing that aims to build power. We believethere is a need to continue to develop and promote concrete examples ofradical organizing models in healthcare, to show how organizing can beboth a more sustainable way to develop a supportive culture and a way tobuild and exercise our own power. Furthermore, the relatively low numberof unionized participants reflects the low rate of unionization in thehealth sector (even if it is higher than in other sectors). We need toorganize in spaces like this where we reach non-union healthcareworkers, while also organizing in union-only spaces like Labor Notes.As we approach the convergence with our orientation toward massorganizing for power, we have seen trends in left-wing and anarchistactivism reflected at the HAC, which is disturbing and sobering. At thesame time, we view the existence of such a conference, and the work thatorganizers and participants were willing to do to make it happen, as asign of hope for the potential healthcare workers to fight together fora revolutionary future. We hope the HAC is part of a growing trend ofactivist organizing in the healthcare sector.https://bxl.communisteslibertaires.org/2024/02/14/emparez-vous-des-hopitaux-mais-comment/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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