Unionising the idealists?

In America, a lot of political activism is big business. While the activities of PACs and political consultants are probably well known here, I suspect it’s not well known that many of the very large number of young workers canvassing door to door for various progressive causes are paid employees of one organisation, the Fund for Public Interest Research. Organisations such as the Sierra Club outsource their door to door canvassing to this group. In these times reports on the experiences of the workers involved, and how the Fund resisted their unionisation efforts.

Miller and Harris’ personal stories—of idealism beset by frustration and turned to disillusionment, and of “mysterious firingsâ€? and “staff purgesâ€?—are wholly typical of the many accounts recorded in Activism, Inc., a new book by Dana Fisher, a sociology professor at Columbia University. Fisher interviewed hundreds of canvassers over a period of several years, with the permission of an organization that in her work goes under the pseudonym, “the People’s Project.â€? This organization is acknowledged to be one of the largest canvassing organizations in the United States.

Fisher found that canvassing experience severely limits the entry points for young people looking for a career in social justice. According to Fisher, the canvass industry yields a remarkably “small percentage [of canvassers who find] other work in politics after canvassing.â€? Far more often these young people go to the private sector. (This summer, Miller took a job with a solar panel installation company.) Activism, Inc. suggests that rather than a breeding ground for new generations of grassroots activism, the industry is eating the left’s young.

But who can change this system? The Fund has plenty of clients, and the clients get what they want—cheap lists of new donors. It’s the canvassers themselves who provide that value, through the investment of their youthful energy and political passion. In Los Angeles, this group was trying to ensure that their investment brought sound returns. Can we say the same for progressive politics?