Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World

Have you ever had a job you wanted to make better? Ever wondered how to start an organizing campaign in your workplace? Jaz Brisack, a co-founder of Starbucks Workers United, will discuss how workers can take action to unionize their own workplaces while sharing their story of organizing at companies ranging from Nissan to Starbucks to Tesla to Ben & Jerry’s.

Jaz Brisack is a union organizer and cofounder of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping organize the first unionized Starbucks in the United States. As the organizing director for Workers United Upstate New York & Vermont, they also worked with organizing committees at companies ranging from Ben & Jerry’s to Tesla. Jaz is currently a Practitioner in Residence at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Learn more about their work at the Labor Center.