Come out and bring some coworkers to learn the background and basics of workers’ inquiry!

Workers are on the move—fighting bosses and organizing unions, struggling for workplace democracy. A workers’ inquiry is a tool to understand and amplify these struggles. Our workshop will examine two recent workers' inquires among café and non-profit workers. Participants will learn how to design and practice carrying out a workers’ inquiry in their own workplace or industry in order to develop new tactics and strategies to build worker power.

  In the first half of the workshop, labor educators Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter will discuss class composition theory and the methodology of workers’ inquiries by presenting two case examples among café and nonprofit workers. Robert will recount his workers’ inquiry into the nonprofit industry detailed in his forthcoming Rebels for the System: NGOs, Capitalism and the Labor Movement (Haymarket, 2026). Kevin will report on his recently coauthored “Class Composition in the Café Sector” (Notes from Below, 2025) and speak about his forthcoming Reading Struggles: Working-Class Self-Activity from Detroit to Turin and Back Again (AK Press).

  In the second part of the workshop, participants will learn how to design and practice carrying out a workers’ inquiry in their own workplace. Participants will learn the to use “full fountain pen” workers’ narratives and carry out an inquiry into the technical and class composition of their workplace, employer and/or industry in order to develop new tactics, strategies, and objectives that recompose worker power.

FOOD PROVIDED.

RVSP encouraged for accurate count.