The child labor protection rollbacks across the United States are pissing me off enough that I'm about ready to hit the streets myself and scream at lawmakers to stop doing this shit

Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how to find groups that may already be doing this, or setting them up myself if they don't exist.

Does anyone on cohost have previous experience with participating in or setting up protests...?


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in reply to @bck356's post:

my process for this would be something like, identify the national organization which has championed your issue best, I would normally expect the ACLU to be on top of this, but it looks like they haven't put together a national response like they have for other issues, like protecting trans rights, abortion access, even stuff like "right to learn" preventing censorship in education, etc. I'm seeing scattered statements about undocumented children in terrible working conditions, but nothing about the child labor law issues yet. Local chapters do cover more issues, especially if something is having higher impact locally, so it's worth seeing if your local chapter has started working on it. If not, maybe give them a call or an email. They'd love to hear what people in their operating area care about, maybe someone on the inside has been pushing for a response but hasn't been given any resources to go after it because they're not sure if the public support is there. And perhaps they'll direct you to an organization that is working that issue locally.

Exhaust all potential experienced coordinators before moving on to setting things up yourself. The resources and general know-how that experienced activists can bring to a movement is invaluable, even just offhand comments from such a person can help you avoid common pitfalls and see a lot more success in your protest.

Beyond the ACLU, maybe check out if there's any particularly strong unions in your area. Unions generally aren't as big on activism as they once were, but this is a serious worker's rights issue, and also threatens their bargaining positions by increasing the labor supply. The AFL-CIO seems to be pretty active in opposing the weakening of child labor laws in Iowa, for example.

anyway I'm talking a bigger game than I actually have experience with lol, but I hope this is helpful. Good luck! I bet cohost would love to hear about your experience on this. :) I know I would!

This seems like a good starting point indeed, I found the local chapter for Missouri (Leaving this for myself when I get home https://aclu-mo.org/en ) and yeah it doesn't seem to mention anything about the weakening of child labor laws even though there's been some significant regression on that front in Missouri (as I posted about a few weeks ago at https://cohost.org/bck356/post/1356416-a-couple-of-relevant ).

Leaving myself the link for the Missouri AFL-CIO for later too: https://moaflcio.org/

Thanks for the info you are based

one more thing, contact your state-level representatives. Partially just to register your complaint in their statistics, but also the staffers in that office probably see a lot of faces in connection with these issues, they might have a good idea for what organizations need your support. Even if your rep happens to be Republican, which looks likely, the numbers still do have some sway, and the staffers you speak to may not agree with the rep politically and may be excited to help out in the small way they can. It's a small chance, these offices do tend to self-sort, but not perfectly, and conservatives not actively holding office are more likely to agree with you on issues like this anyway.

you could also just hit up a nearby Dem rep and talk to their staffers as well haha

it may even be helpful to reach out to a federal-level representative? Cori Bush is great as far as I can tell, I bet her office has some great folks. Federal representatives always keep some portion of their office focused on local issues, like constituent services. They're a step removed from all this, but I'm sure many of her staffers were once involved more directly in state government and may still have connections worth chasing down.

I used to send physical letters to representatives a decent amount when I was a kid, I remember the first letter I ever sent to one was about a friend of mine in fourth grade who didn't have the money to get lunch so I asked one of the Arkansas senators at the time to help my friend get lunches for free. I think I got a form letter back in response that was totally irrelevant to what I asked, but I wish I kept it.

I fell off of it when I never got anything but form letters back. I guess I could start trying again, but it always felt like a particularly ineffective means of communication even though it's supposed to be the premier one.

some representatives are better about it than others for sure. I think calling is underrated because you'll actually get someone's attention for a second, and be able to get immediate feedback. there's something to be said about making a physical object show up at their office. and of course emails are both the easiest to tabulate and to respond to.

find local groups that have it as their issue and get on their mailing list or whatever. DSA for all it's faults (it's not THAT bad, especially at most local levels) acts as a pretty good aggregator for these things if you ask around, etc

This is how much of a noob I am, I have to look up what DSA is

Oh Democratic Socialists of America, yeah that makes sense. No experience with this organization whatsoever. I think I will chase up what @modulusshift posted first but these guys are probably good to talk to about labor issues too

the big reason I recommend them is most, not all, local chapters tend to do newsletters highlighting local causes and some have event calendars for them, but also it's usually a pretty effective grapevine if you're not participating but still in touch

yeah its true but, i mean the current "professionals" seem to mostly have their horizons set to "beg the police to lead us around downtown, hire some credentialed speakers, maybe write a cuss on a sign if we're feeling real spicy"

so we gotta build new professionals somehow, ones that have some deeper concept of where power comes from and why pressure campaigns are called that