Author: Dean

Should Social Movement Work be Paid?

Thursday, January 5, 2023

7PM EST/ 4PM PST

Sponsored by the Patricia Wismer Professorship in Gender and Diversity at Seattle University, and BCRW

REGISTER HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dean-spade-should-social-movement-work-be-paid-tickets-483783729157

The COVID pandemic and George Floyd/Brionna Taylor rebellion of 2020 brought new attention to the role of mutual aid work in surviving crises and organizing resistance. People started thousands of projects giving out food, rent money, and bail money, doing errands for each other, providing childcare, emotional support, transportation, and other essentials. Many people learned more about the histories of mutual aid in social movements as vectors of survival and mobilization. The long-time critique of non-profitization of social movements reached newly politicized people as debates surfaced about whether to register mutual aid projects as non-profits. 

In this talk, Dean Spade will explore a vexing question being discussed in many movement groups: should people be paid to do this work? Should groups should seek funding to create staff positions or stipends for people participating in the work? Is it a matter of racial, economic, gender and disability justice to pay people to be part of movement groups? Does the process of raising money tie groups too closely to philanthropists or governments? Does paying participants limit the potential growth of movements? Is payment the best way to recognize labor in groups? Is paying people a good way to reduce barriers to participation? How does paying people impact the culture of social movement work? Does it institutionalize the work? These questions have immediate practical significance, and also unearth larger themes about what it means to do resistance organizing within capitalism where people are demobilized, isolated, and struggling to meet basic needs. 

This event is a continuation of the Building Capacity for Mutual Aid Groups workshop series, which started as a series of four online workshops led by Dean Spade:

Workshop 1 – No Masters, No Flakes! (October 28, 2021)

Workshop 2 – Decision-Making (November 11, 2021)

Workshop 3 – Skills for Abolitionist Practice (December 9, 2021)

Workshop 4 – Bringing New People into the Work (January 20, 2022)

ACCESSIBILITY

ASL and live transcription will be provided. This event is made possible by the Patricia Wismer Professorship in Gender and Diversity at Seattle University.