by Jaz Brisack
Atria/One Signal Publishers
4/29/2025, hardcover
SKU: 9781668080795
For fans of Fight Like Hell and A History of America in Ten Strikes, the leader of the Starbucks and Tesla union movements shares stories from the front lines to help us organize our own workplaces.
Get on the Job and Organize is a compelling, inspirational narrative of the Starbucks and Tesla unionization efforts, telling the broader story of the new, nationwide labor movement unfolding in our era of political and social unrest. As one of the exciting new faces of the American Labor Movement, Jaz Brisack argues that while workers often organize when their place of work is toxic, it's equally important to organize when you love your job.
With an accessible voice and profound insight, Brisack puts everything into the context of America's long tradition of labor organizing and shows us how we too can organize our workplaces, from how to educate yourself and your colleagues, to what backlash can be expected and how to fight it, to what victory looks like even if the union doesn't necessarily "win."
Reviews:
"This book is a love letter to labor organizing, at once earnest and hard-nosed. Brisack takes us inside Starbucks Workers United, offering an in-depth look at what a worker-led campaign can look like--the ups and downs, headaches and heartbreaks. Their devotion shows on every page, as do practical calculations of power and strategy. The labor movement could use 1000 more just like them." -- Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back and From the Ashes
"Jaz Brisack may be one of the most famous union organizers in the country, but their invigorating debut, Get on the Job and Organize, constantly emphasizes the power of the collective. Organizing a union is tough at the best of times; organizing the first-ever union at a famously anti-union megacorporation seemed nearly impossible, but in 2021, Brisack and their coworkers at a Starbucks in Buffalo, NY did just that. Their victory provided a much-needed shot in the arm for the American labor movement, and inspired thousands of other Starbucks workers around the country to join the fight. Here, Brisack unpacks the real story behind one the biggest union campaigns in modern U.S history via brisk, readable prose that feels part manifesto, and part spy novel. Throughout the book, they share important lessons, strategies, and tactics for building power on the shop floor and going toe-to-toe with the boss, taking a warts'n'all approach to the messy, complicated, deeply human work of organizing. This book is an essential read for every aspiring union organizer, every fed-up worker, and anyone who dreams of a better, fairer world." -- Kim Kelly, author of Fight Like Hell
"Unionizing shop-by-shop, site-by-site is today's strategy for taking on overwhelming brands like Starbucks and Amazon. Jaz Brisack offers us a blow-by-blow of tactics chosen and considered in their campaigns in Buffalo, NY, that can inspire, inform and engage future organizers across the country and around the world." -- Sarah Schulman, author of The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity
About the Author:
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.