Activity

A simple way to help people tell a story by providing prompts that keep the story moving and demand richer description and reflection.

Sitting in a circle, participants take turns telling a story with the facilitator (or as Boal says, the Joker) providing the links:

Participant 1: "My friend called me this morning and told me she was going to quit school..."

Joker: "because..."

Participant 2: "...she needs to make money and she feels like school has no meaning."

Joker: "But..."
...

This is a simple tool for equalizing participation in small group discussion and raising awareness of how much people speak. It's probably not original, but I can't recall seeing it before.

Flow:
In a smallish group (ten people) in one of my courses, I prepared a set of chits -- small rectangular pieces of card stock (cut up index cards) -- and gave each participant five chits (including me).

(adapted by Matt Noyes from Running a UPS-Style Contract Campaign, by the Teamster Rank & File Education and Legal Defense Fund)

Summary:
The answer to most workplace and union democracy problems is the same: you have to organize with your coworkers. Easy to say, harder to do. With no staff, nobody on the union payroll, everyone working their regular jobs, how can you build and sustain an organization that is democratic and participatory? How can you spread the work around so it doesn't all fall on a few people? How can you keep track and hold people accountable? How can you avoid burnout and keep the group open to new people?

These power lines are reproductions of the original (very large) power lines created by participants in a strategy workshop I helped design and facilitate for members of the opposition New Directions caucus in Transport Workers Local 100 in New York City, in 1999. (Click on the images for larger pop-up versions.)