Enabling Trust

Temporary or defined solidarity is built around mission. We draw wisdom from unions and other large scale and fast acting movement builders, as listeners and participants among hundreds or thousands of people who do not necessarily know each other.

In our own work, we are wondering about sustained solidarity, which is built on personal trust and love. In sustained solidarity, we need to know that people have our backs even when times are tough and will find ways to act where they can around our personal needs, too. While large scale and fast acting movements have this seed at the center, can it, too, be scaled?

There is no shortcut. Although relationship building activities might help us have more intimate conversations, icebreakers and workshops cannot make up for the fact that few of us are truly secure at work or can turn to colleagues for help when there are risks in getting involved.

Instead of trying to build trust, we seek to build solidarity infrastructure: systems in which trust can naturally occur and relationships last beyond the job title of the moment. For example, we’re asking what it looks like to foster a sustainable organization in which:

• No one gets “fired,” and no one is obligated to work beyond capacity.

• We embrace real talk — including direct communication about our needs, expectations, boundaries, and differences, and a willingness to get through, not around or away from, conflict.

• Mutual aid is centered — recognizing that there are some things, like health costs, that cannot bypass traditional currency.