Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World

by Jaz Brisack

Overview

A leader of the Starbucks and Tesla union movements shares stories from the front lines to help us organize our own workplaces and “better understand the aims and goals for a resurgent trade union movement and how workers all over the country can join in solidarity with it” (Senator Bernie Sanders).

Get on the Job and Organize is a compelling, stirring 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. Here, Brisack delivers practical advice on how workers can and should stand up for their rights, especially when electoral politics seem to have failed us.

With an accessible tone, a deep love of labor history, and profound empathy, Brisack puts recent efforts into the context of Americans’ long tradition of organizing. In the process, they show us that we, too, can improve our workplaces, from how to educate ourselves and our colleagues, to what backlash to expect and how to fight it, to what victory looks like even if the union doesn’t necessarily win.

A “fascinating insider account” (Publishers Weekly), richly detailed, and with never-before-reported scenes, Get on the Job and Organize is a bold and galvanizing call to fight for the workplaces we deserve.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668080795
Publisher:	Atria/One Signal Publishers
Publication date:	04/29/2025
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

With waves of citizens scrambling to organize around myriad causes, a book based on lived experience supporting those efforts is sure to come in handy. Will appeal to anyone following headlines about labor relations from either the corporation or employee side.”
—Booklist

“In this fascinating insider account, Brisack, a founding member of Starbucks Workers United, shares their experiences as a workers’ rights advocate, with a focus on their pivotal role in the campaign to unionize Starbucks... Brisack, who has since sought to organize Tesla, remains refreshingly optimistic, convinced that unionization can "pave the way for future liberation beyond our current comprehension of what is possible." Readers will be inspired by this David-vs.-Goliath tale.”
—Publisher's Weekly

"In the last few years, especially after the pandemic, one of the most inspiring things we've witnessed is the rise of the labor movement in America. All across the country, workers have been standing up and fighting back against the unprecedented levels of corporate greed that have been taking place. I appreciate Jaz's contributions in this book, which help us all better understand the aims and goals for a resurgent trade union movement and how workers all over the country can join in solidarity with it."
—Senator Bernie Sanders

"Have you ever wondered how a strike comes together? How about one of the most critical strikes the U.S. has seen in many decades? Have you ever wondered how an organizer is made? How about one of the most important organizers of the 21st century - a true guiding light of the labor movement in the U.S.? Jaz Brisack's Get on the Job and Organize will take you by the hand like a confidante and future comrade. The book demystifies the process of becoming an organizer and of working in a historic movement that has given hope to so many of us, bringing to life the story of Starbucks Workers United through lively anecdotes, genuine humor, and buoyant prose. Get on the Job and Organize is urgent reading, and a genuine gift to us all - a handbook for and a companion in struggle."
—Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox

"Here's the light to illuminate these dark times — an account of how workers take on corporate power and win. Even more inspiring, it's led by Gen Z. Starbucks Workers United has given new life to the American labor movement, and Jaz Brisack helped make it happen. Essential reading for anyone who cares about tackling economic inequality and saving democracy."
—Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor and author of Aftershock and Saving Capitalism

"Jaz has too much hometraining to rename this book, but this is not only a how-to change the world book, it is a percussive, necessary 'why we must change the world' book written by an activist who can write their ass off. Mandatory reading for humans in need of a literary elixir.”
—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

"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 has given us an account of the movement to organize Starbucks workers that is an education in the critical role that unions have to play in our current crisis of civilization. Part memoir and part altar call, Get on the Job and Organize is an invitation for all of us to be part of reconstructing an unequal economy.”
—Rev. William J. Barber, II, author of White Poverty

“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

“Jaz Brizack’s Get on the Job and Organize shows is a generous offering of exactly the kind of storytelling that fuels our resistance movements. This book grounds an account of organizing by committed workers in todays service economy in the long history of militant worker resistance in the US, including strikes and uprisings of enslaved people before and during the Civil War. Brisack shows what intersectional, multi-issue labor organizing looks like, pulls no punches about how difficult the current conditions are for resistance, and conveys how the solidarity that arises in everyday relationships can be cultivated to buttress urgent, fierce, effective coordinated attack on corporate power.”
—Dean Spade, author of Mutual Aid and Lover in a F*cked Up World

“A timely, well-written account from the front-lines of labor organizing that grabbed me from the opening scene. Get on the Job and Organize offers hope in dark times that should be of interest to anyone who cares about the struggles of the low-wage workers who make the economy go.”
—Gary Rivlin, author of Broke, USA and Saving Main Street

“By unionizing Starbucks, baristas brought the labor movement to the attention of a generation of young Americans, inspiring organizing drives at countless retail outlets across the country. Get On the Job and Organize continues that work. Part-propulsive personal narrative, part-organizing manual, Jaz Brisack's book offers indispensable answers for anyone who has wondered how Starbucks workers took on their boss, and how they might do the same.”
—Alex N. Press, staff writer, Jacobin

“Jaz Brisack has given us an account of the movement to organize Starbucks workers that is an education in the critical role that unions have to play in our current crisis of civilization. Part memoir and part altar call, Get on the Job and Organize is an invitation for all of us to be part of reconstructing an unequal economy.”
—Rev. William J. Barber, II, author of White Poverty

"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

“Get on the Job and Organize is an instant classic of American labor literature. Jaz Brisack bursts on the scene with first hand reports of workers’ struggles against corporate Goliaths of our time (think Nissan, Tesla, Starbucks) that are so fresh and direct they practically jump off the page.”
—Andy Levin

“Get on the Job and Organize is critical reading for anyone who wants to take on corporate power in the 21st century. Through stories from Jaz's historic organizing efforts and examples drawn from labor history, Jaz demonstrates how solidarity can bring the most powerful corporations on earth to the table — and that every organizing effort makes a difference for working people, win or lose.
—Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA

“For decades, corporate America has had organized labor on the back foot, and the whole working class has paid the price. Now a new generation of organizers and leaders are rising up to fight different, and win big. The rest of the labor movement and the whole working class needs to take the lessons of the brave Starbucks workers and fight smarter and harder to take back some dignity on and off the job. This book gives some of the inspiration, playbook, and lessons we all need to build a better labor movement and a better world.”
—Shawn Fain, president of the UAW

"As an organizer, Jaz Brisack has done what many would have considered impossible, helping workers fight for their rights under the most oppressive conditions. Now they've written an invaluable manual on how you can do the same. This book got me fired up to go kick some capitalist ass - read it!"
—Adam Conover, comedian and organizer

From the Publisher