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About The Rank-and-Filer
Every Friday The Rank-and-Filer offers a new post. We include essays relevant to direct workers in the social services, medical care and community organizing. You'll find histories of social movements, critical analysis of current politics, and accessible versions of academic debates. Read it over, write comments, and submit your own work. Write us!. Check out more about The Rank-and-Filer to learn more.
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We are phasing out the mass emails we've been sending out, and transitioning over to this sign-up list. Click on the link, fill out your email and name, and we'll keep you in the loop for new posts each week.
Old Posts by Month
Reposted Book Excerpts
From Voices from Our Past by Richard Hunter:
On Bertha Capen Reynolds, Part 1
Dissenting Voices: Social Work, Socialism and the Labor Movement, Part 2
Unemployed Organizing in the Great Depression, Part 3
The Crisis of Social Work in the Onset of the Great Depression, Part 4
The Discussion Clubs of the Rank-and-File Movement, Part 5
From Known to the Authorities: Anarchists in Social Work:
Essay #1: "An Anarchist in Social Work", by Martin Gilbert:
An Anarchist in Social Work (Part 1)
Using Libertarian Ideas in Group Work (Part 2)
Avoid Static Authoritarian Thinking (Part 3)
Anarchist Social Work? (Part 4)
On Bertha Capen Reynolds, Part 1
Dissenting Voices: Social Work, Socialism and the Labor Movement, Part 2
Unemployed Organizing in the Great Depression, Part 3
The Crisis of Social Work in the Onset of the Great Depression, Part 4
The Discussion Clubs of the Rank-and-File Movement, Part 5
From Known to the Authorities: Anarchists in Social Work:
Essay #1: "An Anarchist in Social Work", by Martin Gilbert:
An Anarchist in Social Work (Part 1)
Using Libertarian Ideas in Group Work (Part 2)
Avoid Static Authoritarian Thinking (Part 3)
Anarchist Social Work? (Part 4)
Old Posts of Original Material by Contributors
- Budget Cuts and Corporate Welfare in a Recession, (Part 1), Nate Franco, February 2013
- Can Unions Help with Problems Faced by Agency Therapists?, Frank Kashner, December 21, 2012
- Fired for Organizing, Paul Fudder, 2010
- Building a Militant Labor Movement of Social Service Workers, Labor Working Group of the Radical Social Work Group, December 2012
- On My Suicide Note, Joe Morris, October 2012
- Book Review of Paul Robinson's The Freudian Left, Ray Luxemburg, September 17, 2012
- Critiquing the AIDS Bureaucracy: An Open Letter to the Canadian AIDS Society, Nora Butler Burke, Zack Marshall and Viviane Namaste, October 2012
- Reflections from a Non-Profit Union Shop Steward, Emma Schulman, July 2012
- Billable Hours, Medical Models and the Waste of School Social Workers, Lucianna, August 31, 2012
- Shaping Our Lives, Peter Beresford, August 2012
- Investing in Community Democracy: Laursen's Response, Eric Laursen, August 10, 2013
- What They Gain, What We Lose, Michelle O'Brien, July 27 2013
- Poet 911, July 6, 2012
- A Call to Organize, Paul Fudder, June 22, 2012
- Mobilize and Prepare the Profession for Undoing Structural Racism, Members of the Anti-Racist Alliance, June 29 2012
- Open Letter to Radical Social Workers, Paul Fudder, May 25, 2012
Reposted Analysis and Essays
- Union Jobs - A Way Out of Poverty for Blacks and Latinos, David R. Jones, December 20th, 2012
- An Immodest Proposal, Rewarding Women's Work to End Poverty, the Women's Committee of 100/Project 2002, March 23, 2000 from SWAA
- The Illusion of Social Work Professionalism, Hilary Searing, 2006
- At HHS, Nowhere to Go But Up, Eric Laursen, January 21, 2013 from The Indypendent
- San Francisco Welfare Department Struggles in the 1960s and 1970s, Barri Boone, Summer 1982 from Processed World
- President Obama and the Crisis of Black America: Interview with Cornel West , Interview of Cornel West by Dan LaBotz, Winter 2013 from New Politics
- Growth of Fee-for-Service Social Work, NASW-NYC, December 2012
- Occupy Ljubljana: Statement from social workers in Slovenia, the Social Workers of Occupy Ljubljana, 2011
- AIDS and Gentrification, Sara Schulman, November 20, 2012 from Against the Grain
- Obama’s Steady Road to Austerity, Glen Ford, January 9, 2013 from Black Agenda Report
- Honoring the 44th Anniversary of the Black Panther's Free Breakfast Program, Marc Mascarenhas-Swan, January 13, 2013 from Organizing Upgrade
- The Flood Next Time: Life After Emergency, Alyssa Battistoni, December 2012 from Jacobin
- Showing up: TANF and the social work profession, Melinda Lewis, June 12, 2012 from Classroom to Capital
- The Young and the Leftless: An Open Letter on Organization, Members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization
- Social Exclusion: A Social Worker's View, Hilary Searing, 2004 from the Barefoot Social Worker
- About the Social Welfare Action Alliance (SWAA), Social Welfare Action Alliance
- A Socialist Vision of Eldercare, Johanna Brenner, September 11, 2012 from Ask a Socialist
- Progressive Social Work Manifesto, Hong Kong, Progressive Social Work Network
- Nonprofits and Housing Privatization in New Orleans, Against the Grain, October 30, 2012
- New York Study Group: Reform and Revolution, the New York Study Group, 2010 & 2012 from Organizing Upgrade
- New York Study Group: Speaking Up, the New York Study Group, Fall 2010 from Organizing Upgrade
- A Cloward-Piven Strategy for 2012, Bhaskar Sunkara, October 22, 2012 from In These Times
- Criminalizing the Homeless, Criminalizing the Rest of Us, Against the Grain, September 4, 2012
Old Postings by the Editor
- Working the Textbook Grind: A Workshop on Marxism for Social Work Students, The Rank-and-FilerOctober 2007
- Renewing Labor Struggle in NYC Social Services, The Rank-and-Filer, December 29, 2012
- Fee-for-Service Workers: Are You Being Denied Your Rights?, Labor Working Group, January 2013
- Welfare Rights and Feminism, The Rank-and-Filer, June 2012
- Radical Social Work Group Reading Group on Workplace Struggles in the Social Services, Labor Working Group of the Radical Social Work Group
- The History of Radical Social Work Unions
- We Are Blessed: On RIPPD and Mental Health Activism, The Rank-and-Filer, November 2010
- Warning Sharps: Betrayal and Identity in a Harm-Reduction Non-Profit, The Rank-and-Filer, April 2011
- Managing the Crisis: Gay Men's Health Crisis and the Growth of Nonprofits, The Rank-and-Filer, May 2011
- Turning the Complex Upside Down: Rethinking Nonprofit Structures, The Rank-and-Filer, June 15, 2012
- The Role of Social Workers in Occupy Wall Street: Prefigurative Politics and Anti-Austerity Organizing, The Rank-and-Filer, May 18, 2012
- The 1965 New York City Welfare Strike and Worker-Client Alliances, The Rank-and-Filer, May 19, 2012
More Reposted Analysis & Essays
- Putting Social Justice Back into Social Work, Michael A. Dover, September 2009 from SWAA
- Health Care Reform or Ruin?, Milton Fisk, September/October 2012 from Against the Current
- Government Action, Not Social Work, Can Tackle Poverty, Hilary Searing, 2007 from the Barefoot Social Worker
- Social Work in Austerity Greece, Dora Dimitra Teloni, March 2012 from SWAN
- Fairer Sex: Feminism and Care Labor, Sarah Leonard, August 2012 from Jacobin
- Lean Production: What’s Really Hurting Public Education, Will Johnson, September 12, 2012 from Jacobin
- Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?, Bruce A. Dixon, July 22, 2009 from Black Agenda Report
- A New & Unsettling Force, Willie Baptist, September 2010 from Organizing Upgrade
- Disabled people face a tidal wave of prejudice and discrimination, Peter Beresford, August 30, 2012 from The Guardian
- Resolution of the Poverty Summit & The Assembly to End Poverty , reposted from the Social Welfare Action Alliance, Feb 2012 from SWAA
- The Roots of Client Violence Against Social Workers, Hilary Searing, 2006 from the Barefoot Social Worker
- Ask a Socialist About Healthcare, Meizhu Lui, July 24 from Ask a Socialist
- On the Front Lines: In Defense of Public Sector Workers and Services , Freedom Road Socialist Organization, July 13, 2013
- Why attack the most vulnerable here to pay for wars over there?, Barri Boone, June 8, 2012 from Solidarity
- Nor Meekly Serve Her Time: Riots and Resistance in Women's Prisons, Victoria Law, June 1, 2012