WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
Mondragon The Organizers’ Forum delegation took the 915 bus from the center of Bilbao to Mondragon riding through an intermittent rain and mist draping the mountains. Upon arriving, we were shuttled in cabs to the top of the mountain where the Mondragon cooperatives maintained their training center in a remodeled house in a beautiful …
Bilbao Originally, the Organizers’ Forum delegation was scheduled to travel to Bayonne to visit Alda, a sister organizing project in the northern Basque country concentrated in the three provinces of France. Our French affiliate, JusticeEnsemble, had trained and supported the growth of the organization. We really wanted to visit. Then reality sat in. …
Bilbao With 100,000 members, ELA, the Basque Labor Union, is the largest union in Spain’s Basque Country, which locals call South Basque compared to North Basque in the three provinces in France. Their size alone would make them a force to be reckoned with in this area of Spain, but as two of their …