As labor leaders, organizers and activists, we often toss around the word “‘solidarity.” But what does it really mean? During “Strikemas”– Amazon Labor Union-IBT 1’s Christmas 2024 strike– solidarity saturated the air as we walked picket lines. A couple hundred of us who work at the JFK8 Fulfillment Center told Amazon “no more,” marching in the freezing sleet and snow. We could feel the solidarity, but what is it exactly? How can we deliberately cultivate it? What does it look like to grow a movement rooted in the practice of solidarity?
As an elected leader at ALU, Sultana has been building solidarity while organizing a worker-led Amazon labor movement. Martha has assisted hundreds of organizing drives in her decade-plus in the movement—ones that built solidarity and ones that didn’t. We’ve been lucky to work together and learn from one another, especially by digging in to understand what solidarity truly is and how we can consciously grow it.
Solidarity: more than a concept
Both of us agree: solidarity isn’t an ambiguous thing or abstract concept. It’s real, tangible, and measurable. When you have it, you have power that can’t be broken. When you don’t, you can be divided, split, and dominated by the boss.
As we understand it, solidarity is networked trust in the context of a shared purpose.
There have been many other definitions of solidarity– whole books written on the topic– dissections of the feeling, the aesthetics, the philosophical concepts, the etymology. Recently Parul Seghal wrote a lovely essay discussing much of this scholarship, the importance of coalitions rooted in the concept, and how “mutual recognition and trust must be attended to continuously.”
We agree wholeheartedly that solidarity is what will make our coalitions strong in this moment: this is our best path forward. But for that to be the case, we believe it is imperative that we make ‘solidarity’ as clear and measurable–and therefore as attainable–as possible.
Trust between two people can be measured and assessed. You have the highest trust with someone you can call at 2 a.m. to crash on their couch, or someone you’d trust with your child. This person would be a “one” on a one-to five trust scale. A “five” would be someone you wouldn’t even trust to pay back a couple bucks you loaned them for the vending machine, much less to keep a secret from the boss.
As we understand it, solidarity is networked trust in the context of a shared purpose.
Trust doesn’t have to be about the job or the union. It’s about the real relationships we build, not transactional or superficial interactions. We build trust over meals, over chats, over the many times we choose to stand together instead of turn away.
Building networks of trust
At ALU, we’ve been through everything together. We’ve seen trust grow in small, deliberate ways over time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from consistently showing up for one another: helping when someone needs support, standing together in hard moments, and making sure no one ever has to fight alone. Many kinds of actions strengthen our bonds, from standing up to unfair discipline, to ensuring a coworker feels heard, to stepping in when someone’s overwhelmed. Over time, these individual connections build into something powerful—a network of people who trust each other deeply and are ready to act as one.
Organizing is the process of building and nurturing a network of these trust-based, one-to-one relationships devoted to a shared purpose. Not every worker will have deep trust with everyone. An organizing campaign will include strong, weak, and moderately trusting relationships nestled together.
If you mapped the relationships in your organizing project, you’d want it to look like a messy web. Thick lines indicate high-trust relationships, thin lines show lower-trust ones. Everyone should be woven into the web, with many connections linking them to others. If the boss tries to break that web, they’ll fail.
Contrast that with a weak network, where most people only have a single, thin line connecting them to a leader or a few organizers. A boss can swat that away easily. And a movement built on weak connections crumbles easily under threat, dissipating quickly.
That’s why identifying organic leaders—trusted, respected coworkers—is essential. Some people naturally build strong relationships, and those leaders are critical to scaling an organizing project.
Some of our strongest leaders at ALU started out unsure of their own capacity. Leadership isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room; it’s about being the person others naturally turn to for guidance and support.
Through conversations and shared struggles, these leaders come to see the power they already hold: the trust they’ve built, the respect they command, the strength they give others. These leaders weave the web of solidarity tighter, ensuring no one stands alone in this fight.
Facing divisions head-on
A strong organizing project also makes sure everyone is always clear on the fight—the shared purpose—of the organizing project and what we’re building toward together. At ALU, we are united by a shared mission and vision for taking on Amazon and demanding dignity and respect for all workers. But building solidarity for that fight means breaking down the lines they use to divide us.
Amazon thrives on exploiting divisions in the working class, whether based on race, gender, language, age, religion, ability, immigration status, or any other axis of identity. We refuse to let them use those differences against us.
For us, fighting Amazon’s exploitation means facing these divisions head-on. Solidarity isn’t about standing together when it’s easy—it’s about doing so when it’s hard. It means recognizing how different forms of oppression are used as weapons against us and refusing to let them weaken our movement. We challenge these divisions by recognizing each other’s humanity in ways Amazon never does. Where Amazon sees workers as interchangeable and disposable, we see each person as an individual with unique struggles, experiences, and perspectives that are no more or less valuable than anyone else’s. We stand up for each other not despite our differences, but because of them, uniting in our shared fight for justice.
Our union membership is a microcosm of the New York City working class and reflects its full diversity. Workers at JFK8 speak dozens of languages and come from every background imaginable. True solidarity means listening, learning, and ensuring that everyone—not just the loudest voices in the room—is heard and represented. That’s why we’re committed to language justice—translating union materials into multiple languages like Spanish, Haitian Creole, Arabic, and French so that every worker can understand their rights and engage in organizing. We also fight to demand that Amazon provide the same language access to workers, including training and HR support in multiple languages.
Beyond language, we work to build cultural solidarity through events like the recent Ramadan iftar organized by our Afro-Arab committee. We also organize around issues that affect our members beyond the warehouse, such as demanding stronger workplace protections for undocumented workers. Recently, we published an Immigrant Solidarity statement to affirm our union’s commitment to standing with all of our coworkers.
Solidarity: the foundation of our power
We don’t just talk about solidarity, we test and grow it by exercising our power. We fight for each other, and that fight makes us stronger.
You can measure the strength of our solidarity, our network of trust, by how many people show up and take action when there’s a need: whether it’s standing against retaliation, marching on the boss, or holding the picket line together. Every action strengthens our relationships, deepens trust, and builds power.
Solidarity like this doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built through deliberate, democratic worker organization. When workers actively participate in decision-making, they feel invested in the outcomes, strengthening their commitment to the collective. Through democratic debate and clear collective decision-making processes, we recognize our shared purpose and develop a deeper sense of unity.
As an elected leader, my role isn’t to make decisions for workers—it’s to help every worker recognize their own power to take action, organize, and transform their lives. Workers themselves are the agents of change in this movement. And when we stand together, we have the strength to take on even the most powerful corporations.
We are creating a union where every voice is heard and every worker has a seat at the table. We can create a world that does the same. Through solidarity and collective struggle, I know we will win our fight for the dignity, respect, and justice we deserve.
United—across every line they try to divide us with—we are unstoppable.