Louder Than Words
"May 1 is International Workers Day," explains Allison Palmer, one of the group's five members. "This organization is a collective, and in renaming it May First, we better convey our goals of a non-hierarchical, healthy workplace with full benefits, sufficient time off and a work environment of mutual support. That didn't come across with the old name."
For the group, creating positive social change starts with their own workplace. May First sprang up in 1999 with Jamie McClelland and two friends who were disenchanted with hierarchical workplace structures. "Accidental techies," they were already doing tech work, not because it was their job, but because no one else at their jobs could. In forming what was then known as Media Jumpstart, the three friends had a dual goal: to help nonprofits with technology and to have a healthy workplace that respected the rights of everyone who worked there. So far, so good. Everyone has a four-day work week, three weeks paid vacation, 10 holidays (including May Day), six sick days and health and dental insurance.
May First makes decisions collectively, which means twice-a-week staff meetings, as well as a monthly retreat. The high level of communication ensures that the group is tight-knit. According to Josué Guillén, "A big point is being conscious of power and how it exists, and not pretending that because we're a worker collective there are no imbalances of power." He jokes, "Jamie claims he'd be happy if this were a barbershop, as long as it was a worker collective."
May First is dedicated to using technology to strengthen the impact of New York City social justice organizations. Fee-for-service work includes website design, database building and technology planning. They help organizations buy computers and hold training sessions on all kinds of software. For cash-strapped groups, May First provides listservs and websites, as well as blast-fax tools that are useful for media campaigns. In the coming months, the group plans to expand their training services and the online infrastructure support they offer activist organizations.
"If a nonprofit can convince us that they need something in particular, we can do it," says Guillén.
The collective, minus member Laimah Osman, who was unavailable for the interview, patiently explains the concept of open source software to me, something that's fundamental to their mission. With the proprietary model, a company designs software with the primary purpose of making a profit. Making good software is, at best, the secondary motive. In the case of open source, a company might be engaged in a business model completely detached from software sales?hardware, even accounting?but needs high-quality software. Large companies hire software programmers who design a program and release it into the public domain?where, if it's under the GNU license, it stays. This particular license stipulates that such software is free and open for anyone's use, and any improvements people make to the software must also be free and open. Software can thus undergo refinements and advancements of which the original programmers might never have dreamed, and the general public doesn't have to shell out a lot of money for the upgrades.
Says McClelland, "For us, it's really important to be promoting this type of software, because it's better in many ways, but also because it embodies more of the community spirit that May First is working toward politically and ideologically." Linux, an operating system in competition with Windows and, to a lesser degree, the Mac OS, is open source. It's gained widespread acceptance for file, web and email servers.
Occasionally May First launches a campaign with its own tools. May First had, almost as a policy, frequently recommended Dell Computers?until that company began using prison labor. May First, in conjunction with other groups, initiated a campaign, including a website where people could fax letters to Dell. Dell desisted in the use of prison labor, though it maintained that the cause was consumer complaints, not "special interests." However, the fax campaign was set up so that people could tell the company how many Dells their office used, could complain about the prison labor from an explicitly consumer standpoint.
May First is excited to work more and more in the activist community and make consulting work secondary. "We're all activists first," says William Etundi Jr. "In our past jobs, if we got arrested at an action, we had to be all hush-hush. And it's not like we'd announce actions or invite coworkers. Whereas here, an action comes up, and we discuss how as an organization to get involved."