Mass Worker Education: Governing from the Shopfloor

Abstract

This brief proposes a framework for “mass worker education” that builds democratic governance from workers’ everyday struggles on the shopfloor. Centering the role of peer educators–workers versed in labor processes, legal rights, and relational dynamics–it argues that worker-led education can generate shared analysis of exploitative practices, support experimentation with organizing tactics, and deepen strategic reflection on building collective power. The brief proposes leveraging expanded capacity at NYC’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) to institutionalize peer education as a core tool of labor standards enforcement and worker organization, with a pilot in warehousing and parcel delivery operations developed in partnership with unions and community groups. It also outlines city-state collaboration to expand the scope of co-enforcement and links mass worker education to participation in assemblies that shape policy on data, technology, and other sector-wide concerns, paving the way toward mass sectoral governance.