Firoze Manji talks to Bill Fletcher Jr about his ideas for organizing against the right. What are the weaknesses of the left? What lessons are there from organizing in the labour movement? What are the possibilities of creating a mass movement against the right? Bill Fletcher Jr has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” He is co-editor with Firoze Manji of Claim No Easy Victories: the legacy of Amilcar Cabral. Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio and the Web