OUR INCUBATING ORGANIZATIONS
Poder Popular (Nashville People Power Committee)
Poder Popular (Nashville People Power Committee) is an organization of low-wage workers building power to control their working and living conditions, starting with democratizing development in Nashville’s working-class neighborhoods—putting decisions around project construction approval and standards (labor and environmental) in the hands of working-class residents and construction workers. Through Poder Popular, we helped start the Cedar Glen Tenant Union in La Vergne, TN and supported Vecinos Unidos de Wheel Estate in Memphis, TN in an advisory role.
Tennessee Drivers Union (TDU)
The Tennessee Drivers Union (TDU) is a union of Uber and Lyft rideshare drivers working and living in Middle TN. It currently has around 300 card-carrying members representing over a dozen nationalities, including South Sudan, Myanmar, Kurdistan, Yemen, Haiti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, the DRC, Guinea, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Cuba, Venezuela, the DR, Egypt, plus white and Black U.S.-born drivers (and the numbers grow each week). TDU’s members provide the labor for Uber and Lyft, the main transportation to downtown Nashville. This is the largest effort of this kind to happen in such an anti-worker southern state.
Southern Youth Solidarity Network (SYSN)
Southern Youth Solidarity Network (SYSN) is a youth-led organization aiming to develop youth leaders as long-term political workers. SYSN organizes primarily with working-class students and students tied to strategic institutions across Tennessee looking to engage in power-building campaigns to improve their immediate conditions, the conditions for workers at their institutions, and our region as a whole.
A Luta Sigue’s youth leaders founded SYSN (formerly the Tennessee Student Solidarity Network) after they helped organize a protest at the TN Capitol in response to the tragic Nashville Covenant School shooting, which led to the expulsion of the “Tennessee 3”. These events led to a mass mobilization of young people. In early 2024, they helped organize support for the Free Alabama Movement’s statewide prison shutdown for 16 weeks. SYSN members are also instrumental in supporting other incubation programs like TDU and Cedar Glen.
ALS’s youth leaders founded SYSN to channel this energy toward long-term efforts prioritizing rigorous base-building, strategic campaigns, and leadership development.
SYSN fosters the creation and development of student unions and youth committees, providing them with guidance and capacity support while acting as a central body for groups to build connections, struggle for alignment, share lessons, and coordinate consolidated efforts around citywide or statewide priorities.
