California, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Rhode Island, Washington, and Tennessee have all started on-going labor arts exchanges. These gatherings have multiplied the efforts begun at the GLAE and localized the participation of cultural workers. Groups like North Carolina's Grassroots Leadership have further expanded the idea behind these gatherings and hold an annual conference linking union and community activists for dialogue and strategy sessions. Organizing and culture go hand in hand. Organizing makes culture an instrumental, rather than merely an ornamental, part of life.
Culture gives organizing perspective and depth.
You have to organize hearts as well as heads. Any experienced organizer knows people will often go further on what they feel than on what they know. But without the tools to explore their own experiences, without a history upon which they can call for encouragement and example, without a means of connecting with other people in ways that are profound and universal people end up isolated, frustrated, and disenfranchised. So while culture provides organizing a perspective in which to view itself, organizing provides the necessary pressure that forces culture to adapt and reinvent itself. Culture provides organizing a lens through which to view that which is common and commonly held among groups of individuals.