One of Lerner's messages is that labor's choice is to grow or to die. And, he adds, for the most part, major sectoral and industry-wide organizing campaigns that are necessary to grow cannot be won without direct action tactics. Develop direct action tactics by doing them, and start now. That argues for hooking up labor's efforts with the community organizations that have been keeping direct action tactics alive. Organize the community and the workplace at the same time.
Direct action works if it polarizes a community over to labor's side.
The most direct way to insure that members of the community will come out for labor is to get them into the street with labor to begin with. Create alliances of integrity between labor and community that build organizations in both areas. The goal in building such partnerships is not just to win, but to foster working people's organizations, in the community and at work. The job, then, is to organize working people in both communities and workplaces, and to bring them together in direct action campaigns that win and build their capacity to do more organizing. These campaigns will bring the big-spending corporations out of the woodwork and will be tough fights, but if the wage is set high enough, such campaigns also have a large natural constituency that will benefit directly from the increase.