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Introduction
May First/People Link is a membership organization within the civil, progressive, social change and social justice movements in the United States, Mexico and other countries throughout the world.
Its primary work, as an organization, is the development of the Internet as a human resource, the protection of its independence, the defense of people's access to it and the change movement's effective and nurturing use of it.
Its work is based on the belief that the Internet and technology in general is the product of human collaborative work and is the property of the entire human race; that the Internet is an act by the human race to facilitate collaboration to save itself; and that the Internet makes possible relationships across artificial national borders and boundaries.
MF/PL is run by its members who are comprised of organizations and individuals who agree with the organization's statement of unity and its membership agreement.
The Membership
1 -- The Members of MF/PL are organizations and indviduals who have joined it. Members in good standing are those members who have paid their dues for the current year and all previous years of membership in accordance with current payment policies approved by the Leadership Committee or Membership meeting.
2 -- Any individual or organization may join MF/PL as a member if they agree with the organization's membership agreement and statement of unity, espouse politically progressive thinking and actively oppose hate politics and all forms of systemic oppression.
3 -- Members maintain websites, email accounts, mail lists and other forms of Internet activity on servers owned by our membership. They may use these resources as they see fit and may use as much of this resource as they need.
4 -- Members' resource use is subject to the resource sharing policies approved by the Leadership Committee following the membership meeting's mandate to protect functional services.
5 -- Members may not use any May First resources to propagate hate speech. Any staff member or work group member may request that a technologist suspend service to a resource being used for that purpose and then file an immediately report to the LC. The LC Chair will then advise the member of an impending service suspension and, if the problem is not cured in 12 hours, the technologist will suspend service. The affected member may then appeal to the LC which is the final arbitrar on content issues.
Membership Meeting
The Membership shall meet every year for a period that may include build-up activities, events or meetings judged appropriate by the standing Leadership Committee and culminating in a live meeting during the Fall of the year. This meeting may be conducted remotely based on decisions made by the Leadership Committee.
The Membership meeting is the highest, final authority on all decisions and aspect of MF/PL life and work. All members may attend the membership meeting. Each individual member has a vote and each organization member has two votes. Decisions are made by simple majority of those present in person and on-line.
At this meeting, the members shall:
1 -- Approve the MF/PL yearly political assessment report prepared by the LC
2 -- Approve a broad workplan and general work goals for the year based on proposals submitted by members through mesas and individually
3 -- Elect a Leadership Committee of 21 of its members that includes 14 people of the Global Majority and 11 women.
4 -- Take up and decide any other matters the LC deems necessary or that 2/3 of the participating members consider appropriate.
The Leadership Committee
The Leadership Committee is the highest decision making body of MF/PL between Membership Meetings. Its role is to:
1 -- Call the members to meeting every year and organize the membership meeting
2 -- Meet within one month of the membership meeting to approve the implementation plan for the year and then once every month by phone to discuss ongoing work, discuss workplan implementation and deal with other matters that the Chairpersons may consider important.
3 -- Appoint five "work team coordinators" to lead ongoing work teams based on objectives defined at the membership meeting, comprised of MF/PL members and charged with carrying out work.
4 -- Elect a Chair or Co-Chairs to lead the LC.
5 -- Publicly represent and support the decisions of the LC within reason and principle and, in any case, refrain from publicly denouncing or aggressively opposing MF/PL policies and activities.
6 -- Ensure that hand-written minutes are kept of all meetings and are made public in a well-publicized on-line place and that all meetings are recorded and the recording made publicly available on the organization's website.
Proposals and Voting at the LC
1 -- Any MF/PL member can submit proposals to the full LC for approval. A proposal must have at least one LC member as a sponsor.
2 -- Proposals may be submitted for a decision at the annual leadership committee meeting, during any membership meeting or by email sent to the LC email list.
3 -- Proposals should be voted on a minimum of 72 hours after the proposal has been circulated to the LC and may be delayed once up to 5 days if the proposal sponsor requests a delay.
4 -- LC members may propose modifications to any proposal. The proposal sponsor on the LC must decide whether or not to adopt them. Any proposal that is modified resets the deadline for votes.
5 -- The Leadership Committee requires a quorum of 50% of its membership at the meeting or participating in the on-line vote for decisions to be valid.
6 -- Votes may be made by email, phone, or in person.
7 -- The LC strives for consensus and unanimity but if that is not possible, measures will pass with the voting support of 2/3 of the leadership committee members present at the meeting or voting on line. Abstentions are allowed and count toward quorum.
8 -- Any MF/PL member may attend an LC meeting without right to speaking and power of vote. All paid staff members are required to attend all LC meetings and may speak but not vote.
LC Executive Session
1 -- The Leadership Committee may enter "executive session" at which only LC members are allowed when it considers the discussion subject to restriction.
2 -- Issue subject to restriction are issues which might be damaging to the organization or in violation of individual members' rights if made public. These include personnel matters, some budget issues, security issues and other discussions which could prove destructive or violations of security if they were to be made public.
3 -- Executive Session is called by the person chairing the meeting after a 2/3 vote of the body.
4 -- Minutes for Executive Sessions are not made public and are kept in a secure environment.
Work Teams
Each Work Team shall:
1 -- Meet in regularly schedule meetings to implement the section of the workplan assigned to it
2 -- Select facilitators, leaders and co-coordinators as each team sees fit
3 -- Recruit members to it
4 -- Prepare an annual budget to be submitted to the Leadership Committee at its yearly face to face meeting.
5 -- Prepare an annual workplan to be submitted to the Leadership Committee at its yearly face to face meeting.
6 -- Hire, evaluate and dismiss salaried employees and consultants based on its perceived needs and available budget
7 -- Attend, through representatives, a weekly meeting of all workgroup reps to discuss ongoing work.
Team Coodinators
The Work Team Coodinators shall:
1 -- Attend coordinators meetings
2 -- Represent the coordinated work team before the LC
3 -- Prepare monthly reports of the team's work for the LC