The Workers Revolutionary Collective is a grassroots organization abolishing our shared struggles and ending the exploitation of the working class through non-violent solidarity: observation, education & participation in collective, community based, non-violent struggle actions.
Our newest collective is helpfuljellyfish, working class people building networks of participatory solidarity through mutual aid engagement, community development & radical storytelling.
why did helpfuljellyfish form?
Like so many Philadelphians, one Black, queer, housing insecure worker needed help combating their oppression & wanted to be a part of helping others do the same. Impacted by cultural isolation, they struggled to find a local, radical community committed to liberating, nonviolent action to build with. Seeking community based organizations to join revealed that the corruption & violence of the local government & non-profit industrial complex similarly impacted many unaffiliated associations & unions who seemed more committed to bureaucratic persistence & virtue signaling than non-violent action & class liberation.
How could one, isolated worker help?
One way of helping was to bring other people struggling to find community together through mutual aid. helpfuljellyfish’s SMS based helpline was created as a resource for working class people looking for accessible ways to help liberate ourselves from our shared struggles. By participating, helpful jellyfish could develop collectives amongst themselves to organize with & provide a distributed network of abundance to support each other within.
what made helpfuljellyfish join WRC?
In the course of helpfuljellyfish working & conversing with local workers, WRC was repeatedly cited as a trusted organization who exuded class solidarity in their nonviolent actions & resource redistribution. WRC had already became a critical participant in the helpfuljellyfish mutual aid network, leveraging their structure, funds & community relationships to invest in workers existing mutual aid efforts directly.
Joining the WRC community offered some incredibly valuable benefits:
- a community of revolutionary workers & radical organizations committed to a social contract ending the systematic oppression of the working class together
- spaces to invest the righteous anger and fear that manifest within oppressed & working class communities in our racist and classist systems into initiatives of creativity and strategic precision towards liberation
- tangible engagement in developing class consciousness, solidarity, abundance & equity citywide
- engagement in co-education with other collectives & the community at large through conversation, reflection, reading, training & skill sharing
- for fear and powerlessness to be abolished in our demonstrations of non-violent action magnified by the power of the collective
WRC’s structure shares the burden & accountability of bureaucracy among it’s community of revolutionary workers without a loss of autonomy or agency to:
- participate in updating the bylaws, structure & governance of WRC by way of participation in the general circle
- access, review & contribution to grant funds, financial records & participatory budgeting processes through the financial circle
- requesting & contributing to cultural processes & political education through the accountability circle
- a technical infrastructure to support our tools & onscreen resources
how did helpfuljellyfish connect with WRC?
Workers Revolutionary Collective supported organizing efforts of unhoused Philadelphians protesting to demand permanent housing for all by turning a public park into a cop-free encampment. The action catalyzed the coming together of hundreds of people & thousands of community invested dollars to support & sustain the protestors through mutual aid, including the original helpfuljellyfish. The unhoused union modeled the incredible power of mutual aid & collective action to care for & empower a community while fighting for class liberation.
Until the encampment was evicted, that is.
Following over 114 days of protest, three eviction attempts & a handful of meetings in which protestor voices were actively silenced, local self-proclaimed organizers “negotiated” with city council for the violent eviction of the encampment:
- undermining the unions original demands for permanent housing for all, instead givin 50 homes in conditions unfit for certificates of occupancy administered through a non existent entity in a un-clarified process
- institutionalizing unhoused Philadelphians in hotels & prison facilities without their informed consent while failing to provide adequate & dignified supportive services
- extending safe, permanent housing to less than 0.1% of the unhoused population of Philadelphia while failing to provide structural security for the 20,000 Philadelphians at risk of eviction each year
The lived experience of being a part of something larger & more powerful than ourselves is not one easily forgotten.
Suddenly without a physical center & impaired by the eviction negotiations, the massive amount of mutual aid that had sustained the community was as dispersed as the protestors. People desperately wanted to stay connected to each other & continue the education they had engaged in along the way.
Without a central, physical place to help or be helped anymore, protestors turned to helpfuljellyfish to reconnect with scattered unhoused friends & stay involved in their support. Referrals helped rebuild networks of support thought to be lost following the evictions. As an original supporter of the unhoused union, Workers Revolutionary Collective used helpfuljellyfish’s intake coordination & network to expand it’s distribution of survival materials, support outreach to reconnect protestors, & contribute community space for supply storage.
Having manifested radical community in a meaningful way, suddenly helpfuljellyfish was to big for one person to be providing all of it’s support & coordination. Instead it became a collective of friends bonded through collective action & a shared commitment to class solidarity including individual WRC members.
Facilitating autonomous, liberating mutual aid work without creating unnecessary bureaucratic burdens or interactions with the state was needed to respond to requests for more tools, more support, & more facilitation. Following several months of close collaboration with WRC that directly multiplied the impact of both helpfuljellyfish collective members & the community it’s network supports, helpfuljellyfish finally joined it’s new radical home.
Where can I learn more about helpfuljellyfish?
You can text the sms helpline at:
You can complete a self assessment to join the helpfuljellyfish network at:
you can email us at: