Work Stoppage

Feed Drop: Train Crashes Destroyed Their Towns. Will Yours Be Next?

10 years before the catastrophic train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, one of the deadliest rail disasters in North American history took place in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

On July 6, 2013, an unattended freight train that had been parked on the tracks overnight began to roll downhill and gather alarming speed as it careened towards the city center of Lac-Mégantic. The train, which was operated by Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic Railway and carrying over 2 million gallons of crude oil, derailed around 1:15 AM. The resulting explosions and fire killed 47 people and destroyed over 40 buildings, obliterating a large portion of the downtown area and prompting mass evacuations.

In this special episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of survivors of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Canada and the East Palestine rail disaster in the USA.

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Panelists include: Robert Bellefleur, a resident of Lac-Mégantic and spokesperson for the Lac-Mégantic Citizens' Coalition for Railroad Safety; Gilbert Carette, a resident of Lac-Mégantic and a member of the Lac-Mégantic Citizens' Coalition for Railroad Safety; Gilles Fluet, a resident of Lac-Mégantic who narrowly escaped the 2013 train crash and witnessed the derailment firsthand; Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny, award-winning writer, videographer, social and environmental justice activist, and author of Mégantic: A Deadly Mix of Oil, Rail, and Avarice; Jami Wallace, a displaced resident of East Palestine, Ohio, and founder of the Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition; Christina Siceloff, a Creek Ranger and resident of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, affected by the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster.

Additional links/info:

Lac-Mégantic Citizens' Coalition for Railroad Safety website and Facebook page
Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition (CICC) Facebook page
Railroad Workers United website, Facebook page, and X page
Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny, Talonbooks, Mégantic: A Deadly Mix of Oil, Rail, and Avarice
Dimitri Lascaris, TRNN, “‘Bomb Train': Oil Execs Try to Blame Workers for Tragic Accident”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “America’s toxic future looks like East Palestine, Ohio, today”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “Toxic Avengers: America’s poisoned and abandoned communities must stand together or die”

Credits:

Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Dr. Nicole Fabricant, Fritz Edler
Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
French-English Interpretation: Anne Lagacé Dowson
Voice Acting: Ethan Cox, Daniel Lemieux
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor, Alina Nehlich

Ep 316 - Union Busting is Not Punk Rock

AI Boss Psychosis: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/bosses-obsessed-with-ai

Happy Maru's Birthday to all! We start this week with headlines from Swedish Medical Center, Ascend Cannabis, PECO, Ubisoft, the University of Tennessee, GEO Group, ASML, and Ford. The New Republic reports this week on attempts by the NLRB to weaken the regulations on franchises even further to protect big corporations. Workers for punk music merch supplier Kings Road Merch unionized, now Sony is trying to shut them down. Finally, the war on workers has reached a new stage with lawfare in Minneapolis, as the labor movement rallies behind the Minnesota 15.
 
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Ep 315 - Summer Strike Fest

We start with headlines from TF Green International Airport, the National Park Service, Wizards of the Coast, Seattle Art Museum, San Jose State University, Lucid, GM, and Quantic Dream. We've got a big round up of recent news for the Teamsters, their epic battle against Amazon, and the end of the federal monitorship of the union. Healthcare workers in NYC are once again waging a critical struggle for fair pay that could result in a massive strike. Finally, we discuss some of the ways AI is being used to surveil, degrade, and erase the labor of people in the US and around the world.
 
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Ep 314 - Free the Minnesota 15

Headlines this week from: St Mary's in Chicago, Stanford University, the UAW Convention, Labor Notes, the Rochester Minnesota bus system, TF Green Airport, Embassy Suites Seattle, Salon 1884, and Safeway. The uprising in Bolivia reached a new pitch this week as an agreement was signed with the central union body to roll back privatizations and reforms, but simultaneously the state declared martial law against them. The Labor Notes conference was just held, and we break down some of the hot button issues and organizing lessons that were discussed by the organizers in attendance. Finally, in response to the working class victory in Minneapolis in January against ICE, the FBI this week charged 15 community defenders with a series of trumped up conspiracy charges, but the labor movement has vowed to defend them and continue the fight against ICE terror.
 
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Ep 313 - World Cup Walkout

We start this week's episode with headlines from St Mary's hospital (Chicago and Madison), Uber, Starbucks, Amazon, Target Field, Hyundai, the Durham Miners Association, and Walmart. Our first main story follows up on the strike by UAW workers at American Axle, who have won a major new contract. Pro-Palestine student protestors at the University of Michigan were arrested in FBI raids, we discuss the escalating attacks on the movement. The World Cup kicked off this week, and in addition to the sportswashing of Empire, there's a whole lot of exploitation, but thankfully workers are fighting back.  Finally, we do a deep dive into the wide range of attacks on higher education, both the workers themselves and the institutional structure as a whole.
 
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Ep 312 - Labor "Nativism" Hurts All Workers

https://theconversation.com/when-ice-ramped-up-enforcement-us-born-workers-didnt-see-any-economic-gains-283011

We start with headlines checking in on the workers of Bolivia, the American Axle strike, union doctors in Providence, electrolysis workers in Washington, and the broader problems of the US economy. For our first main story this week, a recent investigation by Bloomberg exposed some truly incredible levels of control Amazon exerts over the delivery drivers it claims are "independent contractors." Finally, we discuss the crisis of union busting enabled by public funds in the nursing home industry.

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Ep 311 - Until Everybody's Free

We've got a big show this week, starting with headlines from American Axle, Spring Glass, Starbucks Korea, REI, Ball State University, Harvard, Hearst Newspapers, Rockstar Games, and the Brazilian working class. Our main story this week is discussing the struggle by workers inside and outside to free the detainees at the Delaney Hall ICE concentration camp in New Jersey, where union workers and detained workers alike have clashed with fascist police. Samsung workers recently poised to shut down the global chip boom have won a historic victory, with life changing profit sharing gains that could ignite a new wave of struggle in the South Korean working class. Finally, we discuss the massive new union win by rideshare drivers in Massachusetts, where 70,000 drivers have formed the first sectoral rideshare drivers union in the US.

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Ep 310 - Long Live the Wiphala Revolution

Smaller show this week with the holiday and an illness among the hosts, but we persevere and have the news for you as always. We start with headlines from American Axle, Nexteer, Allison, Amazon, the LIRR, REI, Starbucks, Delaney Hall Detention Center, and the working classes of Italy and Argentina. Just two main stories this week: First, we check in on the rapidly developing situation in Bolivia, where the people are staring down brutal military repression. Lastly, we close with another look into the broader state of the economy, the war on workers, and why unions are critical nodes of struggle even in times of lower union density.

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Better Read Ep 1 - Slavery, the Industrial Revolution, and Primary Expropriation PREVIEW

In this new series we aim to talk about topics that are a little deeper than we can get into on a main feed episode based on some of the things that we are reading outside what we use for our main feed episodes. Each one will be self-contained and Patron Exclusive! There will still be previews in our main feed but to get the whole thing become a patron at http://patreon.com/workstoppage

This first episode's discussion focuses around the compatibility of slavery with capitalism, how slavery was a major factor in fueling the industrial revolution, and many aspects of colonialism, including primary accumulation/expropriation. This longer view of history allows us to more accurately orient ourselves as working class internationalists so we are not fooled by the historical revisionism of the ruling capitalist class.

Main Texts Discussed:
Subscribe to Monthly Review - https://monthlyreview.org/subscribe/
https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-slave-trade-and-the-industrial-revolution-debate-a-look-at-the-numbers/
https://monthlyreview.org/articles/could-capitalism-have-thrived-without-colonialism/

Other Media mentioned:
Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano - https://monthlyreview.org/9780853459910/
Magellan (Movie Trailer) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h7rriQD1qc
The Counter-Revolution of 1776 by Gerald Horne - https://1804books.com/products/look-inside-the-counter-revolution-of-1776-slave-resistance-and-the-origins-of-the-united-states-of-america
River of Dark Dreams by Walter Johnson - https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674975385
Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island - https://nyupress.org/9781479870424/dark-work/
Prabhat and Utsa Patnaik - https://monthlyreview.org/article-author/utsa-patnaik/
US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau denying development to India clip - https://x.com/i/status/2030647228285825405

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Ep 309 - Presidente Pollo Incapaz

A week of major strike action as well as victories. We start with headlines from UC, American Axle, Belgian trade unions, Texas State University, Penn State University, Starbucks, and the government of Virginia. Samsung workers could shut down one of the largest and richest corporations of the world as the bosses refuse to share even a portion of the massive profits they are making. Workers and Indigenous groups in Bolivia have risen up against attacks on their living conditions.  Finally, we discuss the first strike on the Long Island Railroad in over 30 years.

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Ep 308 - Close the Camps

The US war on Iran and resulting war on the rest of the world is a constant theme in this week's headlines. We've got stories from World Cup workers, Spirit Airlines, German and Italian students, DeepMind, the University of California, SAG-AFTRA, Indiana University, Stanford, and Cornell. For our first main story, we discuss a recent Labor Notes piece on the deadly nature of working with engineered stone. Immigrant workers incarcerated at a privately run concentration camp in Michigan have gone on strike for nearly a month in protest of their mistreatment. Finally, we actually have a labor story about someone we never thought we'd discuss on the show: Mr. Beast.

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Sciopero Internazionale Ep 2 - May Day in Italy

Text of the episode: https://tinyurl.com/WSSI2TXT

Matteo brings us another wonderful report from Italy and the Mediterranean region on the days leading up to May Day, as well as what happened on the day itself. He tells the story of Liberation Day, the defense of the flotilla to Palestine, and May Day and the inspirational actions of workers fighting against imperialism, genocide, and for a better world. We also learn about what a CSA (Centro Sociale Autogestito) is in Italy and its importance to the workers' struggle.

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Ep 307 - May Day Strong

PAPER: https://ourpapernow.org/
Boycott REI! https://boycottrei.com/

May Day was the biggest it's been in years, and we spend much of the episode discussing the major protests in the US and around the world for International Workers Day. Workers in South Carolina spent their May Day picketing Elbit Systems in an effort to end their community's role in US-Israeli genocide. Bozeman mobile home residents have launched the state's first rent strike in half a century after their absentee landlords have left their communities to rot. We also have headlines from ISU, UIC, the Woodburn School District, the former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, REI, Hachette, and Amazon.

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Ep 306 - No Work, No School, No Shopping

May Day is this week!  Nationwide shutdown, bring your community together and hit the ruling class where it hurts, the bottom line!

Getting to our regular headlines, we have stories from Starbucks, Harvard, REI, the University of California, Samsung, Bangladeshi gig workers, Portuguese nurses, and the workers of Brazil. For our main stories, first we discuss a strike by workers at Illinois State University, who are fighting just to afford to live where they work. A recently launched initiative, Union Now, aims to harness the energy workers have to support organizing, we discuss the possible implications.  Finally, we do a deep dive into the countrywide assault on speech on university campuses, and the ongoing war by the ruling class to silence any voice but their own.

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Ep 305 - Unions on the Moon

Headlines on this 20th of April start with the breaking news of the change in Labor Secretary. Then we've got stories from Amazon, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Texas Tech University, Columbia University, Long Island Concrete, Florida's hospitality industry, and NASA. Over 30,000 building workers in NYC nearly went on strike, we discuss what the strike threat won in their new contracts. We discuss more of the ever increasing indicators that our economy just...doesn't work. Finally, educators and school staff in LA just won massive contract gains after nearly following their fellow workers in San Francisco on strike.

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Ep 304 - The War Economy

This week's headlines include: Chicago nurses, Starbucks, Philz Coffee, Apple, the University of Alaska Anchorage, the University of Illinois Springfield, ProPublica, and the California Faculty Association. We start our main stories discussing the recent victorious strike at JBS in Colorado and break down what workers won. St John's University recently became the latest Catholic university in the US to try and dissolve its faculty union, but workers are fighting back. Finally, we discuss the impacts workers around the world are facing from the unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran.

Suggested Reading: https://inthesetimes.com/article/permanent-war-state-iran-workers-struggle

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Unlocked Interview: Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers

This week we are excited to bring listeners an interview that brings together two of our most urgent areas of discussion on our show: union democracy and the fight against ICE terror. We're honored to be joined by Leo and Kevin, two organizers with CREW, the Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers, an internal reform caucus in the IBEW. Not only are the folks in CREW working hard to make the IBEW a democratic, fighting union, as workers in the construction industry they are on the front lines of ICE's war against the working class. We discuss their goals of internal union reform, strategies for talking to coworkers who might have absorbed right wing talking points, and how the fight against ICE terror and the fight for our rights at work can't be separated.

Contact CREW: https://www.rankandfilecrew.org/

Email: rankandfilecrew@gmail.com

Maine Solidarity Fund: https://www.mainesolidarity.org/

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Ep 303 - No More Companies

We've got a long one this week with so much going on. We start with an extra long headlines section checking in with Portland Community College, the University of Washington, the University of Illinois, Microsoft, the Daily Wire, Waffle House, Webasto, DHL, Grubhub, and the NFL. Following an update on the status of the strike at JBS in Colorado, we discuss a recent strike at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the refusal of even publicly funded broadcasters to pay their workers. Resident doctors in the UK have been forced to strike yet again, for the fifteenth time, in their struggle to restore their pay just to where it was 18 years ago. Finally, the union struggle at Amazon has been going on for half a decade and this week workers gained two important victories in advancing the fight.

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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Interview Preview: Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers

This week we are excited to bring listeners an interview that brings together two of our most urgent areas of discussion on our show: union democracy and the fight against ICE terror. We're honored to be joined by Leo and Kevin, two organizers with CREW, the Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers, an internal reform caucus in the IBEW. Not only are the folks in CREW working hard to make the IBEW a democratic, fighting union, as workers in the construction industry they are on the front lines of ICE's war against the working class. We discuss their goals of internal union reform, strategies for talking to coworkers who might have absorbed right wing talking points, and how the fight against ICE terror and the fight for our rights at work can't be separated.

Contact CREW: https://www.rankandfilecrew.org/
Email: rankandfilecrew@gmail.com

Maine Solidarity Fund: https://www.mainesolidarity.org/

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Ep 302 - No Kings, No Wars, No ICE!

We start out with a reportback from Dan and Lina who went to their local No Kings protests and discuss the energy behind the call for a May Day general strike. We've got headlines this week from Canada Post, AirTrain, United Airlines, TSA, Western Washington University, Starbucks, Amazon, and Patagonia. The major strike by meatpackers at JBS in Colorado has been extended as workers continue to fight for a fair deal. Non-tenure track faculty have been deeply exploited by US universities in recent years, but this week those educators won a historic contract at NYU that could set a new standard. Finally, we discuss a recent piece in the Guardian on the wave of attacks on child labor laws across the country, and how ill it bodes for our whole economy.

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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee