Work Stoppage

UNLOCKED Overtime - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 1

UNLOCKED!
We're very excited to be launching a new, wide ranging series on the history of allegations levied against unions of corruption and relations with organized crime. Ever since the formation of the first labor unions, the capitalists and their media have been denouncing organized labor as corrupt, violent, led by racketeers, and in bed with the mob. This allegation remains common today, and what better way to help fight these ideological attacks on unions than by confronting these allegations head on and examining the historical record. And of course, there's no other place we could start than with the case of Jimmy Hoffa, whose reputation looms large as one of the most notorious figures in US labor history. To rigorously examine his case, we will have to go all the way back to the founding of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and follow allegations of corruption from the early days of the union up through today.

In this episode, we discuss how the ruling class attacked unions for supposedly being corrupt from the very beginning, and used the media to minimize violence by bosses and amplify stories of violence by workers. In future episodes we will go through a century of Teamster history, the rise of Jimmy Hoffa, his presidency of the union and his fight with the Kennedys, his imprisonment, his disappearance, and ultimately his legacy. Along the way we will do our best to separate real instances of corruption from the mountain of insinuations and rumor, and discuss what lessons we can learn for our organizing today.

Ep 150 - Have You Heard The Good News?

Surprisingly we settled on nearly all good news stories this week, so if you're looking for some positivity, this one's for you. After an update on the ongoing national strike movement, we discuss the school strike in LA. 60,000 workers shutting down the second largest city in the country's schools and making big wins that will help the whole community. Also this week, two more Trader Joe's locations joined the union movement, one on each coast. Indian farmers have made more wins at the state level after more impressive protests. The RMT reached a deal with Network Rail after 9 months of strikes and made big wins the Tories claimed were impossible. Finally, Starbucks workers demonstrated their organization and resolve by shutting down 100 stores across the country and released their national contract demands.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

PREVIEW: Interview with Temple University Graduate Students’ Association

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

Graduate student workers have been organizing in droves across the country, fighting back against abysmal wages and impossible working conditions. Recently, the workers at Temple University won a hard fought strike that lasted over a month.  While we have covered many graduate worker strikes on the show, the level of repression unleashed by the university administration to try and crush the strike was truly unprecedented, which only made the new contract the workers won even more impressive. We're so excited this week to be joined by Alex Paparella, a PhD student and strike captain with TUGSA, to discuss their strike, their new contract, and the state of labor organizing in academia.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 149 - Formez Vos Bataillons

HL Worker Support Fund -  https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/sued-for-union-organizing

News just refuses to stay confined to one week periods, so this episode of Work Stoppage is mostly follow ups. We bracket the episode with good news, starting out congratulating the grad student workers of the University of Chicago on their landslide union win. Next we discuss the flagrant retaliation against the brand new union by the bosses at TCGPlayer. In France, Macron has moved to ram his pension reform through by decree, and now only the working class can force him to back down by taking matters into their own hands. We also follow up with the UAW elections, where the Curry team refuses to concede. Violence has broken out on the picket lines at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as two workers were sent to the hospital after being attacked by scabs. A new report shows how the companies using rampant child labor have managed to get some  of their funding from public pension funds. Workers at Caterpillar signed a major new 6 year contract, we break down the bottom line. Finally, workers at Bandcamp have formed a union to preserve working conditions at the one company that actually pays artists for their work.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Shop Floor Discussion 7 PREVIEW - Off The Rails

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

The rail systems of the western world seem to be collapsing all at once. As the railroad workers have been telling us here in the US for years, capitalist ownership of the railroads has hollowed out the safety of the networks and left them in a dangerous condition. We saw this illustrated all too clearly in Greece, where a recent tragic collision between a passenger train and a freight train left over 50 people dead. We decided to sit down and discuss the recent upsurge in rail workers fighting back against decades of negligence. We discuss the ways the disaster in East Palestine, the 6 month long rolling strikes by rail workers in the UK, and the massive country wide mass strikes organized in Greece in the aftermath of this most recent tragedy are connected, and how our organizing should respond. 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 148 - The Billionaire Machine

After some discussion of how refreshing seeing union leaders refuse to take shit from politicians is, this week's episode of Work Stoppage starts by continuing our look into the expansion of child labor in the US, this time in Arkansas. Next we discuss the mass strike in France to fight against the attack on workers by the neoliberal Macron regime. We also do very quick follow ups on the status of the strike at Temple University and the UAW elections. Faculty at Rutgers voted overwhelmingly last week to authorize what would be the first strike in the schools history. Meanwhile, Duke is trying a novel strategy against the grad student union drive there: claiming grad students aren't workers and shouldn't be allowed to unionize anywhere. Democrats in Michigan repealed right to work last week, which is good! But they also refused to allow teachers to strike, which is very bad! Workers across the country continue to face wage theft in the form of being misclassified as "managers" in order to use a loophole to avoid paying overtime. Workers at TCGPlayer became the first unionized employees at eBay this week, despite the company's union busting. Finally, we discuss the disgusting attack on municipal union retirees in New York City, with workers being stripped of the healthcare they earned after decades of public service.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Movie Time 6 PREVIEW - A Bug’s Life and Chicken Run

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

Now, at first glance you may be wondering why your favorite communist labor podcast is doing an episode on two animated kids movies. But that's why we encourage you to take another look at these two classic examples of Marxist cinema. With wholesome messages of working class unity, struggle against oppression, and never trusting Americans, these two films are examples of how complex ideas can be presented simply. 

Join our discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 147 - Death to Imperialism

Labor never stops, and neither do we, it's another episode of Work Stoppage. We start off with a quick congratulations to the workers at REI in Cleveland who won their union election last week.  We then discuss the results of the UAW election runoff, where the presidential vote remains too close to call. We check in on the situation in Sri Lanka, where the government is trying to sell out the country to the IMF and workers aren't having it. New horrors continue to come out of the rail disaster in East Palestine, this time we learn that Norfolk Southern execs received bonuses specifically for making trains less safe. Recent revelations of child labor at companies like Hyundai and Packers Sanitation have prompted major media investigations into the practice and found it to be rampant across the country. Laborers in Portland struck last week after their employer, owned by French giant Saint Gobain, tried to force them to work 13 twelve-hour shifts in two weeks. The grad student organizing wave continues to explode, we check in on drives at Minnesota, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Duke. Finally, we discuss the recent major legal ruling against Starbucks' illegal union busting campaign.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Unions in Vietnam w/ Luna Oi!

This week we were honored to be joined by Luna Oi to educate us on how the trade union system works in Vietnam. We've talked about union struggles all over the world, from the US and UK to South Africa, to South Korea and many countries in Latin America. But this is the first time we have been able to speak with someone who has experienced the labor movement in a socialist country. We discuss the history of the labor movement in Vietnam, the relationship between unions and the government, the protections afforded all workers under Vietnamese labor law, how strikes work (and boy do they work!) in a socialist system, and the many rights and benefits that workers in Vietnam have won over the years. It was very inspiring to hear about the incredible progress workers have made since the victory of their revolution and we are so excited to share this conversation with all our listeners.

Check out Luna's channel, where she has tons of incredible videos on socialism, Vietnamese history, the global class struggle, and even delicious Vietnamese food! Luna can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@Lunaoi.  You can also check out her work on Means TV, and follow her on Twitter at @LunaOi_VN

Join our discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 146 - Running on Empty

A quick update on the Temple grad workers strike, which continues after they voted down the administration's last contract offer, gets us started this week. We also discuss the awful history of worker treatment and the way companies like Rich Products use drug tests to keep working from reporting injuries. A restaurant owner in Ohio was recently caught more or less enslaving his workforce. Mental health workers in Hawaii recently ended a 6 month strike, fighting Kaiser Permanente's policy of intentional understaffing. English language voice actors in the anime dubbing industry face an uphill battle for union recognition against Crunchyroll's near total monopoly. UK junior doctors have joined the mass workers movement, declaring their intention to strike over wages so low they can't afford to eat. Amazon workers at the company's air hub in Inland Empire have kept up the fight for a union, and won some important short term victories. Lastly, we get in some discussion of the UAW election as the union finally raised its strike pay to $500 a week, after reversing an earlier vote at last year's convention that would have done the same.

 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX

 

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

Movie Time 5 PREVIEW: Hoffa and The Irishman

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

As a coda to our recent series on allegations of corruption and mob involvement in the Teamsters, with a special focus on the career of Jimmy Hoffa, we decided that we couldn't skip out on some of the media portrayals of Hoffa's story. First we check out Danny Devito's 1992 biopic, Hoffa, starring Jack Nicholson. Then we discuss Martin Scorsese's recent 3.5 hour megafilm, The Irishman. For both films, we discuss the ways they track with the real story of Hoffa's life and disappearance, and the ways they diverge from reality. We compare and contrast the portrayals of Hoffa by Nicholson and Al Pacino, and the two films' different visions of the union leader. While we do provide a summary of each film before we discuss it, we definitely recommend checking out the recent Hoffa series in order to get all the background before diving into this one.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 145 - The State’s Not On Our Side

Support the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Workers: https://cwa-union.org/support-striking-pittsburgh-post-gazette-workers 

We start this week's episode checking in with the strike at Temple University, which may end this week as workers are voting on a potential agreement. We got big news that the country's longest strike at Warrior Met coal appears to be heading for an end as the union proposed returning to work. Recent attacks on farm workers in California have exposed the horrific living conditions these vital laborers face in our racist system. Tesla workers in Buffalo launched a union push with Workers United last week and faced immediate retaliation. Medieval Times workers in Buena Park, CA have struck against the company's illegal retaliation for unionizing. The owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have sunk so low as to begin suing the city for not being violent enough against picketing workers. A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction against Starbucks' campaign of illegal retaliatory firings. Education workers in Northern Virginia won the largest new bargaining unit of the year so far. Finally, 3000 grad student workers at USC have joined the academic organizing wave.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

UNLOCKED - Interview: Johns Hopkins University Teachers and Researchers United

In celebration of the massive wave of organizing in academia, we are unlocking our recent interview with worker organizers from Teachers and Researchers United (TRU) at Johns Hopkins University, so that their example can help others organizing across the education sector.

Original Description:
We're so excited to be joined this week by Andrew and Jasmine, two organizers from Teachers and Researchers United (TRU), the union for graduate student workers at Johns Hopkins University. Workers won an incredibly victory last week, with a near unanimous 97% of workers supporting the union drive. So it was great to be able to hear directly from some of the organizers who helped make that landslide win happen. We discuss the power of rank and file organizing, tactics that were effective and those that weren't, and their plans for continuing the struggle as they move into bargaining for a first contract.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 31 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 6

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

In the final episode of the Teamsters portion of our examination of the history of allegations of union corruption and mafia collusion, we close out the story of Jimmy Hoffa. We discuss the changing of the guard from Hoffa to Frank Fitzsimmons, Hoffa's relationship with Richard Nixon and his eventual release from prison, and of course Hoffa's disappearance, which remains controversial to this day. 

But this is a story not just about Hoffa, but the whole history of the Teamsters, so we also touch on the presidencies of Roy Williams and Jackie Presser, the RICO suit against the Teamsters and resulting 25 year trusteeship, and the rise of the TDU as a rank and file movement to root out the decades of corruption that Hoffa brought with him. Finally, we discuss what this all means for the history of the labor movement as a whole, and what lessons we can draw for workers fighting to rebuild the labor movement today.

Main Sources:
Corruption and Reform in the Teamsters Union by David Witwer
The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa by Walter Sheridan
The Hoffa Wars by Dan Moldea

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 144 - No Child Should Have to Work

VU Mexico Workers Strike Fund: https://www.atcf.org/solidarity_fund 

We are forced into discussing major current events this week as the mainstream media is more worried about weather balloons than a major train derailment and chemical spill. We follow that up with an update on the victory of the striking DHL workers in Pawtucket, RI. Also this week, HarperCollins workers reached a tentative agreement on a deal to end their 66 day strike. We also get into the recently released national labor data for 2022 and what that means for the state of the labor movement. Workers in Mexico continue to stand up to company unions, and Saint Gobain auto glass workers there recently won a new union in face of violent threats. Starbucks was in the news for illegally firing workers again, this time after a worker was forced to come in despite testing positive for Covid. Politicians in Iowa this week are reviving the bad days of the 19th century and trying to get kids back to work in the mines and slaughterhouses. Finally, we round out a packed episode with the announcement of two new academic organizing drives in Boston at Northeastern and Harvard.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

PREVIEW: Interview: Johns Hopkins University Teachers and Researchers United

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

We're so excited to be joined this week by Andrew and Jasmine, two organizers from Teachers and Researchers United (TRU), the union for graduate student workers at Johns Hopkins University. Workers won an incredibly victory last week, with a near unanimous 97% of workers supporting the union drive. So it was great to be able to hear directly from some of the organizers who helped make that landslide win happen. We discuss the power of rank and file organizing, tactics that were effective and those that weren't, and their plans for continuing the struggle as they move into bargaining for a first contract.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 143 - Public Workers Fight Back

It's a (nearly) all public worker episode of Work Stoppage this week. We start with a quick discussion of the excellent short job action by REI workers in Cleveland and a review of some recent stories in wage theft. Then we discuss last week's three day strike by city workers in Portland, where workers were falsely accused of violence on the picket line by Mayor Ted Wheeler. We discuss the ongoing strike by graduate student workers at Temple University where the school administrators have declared war on the students for the crime of demanding enough pay to afford food. We also discuss the recent strike by teachers in Woburn, Massachusetts where that city's mayor also viciously attacked striking workers. We finish off discussing last week's huge strike day in the UK when nearly 600k workers were on the picket lines at once, buoyed by the addition of over 300k teachers to the ongoing strike wave.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 30 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 5

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

In the fifth episode of our new series examining historical allegations of union corruption and relations with organized crime, we discuss Jimmy Hoffa's tenure as president of the Teamsters. We discuss how while on the one hand, Hoffa negotiated some of the best contracts Teamster workers had ever had, he also stole an enormous amount of money from the rank and file. We cover the many criminal trials Hoffa faced during the 1960s, especially the two he was eventually convicted in. We also take a quick detour to interrogate the various theories of Hoffa's alleged involvement in the JFK assassination.

In the final episode of this part of the series, we will discuss Hoffa's imprisonment, his ouster from the Teamsters, his fight to regain his old leadership post, and his eventual disappearance. We will close out discussing Hoffa's legacy and impact on the Teamsters today and the labor movement more broadly.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 142 - Police Abolition is a Workplace Safety Issue

We start this week following up with workers at Proletariat Studios who have been forced to withdraw their union petition after emotional manipulation from the CEO. Thankfully, the union voted went better for workers at Trader Joe's in Louisville who are now the third union store at the chain. Next we discuss the long struggle by transit workers in Washington DC to beat back exploitative private contracting firms and win a living wage. In another in a seeming unending of similar cases, cops murdered a worker at a meat processing plant in Iowa and the company, Seaboard Farms, tried to cover it up. Another meat monopoly, Tyson Foods, was forced to backtrack recently when its attempts at union busting prompted a strong outcry from workers. We check in on some recent Amazon stories including a strike at a major warehouse in the UK. Via Labor Notes, workers at a Hooters knockoff in Tennessee have united back and front of house against an abusive manager. Finally, we check in on some recent union wins at Starbucks and other coffee shops around the country.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 29 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 4

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.

In the fourth episode of our new series examining historical allegations of union corruption and relations with organized crime, we discuss the McClellan Committee investigations into the power of organized labor. We talk about the differences between how the committee's investigations were portrayed, as a fight against corruption, and the actions of the committee, which minimized its focus on corruption and instead took aim at worker power. We discuss the downfall of Teamster president Dave Beck and his replacement by Jimmy Hoffa, and the start of the 10 year crusade against Hoffa by Robert Kennedy. 

In future episodes, we will discuss the period of Hoffa's presidency of the Teamsters, his corrupt dealings with major mob figures, and his attempts to stay out of jail. 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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