Work Stoppage

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.

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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

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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Ep 141 - Funding Our Own Exploitation

Labor struggles don't take the week off, and this was another packed one. First, we check in on two long strikes in Iowa which ended within 24 hours this past weekend. We discuss the end of the strikes at Case New Holland and Ingredion and what little information we have so far about the new contracts workers won. Next we discuss the continuing UK strike wave and the upcoming mass strike on February 1. Then we discuss the planned strike at Ubisoft Paris in response to comments from the CEO which aim to foist the company's financial woes onto workers. Also in Paris this week, millions of French workers took to the streets to fight against a proposal to raise the retirement age. Back in the US, faculty went on strike at the University of Illinois for the third time in a decade, a won major wage increases. In a particularly perverse story, a NYT investigation reveals how workers in the restaurant industry have been forced for years to pay fees then used to lobby against raising their wages. South Korea's far right government continues its slide into fascism when the KCIA raided the offices of a major trade union federation. Finally, Nickelodeon took the rare step recently of voluntarily recognizing the organization of 177 animators in their studios.

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Overtime Episode 28 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 3

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 third episode of our new series examining historical allegations of union corruption and relations with organized crime, we discuss the changing of the guard at the top of the Teamsters, from the long era of Daniel Tobin's presidency, to the rise of Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa. We discuss Beck and Hoffa's real talent for organizing and the way their efforts helped the Teamsters experience massive growth in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. But we also discuss their opportunism and openness to corrupt deals with mob figures, which hurt the interests of the entire rank and file. We cover the way both Hoffa and Beck's devotion to their own personal power and wealth influenced their adherence to business unionist style of leadership which created the conditions for the mafia to get a foothold in the union. 

In future episodes, we will discuss the confrontation between the Teamsters and the US government, largely personified by the Kennedys, during the McClellan Committee investigations. 

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Ep 140 - Capitalism Doesn’t Work

We start this week's episode of Work Stoppage discussing last week's big strike victory by nurses in New York City. Next we discuss the looming Supreme Court case that will reshape the ability of workers to strike. Also this week, the NLRB finally officially certified the ALU's victory at JFK8, 9 months after their election. The wave of organizing in academia continues to grow as grad student workers at Northwestern voted overwhelmingly to join the UE this week. The retail organizing wave has also continued with a third REI store filing for a union, this time in Cleveland. Indigenous organizations and trade unions have launched general strikes all over Peru in the weeks since the right wing coup. Incarcerated workers in Texas launched a hunger strike last week to protest policies about solitary confinement that have seen some stuck there for decades. Finally, Starbucks Workers United returns to the show after just one week with a half dozen new union victories!

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Overtime Episode 27 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 2

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 second episode of our new series examining historical allegations of union corruption and relations with organized crime, we discuss the Daniel Tobin era of the Teamsters from the first decade of the 20th century to the end of WW2. In this period, massive technological changes revolutionized the work of Teamsters, shifting from driving teams of horses in busy urban streets to interstate motorized trucking. This period also saw the rise of the mafia during the years of Prohibition. With the ruling class desperate for a scapegoat to blame for the collapse of the economy during the Great Depression, the capitalist press seized on the opportunity to attack the unions, and so they immediately made the association between unions and the mob. In this episode, we discuss both real instances of corrupt union officials working with mobsters, but also heroic struggles by union leaders to fight the mob, some even paying with their lives.

In future episodes, we will discuss the rise of Dave Beck as Teamster President, Congress's attempt to go after unions with the McClellan Committee, and the dawn of the Hoffa Era.

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Ep 139 - Athletes Are Workers Too

2023 is showing no signs of being any less militant of a year for workers than 2022 was, so we've got another packed episode of Work Stoppage this week. After a couple brief check ins, we discuss the recent rejection of Case New Holland's "Last, Best, and Final" Offer by UAW workers.  Also this week, Microsoft surprisingly held up their end of the neutrality agreement and voluntarily recognized the new QA union at ZeniMax. Workers at Howard Brown Health in Chicago struck last week after the company fired 15% of their staff just months after workers unionized. Newspaper workers at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram finally have their first union contract after winning a month long strike. A recent horrifying near-deadly injury once again brought the extreme exploitation of NFL players to national attention. The Tory government in the UK is trying to speed run the class war, as this week they have proposed new laws banning strikes in many industries. Finally, we got rare good news from the feds, as the FTC proposed a blanket ban on non-compete agreements.

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Overtime Episode 26 PREVIEW - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 1

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 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.

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EP 138 - Wall to Wall

Happy New Year to all our listeners, hopefully 2023 will be another year of worker upsurge. We start our first show of the year discussing the debacle at Southwest Airlines where capitalists have once again proven they can't be trusted to manage vital infrastructure. Next we discuss the third union drive at Activision Blizzard, this time at the ironically named Proletariat Studios. California nurses just wrapped up a 10 day strike to stop assaults on their pensions, while as many as 17k nurses in NYC may soon strike over unsafe staffing and low pay as well. We belatedly check in on the strike by BCTGM workers at Ingredion in Cedar Rapids that has now gone on for over 5 months. NYC construction workers finally forced the passage of a law to hold companies liable for worker deaths caused by negligence. Workers at the Tacoma Art Museum are fighting hard for voluntary recognition of their union in order to be able to bring ALL their coworkers under one organization. Finally we check in on Starbucks, who didn't let the holidays slow down their union busting.

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