Work Stoppage

Ep 132 - Looks Like a Rail Strike’s Back on the Menu

To start this week's episode of Work Stoppage, we check in on the fight for a better contract for school staff in Ontario as CUPE appears to have been backed into a corner following the decision not to launch a province wide general strike. Posties in the UK have voted to extend their strike to multiple dates in December, including Christmas Eve. Our huge news follow up this week is that workers in the two biggest rail unions finally have the results of their vote on the TA, and SMART-TD workers have voted it down, bringing us very close to a nationwide rail strike. While most of the news about Elon Musk lately has been his mismanagement of Twitter, news has come about about rampant wage theft and unsafe conditions at the construction of Tesla's latest "gigafactory" in Austin. Another group of educators has joined the academic strikewave, as adjunct faculty at The New School in NYC hit the picket lines to fight for a wage they can actually afford to live on. A report from The Intercept this week revealed shady management of UAW assets by the incumbent administration, including lowballing estimates of size of the strike fund by tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. This past week also saw the formation of a new union in the South, the Union of Southern Service Workers, to fight for workers rights in one of the most exploited parts of the country. Finally, lots of Starbucks news this week as workers launched the "Red Cup Rebellion", the first nationwide coordinated strike since the union launched a year ago.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 24 PREVIEW - Rank and File Rebellions of the 1970s 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.

For the second part of our series on rank and file movements of the 1970s, we cover the militant workers of the UAW and the CWA. Both these unions faced similar trends of class collaborationist leadership more focused on enforcing existing contracts than resolving problems faced by union workers. Movements like the United National Caucus and the Bell Workers Action Committee arose in response, fighting for democratic control both on the shop floor and within their unions themselves. This era saw both explosive wildcat strikes and oppressive responses from leadership to movements they saw as attacks on their power. While many of these movements were short lived, there's so much we can learn from their fights to inform our practice today. On the third and final part of this series we will cover rank and file movements by nurses, teachers, flight attendants and the formation of the longest lasting and most successful of the 70s rank and file movements, Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 131 - Inflation is Class Warfare

California Academic Workers' Strike Fund: https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw

We start this week's episode with a quick update on where things stand with CUPE in Ontario, as negotiations are once again moving slowly. This week workers won their election at a second Medieval Times castle, making their unit of the AGVA bicoastal. Unfortunately we've got another story of awful child labor, this time a company having kids as young as 13 cleaning slaughterhouses. Also this week, workers at an Amazon air hub in Kentucky launched their drive for a union and a living wage. Airline pilots for Delta and United have both taken steps recently towards a potential strike, but are held back by the Railway Labor Act just like the rail workers. In a frustrating story this week, staff workers at SEIU Local 2015 were forced to strike for nearly two weeks due to refusal to negotiate over wages and healthcare. 250 workers hit the picket lines at publisher HarperCollins in NYC this week, fighting to make publishing a career that can actually pay the bills and to open it up to a more diverse workforce. The biggest strike in the US since 2019 kicked off this week as 50,000 academic workers at the University of California system are fighting for raises, better benefits, and workplace protections. The strike wave in the UK has grown once again, as nearly half a million workers in nursing, academia, and public service all announced upcoming strikes. Finally, Starbucks workers hit 260 union stores this week as well as over 7000 workers at unionized locations.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 23 PREVIEW - Rank and File Rebellions of the 1970s 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.

In the first part of a new Overtime series we dive into the history of rank and file movements that arose during the crises of the 1970s. The 70s were the beginning of the long decline of unionism in the US, but this decline did not happen without worker opposition. In every major union there were workers who refused to accept concession-filled contracts from sellout leadership and took resistance into their own hands. These movements, even where they were not successful, hold many valuable lessons for those of us who want to rebuild the labor movement today. Based primarily on the excellent collection of essays, Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s, this series will explore how we can improve our own movements for reform based on the struggles of the 70s. In our first episode, we introduce the economic and political background to the period and discuss rank and file movements in the United Farm Workers and the United Mine Workers of America. Future episodes will cover the CWA, the UAW, the Teamsters, and more!

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 130 – There Are No Illegal Strikes, Just Unsuccessful Ones

We start this week’s jam packed episode with some sad news, as the vote for NLRB recognition of a union at Home Depot in Philly came up short. We then check in on Chipotle workers, as the NLRB has ruled that the company illegally closed its store in Augusta, ME in retaliation for their union drive. Also this week, 400 workers at Maximus call centers helping people navigate the bureaucratic nightmare of Medicare and the ACA struck for a living wage. Activision continues to fight union efforts in Albany, now trying to subvert an ongoing election by trying to force a change in bargaining unit makeup. The Feds announced the breakup of a modern slavery operation in Florida this week, but the fact that it took 5 years to prosecute the case doesn’t bode well for actually stopping the practice. A recent report from the Seattle Times has revealed a long battle by a Delta pilot against attempts by the company to weaponize their mental health evaluation system against them to quash criticism of inadequate safety protocols. 40,000 sanitation workers in India won regular contracts and better safety conditions after an 11 day strike. Our big story this week is the attempt by the right wing Ford government to make it illegal for school support staff to strike, prompting the entire Canadian labor movement to mobilize and threaten a general strike across the province. Finally, we’ve got a new kind of Starbucks union drive as the company is now testing locations that force workers to do two jobs, including stocking shelves at an Amazon Go store, but only paying them for one. 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

UNLOCKED - Royal Mail Strike Interview

In order to let as many folks as possible hear directly from the workers about the conditions Royal Mail workers are fighting to change, we've decided to unlock our full interview from last week! We hope you enjoy the interview, and if you like the show please support us at patreon.com/workstoppage.

Original Description:
We are so excited to be joined this week by Gary Banks, a worker for the British Royal Mail and local union representative for the Communication Workers Union. We discuss the conditions that led to over 100,000 Royal Mail workers to hit the picket lines over the last few months, and how both the workers and the broader public have been hit hard since the privatization of the mail. We talk about the solidarity being built between different unions during the current cost of living crisis, and how workers have supported each others' strike actions. Finally, we look at the political situation in the UK and how the resurgent union movement can force the changes that the working class desperately needs.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Movie Time 3 PREVIEW - The Organizer and Western Ghats

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 back at the movies again this week, this time covering films from Italy and India. First we discuss 1963's The Organizer, a working class drama about the early days of labor organizing in northern Italy in the late 1800s. The film covers the extreme exploitation of 19th century textile workers and their earliest attempts at organizing, even before major national unions existed. For our second film this week we watched Western Ghats (Merku Thodarchi Malai), from India's southern state of Tamil Nadu. Western Ghats follows the struggle of landless workers forced to labor for the big landowners as they strive to become independent peasant farmers themselves. The film portrays the difficulties of peasants, the way debt is used to dispossess them, and the semi feudal conditions they face in many parts of the Global South in ways western cinema rarely covers.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 129 – End Slavery, End the Empire

We start our episode this week checking in with the movement to unionize Trader Joe’s, which hit a setback this week after fierce union busting defeated a union election in Brooklyn. This week we got one step closer to a national rail strike, as the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen voted down their tentative agreement. A sad story this week of a worker who lost her life at UPS highlights the incredible pressures placed on workers and the toll that takes both physically and mentally. A new report from Documented NY this week highlighted the complicity of the NYC government with rampant wage theft against immigrant workers hired to sanitize the subway in 2020. An investigation by NBC News has highlighted the rampant use of slave labor on US military bases around the world, adding yet another reason to support the end of US Imperialism. Grad student workers at Yale submitted cards this week for what would be one of the largest new bargaining units of the year if successful.  Finally, we check in on the Starbucks Workers United movement, as the company continues to refuse to bargain and the court system continues to show its true nature as a weapon against the working class.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

PREVIEW: Royal Mail Strike Interview

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 are so excited to be joined this week by Gary Banks, a worker for the British Royal Mail and local union representative for the Communication Workers Union. We discuss the conditions that led to over 100,000 Royal Mail workers to hit the picket lines over the last few months, and how both the workers and the broader public have been hit hard since the privatization of the mail. We talk about the solidarity being built between different unions during the current cost of living crisis, and how workers have supported each others' strike actions. Finally, we look at the political situation in the UK and how the resurgent union movement can force the changes that the working class desperately needs.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX

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

Ep 128 – Protect the Right to Strike!

We start this week’s episode on a sad note, as workers at Amazon’s ALB1 facility outside Albany have voted against joining the ALU following Amazon’s intense union busting campaign. Striking Teamsters in Boston ended their strike against Sysco, signing a new deal with better wages and healthcare. California mental health workers ended their 10 week long strike at Kaiser Permanente this week as well, forcing the company to agree to hire more workers. Two teachers strikes in Massachusetts directly challenged the state’s law banning public workers from striking, winning major gains in spite of court orders trying to stop their strikes. Like much of Europe, France has seen a major cost of living crisis erupt into labor action, and the Macron government has attacked the right to strike to stop workers from standing up against austerity.  We also check in on union drives at Chipotle, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and CVS.  As usual, we close discussing Starbucks Workers United as they continue to win victories even as Starbucks can’t stop breaking the law.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 22 PREVIEW - Weavers of Revolution 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 part of our series on Peter Winn's book Weavers of Revolution, we discuss the moves made by the workers at the Yarur Mill in Chile following their successful union election. Faced with sabotage by the mill owners, workers found themselves forced to take control of the mill in their own hands. Pulling the government along behind them, workers advanced the transition to socialism themselves, seizing the mill and demanding its nationalization. During the period of worker self-management, the mill's productivity soared along with workers wages while the culture of fear and oppression disappeared. Workers developed their own systems of democratic management, bringing dignity and respect to their jobs for the first time. Though their victory was short lived due to the US-backed coup that overthrew the government, there is so much we can learn from these workers' incredible struggle.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 127 – Child Labor is a Crime Against Humanity

We start this week’s episode with an update on the Sysco strike, where Teamsters in Syracuse have won their demands, but workers in Boston continue to face repression. In Philadelphia, workers have won their strike at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and won major gains in their new contract. We also check in with the Medieval Times workers who are now being sued for trademark infringement because their union logo…has swords in it. This past week saw strikes at Amazon facilities all over the place, from Hamburg, Germany to San Bernardino, California, protesting low wages on Prime Week to maximize workers’ leverage. We got another big victory in the retail union wave this week when workers at an Apple store in Oklahoma City won their union election and joined the CWA. Workers at T-Mobile have joined the union surge, with customer service workers launching an independent union, the T-Force Social Care Alliance. Backed by impossible to trace dark money, business groups have been successfully lobbying states across the country to expand the legal use of child labor to keep wages low during the so-called “labor shortage.” Finally, we check in with how Starbucks has continued illegally closing stores that unionize, but how workers continue to use strike actions to fight back, getting some help this week from Billy Bragg.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Overtime Episode 21 PREVIEW - Weavers of Revolution 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.

In this new two-part Overtime series we will be discussing Peter Winn’s fantastic labor history book, Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile’s Road to Socialism. The story of the workers at the Yarur cotton mill and their movement for worker control of the factory is rich with lessons for our struggles today.  Though the Chilean Revolution was short lived, it was full of experimentation with different forms of worker control of the means of production. In this first episode, we get into the background history of the Yarur mill and the decades of struggle by the workers there for an independent union. We discuss the different class forces in play in Chile during this period and how Allende’s Popular Unity government tried to maintain a balance of these forces to allow them to advance their program of a transition to socialism. In the second part we will cover the seizure of the mill by the workers, the response from the state, and the fate of the workers’ movement in the wake of Pinochet’s coup.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Ep 126 - Workplace Safety is Non-Negotiable

Right as we were sitting down to record this week some big news regarding the potential nationwide rail strike dropped, so we start discussing that. Then we follow up with the unionized workers at Raven Software, where the NLRB has ruled that Activision illegally withheld benefits from workers. We have a whole block of Amazon stories this week: first, Amazon suspended nearly 100 workers for demanding safe working conditions after a fire at JFK8. Also, Amazon has sued Washington State for the audacity of enforcing workplace safety laws, claiming their implementation would be too expensive. And lastly, Amazon drivers in Japan have been forced to use fake IDs to avoid having to be paid overtime.  Also this week, over 500 Teamsters at Sysco facilities in Boston and Syracuse are on strike after the company tried to force them off their pension plans. Workers at a paper mill in Alabama have been locked out by their employer after voting down a contract that would remove all protections against overwork. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case next term that could potentially make strikes impossible due to legal costs, we discuss the implications for the labor movement. Finally, as always, we discuss the Starbucks Workers United movement as it approaches 250 unionized stores.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

PREVIEW: Health Communism: An Interview with Death Panel

Order Health Communism here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism 

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 were so excited to be joined by our friends Bea and Artie from the Death Panel to discuss their new book Health Communism. We talk about the way capitalism divides us into "workers" and "surplus", and how the surplus are sorted into arrangements of extractive abandonment so they can be profited from. We discuss the fight for universal healthcare and why we can't just stop at health finance reform. We also talk about the revolutionary potential in the struggle to separate health from capital and build a system that really provides all care to all people.

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

Check out the Death Panel at patreon.com/deathpanelpod

Follow Death Panel @deathpanel_ , Bea @realLandsEnd, and Artie @avierkant

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

Ep 125 – Prison Abolition Is Not a Metaphor

We start our episode this week checking in with friends of the show Doughnut Workers United, who have finally won their union at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, OR after years of organizing. It only took two days for the strike by food service workers at San Francisco Airport last week to win huge gains. We also give a brief update on where the different rail unions are in the contract ratification process. Workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art struck this past week when management refused to agree to grant workers raises that would cover inflation.  The drive to unionize Trader Joe’s has spread to another store, this time in Brooklyn, and unfortunately the company’s union busting has followed.  As the auto industry shifts to electric vehicles, the UAW faces an uphill battle to ensure the new EV jobs are unionized. Over 13,000 incarcerated workers went on strike against the system of mass incarceration and prison slavery they face over the past week, and the state has responded with violence and attempts to starve the workers out.  Finally, as always, we check-in with the Starbucks Workers United movement and discuss the list of contract proposals that the union has released.

Doughnut Workers United Contract Support Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dwu-strike-hardship-and-negotiation-fund

Gofundme for Fired Trader Joe’s organizer: https://www.gofundme.com/f/trader-joes-united-solidarity-fund 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

Movie Time 2 PREVIEW – Sorry We Missed You and Pride

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

For the second episode of our series discussing the labor movement in films, we’re going across the pond to cover two movies from the UK.  First up, we discuss Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, a devastating realist look at the state of the working class in Britain. The film follows the struggle of a working class family trying to provide for their kids in a job market where no matter how hard you work, a living wage and a comfortable life feel further and further out of reach. Sorry We Missed You provides no illusions about class mobility or hard work winning out in the end, it forces us to confront the reality that so many jobs in the modern economy are premised on poverty wages and hours so long that you never see your family.  For our second film, we discuss 2014’s Pride, which tells the true story of a group of LGBTQ activists in London who band together to support striking coal miners in Wales. The film focuses on the power of solidarity, and shows how by combining all the struggles against all the forms of oppression faced by the working class, we can be much stronger than when we’re divided. 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

UNLOCKED - Starbucks Workers United Oklahoma City Interview

In order to let as many folks as possible hear from Starbucks workers fighting for their union, we've decided to unlock our full interview from last week! We hope you enjoy the interview, and if you like the show please support us at patreon.com/workstoppage.

Original Description:

This week we were excited to be joined by Alisha Humphrey, a worker-organizer with Starbucks Workers United in Oklahoma City. We discuss the ins and outs of organizing at Starbucks, what prompted her store to unionize, and how covid has played a major role in all of this. We talk about how the company’s scorched earth union busting campaign has influenced the nationwide union drive, and how organizers have dealt with union busting tactics. We also talk over how to have organizing conversations with workers who may be hesitant, how workers who are thinking about organizing can reach out for help in getting the ball rolling, and how members of the community can show their support for organizing workers. Check out Alisha's writing in Jacobin on the cruel ways Starbucks has weaponized benefits against workers here: jacobin.com/2022/08/starbucks-a…tunt-union-contract

No Contract No Coffee Pledge: crm.broadstripes.com/ctf/SJID0H

Solidarity Fund for SBWU partners: secure.actblue.com/donate/starbucksworkersfund

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX

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

Ep 124 – We All Need A Living Wage

Once again we start this week’s episode of Work Stoppage checking in on the rail workers, as details of the tentative agreements have been released and a strike remains a real possibility. We follow that with some quick updates as the NLRB hits Amazon with a complaint for illegal union busting at LDJ5, the Case New Holland strike hits five months, the ridiculous attempt to bill UMWA for $13M in unmined coal is reversed, and Chipotle continues to rack up thousands of criminal violations of labor law. The RMT will be hitting the picket lines in the UK alongside postal workers, dock workers, nearly 200,000 workers total on October 1. 1000 food service workers at San Francisco Airport went on strike this week in protest of wages 50% below the area’s living wage. We have a truly unhinged story of a small business tyrant in Iowa who bribed workers to decertify their union, amongst numerous other crimes. Home Depot workers in Philly are organizing with the aim of forming the first unionized store in the entire chain. Finally, we check in on Starbucks Workers United, where the retaliation against workers continue but strikes at many stores seem to be making a real impact and winning real gains for workers.

Gofundme for fired working mother at Washington Starbucks: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-amber-fired-5-year-partner-and-mother 

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX 

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

PREVIEW - Starbucks Workers United Oklahoma City Interview

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

No Contract No Coffee Pledge: https://crm.broadstripes.com/ctf/SJID0H

Solidarity Fund for SBWU partners: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/starbucksworkersfund

This week we were excited to be joined by Alisha Humphrey, a worker-organizer with Starbucks Workers United in Oklahoma City. We discuss the ins and outs of organizing at Starbucks, what prompted her store to unionize, and how covid has played a major role in all of this. We talk about how the company’s scorched earth union busting campaign has influenced the nationwide union drive, and how organizers have dealt with union busting tactics. We also talk over how to have organizing conversations with workers who may be hesitant, how workers who are thinking about organizing can reach out for help in getting the ball rolling, and how members of the community can show their support for organizing workers. Check out Alisha's writing in Jacobin on the cruel ways Starbucks has weaponized benefits against workers here: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/starbucks-abortion-transgender-health-care-promises-pr-stunt-union-contract

Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX

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