Work Stoppage

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

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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PREVIEW: Work Stoppage 2022 Year In Review

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

It's the last show of the year, and what better way to finish out 2022 than by reviewing some of the biggest stories in labor over the course of the year. We go back through the year's worth of stories to highlight some of the biggest trends, from the explosive growth of the Starbucks Workers United movement and the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the US to the betrayal of the rail workers by President Biden. We discuss the surge in organizing in academia, new unions that emerged in retail, and the strike wave that broke out across the UK in response to the cost of living crisis.  We review our predictions from last year, see how we did, and make some new ones for 2023.  Finally of course, we cap off 2022 discussing some of our favorite memes of the year. 

Happy Holidays to all our listeners! May next year see an even bigger growth in workers organizing to fight back against their exploitation on the job!

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Ep 137 - Alabama Sleighride

Happy Holidays to all, especially workers fighting for a better world! We start this week's episode discussing the recent end of the largest strike of the year at UC as workers have ratified a new contract. Next we discuss a recent Reuters investigation that uncovered rampant use of child labor in auto manufacturing in Alabama. The lockout of workers at the WestRock paper mill (also in Alabama) has continued for months now with no end in sight, as local politicians have openly sided with the company. Nurses struck again last week across the UK, and were joined by ambulance drivers despite the use of the army as scabs. Trader Joe's workers have filed for a third union election in Louisville and are already facing union busting. NY workers including the ALU have forced the passage of a bill to make Amazon reveal the quotas they use to fire workers. Elon Musk is being sued for illegally firing workers yet again, this time at Tesla for daring to criticize him. Last month a university in Florida decided to stop recognizing their faculty union, and in a twist justified it by quoting the Bible. Finally, we've got a quick check-in with the Starbucks Workers United movement which notched its first win in Nevada this past week.

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Ep 136 - First Contract Fight

UAW Local 807 Strike Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-striking-uaw-local-807-cnh-workers 

This week's episode of Work Stoppage starts by checking in on the strike at Case New Holland, where over a thousand workers have been on strike for over 8 months. Next we update everyone on the status of the UC strike, where the bargaining team has signed a tentative agreement and some in the rank and file push back. The UK strike wave continues to grow as nurses launched their largest strike in the country's history. Rail workers unhappy with the lack of militancy in leadership responded this week as members of BLET surprisingly voted out their union president. NY Farm Workers now have the right to form unions, but we discuss a case that shows winning a first contract may be the harder challenge. We got some big NLRB news this week, as the board ruled that companies can be held liable for more than just back pay for illegally firing organizers. Also this week the Board issued a long overdue ruling that so called "student athletes" are in fact workers and have all the rights associated with being employees. Finally, we discuss the largest strike yet by Starbucks Workers United, as they Doubled Down for a three day strike over last weekend.

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Movie Time 4 PREVIEW: Made in Dagenham and Norma Rae

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 going back to the movies this week with two films focused on the power of women workers.  First we discuss 2010's Made in Dagenham, which chronicles the 1968 strike by women sewing machinists at Ford's largest auto plant in Europe. Standing up against not only the bosses, but also chauvinist union leaders and a reformist Labour government, the women workers held their ground to fight not just for better conditions for themselves, but for equal pay for all women workers. Our second film is the 1979 classic, Norma Rae. In one of the most famous union movies ever made, Norma Rae tells the true story of the fight to organize a textile mill in the rural south. Facing a vicious union busting campaign, racism, anti-semitism, and constant attacks by the bosses and the cops, workers led by the tenacious Norma Rae demonstrate what workers can accomplish when we don't let the bosses divide us.

Ep 135 - There’s No Such Thing As a ”Pro-Labor Capitalist”

We start this week's episode with some sad news, as the South Korean truckers have been forced to end their strike after weeks of vicious government repression. Also this week the NLRB ruled that Apple has been breaking the law with its Starbucks-inspired union busting campaigns at its retail stores. Minnesota nurses have called off their potential strike after tentatively agreeing to a new contract with safe staffing measures for the first time. About a quarter of the striking workers at UC ratified new contracts this week but the majority have stayed out, escalating tactics in response to the intransigence of the administration. The strike at the New School ended this weekend after solidarity between faculty and students forced the school administrators to concede to the workers' demands. Grad students at BU became the latest group of academic workers to unionize this week. Workers also voted overwhelmingly to unionize at the Ultium Cells electric car battery factory in Warren, OH this week. We are getting the first test of Microsoft's "neutrality agreement" with the CWA as QA testers at ZeniMax are aiming to build the largest union within a major games publisher in the country. Workers at Disney World are struggling for a new contract as their low wages leave a majority unable to pay their bills, causing many to have to live out of their cars. And finally, this week marks the 1 year anniversary of the first successfully unionized Starbucks, as the movement has exploded to cover over 7000 workers.

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PREVIEW: Interview: Academia is a Racket

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This year has seen a huge surge in organizing at academic institutions across the country. Academic workers have formed the five largest new bargaining units of the year AND led the country's largest strike, the ongoing 48,000 worker strike at the University of California. So we thought it would be a good idea to bring on a guest who could help us dig into the conditions that have prompted this increase in labor action in academia. We're joined by Prez, a PhD candidate based in NYC, to discuss the conditions faced by grad students, adjunct faculty, academic researchers, and other academic workers that have pushed so many into organizing. We talk about the way the pandemic has affected academic workers, how workers with disabilities are often left abandoned by their employers, and how the allure of tenure and the social status that comes with it is used to justify forcing academic workers to accept poverty wages.

Check out Prez's podcast The Minyan, which you can find on Twitter @the_minyan

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Ep 134 - Biden Betrays the Rail Workers

We've got a monster episode as last week was full of monumental news in the labor movement. First of course we have an extended breakdown of the move by President Biden and both capitalist parties last week to use the Railway Labor Act to make a rail strike illegal and force a contract the workers democratically rejected down their throats. We discuss how we got here, what this means for the immediate future, and what we can expect long term. Then we discuss updates on the truckers' strike in South Korea, where President Yoon has declared the strike illegal and attempted to force drivers back to work. We also check in on the HarperCollins strike, where workers have received support from many authors who are refusing to submit work to the publisher. We follow up with the QA workers of Blizzard Albany, who finally won recognition of their union. The country's largest strike of 50k academic workers at UC has hit its second month as administrators refuse to agree to provide a living wage and critical benefits. Workers at the New York Times voted to authorize their first strike in 50 years if a deal is not reached before December 8th. 15,000 workers in Minnesota are gearing up for a major strike escalation as healthcare companies continue to refuse the provide safe staffing and fair wages.  800 dockworkers in Mobile, AL have been on strike for two weeks as their employer, CSA, is refusing to pay workers the pension contributions they owe them after four years without a contract. Workers in Ontario got some relief this week as courts struck down a draconian wage law. The movement to reform the UAW made massive wins this week in the union's elections, making a near sweep, making a near sweep for the UAWD backed reform slate. And of course, Starbucks continues its war on workers while the union keeps on winning elections.

Railroad Workers United Donation Fund: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/RWU-Raises-Funds-to-Wage-the-Struggle-.html?soid=1116509035139&aid=jZnP-zHBM4I

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Overtime Episode 25 PREVIEW - Rank and File Rebellions of the 1970s - 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.

For the final part of our series on rank and file movements of the 1970s, we cover the movements formed by rank and file women workers to fight not only for better wages and conditions, but also to stop the entrenched culture of discrimination on the job. As millions of public sector workers joined unions, teachers, nurses and civil servants had bargaining rights for the first time. Along with flight attendants, nurses, and many other professions, women workers struggled successfully to not just win respect on the job, but to totally change public consciousness around women in the workforce. We also finish our run of rank and file stores with the Teamsters and the birth of the longest enduring organization from this era, Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Fighting against concession filled contracts for decades, the TDU has been a constant presence since this era in the struggle to democratize and reform the Teamsters. As the longest surviving and most successful union reform movement in the US labor movement, there is so much we can learn from the history of the TDU, and all the other inspiring struggles by the rank and file to stop the loss of all that prior generations of union workers had fought for.

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Ep 133 - Unions Keep Workers Safe, Not OSHA

After a bit of complaining about workers being forced to come in during the holidays, we start this week's episode with a check-in on the longest running strike in the US at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama. The strike wave in the UK continues to grow as academic workers held the UK's largest ever academic strike and the RMT announced new rail shutdowns. The largest strike in the US continued into its third week as the University of California refuses to meet workers needs for a living wage and benefits. Electric truck maker Rivian continues to show that tech industry "disruption" usually just means violating labor and safety laws. The horrifying death of a foundry worker at Caterpillar in Illinois exposed the total toothlessness of OSHA and raises the question: how much is a human life worth? In happier news, three major unions announced an agreement to collaborate to unionize Delta wall-to-wall, in a move that could set a new pattern for organizing. Truck drivers in South Korea have launched another major strike after the right wing Yoon government backed out of a deal agreed to earlier this year. And of course, we end with Starbucks, where the company keeps closing stores, but union drives keep winning at a faster pace.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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