Work Stoppage

The Working Class Has No Border Ep 6: Fighting California Fascism PREVIEW

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In our sixth episode, and final episode of our subset on the struggle of farmworkers,  we discuss the epic agricultural strikes of the 1930s.  With farm wages slashed to starvation levels during the Great Depression, organization in the fields made the slogan "Fight, Don't Starve!" a reality. While the AFL continued to refuse to organize farmworkers, the Communist Party stepped into the gap and organized the largest agricultural strike wave in US history in 1933. In response, farm owners and their allies in the state unleashed truly fascist repression, attempting to drown these struggles in blood. But the perseverance of the workers and their dedication to racial and national unity managed to extract vital wins even in the depths of the worst economic downturn in the country's history. These struggles would terrify farm owners so much, they would lobby the state to create the country's first guest worker program, the Bracero Program, to institute a legalized regime of apartheid in the fields and try to prevent the racial unity that proved so powerful. These fights and the response from the capitalist class laid the foundations for the structures of exploitation and oppression faced by farmworkers today, and carry many lessons for those who would organize for a better future.

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

Ep 273 - Labor Dabor

It's Labor Day! Which means we're working and hopefully you aren't, because the labor news needs reporting, but everyone else needs to be at a protest, picket line, and/or barbecue. We start with headlines from Northwestern University, Arena League Football, the Offshore Wind industry, Yosemite National Park, UPMC, Activision Blizzard, and Valleyview Municipal Library in Alberta, Canada. For our main stories we discuss the continued campaign of escalations by the incredible organizers with No Azure for Apartheid, fighting Microsoft's collaboration with genocide. Next we've got a story that couldn't be more emblematic of the purpose of the nationwide campaign of ICE terror, with union organizers in upstate New York being specifically targeted for deportation. Uber and Lyft drivers in California took a major step towards official unionization this week, but the deal that made that possible comes with quite a few asterisks. Finally, the UAW notched another major win in an extremely tight election at the BOSK EV battery plant in Glendale, Kentucky.

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Ep 272 - So Be It

We're back to full strength this week and have another jam packed episode for you! We start with headlines from workers at Microsoft, Uber, Amazon, Portuguese Airports, Kaiser Permanente, SpaceX, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Then we've got a follow up on last week's landmark defiance of Canada's attempt to crush the Air Canada strike, with flight attendants winning big after standing their ground. Next we've got an update on the war on education, with stories from the University of Oregon, Columbia University, the AAUP, and public school teachers in Oklahoma. Continuing with our airport centered theme, we also have a maddening story of union busting by airport transportation contractor SkyHop, from a recent report by Amir Khafagy for Documented. Finally, after nearly four months, the workers at Butler Hospital in Providence, RI finally won their strike and ratified a new contract, we discuss what they won in the process.

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The Working Class Has No Border Ep 5: Farmworkers, The IWW, & Fighting Eugenics PREVIEW

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In the fifth episode of our series on the class struggles on the US-Mexico border, we continue our deep dive into the history of the fight by farmworkers in the Southwest to demand fair wages, working conditions, and dignity. The 1920s were an area of ruling class dominance in the US, and along with their surging wealth, the ideology of eugenic "race science" was developed to justify the extreme inequality and exploitation of the oppressed. In this context, Mexican workers in the fields of California and the factories of the Midwest faced explicitly racist super exploitation by their bosses. In this episode, we discuss efforts by radical organizers in the IWW, the Communist Party, and Mexican mutualistas to combat this extreme racism and unify the fightback of all farmworkers, with many lessons for us to draw from in our fight against racist ICE terrorism today.

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Ep 271 - Air Workers Vs Canada

We've got a shorter episode this week as all the hosts are super busy, and John's away, but the labor news never stops! We start with a check-in on the war on working people being waged by ICE terrorists, including yet another worker murdered by one of their raids. We also check in on organizing at Starbucks, Instacart, Republic Services, and Activision Blizzard. We've got just two main stories this week, the first covering a recent deep dive by Luis Feliz Leon on the strike by Teamsters at Mauser Packaging Solutions in Chicago, where workers are fighting deadly working conditions and bosses who refuse to agree not to collaborate with ICE. Finally, Air Canada workers who have seen their wages slashed over the past two decades are standing up not only to their employer, but to the Liberal government trying to use the law to force them to end the strike.

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Ep 270 - They're Flooding the Zone

Student Workers of Columbia Petition: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffy00B2Ns3ssleCKD8JIPdyav9vIIjFeydhfj2w86K1NfwYA/viewform

Its another supersized episode as we try our best to catch up to the unending cascade of news in the labor world. We start with headlines from PetSmart, Airgas, Italian dock and textile workers, the WNBA, Amazon, Raven Software, and Hormel. For our main stories, this week we really focus in on the attacks on public workers, starting across the pond with the ruthless austerity facing doctors at the NHS. Next we discuss Trump's move to tear up union contracts at the VA and EPA. We also dive into the attempt to roll back reforms won through the working class struggle in the 1960s and 70s, removing crucial regulations. Finally, we dive into the specific assault on teachers, where it comes from, and whether it's really as "populist" as our media would like us to believe.

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Ep 269 - Stand Together or Fall Alone

Warehouse Workers Against ICE Petition: https://form.jotform.com/251684939561066

Palestinian Trade Unions Statement: https://masarbadil.org/en/2025/07/6308/

No Azure for Apartheid Pledge: https://t.co/df0U2S9P26

We're back after our brief vacation! And so much has happened in the last two weeks! We've got a supersized headline section covering workers organizing at REI, Starbucks, FedEx, UPS, Airgas, Care New England, the Wonderful Company, Canada Post, and more. For our major stories, we start with a review of how university administrators are using the Trump Administration's attacks on higher education as cover to push forward attacks on student organizers. While many workers are coming together to fight ICE, a recent Labor Notes report documents how the leadership of some parts of the building trades are failing the most basic test of a union leader: solidarity. Workers at Fenway Park have gone on strike for the first time after contracting giant Aramark refuses to pay them enough to live in one of the most expensive parts of the country. Finally, we discuss the state of ICE's attacks on the US working class and how more and more Americans are realizing the shared interests we have with our immigrant siblings.

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

The Working Class Has No Border Ep 4: Farmworkers Fight To Survive PREVIEW

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In the fourth episode of our series on the class struggles on the US-Mexico border, we begin a three part section on the history of struggle by Mexican farmworkers in the fields of the Southwest. At the turn of the 20th century, the center of gravity of US agricultural production shifted to California, and the demand for labor soared. This era was dominated by attempts by large landowners to split up their workforce by race, and use demonization and discrimination to keep workers from organizing and keep wages low. But while organizing has always been difficult, workers have never accepted brutal exploitation without fighting back. In this episode, we discuss efforts like the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association, the Renters Union, and Las Gorras Blancas to organize and fight against racist oppression in the first two decades of the 20th century.

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

Ep 268 - Community Is Our Strength

Warehouse Workers Against ICE Petition: https://form.jotform.com/251684939561066

Petition Supporting Columbia Students: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/1d7c3280b87eb84ead62ae8750dbe02c6edfbfd4/?hash=ee7d69beeb2f8db225aa3325fd24f306

Big episode this week as the billionaire assault on workers rights isn't slowing down, nor are efforts to organize against it. We start with updates on workers at Lowe's, Costco, Amazon, Wells Fargo, Republic Services, Airgas,  GM, and Newark Airport.  Waste management workers aren't just fighting for a fair wage in the US, in Birmingham in the UK they've been on a series of strikes since March. We've got several stories this week of how educators are organizing against attacks on anti-genocide speech. The AAUP are fighting against the McCarthyite attacks in court, Rank and File members of the NEA are fighting to get the ADL's anti-Palestinian materials out of schools, and student workers at CUNY and University of Michigan are fighting to keep speech alive on their campuses. Finally, we check in on some of the impacts of ICE's reign of terror around the country, and the ways workers are coming up with new tactics of community resistance.

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

The Working Class Has No Border Ep 3: From Revolution to Repression PREVIEW

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In this third episode of our series on the class struggles on the US-Mexico border, we finish our high level overview of the political class struggle on the border from the end of the Mexican Revolution to the end of World War 2. With the consolidation of the Revolution in a liberal direction, we will discuss the attempts of workers to capitalize on their gains, and the Mexican state to control and contain their struggles. We cover the rise of nativist racism in the leadership of US trade unions and its counterproductive attacks on immigrant workers, as well as the efforts by radicals in the Communist and Socialist parties to change this and build true classwide unity. The Great Depression forced millions on both sides of the border to fight or starve and this period saw some of the greatest victories of mass working class industrial action. But without the consolidation of an independent political movement, the limitations of these efforts would become all too clear.

In the next sections of our series, we will focus in on the specifics of the labor struggles waged by workers in the fields, mines, and factories. We'll discuss the long history of attempts at multi-national unity in the labor struggle and both the successes and failures of the labor movement to rise to the challenge.

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

Ep 267 - ICE Are Murderers

Headlines this week from South Korea, Paris, Greece, Washington, Oregon, Chicago, New York, and Maine, including follow ups on the big Philly public worker strike, the lockout at Butler Hospital in Providence, and the ever expanding strike at Republic Services. Our main story this week is the war on the working class being unleashed against immigrants across the country, including a militarized terror raid at a farm in California where ICE murdered one worker and arrested 200. A recent report from The Guardian documents how Amazon is using AI to automate discrimination against disabled workers. Finally, the workers and farmers movement in India once again held a truly massive strike, with 250 million people hitting the streets last week.

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Ep 266 - What Are We Willing to Do About It?

We start this week with some headlines including victories at Safeway, King Soopers, Tyson, Sharp Healthcare, as well as workers standing up to ICE all over the country. Another major struggle by farmers in India against attacks on their livelihood that could draw 10s of millions this week. Municipal workers in Philadelphia have been on strike over a week and the mile high stacks of trash are showing just how vital these folks are. The right wing assault on universities continues to escalate, and many administrators are using it for cover for attacks on workers they've wanted all along. Finally, we cover a roundup of ways that the Trump Administration is rolling back even more of the very few labor protections any of us have.

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The Working Class Has No Border Ep 2: Workers Shape The Revolution PREVIEW

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In this second episode of our series on the class struggles on the US-Mexico border, we explore the working class movements that helped shape the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Over the decade long revolutionary period, Mexican workers and peasants fought to establish rights that had been held back by the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Through the PLM, the IWW, the COM, and various peasant organizations, the working classes organized and fought in unprecedented numbers. The different bourgeois forces vying to replace Diaz and consolidate the state under their power sought the support of workers, as their organized strength repeatedly swung the balance of power from one group to another. We discuss the gains, losses, and occasional inspiring revolutionary victories of the Mexican working classes, and how these carry lessons for our struggles today.

In future episodes, we'll discuss the consolidation of the control of the Mexican labor movement under the state, the surge in migration to the North, the fight against racist nativism, and the struggles of workers on both sides of the border during the Great Depression. 

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Ep 265 - Sick of ICE!

Find a Sick of ICE! Event Near You: https://sickofice.org/

We start this week's headlines with follow-ups on workers at Safeway, Chiquita and Cisco, several new struggles being waged by the Teamsters, and South Korea's new train driving Minister of Labor. We've also got new possible strikes by healthcare workers in Rhode Island and municipal workers in Philly. Our first main story covers a sweeping new labor code in Colombia passed after a nationwide working class mass mobilization. Next we discuss a recent piece in the New Republic documenting the ways UPS is functionally breaking the landmark 2023 contract and workers are literally dying because of it. Finally, we close with a round up of updates on the Trump Administration's war on workers, and new ways workers are fighting back.

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Ep 264 - No War But Class War

Workers Against Ice Petition: <https://form.jotform.com/251684939561066>

Oakland Children's Hospital Strike Fund: <https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nuhw-members-at-childrens-hospital-oakland>

After a brief detour discussing the necessity for labor to unite against the US-Israeli war on Iran, we dive into our regular labor headlines. This week we've got followups with striking grocery workers, beverage distribution workers, tabletop game store employees, teachers, and farmworkers. Our first story returns to one of the more horrific forms of labor in this country, prison slavery, as incarcerated workers in Alabama fight to just have the state follow its own laws. Next, gig workers in India are facing dystopian new conditions of ten minute worker deliveries. Research assistants at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are on the verge of forming one of the largest single campus grad unions in the country. Finally, healthcare workers at Oakland Children's Hospital are on strike after their employers in the UC system are proposing to slash their benefits.

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The Working Class Has No Border Ep 1: Pre-Revolutionary Foundations PREVIEW

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As migrant workers across the US face an onslaught of racist state terrorism from ICE and other federal agencies, solidarity from the labor movement is more critical than ever. One of the most powerful tools of repression that the bosses have is using racist dehumanization to split workers against each other across national lines. So now more than ever, it's critical that American workers understand that these migrant workers are our brothers and sisters, and that only by uniting with them can we advance our class interests. For as long as there has been a border between the US and Mexico, workers on both sides have only ever won their struggles against oppression through unity, rather than division. In this series, using the incredible book Radicals in the Barrio by Professor Justin Akers Chacon as our core guide, we will discuss the history of shared working class struggles by Mexican and Mexican American workers on both sides of the border from the Mexican-American War to the Cold War. 

In this first episode, we will begin by laying the groundwork for the politics of the Mexican Revolution, looking back through the history of colonization, independence, war with the United States, and relations with US Imperialism. In future episodes, we'll discuss the role of the working class in the Mexican Revolution, how these revolutionaries brought their ideas north across the border and influenced struggles in the US, and how multi-national unity has been critical to any labor victories won in the Southwest for over 150 years.

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Ep 263 - Fight for Farmworkers

This week's headlines include stories from workers at Safeway, Fenway Park, the Louvre, Johns Hopkins, Butler Hospital, and the video game industry. For our first story, we discuss a recent report in Truthout on the massive wins made by mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente after their epic strike. Panamanian workers have continued to fight against attacks on their rights and social security, as their government turns to legal repression. Universities across the country have gone to extreme lengths to suppress Palestine protests, this week we discuss an expose of dystopian (and sloppy) surveillance at the University of Michigan. Canada Post workers are once again at a crossroads between an intransigent government and the possibility of another strike. Finally, we check in on the growing coalition in the labor movement and the broader working class to organize against ICE terrorism.

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Ep 262 - Chinga La Migra!

Big episode this week as Trump's war on workers has taken an extremely literal turn. First we've got headlines from Providence, Western Washington, Genoa, Argentina, and Ecuador. Doctors continue to unionize in record numbers, and this week we cover two recent victories. The Washington DC City Council jettisoned democracy to attack tipped workers this week, halting an already approved wage increase at the behest of restaurant owners. Over 150,000 grocery workers with the UFCW and Teamsters are gearing up for what could be the biggest grocery strikes in years. Finally, we discuss the powerful uprising by the working people of Los Angeles in response to raids by the ICE terrorist organization against migrant workers, the false imprisonment of SEIU California's president, and the necessity for unified action to end these brutal attacks on our communities.

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Ep 261 - Mismanagement Disguised as Innovation

We start with some check-ins Starbucks' war on workers, the fight by workers at Butler Hospital, and the continuing cruel attacks on workers by the Trump Administration. We've also got headlines this week from Duke, Western Washington University, Sutphen Corp, Golden Gate Nursing Home, and UPMC. Canadian port workers in British Columbia are fighting attempts to replace their jobs with robots. Farm workers in New York are fighting the brazen refusal of farm owners to abide by their legal contract. A recent piece in Labor Notes reports on efforts by both the SEIU and the Machinists to return their union siblings home after being abducted by ICE. Finally, video game workers have been organizing in bigger numbers every year, and this week saw workers at Zenimax reach a new milestone with a first contract.

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

Ep 260 - Beyond the Board

We start this week with headlines on organizing in healthcare, logistics, airlines, construction, software development, video games, and trading cards. We did a deeper dive on a set of stories from Canada last week, this week we have three big stories from workers and farmers in India fighting against neoliberal exploitation. The next major step forward for Mexico's young independent labor movement may be coming up, as Labor Notes reports on efforts to bring new union SINTTIA to a second major plant from GM. The Supreme Court took a major step towards dismantling the NLRA and the entire post-Depression regime of contractual collective bargaining this week, and unions will need to shift tactics to respond. Finally, we discuss how the 4 day workweek is going in Iceland.

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