Episodes
Thursday Apr 04, 2024
OT Ep 68 Preview: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Pt 1
Thursday Apr 04, 2024
Thursday Apr 04, 2024
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
Normally our history series tend to focus on mass movements, on structures, on the broad forces at play in the class struggle. But just because the class struggle is the motor of history, doesn't mean that individuals don't play critical roles. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of those exceptional working class leaders forged in struggle who played an outsized role in many of the most pivotal labor struggles in US history. Political agitator, firebrand public speaker, labor organizer, IWW legend, Communist Party leader, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn played countless roles in the pursuit of liberation. In this series, we'll discuss her incredible life and what lessons we can learn from her lifelong devotion to the cause of the working class.
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Tuesday Apr 02, 2024
Ep 201 - Finished in Finland?
Tuesday Apr 02, 2024
Tuesday Apr 02, 2024
After running down some quick headlines (boycott Molson Coors!), we jump into our first story of the week, Amazon paying restitution to migrant workers who faced abuse while working in Amazon's Saudi Arabian warehouses. Next we discuss attacks on labor rights in Finland by the new right wing government, which threaten to roll back decades of labor gains. UAW supporters at Mercedes Benz in Alabama have filed ULP charges after the company began retaliating against workers for their union support. With heavy hearts we discuss the tragic loss of 6 workers in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and the callous disregard much of the coverage has shown them. The ACLU recently joined the list of progressive nonprofits attacking the NLRB in the wake of a internal union drive. Finally, we celebrate SEGA workers ratifying the first union contract at a major video game firm in the US.
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Thursday Mar 28, 2024
UNLOCKED Overtime Episode 60 - Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 1
Thursday Mar 28, 2024
Thursday Mar 28, 2024
Episode 1 - Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution
We've covered a ton of different eras and stories of the US labor movement on our show, but unfortunately much of it has been heavily focused on solely male workers, leaving out the historic role women have played in shaping the trade union movement in this country. So in an attempt to help rectify that, we're embarking on the longest series we've ever done to discuss just a few of the incredible stories of struggle, solidarity, and success by women organizers through the 200 year history of the US labor movement. In the first episode, we start from the very beginning, the first ever factory strike in US history, led by the women of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and work our way up the Civil War. Few organizations formed in these first few decades lasted very long, but these early struggles still teach us a lot about the dual struggle waged by women workers against oppression not only by their bosses as workers, but by society as a whole through patriarchy. While victories were few in these early years, there are still a lot of parallels we can draw with our organizing fights today.
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Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
Ep 200 - Episode 2000
Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
200 episodes and the labor organizing doesn't stop. After checking in on some quick headlines, we discuss the latest major milestone in the UAW organizing drive at nonunion automakers, with workers officially filing for an election at VW. Also this week, a recent in-depth report in The Guardian documents awful, slavery-like conditions in the fishing industry. Similarly exploited workers, migrant agricultural workers, have been organizing for basic rights in Washington State. Finally, we congratulate the people of Minneapolis for standing up to Uber and Lyft's model of super-exploitation.
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Thursday Mar 21, 2024
Overtime Episode 67 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 8
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
Episode 8 - Feminism and Labor
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
The last forty years have seen massive changes in the US labor movement. With the rise of neoliberalism, combined attacks from corporations and the state decimated union density across the country. But the fight for women's equality in the workplace continued to build to new levels. With organizations like CLUW and 9 to 5 formed in the 70s and 80s women workers fought for reforms to ban discrimination and sexual harassment and empower women within their unions. The impact of the pandemic, like so many other crises, has also been borne disproportionately by women workers. But at the same time, the current labor upsurge has been led by a new generation of militant women labor leaders who continue to push the struggle to new heights.
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Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
Ep 199 - Boycott Medieval Times
Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
For our first story this week we were lucky to be joined by labor reporter Claudia Irizarry Aponte from The City to follow up on the story she broke about alleged sweatshop conditions in a Brooklyn tobacco factory. Next we discuss the sad news that the Medieval Times union drive has been forced to disband after two years of vicious, illegal repression by the company. Boston commuter rail workers are prepared for a strike, despite the restrictions of the Railway Labor Act. Texas is working to destroy the Houston Independent School District in an attempt at full scale privatization. Italy's neofascist ruling party proposed using AI to sort workers into mandatory jobs. Finally, we close by following up with the ways workers around the world are standing up and demanding an end to the genocide in Palestine.
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Thursday Mar 14, 2024
Overtime Episode 66 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 7
Thursday Mar 14, 2024
Thursday Mar 14, 2024
Episode 7 - 1199 and the UFW
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 years following the McCarthyite purges of the early 1950s, the pace of progress in the labor movement cooled from its heady heights of the CIO and the 1946 strike wave. But new struggles still emerged all over the country, and women workers continued to break barriers. The fight by Local 1199 to organize the majority Black and Puerto Rican women hospital workers of New York City became an epic struggle part of the broader national civil rights movement. On the other side of the country, a movement to organize agricultural workers made its mark with the intervention of organizers like Dolores Huerta. The fight for basic human rights for farm workers led to a nationwide boycott and a titanic struggle that lasted nearly 5 years.
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Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
Ep 198 - Toyota Stands Up
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
After several quick headlines, we start this week with the first ever successful union election of a major men's basketball team in the NCAA at Dartmouth. Then we've got a major UAW update covering the last two weeks including major developments at Mercedes in Alabama, Toyota in Missouri, and more. We also discuss the continued existence of sweatshops right here in the US, as tobacco processing workers in NYC face horrific conditions. Unions in Minneapolis came together around years of organizing for a week of action that could show a vision of rooting the resurgent labor movement deeply in our communities. QA testers at Activision formed the largest union in video games in the US this week, and animators at Nickelodeon finalized a record new contract.
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Thursday Mar 07, 2024
Overtime Episode 65 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 6
Thursday Mar 07, 2024
Thursday Mar 07, 2024
Episode 6 - Women Build the CIO
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 first few decades of the 20th century, the AFL consistently failed to live up to its promises to fight for equal pay for equal work. But in the 1930s, an alternate labor federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, broke away and launched the most historic nationwide labor upsurge in US history, and a key part of their success was the organization of women. The UAW and the UE, two of our favorite unions, led the fight for women's equality in the workplace, striking for equal pay and winning it in contracts across the country. In the 1940s, World War 2 also made enormous changes for women workers, opening up countless fields that had previously been barred from them by chauvinism. While some unions were slow to accept the massive changes in the workforce during the war, this period marked the first time major unions consistently began to fight and win demands for equality on a national scale. Pushed by prominent Communist organizers, the CIO finally devoted resources to organizing women and closing the wage gap, and the gains for the labor movement as a whole were enormous.
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Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Ep 197 - Structural Forces and Bad Actors
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
It's March! We begin by discussing yet another horrifying story of abuse of child labor, but also a story of how one UFCW local in Minnesota is fighting against the conditions creating it. In a huge milestone, Starbucks has agreed to a framework to move negotiations forward towards a national contract. Fast food companies are using AI, and of course it's to make their employees lives even worse. In a rare case, a boss is being held liable for killing a worker in New York. Finally, Teamsters at Anheuser-Busch reached an agreement at the last minute before a strike.
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Thursday Feb 29, 2024
Overtime Episode 64 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 5
Thursday Feb 29, 2024
Thursday Feb 29, 2024
Episode 5 - Communist Women In the Great Depression
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
The Great Depression was one of the greatest crises in capitalism's history, throwing millions out of work and pushing them to the brink of starvation. Women workers bore the brunt of this, being the first to be fired in nearly every workplace. But women workers fought back, organizing massive strikes, marches, and demonstrations against both their atrocious working conditions and the inadequate relief from the government. A new organization emerged in this period to take up the lead in the struggle for social equality: the Communist Party.
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Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Ep 196 - Certified Mold Podcast
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
A lawsuit filed in Colorado this week to block the Kroger-Albertson's merger reveals anti-union collusion. Starbucks Workers United filed for union elections at 21 stores in one day. The UAW continued making major moves, doubling their organizing budget and launching an international support effort with Mexican autoworkers. IBEW faced mold so toxic whole building a new Ford battery plant they were hospitalized. One of the biggest new union wins we've seen in a long time came at Cal State this week, with 20,000 student assistants voting to join the SEIU.
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Thursday Feb 22, 2024
Interview Preview: The Modern IWW
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
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 talk about a lot of labor history on our show, and one of the organizations we've come back to again and again is the Industrial Workers of the World. We've talked about the epic struggles in the early 20th century, but where is the IWW today, a century after its peak? We're joined by IWW Organizer and Trainer Maria Cunningham for a discussion of the modern IWW. We talk recent history, some prominent campaigns the IWW has led over the last few decades, and how the organization works in the 21st century.
To check out the IWW, go to iww.org or redcard.iww.org
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Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Ep 195 - Employee Owned Should Mean Employee Controlled
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
After a quick discussion of Amazon joining the corporate lawsuit aimed at destroying the NLRB, we turn to the continuing efforts by workers around the world to fight to end the genocide in Palestine. Next we discuss the latest round of protests by thousands of farmers in India fighting for their livelihoods. Farm owners in this country in NY have sued to stop a law granting labor rights to farm workers. 100,000 flight attendants picketed airports around the country to demand a fair contract. Teamsters in Texas shut down Molson Coors for the western half of the US after the company offered raises of just $1 an hour after record profits. Workers at "Employee Owned" WinCo Foods in Utah organized with the Teamsters this past week to make that label a reality, not just a slogan.
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Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Overtime Episode 63 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 4
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Episode 4 - Revolutionaries Press The Issue
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
On the eve of WW1, a radical new force shook the US labor movement with its vision of all the workers under one big union, running society instead of the exploiters. The IWW also had a much more advanced vision of women's equality than prior national labor associations. Women workers in the IWW made major gains and reached heights heretofore unheard of in a nationwide labor federation. But World War 1 would shake up both the industrial workforce, with millions of women changing jobs, but also the political scenery, with the first Red Scare cracking down on any organization deemed radical, even for just promoting women's equality. Through this period, women workers entered occupations and organizations previously barred from them, but as we've seen on prior episodes, they would at times face opposition from the very people who stood the most to gain from their solidarity.
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Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Ep 194 - Booming in Chattanooga
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
We start this week's episode with a quick rundown of new anti union repression at Starbucks and Amazon. This week workers calling for a ceasefire have reached the top of the US labor movement, with the AFL-CIO itself finally getting on board. The UAW continues its massive and ambitious nationwide union drive, hitting a critical milestone at VW in Chattanooga of a majority of workers signed up. Legal assaults on the labor rights of public workers in Florida are having major effects, with dozens of unions decertified in just the first few weeks of the year. Teachers in Chicago struck two charters schools this week fighting against mismanagement and refusal to provide special education resources. Finally, we got closer this week to seeing the first unionized team in the NCAA.
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Thursday Feb 08, 2024
Overtime Episode 62 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 3
Thursday Feb 08, 2024
Thursday Feb 08, 2024
Episode 3 - Garment Worker Rebellion
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
On the third episode of our series, we zoom in to a few years at the beginning of the 20th century. From 1909-1913, tens of thousands of women workers in the garment industry in the industrial cities of the northern US organized and went on strike in record numbers. The conditions these workers labored in were truly shocking, and quite literally deadly. These were life and death struggles in an industry where factory owners locked the doors to keep women from leaving and charged them for the use of a stool. The titanic struggles waged by these women workers would grow women's participation in the labor movement to record highs, even without the help of the top leaders of the AFL.
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Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Ep 193 - Illegal Strikes are Good
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
We're back to our original schedule and have a packed episode. First we follow up with the struggle against libertarian fascism in Argentina and an update on how Return to the Office policies are bullshit. We also discuss the recent revelation of a major wage theft ring in the pacific northwest and the refusal of the government to do anything to stop the criminals. Our now weekly UAW update discusses recent organizing victories in Michigan and Alabama, and a new drive at Hyundai in Montgomery. Workers in Finland have launched a mass movement to stop attacks on workers rights, striking in the hundreds of thousands. Finally, we close with the victory of the Newton teachers, who won a great contract after a two week struggle against not just their bosses, but the press.
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Thursday Feb 01, 2024
Overtime Episode 61 Preview: Women in the US Labor Movement - Pt 2
Thursday Feb 01, 2024
Thursday Feb 01, 2024
Episode 2 - National Labor Organizations, But For Who?
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 the history of women workers in the US labor movement, we discuss the earliest attempts to form national labor organizations. Coming out of the Civil War, women were fighting against exploitation in the workplace, but were excluded from most of the trade union movement which focused exclusively on men. But with the formation of national organizations like the National Labor Union, the Knights of Labor, and finally the American Federation of Labor, these broad based organizations were forced to put forward some semblance of a united working class political platform. In each case, the leadership expressed support for equal pay for equal work, and in each case prior to the 20th century, the commitment to that claim would come up short. But in spite of the chauvinist opposition from the top, women workers organized in greater numbers than ever before.
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Monday Jan 29, 2024
Ep 192 - Educators for Palestine
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Workers in academia have wasted no time so far this year in launching ever larger struggles, including this week when 30,000 faculty at the California State system went on strike this week for fair pay. Contingent faculty at NYU have also been organizing to fight low wages, recently securing an election neutrality agreement. The largest union yet to call for a ceasefire joined the chorus this week, with the SEIU signing its 2 million members on the call for peace. The UAW's organizing drive at Mercedes Benz in Alabama continues to grow, we discuss some of the tactics workers have used. Unfortunately also this week, the UAW officially endorsed Joe Biden. Massive crowds rocked Buenos Aires this week as workers staged a one day general strike to protest the new government's attacks on labor rights. Finally, we discuss the release of the annual BLS report which gives a snapshot into how the labor movement is doing, and discuss what it means for tactics and strategy going forward.
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