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A weekly labor news podcast covering workers‘ struggles around the world from a revolutionary left perspective.
Episodes
Tuesday Jun 27, 2023
Tuesday Jun 27, 2023
On this week's episode of Work Stoppage, Trader Joe's continues to drag out the process of certification at its Louisville store. Negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS have moved to discussions of economic issues, with only a month to go before a strike. Nearly 2000 nurses struck for a week in Oregon and are now demanding their employer be investigated for hiring professional scabs. Over 1000 UE locomotive makers in Erie, PA have gone on strike to protect their jobs and their working conditions as Wabtec threatens to slash the labor force. We also catch up with the longest strike in digital media which we missed on our break, with writers at Insider winning healthcare coverage the company claimed was unaffordable. Finally, workers at the University of Pittsburgh officially filed to unionize with the Steelworkers and 1100 undergraduate student workers at Western Washington voted near unanimously to join the UAW!
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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Jun 23, 2023
Friday Jun 23, 2023
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
Our series on Cybernetics and Labor continues this week as we dive into the beginning of Project Cybersyn and Stafford Beer's arrival in Chile. We discuss Beer's invitation from the government of Salvador Allende, his work with prominent government officials, and the incredible speed with which his project was assembled. We also begin breaking down Beer's concept of the Viable Systems Model as applied to a socialist government. In our next episode, we will discuss the planned deployment and testing of the project in the final months of Allende's time in power before the CIA-backed coup brought everything crashing to a halt.
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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
We're back from our break for Lina's wedding, which was wonderful and we all had an amazing time, but now it's time to catch up on two weeks of labor news! We start the show with a quick trip through as many short labor stories as we can, covering developments at Starbucks, Amazon, REI, Barnes & Noble, AT&T, Colectivo, Paizo, UPS, and more. Then we follow up with the workers at the Wharf InterContinental Hotel in Washington DC who have forced their employers to recognize their union election with UNITE HERE. We also check in on the UAW workers at Clarios, who have voted to end their strike, as well as the fallout from Florida's anti-public worker law. The past two weeks have seen diverging trends in negotiations with the Hollywood studios, with the Directors signing a tentative agreement for a new deal and SAG-AFTRA voting 98% in favor of joining the writers on strike. David Byrne's recent attempt to do a Broadway musical with no union musicians is the latest in a long history of anti-union behavior by the famed auteur. Smoke clouds choked NYC in the first week of June, forcing workers to organize for their safety. Finally, we congratulate the postdocs and researchers at the University of Washington for winning a one week strike for a new contract.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Jun 16, 2023
Friday Jun 16, 2023
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 from our week off for Lina's wedding and in the latest episode of our series on the history of Cybernetics and its relationship to labor, we've finally arrived at the work of Stafford Beer. Beer's work on complex systems revolutionized the way management operations are thought of in both the business world and in all systems of planning. His book Brain of the Firm on how to better manage complex systems like factories or even networks of them was so influential, he was invited to assist the government of Chile under the leadership of recently elected socialist Salvador Allende. Beer's work on the project of creating an automated command center for monitoring and adjusting the economy of Chile, known as Cybersyn, has become legendary for its futuristic approach to running a planned society. In this episode we discuss an overview of Beer's life and works, and in the next few episodes we will dive into the details of his thought, how Cybersyn was meant to work, and how Beer's body of work can be used by the labor movement and socialists around the world today.
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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday Jun 13, 2023
Tuesday Jun 13, 2023
This week was a exciting but busy one with all of us getting together to celebrate Lina's wedding, which unfortunately made it impossible to put together the regular episode. So we've decided to unlock the first episode in our new series on the history of the field of cybernetics and how the labor movement has interacted with it. It's been a super fascinating topic learning about figures like Norbert Wiener, Ross Ashby, and Stafford Beer, so we hope you like this unlocked episode as just the first portion of what we've been covering. Our Cybernetics series will continue for patrons later this week and our weekly labor news rundown will be back at our regularly scheduled time next Tuesday!
Thank you so much for listening, we couldn't do the show without you!
Original Description:
Tuesday Jun 06, 2023
Tuesday Jun 06, 2023
We're back with another weekly roundup of the labor news. This week was a big one, and after a few quick headlines we discuss developments in the ongoing strike by grad students at the University of Michigan, now facing police harassment at home. Next we get into the biggest story of the week, the Supreme Court's ruling weakening the right to strike in the Glacier Northwest case. We discuss immediate impacts and how unions can adapt moving forward. REI ramped up union busting this week, threatening to cut pay for workers at the first union location in SoHo. Thousands of workers and even some business owners protested in cities across Florida last week against the state's new racist immigration law. Over 400 workers for TruStage in Wisconsin struck to force their employer back to the bargaining table. Finally, we close with the story of workers at Barboncino in New York who are poised to become the first union pizza shop in the city.
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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Sunday Jun 04, 2023
Sunday Jun 04, 2023
If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month.
Tuesday May 30, 2023
Tuesday May 30, 2023
We start this week with congratulations for workers at REI, Barnes and Noble, and the Chicago Nature Museum who all won union elections last week. Our first full story covers an ongoing strike by San Diego bus drivers over being forced to work split shifts that take up 13 hours of their day. In DC, workers with UNITE HERE are protesting the move to close one of the most popular and acclaimed new restaurants in the country just to crush a union drive. An investigation by The Nation this week revealed the widespread levels of exploitation and hazardous working conditions in the legal weed business. Tech workers at Amazon have moved to escalate the class struggle at the company in response to recent layoffs. The National Eating Disorders Association decided that rather than continue to operate a helpline used by thousands every year if the workers unionized, they'd rather replace the workers with a chatbot that doesn't work. Finally, resident doctors in Queens struck this week for the first time in over three decades over low wages and disparities with other hospitals.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday May 26, 2023
Friday May 26, 2023
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 fourth episode of our series on the history of the discipline of Cybernetics and its relationship to the labor movement, we continue our discussions on the work of W Ross Ashby with his creation of the first fully self regulating machine, the Homeostat. This machine and its systems for returning itself to equilibrium provide a theoretical analogy for looking at how organizations like a labor union respond to changes to their environment. Ashby's development of the concept of variety and the regulation of systems provides a different way of examining the problems of bureaucracy, ossification, and the incredible potential in realizing true democracy. In our next episodes, we will be moving to the work of Stafford Beer and the development of Management Cybernetics and the direct relationship between Cybernetics and Socialism.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Turns out the CIA has trained gremlins and is trying to disrupt our podcast by breaking John's audio setup, but we soldiered on with a tin can on some string. After a few quick congratulations, we discuss the University of Michigan's choice to sacrifice its academic integrity to try and break a strike. We also follow up with developments in the fight back by the South Korean working class against the far right Yoon government. Starbucks has extended its war on its workers to the entire town of Ithaca, prompting protests. UAW workers at the largest car battery manufacturer in the country have gone on strike in Ohio. Workers in Minnesota have used organized pressure to prompt some good legal reforms in recent weeks such as a ban on captive audience meetings. Dancers at Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in LA became the only state recognized union strippers this week, potentially opening the door for another organizing wave. Finally, a huge win in the South where 1400 workers manufacturing school buses at Blue Bird have voted to join the Steelworkers.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday May 19, 2023
Friday May 19, 2023
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 part of our deep dive into the history of the discipline of Cybernetics and its relations to the labor movement, we discuss the life and theories of W. Ross Ashby. His work on measurement of the complexity of a system with the concept of "Variety", helps us understand the ways complex structures, like a labor union, can be set up in ways that either give it the ability to adapt to changing inputs and become a stable, successful system, or can restrict its possible responses to a given situation and leave it unable to respond. We also discuss Stafford Beer's interpretation of Ashby's work, how it applies to economics, and the ways that thinking of complex systems like an economy in terms of variety helps us point out the differences between a capitalist and socialist economic system. On the next episode of our series, we will discuss Ashby's pioneering work on his self-regulating machine, the homeostat.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Our first story this week is on the approaching possibility of a strike by 25,000 pilots at Southwest and American Airlines. Next we discuss the possibility of workers in Coventry, England becoming the first officially recognized Amazon warehouse in the UK. We have two tragic stories of deaths of labor organizers after facing an onslaught of harassment from far right regimes in South Korea and the Philippines. 230,000 rail workers in Germany called off a potential 50 hour strike at the last moment when the rail carriers met a key wage demand. Teachers in Oakland struck for 7 days demanding not just better wages and working conditions, but more importantly government investment in the public good. Medical residents at Penn recently voted by nearly 90% to unionize, forming the largest new union in Pennsylvania in 50 years. Finally, as we recorded on the commemoration of the Nakba, we take a moment to call for solidarity and the liberation of Palestine from settler colonial occupation.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday May 12, 2023
Friday May 12, 2023
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 our second episode on the history of the discipline of Cybernetics and its relationship to the labor movement, we dive a little deeper into what Cybernetics actually is. We discuss the way Cybernetics seeks to bridge varying disciplines and systems and examine their interrelations, paralleling the dialectical way of looking at the world in Marxism. We also discuss Norbert Wiener's attempt to use his newly formed discipline of cybernetics to help labor, by reaching out to Walter Reuther and the UAW about the perils of approaching automation. Upcoming episodes will discuss the work of W. Ross Ashby, another of the early founders of cybernetics, and his work on the concept of Variety.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Tuesday May 09, 2023
The whole gang's back together and what a week in labor it has been! After a few quick headlines we dive right into the biggest story of the week breaking down the nationwide writer's strike. Writers across the country have hit the picket lines to defend the very existence of their profession as a career. A story in Labor Notes details the ways fishery workers in Massachusetts have had immigration law and labor law loopholes weaponized against them. AI and content moderation workers in Africa launched the first continent wide union of its type this week. More horrors out of Amazon as they've released a new service purporting to provide affordable connection to healthcare...with the price of giving away your HIPAA rights. More awful news on the child labor front as the government announced fines for McDonald's employing children as young as 10. Finally, we close with some happier news, as the team behind Youtube Music announced their unanimous decision to join the CWA.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday May 05, 2023
Friday May 05, 2023
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Tuesday May 02, 2023
After a whirlwind trip through some quick headlines, we discuss the Teamsters unionizing a delivery contractor for Amazon and the precedent that could set. This week marked the UFCW's national convention and reformers have been fighting to make the union more democratic. The independent union movement in Mexico continues to grow despite some recent blatant illegal interference by the company union CTM. Strikes at the Royal Mail in the UK have been suspended as the union has reached a tentative agreement. Finally, graduate workers at Stanford have launched the largest new bargaining unit union drive of the year so far as the academic organizing wave shows no signs of slowing down.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Apr 28, 2023
Friday Apr 28, 2023
Unfortunately due to some major life events and schedule misalignments among the hosts, we weren't able to get everyone together to record a second show this week. So we're doing the opposite and unlocking the first episode in last year's series Why Rank and File? With Shawn Fain and the UAWD taking the helm of the UAW, Sean O'Brien and the TDU having just recently won leadership in the Teamsters, and a growing reform movement within the UFCW aiming to bring democracy to the country's 5th biggest union, the rank and file union democracy movement is on the upswing. So what better time to let everyone listen to the first part of our series where we dig into exactly why rank and file democracy is so important to the labor movement?
Patrons, stay tuned for next week when we'll be starting a series from John on the intersection of trade unionism and cybernetics.
Tuesday Apr 25, 2023
Tuesday Apr 25, 2023
We start this week's episode following up with the RISD workers who have signed a new contract after winning their key demands. Next we check in with the striking graduate workers at the University of Michigan where both the courts and the cops have ramped up repression. Trader Joe's United split two elections this week, one win out west and a heartbreaking loss in NYC. The Writer's Guild of America had record turnout and unity in authorizing a strike that could shut down TV production in Hollywood. Over 150,000 government workers in Canada struck last week to protest low wages and raise offers below inflation. The Barnes and Noble expanded to a second store this week. Starbucks unveiled their economic proposals for nationwide bargaining. Ben and Jerry's workers have joined the Workers United movement. And just the day of recording, workers at Sega have announced their fight to make Sonic a union hedgehog.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Apr 21, 2023
Friday Apr 21, 2023
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 continue our dive into the history of general strikes in US history this week with the San Francisco general strike of 1934. As with the 1919 Seattle general strike, this one started on the docks but quickly spread to the entire city. Unlike Seattle, which was entirely peaceful until the violence unleashed after the strike, the San Francisco strike became immediately violent. This strike reverberated across the entire country, paralyzing west coast trade and driving the ruling class out of their minds. The legacy of 150,000 workers standing up against the entire armed force of the state continues to be felt today. In Part 3, we will discuss more of the major strikes of 1934, including in Toledo and Minneapolis.
Primary sources for this series include: People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, Labor’s Untold Story by Boyer and Morais, Strike! By Jeremy Brecher, A History of America In Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis and The Fall of the House of Labor by David Montgomery
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
We're down to just two of us this week as John's on the mend, but we've still got a ton of news to cover in labor this week. First we discuss the suspension of the strike at Rutgers as the bargaining team reached a framework for a tentative agreement over the weekend. Next we follow up with the 2 month long strike at the Buena Park Medieval Times, where both workers, both human and equine, have faced violence. Also this week, a wild story out of Jacobin exposes the continued problems with firearm safety in Hollywood, even after the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins. Rail workers continue to face abuse for taking sick days after the Democrats blocked their strike, with one company even hiring private investigators to spy on injured workers. The REI union wave took another big leap this week with three new stores filing for elections. Student workers continued to notch big wins this week as well, with Dartmouth grad students easily winning their election, and the independent undergrad student worker union at the University of Oregon filing for their own election with supermajority support.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee