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A weekly labor news podcast covering workers‘ struggles around the world from a revolutionary left perspective.
Episodes
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.
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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.
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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
Friday Apr 14, 2023
Friday Apr 14, 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.
Whenever we've talked about general strikes on our show, it has most often been to explain why you can't just declare one on Twitter. In this two part series, we dig into US labor history to find out what it takes to launch a real general strike, and what lessons we can learn from the workers who participated in them. In this first episode we discuss the Seattle general strike of 1919, when workers shut down the entire city for a week. During the five days of the strike workers formed a parallel government, handing out food, regulating what trades were allowed to operate, and even maintaining civic order without resorting to violence. This strike stands today as one of the biggest displays of worker power and self-management in US history. In part 2, we will discuss the two general strikes of 1934 in San Francisco and Seattle.
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 11, 2023
Tuesday Apr 11, 2023
Dan's back this week and so that means an avalanche of new labor news stories. We begin by discussing the new massive strike at Rutgers, with over 9000 faculty, post docs, and grad student workers fighting for fair wages and job security. Next we discuss Florida's latest attempt to destroy public unions. In Syracuse yet another massive union landslide this past week as grad workers voted overwhelmingly to unionize. Service workers in the South staged a one day strike in protest of the region's refusal to enforce safety protections in industries with a majority Black workforce. School staff at the Rhode Island School of Design struck this week, fighting for $20/hr at a school that charges $77k/year. Unfortunately we have another story of union busting from Planned Parenthood in the Midwest, this time involving illegal surveillance of the union's bargaining team. Finally, we congratulate workers in New Jersey (also at Rutgers!) on filing for the first union at Barnes and Noble in the country.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Apr 07, 2023
Friday Apr 07, 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.
Pamphlet Link: https://ladyizdihar.com/blogs/izdihars-soviet-archive-2/report-of-the-cio-delegation-to-the-soviet-union-1945
We talk a lot about labor history on our Overtime episodes, looking back at past struggles by workers to see what lessons we can draw out for our own struggles today. One of the lesser known but very interesting periods in US labor history came during the temporary friendly relations between the US and the Soviet Union during World War 2. Immediately following the war, quite in contrast to the depths of McCarthyism just a few years later, the US remained on nominally friendly grounds with the USSR. The Soviet victory over the Nazi war machine had raised the prestige of the still young socialist nation all around the world. This week, we sat down to discuss a historical artifact from this period, a pamphlet describing a 1945 visit of a delegation from the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the US to the USSR. In this period before the second Red Scare, the union leaders reported back a far more open and positive review of the Soviet system than described following their anti-communist turn.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday Apr 04, 2023
Tuesday Apr 04, 2023
This week we are joined by Johnny and Pat from Subversive History while Dan is out. We follow-up with stories about how Chipotle was forced to compensate workers for closing the Augusta store, an expansion in the Buena Park Medieval Times Union to sound and lighting workers, and the forced resignation of Temple University's president. We also talk about REI workers in Chicago filing for a union election, and the massive "warning strikes" in Germany and a little history about the country. Finally we talk about the "illegal" GEO strike at the University of Michigan, as well as some updates on Starbucks since Howard Schultz testified for the Senate HELP committee.
Fired Starbucks workers solidarity funds:
https://donorbox.org/justice-for-lillie-haneghan#info
https://gofund.me/5afa542e
https://gofund.me/e258b017
Follow Subversive History @
https://www.twitch.tv/subversivehistory
https://twitter.com/SubversiveHist1
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Thursday Mar 30, 2023
Thursday Mar 30, 2023
UNLOCKED!
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.
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Surprisingly we settled on nearly all good news stories this week, so if you're looking for some positivity, this one's for you. After an update on the ongoing national strike movement, we discuss the school strike in LA. 60,000 workers shutting down the second largest city in the country's schools and making big wins that will help the whole community. Also this week, two more Trader Joe's locations joined the union movement, one on each coast. Indian farmers have made more wins at the state level after more impressive protests. The RMT reached a deal with Network Rail after 9 months of strikes and made big wins the Tories claimed were impossible. Finally, Starbucks workers demonstrated their organization and resolve by shutting down 100 stores across the country and released their national contract demands.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Mar 24, 2023
Friday Mar 24, 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.
Graduate student workers have been organizing in droves across the country, fighting back against abysmal wages and impossible working conditions. Recently, the workers at Temple University won a hard fought strike that lasted over a month. While we have covered many graduate worker strikes on the show, the level of repression unleashed by the university administration to try and crush the strike was truly unprecedented, which only made the new contract the workers won even more impressive. We're so excited this week to be joined by Alex Paparella, a PhD student and strike captain with TUGSA, to discuss their strike, their new contract, and the state of labor organizing in academia.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday Mar 21, 2023
Tuesday Mar 21, 2023
HL Worker Support Fund - https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/sued-for-union-organizing
News just refuses to stay confined to one week periods, so this episode of Work Stoppage is mostly follow ups. We bracket the episode with good news, starting out congratulating the grad student workers of the University of Chicago on their landslide union win. Next we discuss the flagrant retaliation against the brand new union by the bosses at TCGPlayer. In France, Macron has moved to ram his pension reform through by decree, and now only the working class can force him to back down by taking matters into their own hands. We also follow up with the UAW elections, where the Curry team refuses to concede. Violence has broken out on the picket lines at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as two workers were sent to the hospital after being attacked by scabs. A new report shows how the companies using rampant child labor have managed to get some of their funding from public pension funds. Workers at Caterpillar signed a major new 6 year contract, we break down the bottom line. Finally, workers at Bandcamp have formed a union to preserve working conditions at the one company that actually pays artists for their work.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Mar 17, 2023
Friday Mar 17, 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.
The rail systems of the western world seem to be collapsing all at once. As the railroad workers have been telling us here in the US for years, capitalist ownership of the railroads has hollowed out the safety of the networks and left them in a dangerous condition. We saw this illustrated all too clearly in Greece, where a recent tragic collision between a passenger train and a freight train left over 50 people dead. We decided to sit down and discuss the recent upsurge in rail workers fighting back against decades of negligence. We discuss the ways the disaster in East Palestine, the 6 month long rolling strikes by rail workers in the UK, and the massive country wide mass strikes organized in Greece in the aftermath of this most recent tragedy are connected, and how our organizing should respond.
Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX
Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Tuesday Mar 14, 2023
Tuesday Mar 14, 2023
After some discussion of how refreshing seeing union leaders refuse to take shit from politicians is, this week's episode of Work Stoppage starts by continuing our look into the expansion of child labor in the US, this time in Arkansas. Next we discuss the mass strike in France to fight against the attack on workers by the neoliberal Macron regime. We also do very quick follow ups on the status of the strike at Temple University and the UAW elections. Faculty at Rutgers voted overwhelmingly last week to authorize what would be the first strike in the schools history. Meanwhile, Duke is trying a novel strategy against the grad student union drive there: claiming grad students aren't workers and shouldn't be allowed to unionize anywhere. Democrats in Michigan repealed right to work last week, which is good! But they also refused to allow teachers to strike, which is very bad! Workers across the country continue to face wage theft in the form of being misclassified as "managers" in order to use a loophole to avoid paying overtime. Workers at TCGPlayer became the first unionized employees at eBay this week, despite the company's union busting. Finally, we discuss the disgusting attack on municipal union retirees in New York City, with workers being stripped of the healthcare they earned after decades of public service.
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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
Friday Mar 10, 2023
Friday Mar 10, 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.
Now, at first glance you may be wondering why your favorite communist labor podcast is doing an episode on two animated kids movies. But that's why we encourage you to take another look at these two classic examples of Marxist cinema. With wholesome messages of working class unity, struggle against oppression, and never trusting Americans, these two films are examples of how complex ideas can be presented simply.
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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee