Work Stoppage

The eyes of the nation have been on Minneapolis all week, and our main story this week is on Friday's general strike and the need to expand it. Before that, we start with headlines from the Louvre, Cayuga Medical Center, TikTok, Wafler Farms, and the AAUP. For our main regular labor stories, we start with a roundup of recent stories on attempts to replace workers with AI (and their failures). Spanish Amazon workers have been more successful than most in winning union recognition, and a recent piece in Truthout documents how they've done it. Just a few weeks into his term, new NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has already started trying to leverage the power of city government for pro worker reforms. We close of course discussing the historic citywide general strike in Minneapolis and the critical importance of growing the movement against fascism across the entire country. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

In light of the Jan 23, 2026 Twin City general strike we are unlocking this episode so people can look at another general strike in Twin City history. We start this episode off in Toledo but in the second half we look at Minneapolis. We're diving back into labor history with a return to our short series on the history of general strikes in the US. On this episode, we round out the strikes of 1934 by discussing the Toledo Auto-Lite and Minneapolis general strikes. The pitched battles fought by workers across the country terrified the ruling class into accepting some of the most pivotal labor reforms in US history. Fighting scabs, company thugs, police, and even the National Guard, workers with nothing to lose in the midst of the Great Depression struck back against their exploiters and won victories that echoed for decades. Organizing such massive endeavors is never easy or quick, but there are so many lessons we can take from our comrades of the past to help improve our efforts today.  

Folks are rising up across the country outraged by ICE's reign of terror. Our main story is on the popular fightback in Minnesota, but first we have headlines from ArcelorMittal, Ford, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Portland State University, Blinkit, Barnes and Noble, and Kaiser Permanente. We follow up on last week's historic strike by 15,000 nurses in NYC. A recent piece in Dissent Magazine details the surge in the use of robots at Amazon and the harms born by workers. Also this week, we discuss the corrosive impact on working people of having a far right government using Nazi slogans in power. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Our labor news is somewhat overshadowed this week by the horrific murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis and the subsequent eruption of popular outrage nationwide. When we do get to our headlines, we've got stories from North Carolina Public Schools, the National Institutes of Health, NYC Hospitals, Telluride Colorado, Starbucks, Half Price Books, and The Animation Guild. After finally losing the epic three year long strike with journalists, the owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced plans to close the paper out of spite. The VA has been under attack since Trump came into office and a recent piece in the American Prospect reveals how the country's mental health system for veterans is being dismantled at the worst possible time. Finally, we discuss the response of organized labor to Renee Good's murder and the need for a nationwide movement to end ICE terror.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX   Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Professor Schuhrke joins us once again to discuss his newest book No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine. We discuss the history of the Zionist project and how US labor leadership guided a huge amount of support for the settler colonial project, but also ways that the seeds of resistance in the imperial core were there as early as the Nakba. The book gives us a real view of the scope of what we are fighting against when it comes to the history of US labor support for Israel and provides hope in that the free Palestine movement has never been stronger than it is today. We have a long way to go to repair the harms done by people in the past but we know better than any other time in history that victory is possible.   Check out our previous interview with Jeff on his book Blue Collar Empire: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114816687   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX   Follow the pod at http://instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Lexington Community Relief Fund: https://www.lexfoundation.org/?give=59EKZZDK Our first episode of the year and the US is already committing new insane war crimes. After a lengthy discussion of the recent attacks on Venezuela and the urgent need for US labor to materially oppose it, we start our regular labor news. We've got headlines from Tyson, Canada Post, Petrobras, the ECHL, Aramark, Seven Stars Bakery, and Chicago Public Schools. It wouldn't be another year in labor news if we didn't start with a story of yet more abuses by Amazon, this time against pregnant workers. We have an update on the strike by waste collectors in Birmingham over in the UK that has stretched on for nearly a year. Workers in Bolivia have launched a nationwide uprising against the right wing government's attacks on the poor. Finally, next week may see the first major strike of 2026 in the US, as thousands of nurses at a dozen hospitals in the NYC area are poised to walk out for safe staffing. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

2025 was, to put it lightly, a pretty bad year. We've got our annual recap of the fights we've waged in the working class against the billionaire assault and a look to what may be coming up in 2026. From the fight to defend our immigrant neighbors to the defense of the very existence of higher education, workers across the US have been on the defensive from a full on attack from the ruling class. Whether through using AI as a form of labor discipline or shredding the collective bargaining rights of millions of workers, bosses have been aggressive in trying to crush our rights. But we've also seen a staunch defense of workers in the anti-genocide movement and millions of workers taking to the streets in general strikes in countries around the world. As bad as things got in 2025, there's a lot of reason to feel hopeful as we start 2026 looking to build a fightback that can overcome the class warfare of the Trump Regime. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

To get access to the full interview, support us on Patreon @ http://patreon.com/workstoppage Professor Schuhrke joins us once again to discuss his newest book No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine. We discuss the history of the Zionist project and how US labor leadership guided a huge amount of support for the settler colonial project, but also ways that the seeds of resistance in the imperial core were there as early as the Nakba. The book gives us a real view of the scope of what we are fighting against when it comes to the history of US labor support for Israel and provides hope in that the free Palestine movement has never been stronger than it is today. We have a long way to go to repair the harms done by people in the past but we know better than any other time in history that victory is possible.  Check out our previous interview with Jeff on his book Blue Collar Empire: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114816687 Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at http://instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

It's our last regular episode of 2025 and we've got a ton of labor news for you all. We start with headlines from Starbucks, Amazon, New Seasons Grocery, Sysco, the WNBA, the University of Maine, and the nations of Portugal, Bolivia, Mexico, and Brazil. Resident doctors in the UK have gone on strike again, this time with a Labour government in power that refuses to pay them. A recent Workday Magazine piece exposes Disney as a user of prison labor in Minnesota. New York City officials are actually standing up against corporate giants Amazon and UPS for once, following recent worker movements. Finally, we discuss the implications of the possible super merger between either Netflix or Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery for workers in the entertainment industry. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

With the world getting worse and worse, the cause of labor remains the hope of the world. With that in mind, we start with headlines from workers on another general strike in Italy, the nationwide Starbucks strike, nurses and Amazon drivers unionizing with the Teamsters, id software workers joining the CWA, and many more. AI is once again exposed as relying on the labor of low paid, highly exploited workers, this time at surveillance company Flock. The New School is the latest institution in higher education being actively dismantled by its administration, we discuss the student-faculty fightback. In These Times this week has an update on the fight by worker organizer Willian Giménez González against ICE attacks. Portuguese workers were the latest to launch a general strike this week, and we discuss the tactics and strategy that would be needed to actually pull one off here in the US. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee