Work Stoppage

The government may be shut down, but labor never stops, so neither do we. We open with some headlines at Mauser Packaging Solutions, Hilton Hotels, Canada Post, Microsoft, the nation of Greece, and the LA Times. Home healthcare workers in Michigan won a huge union victory this week, with tens of thousands winning union representation for the first time. Thousands of healthcare workers in California and Hawaii are gearing up for what may be the largest strike at Kaiser Permanente in history this week. The Trump Administration is using its own campaign of terror against farmworkers to justify lowering their wages. Finally, Chicago has become the epicenter of ICE's attack on the working class, and even the Pope is calling for labor unions to step up their defense. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We've got some huge international strikes and check-ins on some long running campaigns this week. We start with headlines from Iowa hospitals, Cornell University, Incheon International Airport, New Zealand primary schools, Doordash, and Amazon. Our first main story we discuss a Labor Notes piece updating us on the ongoing effort to organize one of the country's biggest banks, Wells Fargo. After the illegal seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla, Italian workers made good on their threats to launch a massive general strike. Workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have been on strike for over 2 years, we discuss what's keeping them going after all this time and the importance of their struggle to a dire media landscape. Finally, a piece in the American Prospect from Sarah Lazare demonstrates clearly how the attacks on immigrants are attacks on all of us, and why the time is now for a unified fightback by organized labor. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

If you're not a patron, subscribe at patreon.com/workstoppage to get full access to the episode. Even as the Mexican Revolution was winding down, the struggle for equal rights in their own country by Mexican miners and oil workers was still heating up. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, spurred by the forces of change in the revolution and the staunch internationalism of the IWW, Mexican miners launched some of their biggest strikes yet. Facing intransigent bosses, gunboat diplomacy by the US, and dealing with a bourgeois government dedicated to ensuring stability for investment, the challenges the miners faced were steep. But even decades of violent repression couldn't stop the struggle for a fair living by the workers facing some of the deadliest conditions in any industry. We close our survey of the struggles of Mexican miners on both sides of the border with the epic battle between Mine Mill Local 890 and Empire Zinc, a struggle so inspiring it was captured on film. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

No Contract, No Coffee Pledge: https://starbucksworkersunited.controlshift.app/petitions/no-contract-no-coffee-pledge-to-act-in-solidarity-with-starbucks-workers-united We're back at full strength as John returns this week, and it was a busy one! We start with headlines from Microsoft, Apple, Volkswagen, Aricell, RISE, Northwell Health, Oklahoma Public Schools, Spirit Airlines, and Starbucks. In a wild story from friend of the show Claudia Irizarry Aponte at The City, managers at Brooklyn Defender Services tried to bribe workers to replace the UAW with a company union. We've got an update on the continuing mobilization of Italian workers in solidarity with Palestine, as dockworkers from around Europe pledge efforts to coordinate. Teamsters at the University of Minnesota brilliantly used their leverage to win the first strike in their history. Canada Post workers are on strike once again, this time as the Liberal government launches attempts to gut postal service nationwide. Finally, in the spirit of many recent worker uprisings, we check in on the struggle in Ecuador, where Indigenous-led movements are fighting IMF austerity. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Support Palestinian Families: https://lifeline4gaza.com/ The news has been...a lot lately, but there have been a ton of labor stories that have been drowned out and we are here to bring them to you! We start with headlines from Texas State University, California Public Schools, Chicago day laborers, nurses at the VA, farm workers in upstate New York, Republic Services, and Netflix Animation. Workers across Europe have been in motion this week, and our first major story covers the fight against austerity by millions of French workers who have taken to the streets. We saw another extremely cynical union busting drive under religious justification, this one at Loyola Mormont University. Finally, we discuss the historic general strike by Italian workers that shut down the entire country in solidarity with Palestine and the Global Sumud Flotilla. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

If you're not a patron, subscribe at patreon.com/workstoppage to get full access to the episode. For the first of two episodes focusing on the struggle of miners in the Southwest, we discuss the critical role played by Mexican miners in the growth of the US electrical industry at the turn of the 20th century. As demand for copper exploded, the mines of Arizona and northern Mexico became incredibly valuable, and thus demand for labor soared.  Mine owners used racial hierarchies and job segregation to split their workers against each other to prevent the power of solidarity from shutting down their isolated mining towns. Mexican miners organized in the thousands, but were often refused solidarity from the house of labor, whether the AFL or the Western Federation of Miners. We discuss the bloody struggles for fair wages and safe working conditions in the early 1900s, as Mexican miners were often forced to stand alone against the tyranny of the bosses and the state, waging heroic struggles and paying for every extra cent they earned with blood.  Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We're down a host this week, but Dan and Lina press on to bring you the labor headlines.  We've got stories from the CTU, Hyundai, Amazon, and Onatrio Public Colleges. For our first main story, it turns out not only is AI not intelligent, in order to be even slightly coherent, it relies on low paid human labor. Union busting law firm Littler Mendelson was exposed in an article in the American Prospect for advocating breaking labor law bosses don't like. Workers at Starbucks are continuing to devise new tactics to pressure the company to finally sign a union contract as membership has soared past 12,000. Finally, two articles this week from Jacobin and In These Times ask how labor can change tactics to respond to a crisis the NLRB process is not designed to solve. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

It's back to school time so we start this week's headlines with a bunch of stories of teachers fighting for the learning conditions their students deserve all over the country, in primary, secondary, and higher education. We've also got headlines on rideshare drivers, healthcare workers, hotel workers, train drivers, and dockworkers. This week saw yet another new low for Columbia University admins, who are now trying to strip all grad workers of their right to unionize. ICE staged its largest workplace raid ever this week, abducting over 450 workers at a major Hyundai factory under construction in Georgia, halting the project and causing outrage in South Korea. The latest jobs numbers are out, so we close by taking some time to dig into the numbers showing that these racist attacks are hurting rather than helping US born workers, and leading to a recession.  Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

If you're not a patron, subscribe at patreon.com/workstoppage to get full access to the episode. 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. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

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. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee