Work Stoppage

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 are so excited to be joined this week by Gary Banks, a worker for the British Royal Mail and local union representative for the Communication Workers Union. We discuss the conditions that led to over 100,000 Royal Mail workers to hit the picket lines over the last few months, and how both the workers and the broader public have been hit hard since the privatization of the mail. We talk about the solidarity being built between different unions during the current cost of living crisis, and how workers have supported each others' strike actions. Finally, we look at the political situation in the UK and how the resurgent union movement can force the changes that the working class desperately needs. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We start this week’s episode on a sad note, as workers at Amazon’s ALB1 facility outside Albany have voted against joining the ALU following Amazon’s intense union busting campaign. Striking Teamsters in Boston ended their strike against Sysco, signing a new deal with better wages and healthcare. California mental health workers ended their 10 week long strike at Kaiser Permanente this week as well, forcing the company to agree to hire more workers. Two teachers strikes in Massachusetts directly challenged the state’s law banning public workers from striking, winning major gains in spite of court orders trying to stop their strikes. Like much of Europe, France has seen a major cost of living crisis erupt into labor action, and the Macron government has attacked the right to strike to stop workers from standing up against austerity.  We also check in on union drives at Chipotle, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and CVS.  As usual, we close discussing Starbucks Workers United as they continue to win victories even as Starbucks can’t stop breaking the law. 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 you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. In the second part of our series on Peter Winn's book Weavers of Revolution, we discuss the moves made by the workers at the Yarur Mill in Chile following their successful union election. Faced with sabotage by the mill owners, workers found themselves forced to take control of the mill in their own hands. Pulling the government along behind them, workers advanced the transition to socialism themselves, seizing the mill and demanding its nationalization. During the period of worker self-management, the mill's productivity soared along with workers wages while the culture of fear and oppression disappeared. Workers developed their own systems of democratic management, bringing dignity and respect to their jobs for the first time. Though their victory was short lived due to the US-backed coup that overthrew the government, there is so much we can learn from these workers' incredible struggle. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We start this week’s episode with an update on the Sysco strike, where Teamsters in Syracuse have won their demands, but workers in Boston continue to face repression. In Philadelphia, workers have won their strike at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and won major gains in their new contract. We also check in with the Medieval Times workers who are now being sued for trademark infringement because their union logo…has swords in it. This past week saw strikes at Amazon facilities all over the place, from Hamburg, Germany to San Bernardino, California, protesting low wages on Prime Week to maximize workers’ leverage. We got another big victory in the retail union wave this week when workers at an Apple store in Oklahoma City won their union election and joined the CWA. Workers at T-Mobile have joined the union surge, with customer service workers launching an independent union, the T-Force Social Care Alliance. Backed by impossible to trace dark money, business groups have been successfully lobbying states across the country to expand the legal use of child labor to keep wages low during the so-called “labor shortage.” Finally, we check in with how Starbucks has continued illegally closing stores that unionize, but how workers continue to use strike actions to fight back, getting some help this week from Billy Bragg. 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 you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. In this new two-part Overtime series we will be discussing Peter Winn’s fantastic labor history book, Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile’s Road to Socialism. The story of the workers at the Yarur cotton mill and their movement for worker control of the factory is rich with lessons for our struggles today.  Though the Chilean Revolution was short lived, it was full of experimentation with different forms of worker control of the means of production. In this first episode, we get into the background history of the Yarur mill and the decades of struggle by the workers there for an independent union. We discuss the different class forces in play in Chile during this period and how Allende’s Popular Unity government tried to maintain a balance of these forces to allow them to advance their program of a transition to socialism. In the second part we will cover the seizure of the mill by the workers, the response from the state, and the fate of the workers’ movement in the wake of Pinochet’s coup. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Right as we were sitting down to record this week some big news regarding the potential nationwide rail strike dropped, so we start discussing that. Then we follow up with the unionized workers at Raven Software, where the NLRB has ruled that Activision illegally withheld benefits from workers. We have a whole block of Amazon stories this week: first, Amazon suspended nearly 100 workers for demanding safe working conditions after a fire at JFK8. Also, Amazon has sued Washington State for the audacity of enforcing workplace safety laws, claiming their implementation would be too expensive. And lastly, Amazon drivers in Japan have been forced to use fake IDs to avoid having to be paid overtime.  Also this week, over 500 Teamsters at Sysco facilities in Boston and Syracuse are on strike after the company tried to force them off their pension plans. Workers at a paper mill in Alabama have been locked out by their employer after voting down a contract that would remove all protections against overwork. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case next term that could potentially make strikes impossible due to legal costs, we discuss the implications for the labor movement. Finally, as always, we discuss the Starbucks Workers United movement as it approaches 250 unionized stores. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Order Health Communism here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism  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 were so excited to be joined by our friends Bea and Artie from the Death Panel to discuss their new book Health Communism. We talk about the way capitalism divides us into "workers" and "surplus", and how the surplus are sorted into arrangements of extractive abandonment so they can be profited from. We discuss the fight for universal healthcare and why we can't just stop at health finance reform. We also talk about the revolutionary potential in the struggle to separate health from capital and build a system that really provides all care to all people. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Check out the Death Panel at patreon.com/deathpanelpod Follow Death Panel @deathpanel_ , Bea @realLandsEnd, and Artie @avierkant Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We start our episode this week checking in with friends of the show Doughnut Workers United, who have finally won their union at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, OR after years of organizing. It only took two days for the strike by food service workers at San Francisco Airport last week to win huge gains. We also give a brief update on where the different rail unions are in the contract ratification process. Workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art struck this past week when management refused to agree to grant workers raises that would cover inflation.  The drive to unionize Trader Joe’s has spread to another store, this time in Brooklyn, and unfortunately the company’s union busting has followed.  As the auto industry shifts to electric vehicles, the UAW faces an uphill battle to ensure the new EV jobs are unionized. Over 13,000 incarcerated workers went on strike against the system of mass incarceration and prison slavery they face over the past week, and the state has responded with violence and attempts to starve the workers out.  Finally, as always, we check-in with the Starbucks Workers United movement and discuss the list of contract proposals that the union has released. Doughnut Workers United Contract Support Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dwu-strike-hardship-and-negotiation-fund Gofundme for Fired Trader Joe’s organizer: https://www.gofundme.com/f/trader-joes-united-solidarity-fund  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 you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. For the second episode of our series discussing the labor movement in films, we’re going across the pond to cover two movies from the UK.  First up, we discuss Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, a devastating realist look at the state of the working class in Britain. The film follows the struggle of a working class family trying to provide for their kids in a job market where no matter how hard you work, a living wage and a comfortable life feel further and further out of reach. Sorry We Missed You provides no illusions about class mobility or hard work winning out in the end, it forces us to confront the reality that so many jobs in the modern economy are premised on poverty wages and hours so long that you never see your family.  For our second film, we discuss 2014’s Pride, which tells the true story of a group of LGBTQ activists in London who band together to support striking coal miners in Wales. The film focuses on the power of solidarity, and shows how by combining all the struggles against all the forms of oppression faced by the working class, we can be much stronger than when we’re divided.  Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

In order to let as many folks as possible hear from Starbucks workers fighting for their union, we've decided to unlock our full interview from last week! We hope you enjoy the interview, and if you like the show please support us at patreon.com/workstoppage. Original Description: This week we were excited to be joined by Alisha Humphrey, a worker-organizer with Starbucks Workers United in Oklahoma City. We discuss the ins and outs of organizing at Starbucks, what prompted her store to unionize, and how covid has played a major role in all of this. We talk about how the company’s scorched earth union busting campaign has influenced the nationwide union drive, and how organizers have dealt with union busting tactics. We also talk over how to have organizing conversations with workers who may be hesitant, how workers who are thinking about organizing can reach out for help in getting the ball rolling, and how members of the community can show their support for organizing workers. Check out Alisha's writing in Jacobin on the cruel ways Starbucks has weaponized benefits against workers here: jacobin.com/2022/08/starbucks-a…tunt-union-contract No Contract No Coffee Pledge: crm.broadstripes.com/ctf/SJID0H Solidarity Fund for SBWU partners: secure.actblue.com/donate/starbucksworkersfund Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee