Work Stoppage

Once again we start this week’s episode of Work Stoppage checking in on the rail workers, as details of the tentative agreements have been released and a strike remains a real possibility. We follow that with some quick updates as the NLRB hits Amazon with a complaint for illegal union busting at LDJ5, the Case New Holland strike hits five months, the ridiculous attempt to bill UMWA for $13M in unmined coal is reversed, and Chipotle continues to rack up thousands of criminal violations of labor law. The RMT will be hitting the picket lines in the UK alongside postal workers, dock workers, nearly 200,000 workers total on October 1. 1000 food service workers at San Francisco Airport went on strike this week in protest of wages 50% below the area’s living wage. We have a truly unhinged story of a small business tyrant in Iowa who bribed workers to decertify their union, amongst numerous other crimes. Home Depot workers in Philly are organizing with the aim of forming the first unionized store in the entire chain. Finally, we check in on Starbucks Workers United, where the retaliation against workers continue but strikes at many stores seem to be making a real impact and winning real gains for workers. Gofundme for fired working mother at Washington Starbucks: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-amber-fired-5-year-partner-and-mother  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. No Contract No Coffee Pledge: https://crm.broadstripes.com/ctf/SJID0H Solidarity Fund for SBWU partners: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/starbucksworkersfund 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: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/starbucks-abortion-transgender-health-care-promises-pr-stunt-union-contract 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 summarizing developments with the potential national rail strike, which was delayed but very much not completely canceled by the recent tentative agreement.  Next we discuss the end of the Seattle Teachers Strike and what we can glean from the little information available at the moment. Moving into new stories, over 1000 timber workers are on strike in the Pacific Northwest over wages that don’t come close to keeping up with inflation.  Over 12,000 workers at Kroger may strike this week after voting down the company’s “last, best and final offer.” Workers have been organizing an independent union at Geico in Upstate NY, which could be the first in a type of office work that is nearly entirely unorganized. Amazon workers are rising up all over the country, with walkouts in Atlanta and St Louis and a union election date set for Albany to see if workers will join the ALU. Finally, as usual, we check in on the Starbucks Workers United movement where the company’s illegal campaign of union busting refuses to let up. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

The potential for a national rail strike has been looming for a long time, and now that we have finally reached the point where one could actually happen, we decided we needed to have someone who knows a lot more about the railroads than we do on the show to help explain the situation. We were very excited to be joined by Justin Roczniak from Well There’s Your Problem to bring us historical analysis of the long road to where we are today. We discuss the history of how the railroads have operated in the US, how the national freight network has been shaped by the profit motive, and how rail executives have let the entire national rail network decay in pursuit of maximum dividends. This history sets the stage for the current crisis, where companies have merged into a few mega-carriers with no real competition, and “precision scheduled railroads” have slashed rail crews and stretched their existing employees to the breaking point. We summarize the long labor process to get to this point demanded by the Railway Labor Act, and what we might see in terms of a potential long term outcome of the current dispute. With a national strike possible as soon as this Friday, we hope this discussion provides some helpful background to understand what state the railroads are in, how they got that way, and the roots of the horrific working conditions rail workers are fighting against. Follow Justin on twitter @who_shot_jgr and check out Well There’s Your Problem on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPxHg4192hLDpTI2w7F9rPg  Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We’ve got an absolutely jam packed episode this week, labor news never stops. First, we are excited to discuss the victory of the Heine Brothers Coffee workers in their union election. Next we cover the Seattle teachers strike, where workers are fighting for resources needed to serve special education and multi-language learning students. A recent report from the Washington Post has documented the incredible work by Unite Here in unionizing 90 percent of the cafeteria workers at Google campuses across the country. The union drive at Target may have hit setbacks in Virginia but has sprung up in Pueblo, Colorado as well.  Every Hollywood production these days uses a ton of visual effects, but effects workers are some of the only non-union production workers in the business, which some are now fighting to change. The ALU grew again this week as workers organizing in Modesto, CA, announced their affiliation with the union. California passed a major new bill this past week aimed at regulating the fast food industry, we discuss the pros and potential cons of this kind of reform. A report from The Intercept this past week raised some troubling questions about the effect the “neutrality agreement” at Microsoft is having on the relationship between the union and the company, with the union killing a report that was critical of the company’s military contracts.  Finally we close out with our weekly recap of the Starbucks Workers United movement. 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. Work Stoppage is going to the movies! In this first episode of a new series, we check out some classics of labor cinema, Matewan and Cradle Will Rock. Matewan tells the story of one of the most famous battles of the Appalachian Mine Wars of the early 20th century which would culminate in the Battle of Blair Mountain shortly after. Covering the struggle of workers in West Virginia to unionize, it gives audiences a window into the absolute tyranny of the coal companies and the level of violence they were willing to use to try and prevent the unions from organizing the mines. Cradle Will Rock recounts the development of the play of the same name by the Federal Theater Project during the great depression. In whirlwind fashion, the film covers the anti-communist witch hunt to purge the Federal Theater Project, the collusion between the US ruling class and fascism, and the struggle for artistic freedom under capitalism.  We discuss the themes of the films and how we can use them as agitation tools in our organizing. On future episodes, we’ll discuss many more examples of labor cinema and how we can use them to help make workers’ struggles and their history relatable in our fight to build unions today. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Fund to donate to Leonard Peltier’s Walk to Justice: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=24H3YHAGGSZ7Y  Solidarity Fund for Fired Starbucks Workers in Anderson, SC: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fired-starbucks-union-leaders-in-anderson-sc  Happy Labor Day everyone, we’ve got another packed episode of Work Stoppage. We start out with a sad follow up as yet another young organizer with the South African Shack Dwellers’ Movement has been brutally murdered. There’s no easy way to transition out of that so we move into our labor news, as the MLBPA is finally organizing the exploited minor league players. Also this week, another huge win for the independent union movement in Mexico at another auto parts manufacturing plant. Moving to a story out of Canada, workers at a construction firm have been threatened with jail for refusing “voluntary” overtime. The NLRB ruled against Tesla this week, saying they cannot bar workers from wearing clothing with union insignia on it. Nursing home workers struck in unison across multiple employers a few weeks ago in a bid to address sector wide problems.  Another major healthcare workers struggle is coming up next week, when 15,000 nurses in Minnesota will hit the picket lines. Finally, the NLRB ruled against Amazon’s frivolous challenges to the ALU’s win at JFK8, and for Labor Day the ALU and Starbucks Workers United came together for a massive rally in NYC to demand both companies recognize the unions and bargain in good faith. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

On this week’s Work Stoppage, the Columbus teachers’ strike ended after just a few days, we discuss the new contract the workers ratified this weekend.  Workers at REI in Berkeley finally got their votes counted and their win extends the union to both coasts! An ongoing trial over Whole Foods’ attempts to ban workers from wearing masks with BLM on them has revealed the direct links between the fight for racial justice and the class struggle. The labor upsurge in the UK continues to escalate as 115,000 Royal Mail workers shut down the post this past Friday. Punjabi workers in the Toronto area have been fighting wage theft using community organizing tactics inspired by the Indian farmers’ movement. Chipotle workers in Lansing, Michigan won the first union election in the company’s history this week. Finally, Starbucks continues its campaign of union busting, workers keep fighting back, and the union movement has hit over 230 stores! Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod @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. This week we were honored to be joined by Nate Holdren, professor at Drake University and author of the recent book Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era.  In the book, Nate chronicles the shift in the way workplace injury is handled in the US from liability trials to workers compensation. We discuss the dehumanizing aspects of both systems and the ideology used to justify the devaluing of working class life. We also discuss Nate's work on Engels' concept of Social Murder, and how that concept is so applicable to the way modern capitalist society chews up and spits out working class people in the pursuit of profit. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Amazon recently fired friend of the show Matt for his organizing work with the ALU. Donate to his support fund here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/1f94594f-a62a-4a3b-bf7f-88e92b69442a We’ve got strikes everywhere this week. First we start by checking in with Trader Joe’s, where the company recently closed a store in NYC to kill a union drive. Next we discuss the recommendations from Biden’s Presidential Emergency Board, which fail to resolve any of the major problems faced by rail workers. For our Amazon roundup this week, workers in San BernaRdino staged a walkout at one of the company’s Air Hubs last week, workers in Albany officially filed for an NLRB election, and TikTok creators form a pledge to support ALU demands. In Northern California, 2000 mental health workers with Kaiser Permanente are on strike to force the company to actually hire enough staff to provide patients the resources they need. Columbus teachers hit the picket lines on Monday for the first time in nearly 50 years, fighting for smaller class sizes, safe ventilation, and music and PE classes for all students. Workers at the biggest container port in the UK, Felixstowe, are on a weeklong strike to protest the port operator’s refusal to pay them a wage that keeps up with inflation. Finally, the Starbucks Workers United movement got a huge win this week when a judge ruled the company must rehire the Memphis 7. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee