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. On the second part of our series on the history of early US textile strikes, we move into the 20th century. As the textile industry expanded, advances in technology did not come with advances in safety. The drive for maximum profit led to one of the worst industrial disasters in US history, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911.  Just a year later, not far from where the Lowell Mill Girls formed one of the first labor unions in the country, workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts waged a massive strike for fair wages and safer conditions that would come to be known as the Bread and Roses strike. The workers, led by socialists and organizers from the IWW, fought to overcome the efforts of bosses to split workers up along ethnic lines. Finally, in 1934 as the textile industry moved out of New England and into the South in search of cheaper labor, one of the largest labor uprisings in US history erupted into a national textile strike all along the east coast. These struggles show many of the core contradictions of capitalism, and can teach us many valuable lessons for our organizing today. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

This week’s episode is kind of an angry one. We start out with some good news, as the ATU in DC have won their strike, and workers at Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago have won their union vote. Trader Joe’s workers in Minneapolis won their union election in a landslide, potentially setting up a new nationwide union push. We also follow up with the workers at Heine Brothers coffee, where union busting efforts by management have escalated. We discuss the many (600,000+) crimes of Chipotle, which recently settled a massive lawsuit from NYC with a minor fine. Working conditions at Amazon continue to maim and kill workers, we discuss more deaths in New Jersey, unsafe temps in Memphis, and backbreaking labor in Albany. A new report was recently issued showing that unions have far more cash, and far fewer organizers, than business unionist leadership would like us to believe. Also this week, “detainees” have been on strike for months at two of the US migrant concentration camps, refusing to work for slave wages of $1/day in unsafe conditions. Finally, we close out looking at the weekly developments with Starbucks Workers United. Donate to help striking migrants: http://www.kwesi.org/donate.html More Perfect Union video on conditions at Amazon: https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1556731115737595904 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. The development of the industrial revolution in the United States begins with the textile industry. Centered in New England, the explosion of wealth from industrial manufacturing of cloth would form the foundation for the construction of the rest of the US industrial base. Along with that early capitalist development came the rise of the labor movement. In this two part series, we will discuss some of the earliest factory strikes in US history, and how they show in microcosm the development of the forms of capitalist oppression we still see today. We will discuss how class exploitation has always been bound up with oppression based on gender, race, age, and any other ways the capitalists could find to divide workers against each other. In the first episode we cover the very first factory strike in US history, at the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, RI, as well as the rise of the Lowell Mill Girls Association in Massachusetts. In the second episode, we will move into the 20th century, discussing the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the national textile strike of 1934. Bibliography for this series available in the Discord Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

We start this week’s episode with a quick follow up with the Indiana grad student workers who have won major gains despite the university’s continued refusal to recognize their union. Boston teachers have used rank and file methods to win a historic new contract that will help address homelessness in the city. The NLRB has signed onto an order demanding UMWA workers cover the costs of their more than a year long strike against Warrior Met coal, but they are fighting back. The Democrats introduced a bill in Congress with bipartisan support to permanently misclassify gig workers, which would destroy existing labor law. The DOJ has sued the poultry monopolies for wage fixing, but the proposed settlement doesn’t do much to help workers’ wages or job conditions. PetSmart, the nation’s biggest pet supply store, is being sued for trapping employees with thousands of dollars in debt for “grooming academy” training. 200 DC area transit workers are on strike, and could even potentially force out the private company managing what otherwise would be a public service. Finally we check in with the Starbucks Workers United movement, where the company continues to find new, creative ways to illegally retaliate against their own workers for unionizing. Support fund for fired Buffalo Starbucks organizer: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-sam-fired-13-year-starbucks-union-leader  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. On the first two parts of this series, we discussed what exactly rank and file organizing is, and how it differs from top down, business unionist organizing methods, and then discussed some historical examples. In this third part of the series, we do a deep dive on two major rank and file movements from the last decade. First we look at the Chicago Teachers Union and the rise of the rank and file caucus, CORE, to leadership over the massive 2012 teachers’ strike. Then we discuss one of the most recent major union drives from the IWW, the Burgerville Workers Union. Both of these drives show the power unions can have when they actually engage and empower the workers themselves to take the reins of their organization and fight for the issues that matter most to them.  These, along with the other examples we’ve covered, make a strong case for major unions to embrace rank and file leadership of union drives if they want to rebuild the labor movement. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Alabama Starbucks Support Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-fund-for-scottsboro-starbucks-partners This week on Work Stoppage, we start with a couple big union election victories. First, Hudson Workers United finally has their union election win recognized after a year-long ordeal. Then, workers at Trader Joe’s in Hadley, MA won their election to form the first recognized union at the chain. We also check in on the national strike in Panama, where workers have won two of their key demands to relieve the cost of living crisis. In recent weeks, lawmakers in Ukraine have moved to slash worker protections in the country, using the war as justification for dismantling the country’s labor code. More news came out this week about the worker who died at a New Jersey Amazon warehouse during Prime Week, and Amazon’s union busting has increased in Albany as the ALU moves towards filing for an election there. Also in Albany, a new union at Activision was announced recently, with game testers at Blizzard Albany filing for representation with the CWA. This past week was the first UAW convention since the one member, one vote reform campaign, and we discuss several of the measures passed in the run up to this fall’s elections. Finally, as always, we close out checking in on the Starbucks Workers United campaign, which continues to win over 80% of their elections. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

In order to let as many folks as possible hear from the CAUSE workers fighting for a union at Amazon, we've decided to unlock our full interview with them!  We hope you enjoy the interview, and if you like the show please support us at patreon.com/workstoppage. Original Description: We were honored this week to be joined by Lance, an organizer with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, CAUSE.  CAUSE has been working to organize workers at Amazon’s RDU1 warehouse in Garner, North Carolina, just outside Raleigh, since the beginning of this year. We discuss the challenges and successes they’ve had building power with their coworkers, what tactics they’ve found effective, and which ones less so. We discuss how soaring inflation has blunted Amazon’s argument that they pay a good wage, and how other folks thinking about organizing their workplace can get started.  Finally, we discuss how folks can support CAUSE in their fight to organize at Amazon. Support the workers at CAUSE by checking out their website and donating: https://amazoncause.com/ Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Lina’s back and we had so much labor news this week it was hard to squeeze it all in one episode. We start with several quick follow-ups. 400 Planned Parenthood workers in the upper Midwest won their union election in a landslide this week, as did the workers at America’s Test Kitchen. Workers at Activision walked out across the country this week in protest, and Medieval Times’ union movement has spread to a second castle. Also this week, Chipotle went full scorched earth and closed the store in Augusta, Maine who had been fighting to unionize. Amy’s Kitchen did something similar, closing a plant in San Jose where workers were unionizing even though the plant had been open for less than a year. A shocking story came out last week about the use of child labor at a Hyundai plant in Alabama. The recent upsurge in labor militancy in the UK spread to the Royal Mail this week, as 115,000 postal workers voted to authorize a potential strike. Also in Europe, Italy’s repression of militant trade unions escalated yet again this week, as several organizers from two militant unions were arrested for organizing strikes in the logistics sector. Finally, we close out checking in on the Starbucks Workers United movement, which has now unionized over 200 locations across the country! Augusta, GA Starbucks Strike Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-partners-in-striking 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. We were honored this week to be joined by Lance, an organizer with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, CAUSE.  CAUSE has been working to organize workers at Amazon’s RDU1 warehouse in Garner, North Carolina, just outside Raleigh, since the beginning of this year. We discuss the challenges and successes they’ve had building power with their coworkers, what tactics they’ve found effective, and which ones less so. We discuss how soaring inflation has blunted Amazon’s argument that they pay a good wage, and how other folks thinking about organizing their workplace can get started.  Finally, we discuss how folks can support CAUSE in their fight to organize at Amazon. Support the workers at CAUSE by checking out their website and donating: https://amazoncause.com/ Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Lina is away so it’s just John and Dan on this week’s episode of Work Stoppage. We start out with the Medieval Times workers in New Jersey who have won their union…and immediately got threats from the company to not bargain in good faith.  Next we discuss the Verizon Retail union movement expanding to stores in Portland and Flint, Michigan. We have yet another case of a “progressive” coffee chain trying to stop its workers from unionizing, this time Heine Brothers in Louisville, Kentucky.  We also discuss the state of the struggle by railway workers to be able to strike for better working conditions, as once against the government has intervened using the Railway Labor Act.  Workers at the Guttmacher Institute won their union nearly unanimously this week, but faced immediate retaliation. Guides at Yellowstone National Park have been fighting for a union in the face of vicious repression by the private contractor who employs them and uses the park as a 21st century company town.  Finally, we do our weekly update on the Starbucks Workers United movement, where repression continues to escalate, but so do the ways workers are fighting back. Guttmacher Institute Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/guttmacher-union-busting  Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee