Laborwave Radio

Peter Cole joins the show to discuss the second edition of his book Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly published by PM Press. The range and scope of this episode expands over the backdrop of early 20th century Philadelphia and recounts the biographical details of Wobbly organizer Ben Fletcher and the tale of IWW Local 8, a powerful dock workers union that practiced anti-racist unionism which Ben Fletcher helped to create. We also discuss the demise of Local 8, brought down by a multitude of historical forces such as WWI and employer counter-offensives as well as fraught internal divisions between the IWW and Communist Party and competition from business unions such as the International Longshoremen's Association. Get a copy of the book at https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1144 Become a Laborwave Radio patron to support this show at patreon.com/laborwave Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871 Music: Dead Milkmen- Big Lizard Thee Oh Sees- Adult Acid

Laborwave Radio and the One Big Podcast collaborate on this episode discussing the particulars of solidarity unionism in contrast to business unionism. We dig into the various tenets of solidarity unionism; its emphasis on direct action over contracts, focus on the workplace and industry over legal strategies and electoralism, and the prospects for dual-carding in a shop represented by a business union. One Big Podcast is the official podcast of the Ypsilanti IWW, listen to the podcast and find out more about the branch at https://www.iwwypsi.org/ Become a Laborwave Radio patron to support this show at patreon.com/laborwave Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871 Music: Natural Child- Sure Is Nice

Sarah Jaffe, author, labor journalist, and one of the hosts of Belabored Podcast, joins Laborwave Radio to discuss her new book, Work Won't Love You Back published by Bold Type Books. You’re told that if you “do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” But as Sarah Jaffe shows, “doing what you love” is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. We discuss the themes of the book, the downsides when punk rock is created by trust fund kids, and what love might look like in a world free of capitalist forms of work. Get a copy of the book at https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/sarah-jaffe/work-wont-love-you-back/9781568589398/ Find more work from Sarah Jaffe at https://sarahljaffe.com/ Become a Laborwave Radio patron to support this show at patreon.com/laborwave Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/labo…io/id1536697871 Music from In The Red Records: Thee Oh Sees- Adult Acid Tyvek- Origin of What Transcript at laborwaveradio.com/post/_work

Support Laborwave Radio at patreon.com/laborwave Alex Press, labor reporter and staff writer at Jacobin Magazine, joins the show to discuss Joe Biden's union credentials and what organized labor should and shouldn't expect from a Biden administration. As made clear in this interview- not much without a fight. We also dig into the details of the PRO Act, the types of unions the working class wants and needs, and how the primary means for workers to win progressive legislation is to form militant unions and engage in class struggle. This interview follows an article from Alex Press that you can read at https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-labor-unions-afl-cio-kamala-harris Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871 Music from In The Red Records: Fuzz- Rat Race

Sustain Laborwave Radio by becoming a patron at patreon.com/laborwave Laborwave spoke with workers at No Evil Foods about the company's union busting strategy against a unionization campaign organized by employees. Megan, John, and Max discuss in detail the tactics of No Evil Foods union busting, including a marathon series of captive audience meetings totaling 14 hours, illegal firings, and censorship, and how workers should prepare for aggressive anti-union campaigns conducted by bosses. We also delved into a conversation about "solidarity unionism" and the IWW as a viable alternative to conventional union recognition campaigns. This episode includes never heard before leaked audio from captive audience meetings owners of No Evil Foods forced their employees to attend! Despite being a "progressive" company producing vegan meat alternatives and naming their products in socialist language like "comrade cluck," No Evil Foods prioritizes profit over people and demonstrates a no-holds-barred approach to union busting. Workers have compiled an extensive catalog of information, interviews, and resources for the union busting that took place housed at the website https://www.moevilfoods.com/ Additional resources mentioned in the show: Confessions of a Union Buster by Martin Jay Levitt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-0gxca-VxM Thanks to John Dwyer and In The Red Records for use of music! Thee Oh Sees- Acid Wash The Spit- Shitty World

Support Laborwave Radio at patreon.com/laborwave Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese are the editors of The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy published by Pluto Press. Order a copy at https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341484/the-cost-of-free-shipping/ With cutting-edge analysis, this book looks at the many facets of the corporation, including automation, surveillance, tech work, workers' struggle, algorithmic challenges, the disruption of local democracy and much more. Mentioned in the talk is a panel event with the editors from November, when this episode was recorded, you've missed that discussion but you can watch the video of it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYeH0jLmHFM Join the fight against Amazon by connecting with Amazonians United at https://www.amazoniansunited.org/ and read an interview with the workers at https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/amazon-manages-us-through-stress/ Learn more about forms of solidarity work from this piece at Jacobin, Amazon Workers Desperately Need an Insurgent Union Campaign https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/amazon-worker-organizing-salting-union-coronavirus All our content is at laborwaveradio.com Music: Fresh and Onlys- I'm a Thief

The IWW is 115 years old! In celebration we invited Marianne Garneau & Nick Driedger from Organizing Work to discuss the nuts and bolts of organizing within the IWW and our future as a union. What accounts for the recent upsurge in IWW organizing campaigns? How do we make more universal for all Wobblies our educational documents and training programs? What, if any, strategic industries should we focus on and should we target smaller workplaces or larger ones to build power? Finally, how much should we branch off from organizing in the workplace to forms of organizing outside of it? We discuss all of the above questions, as well as the challenges we face in building one big union, including the dominant presence of business unions and increasing precarity of workers in North America. Transcript forthcoming! Links: Laborwave Radio patreon patreon.com/laborwave Organizing Work https://organizing.work Join the IWW! (but you have to promise to organize your coworkers!) https://iww.org The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor by Steve Early https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/350-the-civil-wars-in-u-s-labor Music: Thee Oh Sees- Toe Cutter/Thumb Buster (intro) The Traditional Fools- Get Off Of My Back (outro)

Laborwave Radio presents a podcast mini-series, After The Revolution. ​ After the Revolution is inspired by the desire to offer more than a diagnosis of what is wrong with today by focusing on what we might be able to bring about instead. Each episode within this series will begin by highlighting the importance of one particular feature of society, then imagining what it might look like after the revolution, and finally offering some ideas on how we get to this revolutionary society. Our fourth episode is Malls After the Revolution featuring Shawn of Srsly Wrong, a utopian leftist comedy podcast (https://srslywrong.com/). "We can't just have a perfect mall that works and is static. We can think of a bunch of different things that are the conditions of a good mall that we can try to increase over time, such as making sure that community members have access. We could try to make a static mall, but it's like trying to paint the smell of oranges. Or trying to translate the taste of soup into a song. It does not follow."

Crossposting an interview Laborwave Radio host, Alex Riccio, had with Joseph Orosco of the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures about the #ScholarStrike. The recent online #ScholarStrike claimed to be a way for higher ed faculty to engage in radical action in support of racial justice and against police violence in the US. In the conversation I argue that the #ScholarStrike missed big opportunities for social change and revealed some misunderstandings that many academics have about power and their own place in systems of oppression. Rather than have digital conferences, higher education workers should build alternative organizations to challenge the power structure of their universities to bring racial justice to the BIPOC staff and community that work at their institutions. Read the full article at https://www.laborwaveradio.com/post/strikes-are-not-for-spectacle For more information on the Anarres Project, visit @AnarresProject on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or go to anarresproject.org. Support our show at patreon.com/laborwave

Join in on the fun Discord conversations by becoming a Laborwave Patron at patreon.com/laborwave We're reading books, sharing articles, and watching movies via discord with our patreon subscribers. We've finished No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power by Jane McAlevey! Each chapter has been discussed at length in our series Comrades Read Together, and three veteran labor organizers join us for this final conversation. Michael Marchmann, staff organizer for GTFF 3544, Sarah Pishioneri, staff organizer for CGE 6069, and Andrea Haverkamp, president of CGE 6069, chat with Laborwave Radio about the difference between "pretend power" and "real power." Our conversation circles largely around the question of, what Marx famously described, "class in itself" vs. "class for itself." How do we, as leftist organizers, connect disparate movement agents during times of crisis to move from having history enacted upon the working class to the working class enacting history? With the looming pandemic providing pathways towards multiple futures, what are the necessary steps and vision we need to push toward the future we wish to make? All this and more in our final episode of Comrades Read Together: No Shortcuts! Music from In The Red Records: Ty Segall- Class War