Laborwave Radio

adrienne maree brown was one of the keynote speakers at Opening Space for the Radical Imagination II, a two-day conference on April 19-20 2019 in the occupied lands of the Kalapuya people. Her keynote address covered her recent title, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor adrienne maree brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism. Her mindset-altering essays are interwoven with conversations and insights from other feminist thinkers, including Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, Cara Page, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Together they cover a wide array of subjects—from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—building new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own. For more information on adrienne maree brown visit: adriennemareebrown.net Also check out more about Opening Space for the Radical Imagination: oregonimagines.com You can get a copy of Pleasure Activism at https://www.akpress.org/pleasure-activism.html Music by John Dwyer: Transmute by Damaged Bug Cool Death by Thee Oh Sees

"At their best, premonitions alert us to the unresolved history contained within the smallest of fragments. The distress that such attentiveness yields makes sense; it corresponds to the developmental outcomes demanded by the neurotic course on which we're set. Such outcomes are not inevitable, however, and Premonitions may yet suggest another path." We spoke with AK Thompson about his recent book, Premonitions: Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt. Our conversation touched on subjects as wide-ranging as Occupy Wall Street and decolonization to prefigurative politics and James Cameron's Avatar. AK Thompson is a activist, author, and social theorist. A professor of social movements and social change at Ithaca College, his publications include Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research (2006), Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent (2010), Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle (2016), and Spontaneous Combustion: The Eros Effect and Global Revolution (2017). Get a copy of Premonitions at: https://www.akpress.org/premonitions.html Read a conversation about Premonitions at: http://www.revolutionbythebook.akpress.org/having-premonitions-an-interview-with-ak-thompson/ Music by John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees: Can You See Wait, Let's Go The Axis

The International Women's Strike (IWS) is now in its third year of operation, and the feminist thinkers Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser have developed the ideas of IWS in their recent book Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto, published by Verso Books. But what is the actual strategy for launching a strike at the level of reproductive labor, as the authors claim is necessary for revitalizing working class struggle? This question and more animates the conversation we had with Marianne Garneau, editor of Organizing Work and a labor organizer based in New York. In this episode Garneau elaborates her critique of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto first appearing in the article The Women's Strike, Reconsidered which she wrote for Organizing Work. Garneau explains why it is necessary to have specific targets tied to specific demands within a larger strategic plan in order to be effective in any struggle for working class improvements, and how all of these features are absent from the IWS, so far. Check out the article here: http://organizing.work/2019/03/the-womens-strike-reconsidered/ Be sure to read the excellent articles and features on Organizing Work: https://organizing.work You can purchase a copy of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto at https://www.versobooks.com/books/2924-feminism-for-the-99 Songs on this episode by John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees: Peanut Butter Oven Mega-Feast If I Stay Too Long

The Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) is the first officially recognized fast-food workers union in the United States. They are an affiliate of the Industrial Workers of the World and have embraced militant union organizing strategies to do what traditional labor unions have been unable to accomplish by forming a fast-food workers union. We spoke with Shane Burley about his recent piece for Think Progress on BVWU and learned more about how these workers were able to succeed in forming their union, how long the fight has been happening, and what challenges lay in front of Burgerville workers. We also discussed the need to rethink labor organizing under late capitalism, where workers no longer self-identify with particular forms of industry and precarious labor is the norm. BVWU's successes in some ways points to the need to re-embrace as Shane says, "19th century unionism" in the 21st century. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is And How To End It and has had articles printed in Roar Magazine, Think Progress, In These Times, Jacobin, Labor Notes, and more. Music on this episode from John Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees; Damaged Bug) Follow Shane Burley on Twitter at twitter.com/shane_burley1 Read his article on BVWU for Think Progress at https://thinkprogress.org/burgerville-oregon-fast-food-labor-union-0253164c533a/ And purchase a copy of Fascism Today at https://www.akpress.org/fascism-today.html

We spoke with writer and activist Hillary Lazar on the connections between border politics and antifascism, applying intersectional frameworks to movement organizing, and pushing beyond "bread & butter" unionism toward liberatory unionism. Our talk begins with a conversation about Hillary Lazar's recent essay, Connecting Our Struggles: Border Politics, Antifascism, and Lessons from the Trials of Ferrero, Sallito, and Graham published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (n.30). The piece focuses on the lost history of anarchist editors and supporters of the periodical Man! who were swept up in an anti-immigrant and anti-anarchist political reaction during the early part of the 20th century in the United States. The piece uses this case study to explore connections and continuations of anti-immigrant policies of today and how such policies bolster the repression of political dissent. In the second half of our conversation we focused on the current labor organizing Hillary has been doing with graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh. She explains why applying an intersectional framework to labor organizing, as well as other forms of organizing, is necessary for building toward a liberatory society. Hillary Lazar is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches about social movements, gender, power and resistance through an anarchist lens. Hillary has been published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, contributed a chapter to Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach (2018), and has worked on several other book projects. She is a collective member of the Big Idea Bookstore, a content editor for Agency: An Anarchist PR Project, instructor for the Institute for Advanced Troublemaking, and is involved in graduate student worker organizing. Institute for Anarchist Studies (publisher of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory) www.anarchiststudies.org Institute for Advanced Trouble-Making https://advancedtroublemaking.wordpress.com/ AK Press www.akpress.org Agency: An Anarchist PR Project https://www.anarchistagency.com/ Big Idea Bookstore http://thebigideapgh.org/

Bill Fletcher Jr is a long-time labor leader and author of multiple books, including Solidarity Divided: The Crisis In Organized Labor And A New Path Toward Social Justice (co-author Dr. Fernando Gapasin) and a new mystery thriller The Man Who Fell From The Sky. In our interview, Fletcher Jr discusses the need for "social justice unionism" in a post-Janus United States. Workers are becoming increasingly atomized in the US, and the state continues to rollback any investments into the reproductive labor that stitches society together. The moment, as Fletcher Jr states, that organized labor can seize for victory is almost over. We might not get another moment. What role do teachers strikes, worker-owned businesses, and housing cooperatives play in seizing this current moment? How do the rank and file push labor leadership to understand that we cannot continue doing "business as usual" despite not being knocked out by Janus right away? We discuss all of these topics and more in this episode of Laborwave. More Info: Bill Fletcher Jr http://billfletcherjr.com/ A Conversation With Bill Fletcher Jr http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/conversation-bill-fletcher/ Women Are Leading The Wave of Strikes in America. Here's Why. ~Tithi Bhattacharya https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/10/women-teachers-strikes-america Contact Laborwave Revolution Radio @ laborwavenews@gmail.com