Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

Detroit’s been through a lot in recent years; the city has become a sort of a symbol of American industrial decline, and with that the declining power of unions. Last week, Detroit’s “emergency manager” filed for bankruptcy, in what will be the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country if it goes forward. A judge is currently holding it up, and we took this opportunity to invite Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel to explain to us what’s going on with Detroit, emergency managers, the auto industry, and unions.

We also discuss strikes at fast-food restaurants during the heat wave, a hunger strike to stop deportations, port truck drivers, and layoffs at Chicago’s schools.

Links for those following along at home: 

Josh on port truck drivers organizing.Josh on strikes at restaurants with no air conditioning.

Mike Elk on lack of OSHA regulations for heat.

Marcy Wheeler on Detroit’s deadbeat emergency manager.

Marcy Wheeler on Detroit’s assets being sold off.

Marcy Wheeler on Rick Snyder, Michigan governor.

New York Times on Detroit’s bankruptcy

Pieces We Wish We’d Written:

Sarah: Madeleine Schwartz at Dissent on Nancy Fraser’s Fortunes of Feminism

Josh: Mike Elk on Bangladesh worker safety.

The post Belabored Podcast #16: Who Bankrupted Detroit? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

In the latest episode of the Belabored podcast, Josh and Sarah are joined by the Nation‘s Lee Fang, investigative reporter and author of The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right, for a conversation about the enemy. They discuss the bait-and-switch tactics being used to avoid worker safety accords in Bangladesh, the rise of the online education wing of the corporate education reform movement, and how the whole big-money machine fits together. They also discuss the beginning of hearings over Chicago school closings, the latest at the NLRB, more strikes by low-wage workers, and more.

Links for those following along at home:

Lee on Bangladesh worker safety accord

Lee on Walmart’s ties to weak worker safety protections

Josh and Lee on Walmart’s ties to Obama’s budget chief

Lee on How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools

Pieces We Wish We’d Written:

Sarah: Michelle Chen on sex workers’ rights

Josh: Chris Geidner on the EEOC and transgender rights.

The post Belabored Podcast #15: Renegade Retailers and Education Ideologues appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

The 14th episode of Dissent’s Belabored podcast opens with a round-up of news at the intersection of labor and the law, including a living wage bill, civil disobedience over an allegedly illegal hospital shutdown, a lawsuit over mandatory payroll debit cards, and a federal court challenge to “independent contracting.” Then, in the latest Belabored Explainer segment, Sarah and Josh tell you everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about retaliation: What is it? When’s it illegal? Why does it happen so much anyway, and what’s labor doing about it?

Links for those following along at home:

Sarah on civil disobedience in defense of a SUNY hospital

Sarah on McDonald’s dropping a payroll debit card requirement

Moshe Marvit and Vincent Mersich on Chicago cabbies’ legal campaign to become employees

Dave Jamieson on Walmart’s wage claims and DC’s living wage bill

Josh on rapid-response protests that saved strikers’ jobs at Wendy’s and the Ronald Reagan Building

Josh on alleged Walmart retaliation and Alan Grayson’s bill to toughen remedies

Josh on the sorry state of US labor law

Sarah on fighting retaliation at Dishes

Jake Blumgart on your rights at work (or lack thereof)

Pieces we wish we’d written:

Francesca Borri, “Woman’s Work,” Columbia Journalism Review

Lee Fang, “US Retailers Launch Lobby Blitz to Sell Weak Bangladesh Safety Plan,” The Nation

The post Belabored Podcast #14: Labor and the Law appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

On the 13th episode of Dissent’s Belabored podcast, Sarah and Josh discuss intra-union struggles over education reform in DC and Newark, the coming teacher evaluation regime in New York, drastic unemployment benefit cuts in North Carolina, and a new national settlement between Hyatt and the hotel workers union UNITE HERE. Then they’re joined by Michelle Chen of In These Times, whom they interview about the limits of immigrant “legalization,” the Supreme Court’s narrowing of Voting Rights Act protections, and labor protests in Dubai and Bangladesh.

Some links for those following along at home:

Sarah on New York teacher evaluations

Josh on a near-upset in Newark

Rania Khalek on the DC teacher’s union and school closures

Ned Resnikoff on unemployment cuts

Sarah on “sadism as politics”

Harold Meyerson on the UNITE HERE – Hyatt deal

Michelle Chen’s reporting on immigration recruitment abuse, domestic labor, food supply chain activism, food stamps, a Dubai strike, protests over Bangladesh factory conditions, and unionism in China.

The stories we wish we’d written:

Marc Lifsher, “Many low-wage workers who won judgements were never paid,” Los Angeles Times

Michael Grabell, “The Expendables,” ProPublica

The post Belabored Podcast #13: Education Workers appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

The twelfth episode of Dissent’s Belabored podcast starts with a rundown of recent news: nurses fighting to save a hospital, the firing of a dozen Walmart strikers, a deal to end New York’s legal services strike, and a new bill to make managers pay for retaliation. Then Sarah and Josh have an extended interview with union veteran and writer Rich Yeselson about his provocative Democracy essay proposing “Fortress Unionism.” They explore several of Yeselson’s arguments, from what labor can learn from its Taft-Hartley defeat, to whether it’s time for unions to retrench. Yeselson talks about “alt-labor against the white whale” and labor’s “sweet spot of weakness.”

Links for those following along at home:

Sarah on nurses’ struggle to save the Long Island College Hospital

Josh on Walmart firings, civil disobedience at Yahoo headquarters protesting the alleged retaliation, and Congressman Grayson’s new anti-retaliation bill

Rich Yeselson on “Fortress Unionism,” his coda on a coming Supreme Court case, and his take on labor’s “Right to Work” defeat in Michigan

Josh’s American Prospect article on “Alt-Labor” and Sarah on “6 Ways to Juice Up the Labor Movement”

Responses to “Fortress Unionism” from Eric Robertson and Brad Plumer (and check out Yeselson’s exchanges with Kate Bronfenbrenner and others in the comments)

Articles we wish we’d written:

Daniel Denvir, “Secret Poll: Corbett should exploit Philly school crisis, attack teachers union for political gain,” City Paper

Seth Freed Wessler, “How Fast Food Companies Steal Workers’ Pay,” Colorlines

The post Belabored Podcast #12: Hold the Fort? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

This week’s Belabored podcast opens with a rundown of recent good and bad news for labor: a worker takeover of public broadcasting in Greece; the passage of a new law protecting New York child models; McDonald’s forcing debit cards on its employees; and a hunger strike in protest of Philadelphia school cuts and layoffs. Then they interview sociologist Penny Lewis on her new book Hardhats, Hippies, and Hawks: The Vietnam War as Myth and Memory, and how we still misunderstand the relationship between labor, the left, and the working class.

Some links for those following along at home:

Penny Lewis’ book

Ned Resnikoff on the Philly hunger strike

Anna Lekas Miller on the Greece radio takeover

Sarah on McDonalds’s debit cards

The stories we wish we’d written:

Bryce Covert, Think Progress: “What Those Mocking Miss Utah Miss About the Gender Wage Gap”

Tim Wu, The New Republic: “The Right to Evade Regulation: How Corporations Hijacked the First Amendment”

The post Belabored Podcast #11: Hardhats and Hippies appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

This week’s Belabored opens with Sarah and Josh’s rundown of the week’s good and bad news for labor: a GOP effort to pre-empt paid sick days; a landmark legal ruling on unpaid internships; a letter from Elizabeth Warren on trade deal transparency; and two rallies in New York. Then the podcast turns to Josh’s recent trip to Arkansas to report on the Walmart shareholder meeting and the striking workers’ protests there. They discuss the spectacle and ideology of the meeting, how the workers management flew to Arkansas reacted to the strikers who traveled there, and whether the campaign will make Walmart toxic for Democrats.

For those following along at home:

Josh on paid sick leave shenanigans in Florida

Zach Carter on Elizabeth Warren’s letter

Steven Greenhouse on a district court ruling on internships

Colby Hamilton on the legal services strike

Josh’s dispatches from Arkansas: Wednesday; Thursday; Friday

The stories we wish we’d written:

Meredith Clark, MSNBC.com: Senate set for battle over military sexual assault

Dhanya Skariachan and Jessica Wohl, Reuters: “Exclusive – Wal-Mart’s everyday hiring strategy: Add more temps”

The post Belabored Podcast #10: Whose Walmart? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

Kicking off a new regular feature on Belabored, Josh and Sarah provide a detailed explainer on wage theft. What is it, why and how do bosses get away with it, and how do we stop it? Explainers will be a part of the show going forward, so send us your questions, suggestions, and terms you’d like to hear defined. Hashtag, as always, #belabored.

They also discuss the uprisings in Turkey and the role of labor unions, international actions targeting McDonald’s, the ongoing conflict at Palermo’s Pizza, and an independent organizing campaign at an upscale New York deli.

Some links for those following along at home:

Kim Bobo’s book on wage theft

Sarah: Wage theft allegations at Dishes

Josh: 84 percent of NYC fast food workers report wage theft

Josh: New York named national leader in fighting wage theft

Sarah: Wage theft at CitiBike

Paul Mason on Turkey’s uprising

Workers join Turkey’s uprising

Josh: Palermo’s Pizza

Josh: Guest Workers as Bellwether 

Josh: Striking Guest Workers will take McDonald’s fight global

Sarah: Who cares for Chicago’s children?

And the stories we wish we’d written:

Farai Chideya: How to Fix Journalism’s Class and Color Crisis

Micah Uetricht: 10-Year Strike at Chicago’s Congress Hotel Ends in Defeat, but Leaves a Legacy

The post Belabored Podcast #9: Who Stole My Wages? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

On this week’s Belabored, Sarah and Josh round up some of the past week’s labor headlines: Savannah port truckers organizing; Seattle fast food workers striking; Chicago teachers suing; and a bankruptcy judge’s blow to retired mineworkers. Josh asks Sarah about her In These Times feature on the wage theft allegations against the company running New York’s new bike-share initiative. Sarah asks Josh about his reporting for The Nation on Walmart workers’ new strike and caravan to the company shareholder convention. Before closing with the pieces they wish they’d written, they issue a call to Belabored listeners: Tweet at us with ideas for labor concepts or issues you’d like to hear broken down in a new explainer segment on the podcast. Hashtag, as always: #Belabored.

Some links for those following along at home:

Sarah on the Savannah Port Drivers Organizing Committee

Josh on fast food workers striking in Seattle.

Allison Kilkenny on Chicago school closures.

Mike Elk on the Patriot Coal bankruptcy ruling.

Sarah on “Bad Green Jobs”

Josh on the first-ever “prolonged strikes” by US Walmart employees

And the “Stories We Wish We’d Written”:

Daniel Denvir, “Who’s Still Killing Philly Schools?”, City Paper

Nicholas Lemann, “How Michelle Rhee Misled Education Reform”, The New Republic

The post Belabored Podcast #8: Bad Green Jobs and the Long Strike appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis.

“A good organizer is a social arsonist who goes around setting people on fire.”

Those are the words of Fred Ross, the organizer who trained Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and many others who’ve shaped the labor movement. Ross is little-known outside of organizing circles, but journalist and author Gabriel Thompson aims to change that. He’s writing a new biography of Ross, and he joins Josh and Sarah to talk about what drew him to Ross, from his techniques to his focus on women and people of color at a time when the labor movement mostly ignored them. He also discusses the current immigration bill and what it will (or won’t) do for the workers he met while reporting his last book, Working in the Shadows.

In the news roundup, Josh discusses the latest strikes by low-wage workers, this time in Washington, DC, and a strike in Dubai of immigrant construction workers. Sarah talks about Venezuela’s move to grant pensions to housewives and Minnesota’s vote to let home care and child care workers form unions.

Help Gabriel Thompson fund his book project and learn more about Fred Ross here.

Find Gabe’s articles and other books here.

Stories we wish we’d written:

Micah Uetricht on the re-election of CORE, the progressive caucus led by former Belabored guest Karen Lewis, to lead the Chicago Teachers Union for another three years.

Katie Baker on why your favorite stores aren’t signing a worker safety agreement for the people who make your clothes.

The post Belabored Podcast #7: Social Arsonists appeared first on Dissent Magazine.