In this episode we cover the hostile landscape for worker organizing in apartheid South Africa, the immediate lead up to the 1973 Durban Strikes, and deep-dive into the strike wave that spread from factories in Durban and Pinetown to municipal workers in the city and turned into a powerful general strike. These strikes had a direct impact on future legislation and positioned trade unions and worker organizing as an important tool for wider anti-apartheid activism.

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

In this first part of a two-part episode series talking about the 1973 Durban Strikes, we set some contextual background and learn how labor issues played a major role in fueling apartheid. In this episode we learn about the colonial interests in the region, the various laws passed well before Apartheid that set the precedent, the rise of Afrikaner nationalism, and the strategy of the National Party. This was a party that capitalized on a failed, repressed strike led by white miners and harnessed the growing anger of a poor white voting base to put forward a platform of formalized segregation that tried to keep Black African working power repressed. And that inadvertently made working organizing such a powerful tool to ending apartheid, leading to major actions like the Durban Strikes.

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

Ey, it's the bulls! Cheese it!

After discussing the real-life historical events of the 1899 Newsboys Strike, it's time to talk about the 1992 movie Newsies! What a movie for Disney to put out! We talk about the historical inaccuracies, the things the movie did right and well, and how they almost pushed the envelope even farther in the original screenplay (with a special guest star: the Specter of Communism).

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

Soak 'em boys! Today we're discussing the real-life historical events that inspired the 1992 Disney movie Newsies and its later broadway adaptation: it's the 1899 Newsboys Strike! This strike has everything from super creative nicknames, a bitter feud between newspaper moguls and the impacts of yellow journalism, colorful transcripts from speeches and rallies, and kids armed with rocks and clubs holding their own against grown adults.

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

In this episode we learn about one of the most famous - and longest strikes - the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott that lasted from 1965 to 1970. Initiated by experienced Filipino organizers, this strike brought together Filipino and Mexican workers to develop the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. We'll learn about the many famous labor leaders involved including Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, Cesar Chavez and Helen Chavez, and Dolores Huerta. We'll also explore the groundbreaking successes of the movement along with some of the challenges and shortfalls.

https://doloreshuerta.org/

https://chavezfoundation.org/

https://www.aclu.org/

https://immigrantjustice.org/

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

In this episode we learn about the Arab American Auto Workers in Detroit who went on strike in 1973 to demand their union divest from its investments in Israel. We talk about their wins and losses, Black worker's cooperation with their Arab peers, the wider historical context of Palestinian activism and the BDS movement, and what happens when unions aren't acting in the interests of all their workers. Free Palestine.

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

https://laborforpalestine.net/

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-did-britain-promise-palestine-to-arabs-and-zionists

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

The teacher is pulling out the TV to watch a movie in class today. I think we've all earned it!

In the first episode of the Labor in Pop Culture series, we're taking a deep dive into the way labor organizing shows up in the hit TV show Severance (spoilers ahead!). From talking about the portrayal of Lumon that pulls from real world corporate shenanigans to the steady building of unity amongst the workers that ultimately leads to resistance, to the wilder aspects of the show (waffle party anyone?), this is a fun one!

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

In this episode we cover a large, inspirational, multi-ethnic labor movement from 1946 that shook the monopoly that sugar companies held over Hawai'i. Workers and organizers learned lessons from other movements, prepared meticulously in advance, and purposefully brought in an element of fun to keep morale high and sustain themselves for a strike that lasted almost three months! The strike cost plantations BIG TIME and turned Hawai'i into an example of successful union organizing that is still the case today!

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

Migrant contract laborers in Namibia played a role in the wider movement for independence! The 1971 General Strike marked a major turning point in worker organizing across sectors, cities, and ethnic groups in the country and set the foundations for a wider political movement to overturn the South African mandate and the legacy of German colonialism. Let's learn about it!

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders

We've talked about the first recorded work stoppage in history in our very first episode, but when did we actually start using the word strike and why? In this episode we bounce back to 1768 in Sunderland and London, where sailors and coal heavers were getting creative in their strikes to demand better pay.

Find Boot Biters - A Labor History Podcast online:

• Website and Transcripts: https://rss.com/podcasts/boot-biters/
• You can also listen to the pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Instagram and TikTok: @bootbiterspod

• BlueSky: @bootbiterspod.bsky.social

Support the podcast, get access to the Water Cooler monthly bonus episodes, and check out resources used in episodes for further reading: patreon.com/BootBiters

Credits: Creator, Host, Social Media, Art, Music, General Chaos Sower: Dakota Saunders