Cyberunions

By Cyberunions

Cyberunions episodes

December 04, 2017Cyberunions Episode 93: Tech workers can organize…?
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Update Section
1:00 Catch up
2:45 The final countdown
3:15 Help support the show https://www.patreon.com/cyberunions
4:00 How to organize … a lot of work, practice, and patience
5:00 Tech organizing ideas from Solidarity solidarity-us.org and DSA dsausa.org
5:45 The revolution is not going to happen tomorrow
6:55 Always opportunities from the public or president on bringing events forward to further a leftest discussion
7:30 Need to organize, need to join groups that are organized, anarchist, socialist or whatever
8:20 Net Neutrality will be a future show on what we can do to respond outside existing ISPs Mesh it all up https://act.eff.org/action/protect-the-open-internet-order
9:00 Occupy days wireless mesh independent internet was kicked around in the tech groups but nothing materialized at that time
10:00 Libraries loan wireless hotspots.
10:45 Libraries are a good starting point, projects like Library Freedom Project training on threat models.
11:30 Public venues as places to organize municipal or community ISPs
12:00 We can use trump anymore, need a new word
12:50 FCC chairman is upset that his family has taken a brunt of the impact on his position on net neutrality… keep up the effort.
13:30 Tech Worker Coalition The history, the idea, and the movement afoot http://techworkerscoalition.org/
The Interview & Recap
60:00 Matt’s thoughts on the interview
65:00 For the Win! http://craphound.com/category/ftw/
67:00 Do you know how much your co-workers are paid? Share your wage!
69:00 Speaking to the blood vessels in the bodiess of the conservative bench, clot away!
70:00 Our new groups on Matrix #cyberunions:matrix.org and on Telegram https://t.me/cyberunions they are connected to each other.
1 hr 11 min
March 20, 2017Cyberunions Episode 92: Alt ‘Rights’: What does labor look like in the age of Trump
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Update Section
This is decidedly not Walton
Matt coming in from Chicago
Chicago teachers strike
Site of Haymarket square, Mayday for the American listeners
Is there a memorial for the workers in Haymarket square?
Using new tech for this podcast connections Zokos.com planned to be free software
Indiana became a Right to Work state
Stephen has left the FSF as of last week, more details in future show, but now back into his coop Glocal.coop and social movement organizing
Matt gets an orientation in the studio
Matt starts hosting himself and gives his intro
Matt is a data analyst with Cook County Election, encompassing the suburbs outside of Chicago and a member of SEIU local 73, prior worked with Unite-Here and then SEIU local 1.
Stephen learns about a hell-of-a-question as Matt grew up in a union family
Matt is pretty actively involved on the ground in street actions
Stephen received artisan beer from Mexico
Matt prepares to get off the grid.
Labor section
What are we entering in terms of labor in the US.
Our thoughts on what we think
Trump ran a campaign supported by many poor workers, areas that were devastated by globalization
Reality is Trump has fought workers often
Not sure what he will do with the NLRB
What does the worst look like?
US in 1900s, no protection to workers and was a much more violent experience to gain a union
Are we destined for a return to 1920s instead of a closed shop
A lot of unions that are saying that the President and Congress are hostile to workers and unions and seek to kill off unions
It is impossible in the capitalist system to eliminate the conflict between workers and bosses, may kill the organizing for a bit
Brief history of the NLRA
Labor peace led to a movement to overcome capitalism was put back, and then Taft Hartley Act killed hopes of the left in labor at the time
Seeing for the first time the left really coming together, socialist groups experience large growth for the first time in a generation
Business unionism to potentially advance and not for organizing militancy amongst workers
In the prior to NLRB and in the 1900s to 1930s most union activists being killed were unskilled workers as skilled was protected to a greater extent
Concern of build up of Nationalism and a similar dynamic of patriotism that was held against the IWW in their stance on World War I and their inaction was used against them
Tendency to see labor being split and now we are seeing the trades, that being building trades
Stephen may repeat himself… the FDR model of pay a man to dig a ditch and pay another to fill it to put people back to work, we have a perverted version of that
The idea of the wall is not about borders and or stopping the flow of immigrants it is an appeal to racism and fear of the other
Global ‘fear’ of racism like Brexit and now more traditionally conservative voices like Angela Merkel appearing center and liberal
Scapegoating the poor and turns out that the story was false
The US embarrassment
Coming back to labor
If building trade goes back supporting Trump and have been in gentrification in major US cities
Does this path lead to the AFL-CIO split again? Matt is not in the AFL-CIO as SEIU is part of Change to Win
Will the AFL-CIO respond differently than before
There has been a lot that unions have done to reach out and support worker centers, but here are tensions brewing between service workers and building trades
Allowing Police and Law enforcement being part of the federations may also lead to splits in the labor movement
Some building trade unions have gone to the White House and it is of great concern
It seems like attacks on workers and there may be unions that will work their cut and screw other unions
If we face a national work to right will the business unions face militancy from their members
Any one who says that to go on strike is a privilege is bull shit and do not understand the sacrifice that is being made and for why
No one ever wants to go on strike it is something they want to avoid .. Strike is not the tool of the privileged
True alternate facts to see liberal outlets saying it.
Tech Section
New age of surveillance … Alexa in Matt’s house
Alexa is waiting to be heard, waiting to respond to saying its name, the claim, that nothing is uploaded to the servers, but cannot verify it cause it is not open source
Matt might do a packet sniffer to find out
The new trend of Internet of Things
Serious privacy implications, already Ecco has come up in police subpoena to get records
Alexa listening in and new microwaves turning in to cameras
TechSolidarity meeting talking about tech workers discussing the data that they are sitting on
Same conversations at opendata meetings in Chicago too, lots of folks having the conversations about gathering data
A question coming up about people wondering if we want to have this data
Stephen did something….he has a Facebook account …first time in 11 years
This is mostly for organizing with solidarity-us.org
Facebook and security the use of GPG for email notification
Facebook break tracking addon and block ads
Might create a Cyberunions group too
Close out
Zokos.com will be free software, it is being planned it is on github in a private form as they cleanup the code
50 min
January 24, 2017Cyberunions Episode 91: Announcing the Punch a Nazi Challenge, Take that Ice Bucket!
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Update section
Richard Spencer punch to the music of Born in the USA.
Peoples Inauguration Friday night in Boston.
Womens march Saturday in Boston over 175,000 people.
Labor section ideas
Framing the conditions.
Davos — themes, new tech and rise of robots, globalization and retreat of globalization.
Typically not supportive of right wing. They are realizing that the anti union perspective is bad for them.
View of what to expect under trump.
Refinery Town book review, about forming Progressive Alliance to win locally and building an alternative to the two parties.
Tech section
Tech Solidaity meetings.
Boston experience.
ACLU: massachusetts membe Kade Crockford spoke and highlighted the importance of secure communication and informed peopel to use Signal. Emphasis on calling elected officials and getting them to hear us, we have a tendency to not take action. FBI can hack without a warrent and the concerns it puts forward. Tech for Liberty project.
Local organizing to hold police accountable Seecops legislation. Lots of focus on local actions.
National Domestic Workers Alliance: Spoke about the challenges the immigrant communities have faced and their need to begin to use better technology and communication but also shared knowing the fear many newly active people are seeing. Need to work on making sanctuary companies, in contracts and pushing company leaders. Need tech support with worker centers and working on expanding the security and privacy knowledge.
MIRA (Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocates Coalition) spoke about the local push for supporting free legal assistance and municipal IDs for undocumented folks who cannot get state IDs.
Labor Lawyer Spoke about the difficulty in organizing tech workers. Spoke about the ways in the US that companies use captive audience meetings to control thoughts on forming a union. But that now is the time to organize to protect our work but more importantly to protect the data that many of the tech workers present work on. The need to eliminate that data from being a tool or threat against us all.
Others can follow to find out more info from their twitter.
Also the NeverAgain Tech pledge.
Feedback
Turkey is starting to ban strikes.
Davos industry 4.0 tthe big things is if contract worker are recognized as employees.
Fighting for fundamental rights.
36 min
December 05, 2016Cyberunions Podcast Episode 90: Identity politics lacks class
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Intro (0:28)
Swimming in the lake at 8 C/ 46 F
The site will be moving and design changes to cyberunions.org and it will be more mobile friendly
Steel plant in Germany and worker perspective with a more internationalist perspective
Reminds of Capital Moves: The RCA story
Passing of Fidel and the end of an era
Transition from Fidel to Trump… is it the end of Neoliberalism? Trump ‘Saving jobs in Indiana’
Main Topic (10:42)
Threatening rise of fascism
Giving out This Machine kills Fascists
The big fight of identity and class politics
Liberals have defended identity politics and occused people bringing up class as white privilege
SDP and Communist parties fought each other and the splits let the right come to power, we need to make sure that does not happen again
Jacobin magazine historical map of the left in the US (PDF)
Highlighting The Guardian newspaper covering identity politics well but not showing up to a strike
Identity politics alone seems simple to solve but it has potential for large repercussions, LGBTQ rights comng about in the US at least is great but not everyone is on board with it where class issue is missed.
(19:45)
Capitalists don’t care about LGBTQ but they will exploit the split of the working class
Gains in identity politics is more commonly found in the upper class
In the film “Pride” Gay and Lesbians support the miners
Shows the struggle of breaking down divisions it will take us a long time but we will grow and become stronger
Liberals stop blaming voters, instead blame the movements that failed
We need to hold the line and defend identity politics but need to bring class into it
The backlash is it left out half of the equation
Socialist and revolutionary groups are seeing quite an uptick in membership and interest
When did we ever have democracy
Scotland shows great signs of positive changes in working class
The wierdness factor is still there, president is not held to conflict of interest laws
In a bizarre state of mind of want to know what happens but we are not a game of Sims
Spent life fighting Neoliberalism and now it is like oh shit neoliberalism might be better
Capitalist will they oddly be in a place of ‘saving us’ in certain parts i.e. capitalist supporting LGBTQ
Keep in mind there are splits in capitalism too
A wait and see that we don’t want to wait and see
The passing of Fidel thinking back on the legacy of Fidel
Tech (39:30)
Rebuilding the commons, things have changed since we started, but we still have not figured it out
The ongoing challenge of social media in the public commons
Do we give up on social media and do really targeted communication
What is the problem we are trying to solve it seems it is more like we are trying to still replace email
Signal, Whatsapp and Telegram replacing social media seems we want the immediate communication and secure and accessible instead
Facebook is becoming a newsfeed, a don’t tag people and let them decide, privacy is being grasped
Not writing off XMPP/Jabber
Do we want Cyberunions to be more of a role of advising and research for unions and develop a transition process
One example is a group in Mexico called Sursiendo that developed an adaptation and adoption plan to free and open source software
Should we open a facebook group for cyberunions as general outreach and awareness as people are there and we could use it as just a news outlet feed come to https://telegram.me/cyberunions
Not to endorse the Facebook game and we want to pull people away there are a lot of leftist groups that have developed strength from there
Outro (54:23)
Dockers podcast shoutout
Rate and review us on Itunes to expand our reach, we know many of our listeners use iPhones
Telegram group https://telegram.me/cyberunions
Look we created a podcast
58 min
November 14, 2016Cyberunions Episode 89 : This Podcast Kills Fascists
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Intro
0:50 Walton is not in Scotland anymore…
1:20 Why would we ever bring this podcast back?
1:27 A terrible thing happened in the world
2:00 Beard scratching the mic
2:13 Shit is shitty on this side of the pond
2:37 Before jumping into the election how did Walton end up in Switzerland?
3:55 Make Donald Drumpf Again
4:16 Stephen might go chaotic as he is challenge with grappling with the shit we have
4:36 Prophets of Rage tries to Make America Rage Again
Labor/Political shit
5:23 Twas the night of the election
6:14 Waking up to some kind of hell, just not sure which one
7:10 We need a time machine to get back to the future
7:29 Maybe the world did end in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar and time split and we are in the wrong version of the future
8:00 Neoliberal era is it coming to an end?
8:46 The right tore the hole that the left had been trying
9:24 What in the world will Trump do?
10:00 The devil we know vs the devil we don’t know
10:40 Trump is not a good business man
11:00 Living in chaos theory
11:30 Separation of cause and effect
12:00 Chaos under heaven all is well, cannot change the world when things are stable
13:00 Trump lacks an organized front like Hitler had, we need to stop him from getting organized
14:30 Democrats and labor failed to organized the working class white…it is a class division that needs to be addressed
16:00 Look at the numbers, low voter turnout, not a mandate
16:35 The problem of the left was giving up class and moving to identity politics, we won or thought we won
17:20 Organized parties of the left stopped talking to parts of the working class and it bit us on the ass
18:10 Marches and protests after George W. Bush were not enough we need to go further
18:40 We need to be concerned about the US being what we don’t want
19:20 What ground work do we need to start laying now, from the Occupy movement experience, 2008 debt and 2001 etc.
20:20 New folks being agitated, there is a moment for the left to expand
20:50 Protest and marches are great, but they are just a start
22:50 The kind of stuff that is happening is not just in the US and UK but the rest of the world
25:00 Putin in Russia, in Hungry and in France there are threats from the right
26:50 There are a lot of angry people out there and the causes are complicated
28:00 The right tries to give a simple answer to complex problems
28:30 The booming 1920s the elites won out, but let up to the 1930s where fascism took power
29:25 We may be looking at the end of the Neoliberal era, we don’t know but the economy is growing at least in terms of real estate
30:10 Major economic crisis after party changes in US politics
30:30 We need to improve how we respond, we learned from Occupy, but we face a potentially harsher threat
31:35 Trump threat of galvanizing popular support through rallies
32:30 Stephen gets chaotic, we step forward and leap backward
33:20 The might keep us in the US when we want to get out
34:10 Jumping back in time to Jim Crow and legal racism, sexism, etc.
34:30 The morning after the Brexit vote is now nothing compared to Trump
35:30 Trump and Brexit represent the unresolved shadows of the country
37:00 All the problems are out in the open…we really need to construct the society we want day-to-day and cannot rely on liberal politicians
38:40 The march of progress from the end of WWII has ended we are no longer in the age of Aquarius
39:00 Hitler mustache replaced with a toupee
40:25 There is a need for us that are white and have been complacent to support our allies and need to be coming together
41:10 If we don’t we will get the fascist state we don’t want
Tech
41:35 Security, Security, Security!!
42:10 Now is the time to learn about using encryption
42:30 When we first started we talked about the use of Tor in oppressive nations and now we are that
43:15 Using encryption has become a lot easier in the last couple of years, more like pushing a button, not as much of a learning curve
43:45 Biggest weak spot with encryption is ‘you’
44:20 Resources:
Tactical Tech,
Guardian Project,
Bitmask,
Email Self Defense,
Telegram,
Signal,
Tor,
CryptoCat,
Off-the-record,
Omemo
47:10 Try to get your friends off Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook
50:00 Stephen can’t remember a link and software, but finds it
52:50 We come to the end
52:46 Bella Ciao – by Manu Chao
57 min
October 12, 2015Cyberunions Podcast Episode 88 We’re Back!!
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Updates
Where have we been?
What have we done?
Where are we now?
Walton is still in Glasgow and Stephen is *not* in Mexico
Our careers and what is keeping us busy
Labor
Labourstart or Laborstart for the non-british english speakers
UNI conference and the scope of the labor movement activism online
Tech
Free software and the movements
Libreplanet & CiviCON and how it relates
Place for movements to collaborate
Popular Tech
Looking at Snapchat and how it could relate to organizing precarious workers
Ideas of opening up the API and making it more secure
Feedback
Thanking Derek Blackadder
South African accent is invading Stephen’s satire dependence in The Daily Show with Trevor Noah save the conversation for another time
45 min
July 14, 2014Cyberunions Episode 87 Yes IndyRef Yes!
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Updates
Stephen is in Mexic—-Scotland!!
We have been Civi…er…busy
Been on a pub crawl er… podcrawl kevie & mcnalu
Tech
We go tech Crazy
GLI Streaming and education event
Walton & Stephen explain the stresses, the problems and the hope
Future plans to get away from google is to use Mexcla and to develop Mexcla Expansion
We met Bill Fletcher
networked with so many people from around the world
Labor
Walton goes Independent to explain the details of the campaign for an Independent Scotland
Stephen asks some detailed questions
More info for Radical Independence
Feedback
Welcome new listeners
Stephen highly recommends a book Strike For America and goes into detail about the book being a good read for activists and a model for reforming a union
42 min
May 01, 2014Cyberunions Episode 86: MayDay! Programming Sucks and Strikes in China
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Updates
Stephen is back in Mexico City
Walton went to Geneva
Tech Talk
Walton introduces us to a great article on why Programming Sucks
Stephen enjoys the analogy from the article
Programmers are crazy!
Why heartbleed was bad, but why it reinforces FLOSS as the best method for development
May First People Links audio will be available on the site soon
Who is to say the proprietary one is also not compromised? what overview is there for that?
The best part is that since it is FLOSS it is humanly readable by anyone that seeks to do so.
Labor Talk
Walton goes into great depth in discussing the strikes in China
Great to be talking on MayDay about Strikes in China
Walton & Stephen have hopes for China to create capitalism to then kill it for all out communism!
Feedback
Our podcast rss feed should be working again, Stephen discovered not all podcatchers like ssl certificates
35 min
April 18, 2014Cyberunions Episode 85 Unionizing the South: The lessons from VW
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Interview Edition
Chris Brooks from Chattanooga For Workers
Chris gives a great historical background to the radical history of Chattanooga Tennessee
Stephen thinks there is 95% union density based on the history
Right to work is an ideology deeply ingrained in the society, local labor unions have no plans to fight right to work laws
Right to work is often confused with worker “at will”
UAW is not new to Tennessee with the GM Saturn plant, but the drive with VW sparked global interest
Chris describes the UAW presence is not new many small locals, but still frustrating
Over $570,000,000 from tax subsidies was given to VW to bring the plant there
Tennessee has the highest proportion of workers on minimum wage and the highest sales tax. $288,000 tax subsidies for each job created
Same time austerity cuts came in at the same time, so social welfare organization
Steal from the poor bribe the rich to provide jobs for the working people
The struggle by the community organization just extended to VW.
When the UAW came in to organize they do not see the social justice unions or community organizing or bottom up organizing
The business model of UAW unionizing does not fit in the local struggle.
In the south the company can be neutral toward unions but the society is *not* neutral
Numerous right wing tactics, but the right started to take leftist tactics but on the right
Southern Momentum is being called a Workers’ Center but it is a right wing back organization.
The right are using legitimate criticisms of the UAW to build an anti-union discourse
Where were the frustrations with UAW and the organizing
Lack of bottom up, media messaging from Detroit, but in the local press was local people slamming the union, the right-wing used the local voices to fight
UAW did not try to promote or lift up local voices for different narratives.
Group of labor activists created Chattanooga For Workers (CFW) adhoc organization to lift up alternative voices
ALEC funded event with Wall Street Journal said “unions are cancer”, CFW did a pray vigil against ALEC and UAW did not try to promote
The local press is so close to those in power, the south needs national news to inform people.
Mike Elk and Steve Greenhouse came down to try to raise the stories
We had a community forum about the right-wing attacks, and the UAW no show
CFW went directly to the workers, a meet regularly to discuss the actual conditions.
Labor Notes was keen on bringing the actual voices from the factory on what happened
Workers on hold now as the UAW tries to figure out the next steps.
Leaked documents show that the Governor’s chief of staff was coordinating with anti-union groups and was specifically leveraging $300 million on an SUV line with VW to work against the workers.
The Germans’ had no idea what they were getting into, they had no idea that the politicians would be so anti-union
The local corporate class view VW as a class trader
“Free Markets” is such bullshit, bosses should not be regulated, but workers should be.
The right-wing did what the UAW should have been doing in the first place
VW committed to the US but not the south thanks to Sen. Corker
National Right to Work Foundation Lawyer was overheard that Mercedes money was used to fight the unionization drive.
Working conditions are harsh, much like we know from UAW history that was eliminated in the 1930s
No place for full recovery
CFW talking to workers about concerted action, that rights exist without workers, things can be done.
Feeling amongst workers is that they cannot wait for UAW but need to take action on their own.
Fundraising Chattanooga for Workers supporting the VW workers that lost their jobs Please Donate! it is through the Mercy Junction PayPal
52 min
April 10, 2014Cyberunions Episode 84 To Where Labor Day Started
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Updates
Met Listeners in person matt and michael both in the Chicago area
In fact recording from matt’s place now
Lots to talk about from this week in chicago
Labor Talk
labor notes conference
Stephen attended on behalf of May First / People Link
extensive discussion of the various workshops that Stephen attended
In particular the VW chattanooga panel on the UAW organizing drive met Chris who worked on the facebook Chattanooga for Workers in support of the UAW drive. Really good analysis from two workers that were in the plant organizing.
Tech Talk
From the CWA telecom session a clear generational gap amongst the labor activists.
Met some awesome folks involved in the CWA next generation
labor tendency to support capitalism
need to build and fund activist network software
encourage labor activists to join the Organizing Network
Feedback
Michael will be posting our content on reddit for us since my account got blocked
44 min

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