In this episode of Requires Improvement, Co-hosts Tom and Lauren interview Andy Byrne, one of the committee members of Hammers United, a football fan club for West Ham. Andy speaks about the similar challenges fans face to educators and trade unionists when confronted with market forces, structural change and the need for ordinary people to have control over their cultural lives as well as in the workplace. Connections are drawn between how organisers in different sectors can learn from each other about effective approaches to building inclusive supermajorities and having an impact on real life events.

Check out Hammers United's website here: hammersunited.com/

You can also find them on twitter here: mobile.twitter.com/hammersunited2?lang=en

This episode includes references to violence, sexual violence, abuse and suicide. It also contains a lot of spoilers.

This episode we talk about feminism in horror films, with discussion of some feminist horror films you could watch to survive this second, yet more horrifying, lockdown.

We explore some different feminist perspectives in horror films, including films with more realistic psychological points about women’s oppression, like the Babadook, as well as some sillier films like Teeth, with its focus on sexuality, rape, revenge and liberation. We discuss Sophie Lewis on the horrors of the patriarchal family and the search for less oppressive forms of belonging in Midsommar. We talk about how feminist themes in horror have changed and developed and what it could all mean. Finally we discuss how the new physical and mental horrors created by the fusion of life and work in the world of AI, big tech monopolies and liberal feminism can be found in Possessor, a new film by Brandon Cronenbourg, continuing in the same body-horror vein (pun intended) as father David Cronenbourg.

'The Satanic Death-Cult Is Real' by Sophie Lewis - https://communemag.com/the-satanic-death-cult-is-real/

Sex may seem an ironic or even unfair choice of topic at the moment, but, perhaps perversely, we found it provided a good diversion from some of the horror of everyday life during Covid. In what could be our least structured podcast ever we discuss sex. Is it good or bad? What do feminists think about it? What were the feminist sex wars, and are they over or still going on? What is straight sex and what are we really doing when we do it?

Plus, find out about feminist events you can take part in online, and discover who we've put in Cancelled Corner this month.

Reading -

Undoing Sex: Against Sexual Optimism - Lies Journal: http://www.liesjournal.net/volume1-02-undoingsex.html

https://libcom.org/library/marriage-and-love-emma-goldman

"Who cares for the carers? Well, it just turns out its other carers."

Care work has, for decades, been an undervalued and under-appreciated industry in the UK. Subject to a creeping wave of privatisation and outsourcing it is now largely provided by a complex patchwork of under-regulated and often outright parasitic companies who seek to drive up revenues and drive down costs by attacking workers' pay and conditions. The result is that the majority of care workers share a common experience of poverty wages, long and unsociable hours, precarious conditions, lack of safety equipment and adequate training. These are issues that we have discussed previously in New Syndicalist - here and here - where workers disclosed the often nightmarish scenarios themselves and their clients were forced to accept as "part of the job".

The Covid pandemic has shone a spotlight on these same conditions which have had absolutely devastating and deadly consequences for the vulnerable people who depend upon these services as well as the people who support them. Gemma and Andy from our Editorial Team took this opportunity to talk to Gemma - a care worker, member of UNISON and organiser for the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) - about how Covid has impacted their work, what their colleagues are doing to support each other during this crisis and what they see as priority areas for organising in the industry for the future.

We decided to record a special mini-episode of material girls over Skype, partly as a way to try to stay sane and connected as we live through the coronavirus pandemic.

We discuss the ways patriarchy and capitalism are bound up with our responses to coronavirus, including discussion of the disproportionate burden borne by women doing care work, and how misogyny shapes public views of nurses. We also talk about what coronavirus lockdown by household means for the nuclear family and those who live within it as well as the impact on those who don’t. We discuss the availability of medical abortion at home and the demands we should be making to reorganise the world when the pandemic is over.

What else could we possibly have talked about for this month's episode of Talking Shop? Chris, Gaby and Lydia from the editorial collective talk about our weird weeks at work and at home, and think about what we can learn from them about organising during and after coronavirus.

More than ever, we'd like to hear from our listeners and readers about their experiences. How is coronavirus affecting your life and work? Are there aspects of this crisis you feel aren't being covered in other media? We'd particularly like to hear from the front lines of the fight against coronavirus, and for a better world afterwards.

This certainly won't be our last episode on the topic. Stay safe and take care of each other.

On this episode of Material Girls, we take a look at the nuclear family from an anti capitalist feminist perspective.

So many of us grow up in nuclear families, and raise our own children in them, that it's easy to think that we always organised our lives this way. In reality, the origins of the family are closely tied to the development of capitalism - the nuclear family is an efficient unit for producing and reproducing the workforce. This unit requires a high degree of social control and oppression to function. As a result, women are far more likely to be raped or abused by members of their own family than by a stranger. On a day to day basis, women take on a disproportionate amount of the domestic labour involved in family-making. It's no surprise, then, that marriage improves mens' life expectancy, and diminishes womens'.

We want a world with more love, more care, and more bonds, where we don't have to stay with a partner because we can't afford to live alone or with friends. In that case, what options do we have? We discuss ways we could extend the idea of 'kin' to people outside of the couple, and how this might allow us to raise children in a more collective way to the benefit of all of us.

We’re looking for guests who’d like to join in the discussion or be interviewed. We’d particularly love to hear from women of colour, black women and trans women, who are not represented by our regular hosts. You can also let us know if you’re doing some feminist organising that you’d like us to plug, especially if it’s happening outside of London. Email us at [email protected].

Subscribe to New Syndicalist on Soundcloud or your favourite podcast app to keep up to date with Material Girls, Talking Shop, and our other audio content.

In the latest Talking Shop we discuss the resounding defeat of the Labour party in the General Election. What does it mean? What do we do next? Why did it happen?

The third episode of Material Girls is about reproductive justice. We talk about 'choice' in a capitalist, racist, patriarchal society, and what this means for our bodies, our lives and our families. We were also extremely lucky to speak to Maev McDaid about the campaign for free, safe, legal and local abortions in the north and south of Ireland.

Reproductive justice is the framework used by some anti-capitalist feminists to explain the impact that social forces have on our ability to make free decisions about how we live. Low wages, borders, high rents and cuts to services shape our lives in ways which have more or less impact on us depending on our class, race, gender, sexuality or ability. If you're an undocumented migrant and your options are a £1300 bill for an abortion or a £4000 bill for a birth, how can your choice be said to be meaningful? Around the world people are caught between policies which prevent them from accessing abortions and other reproductive healthcare, and policies which deny them the material support they need to raise children in comfort and safety.

But people are fighting back. Maev tells about the Repeal campaign in the south of Ireland, and about the push to extend abortion rights to the north. She talks about the solidarity that extended across the border, and about how they resisted attacks from the anti-choice campaign by talking about practical support and care on the doorstep. At a time when right-wing governments are pushing a nationalist, heteronormative 'family values' agenda, learning lessons about how we win is more important than ever.

We’re looking for guests who’d like to join in the discussion or be interviewed. We’d particularly love to hear from women of colour, black women and trans women, who are not represented by our regular hosts. You can also let us know if you’re doing some feminist organising that you’d like us to plug, especially if it’s happening outside of London. Email us at [email protected].

Links to recommended reading -

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/articles/britain-as-the-spoils-of-empire/

https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/goodbye-good-friday-agreement/

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2951-full-surrogacy-now

Subscribe to New Syndicalist on Soundcloud or your favourite podcast app to keep up to date with Material Girls, Talking Shop, and our other audio content.

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In the UK it is General Election time! For the next 6 weeks politics, policy, controversy and what each party leader is having for breakfast is the top news item. Is this just a side show Syndicalists should ignore? Do the parties have anything useful to say for those of focused on workplace organising? This election has been called the Brexit election, but there is a hell of a lot more up for grabs. In this episode Dave, Gaby and Andy will be chatting about what the different parties in the election are offering, and what if any, relevance it has for organisers. Obviously this podcast in a personal capacity only, nothing in here is an official endorsement, we pinky promise!