Think the recent wave of Starbucks and Amazon unionizing signals a tidal shift in worker power? A new wave of labor movement activity to take down corporations?

Our guests have some news for you. 

While unions have long been considered the best way to build worker power, what’s really happening on the ground right now as the workforce increasingly moves towards a gig economy? And what does this mean for your future? Yes, you.

Whether you’re an office worker on a salary, or a delivery driver on an app, we’re in a new era of labor organizing. 

Hear from Italo Medelius, an “Amazonian” and union organizer at an Amazon warehouse in North Carolina; Brian Dolber, researcher and organizer, who reveals the ways you can organize people who have the same job, but not the same workspace; and Ligia Guallpa, director of the Workers Justice Project in Brooklyn, who shares more than we know about the costs of convenience behind an app like Grub Hub.

You’ll also hear about a controversial, but bold idea, from Les Leopold, that might just be the thing that actually turns the tide for workers.

Italo Medelius: Amazon CAUSE

Brian Dolber: Rideshare Drivers United and co-editor of The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence

Ligia Guallpa: The Workers Justice Project

Les Leopold: The Labor Institute and author of the popular substack (and book by the same title) Wall Street’s War on Workers

Have questions about the gig economy? Check out the Gig Economy Data Hub, a project of the Workers Lab in collaboration with the SNF Agora Institute at John Hopkins University.

What is happening with immigration policy and enforcement? Are we witnessing an unprecedented level of surveillance and violence? Or does social media just make people more aware of what’s always been happening? 

Sociologist Shannon Gleason helps us untangle the knot of immigration policy and modern day tactics to reveal the bipartisan roots of strategies designed to snarl legal migration; what $40,000 gets if you’re navigating possible deportation; and the unlikely allies in this fight. 

Jorge Torres, national organizing director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), shares on-the-ground experiences confronting day laborers, along with the interventions you don’t always see in viral clips online. And Maria describes just how much the quintessential immigrant story of her childhood has changed in America. 

Shannon Gleeson: Legalized Inequalities: Immigration and Race in the Low-Wage Workplace

Jorge Torres: National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Executive Producers: Rachel Rybaczuk and Amanda Cowper

Audio Mixing: Tina Tobey Mack

There is a noticeable discussion of Christian Nationalism in popular culture. Is its growing influence actually undermining democracy? 

In this episode, Samuel Perry reveals the surprising relationship between capitalism and Christianity; Jack Delehanty identifies how the church gives working people more than just a sermon on Sundays; and a former Evangelical speaks about the impact of political preaching. You’ll also hear from Jeanné Lewis, a Christian faith leader working to counter the influence of Christian Nationalism, who speaks candidly about how her faith is in direct opposition with much of the rhetoric swirling around the Church today.

Samuel Perry: The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy; Religion for Realists: Why We All Need the Scientific Study of Religion

Jack Delehanty: Making Moral Citizens: How Faith-Based Organizers Use Vocation for Public Action

Jeanné Lewis: Faith in Public Life

Executive Producers: Rachel Rybaczuk and Amanda Cowper

Audio Mixing: Tina Tobey Mack

Music: BlueDot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

What happens when you combine the political opinions of a weightlifting social media star with the analysis of a professor who researches Fox News and political Youtube? A conversation that reveals some uncomfortable truths about the media. Colin Davis and Reece Peck discuss why liberal messaging continues to fail, where to find the Joe Rogan of the left, and how to actually reach working class men. Plus we’ll hear from author Joan Williams about how class cluelessness led to the downfall of the left’s power. 

Colin Davis: Instagram

Reece Peck: Website

Joan C. Williams: Website

Shifting Terrain Executive Producers: Amanda Cowper and Rachel Rybaczuk

Audio Mixing: Tina Tobey Mack

Music: BlueDot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

Building power to win for the working class isn’t simply a theory. People have been doing it for years. 

JaNaé Bates, Co-Executive Director of ISAIAH and Faith In Minnesota, explains the strategy for improving the lives of working people that put Minnesota on the political map. 

We talk about the work behind a miracle; how risk and failure are necessary for success; flanking imperfect politicians with power not money; and how the Minnesota Miracle is available for working people everywhere. 

And ultimately, why organizing over the long haul, not simply mobilizing for urgent political moments, will lead to a more unified multi-racial, working class electorate.

Please reach out to us for suggestions for Season Two, or ways that we can collaborate by sending a message to: [email protected].

To learn more about the organizations mentioned in the episode, check out: Faith in Minnesota and ISAIAH.

Credits:

Shifting Terrain Executive Producers: Amanda Cowper and Rachel Rybaczuk

Production Consulting and Audio Mixing: Karen Given

Music from BlueDot Sessions

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a real reckoning going on in the Democratic Party. Their reputation for being the party of the working class had been waning for years. It took a crushing defeat - emotionally and electorally - for the party establishment to get on the page some people have been on for years: a majority of the electorate see the Democrats as the party of the elite. 

Congresswoman Delia Ramirez of Illinois, a proudly working class Latina, makes clear the obvious antidote: recruit, support, and elect more working class people to political office. Elected officials who are determined to deliver for working people. And Graciela Guzman, Senator Elect for IL District 20 underscores the power of authenticity in Ramirez’s path to victory.

You’ll hear Ramirez speak candidly about the challenging path to political office for working class candidates, including a car catching on fire; being haunted by credit checks; intel on the identity crisis happening in the Democratic Party; and how if you want to win, you’ve got to bring the receipts. 

Shifting Terrain Executive Producers: Amanda Cowper and Rachel Rybaczuk

Production Consulting and Audio Mixing: Karen Given 

Music: BlueDot Sessions

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 If you had to guess how many politicians are working class, what would you say? Ten percent? Five?

In this episode we talk to Eric Hansen, a researcher who ran the data to determine how many working class politicians represent the working class majority. Along with the on-the-ground experience of Angelina Cruz and William Walter, two working class candidates who ran for state assembly in Wisconsin - a swing state with a reputation for having some of the most gerrymandered voting maps in the country. 

We learn why working class candidates are more rare than you’d imagine and a singular thing that could profoundly change politics. 

Shifting Terrain Executive Producers: Amanda Cowper and Rachel Rybaczuk; Assistant Producer: Emilce Quiroz; Production Consulting and Audio Mixing: Karen Given; and Music from BlueDot Sessions

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a lot of finger pointing about which media outlet is to blame for the rise in political polarization, racism, and the class war. The brash boldness of Fox News is a likely target, but what about the hushed tones of liberal news? 

In this episode, researcher Reece Peck reveals what makes some media, like YouTube, a compelling place for news; how we can’t sidestep the culture war with facts; and why we can’t educate disinformation away.

Show Notes:

Find more of Reece Peck’s work at his website along with information about his book Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism As Working Class 

Also mentioned in this episode: Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity by Victoria E. Johnson

Shifting Terrain Executive Producers: Amanda Cowper and Rachel Rybaczuk; Assistant Producer: Emilce Quiroz; Production Consulting and Audio Mixing: Karen Given; and Music from BlueDot Sessions

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Damaging stereotypes about rural and urban voters abound in politics. What’s really going on in the charged landscape known as the rural-urban divide? Are rural voters actually voting against their interests when they elect a Republican? And are urban voters so immersed in the culture war they’re out of touch with the everyday concerns of working people? Is there any commonality across this geographical chasm?

In today’s episode, Sarah Jaynes of the Rural Democracy Initiative, and Bonnie Dobson from Down Home North Carolina, share insights and anecdotes from long-term organizing with working class voters. Despite how it might feel out here, there is a way to bridge the rural urban divide for a more unified working class electorate.

Down Home North Carolina https://downhomenc.org/

Rural Democracy Initiative https://ruraldemocracyinitiative.org/

Executive Producers: Amanda Cowper and Rachel Rybaczuk

Associate Producer: Emilce Quiroz

Production Consulting and Audio Mixing: Karen Given

Music from Blue Dot Sessions

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.