Solidarity Works

In the early morning hours of Saturday, November 13, United Steelworkers Local 7600 reached a tentative agreement with health care giant Kaiser Permanente, preventing an impending strike. More than 40,000 health care workers across the West Coast would have, if necessary, walked off the job that following Monday in their fight for safe staffing and wage justice in the Inland Empire.

Today, we're sitting down to talk with Local 7600 President Micheal Barnett and Vice President Norberto Gomez about this monumental fight that brought thousands of health care workers together to win this contract and what the local's plans are for the future.

Last week, more than 3,000 faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh voted to become members of the United Steelworkers union after a robust organizing campaign that began in 2014.

Today, we're talking with two faculty members and activists who have been with the campaign from the start about what it took to secure this historic election and what comes next in the fight for a first fair contract.

Learn more at www.pittfaculty.org.

The wheels may have ground to a halt, but the fight never ends! Listen to the latest episode of Solidarity Works to learn about the USW's We Supply America infrastructure campaign and the six-state bus tour that allowed us to highlight all the amazing work our members do that can help rebuild our country. Visit www.uswvoices.org to learn more.

Anne Balay published her first book, Steel Closets, featuring the stories of forty gay, lesbian, and trans steelworkers, in 2014. Four years later, after a personal career setback, she persevered and published her second book, Semi Queer, focusing on the world of gay, trans, and black truck drivers.

For the latest episode of Solidarity Works, and in honor of Pride Month, we talk to Balay about the adrenaline of survival, overcoming other people's prejudices as well as our own, and the richly textured lives of some of America's most marginalized yet resilient workers. Visit usw.org/steelpride to learn more.

To close out Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, USW Solidarity Works speaks with three activists with the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) who are on the ground fighting for their diverse communities every day.

Learn about combatting anti-Asian racism, immigration and documentation hurdles in America, and how to get involved with APALA by visiting usw.to/podcast. To learn more about APALA, visit www.apalanet.org.

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, yet we rank 13th when it comes to the overall quality of our infrastructure. The American Jobs Plan aims to change that.

For the latest episode of Solidarity Works, we talk with USW President Tom Conway as well as with a local union member at Dow Chemical in Michigan about the importance of investing in infrastructure and in our communities.

International Workers' Day, also known as May Day or Labour Day in most countries, is a celebration of the working class. Its roots are found in the fight for the eight-hour day, which began in Chicago and culminated in the infamous Haymarket Affair on May 4, 1886.

For the latest episode of Solidarity Works, we are going back in time to explore this explosive watershed moment for the American labor movement.

President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law on Thursday, March 11, a historic piece of legislation that aims to jolt the economy back to life. For the latest episode of Solidarity Works, we talk to two members of the union as well as USW Legislative Director Roy Houseman about what this bill means for workers, their families, and their communities. (usw.to/podcast)

One year ago, much of the United States entered various stages of lockdown due to the coronavirus. Since then, a lot has changed for most workers, but today, women remain the most economically impacted by the upheaval. Healthcare concerns, both physical and mental, are on the rise as well for many women and their families, as the pandemic moves into its second year and as vaccines are just now becoming more widely available.

For the latest episode of Solidarity Works, we talk to two Women of Steel -- a health care worker in Georgia and a refinery control room operator in Ohio -- about how life at home and on the job has changed over the past year, and what legislative leaders can do to ease the burden so many are bearing across the nation.