2025 was, to put it lightly, a pretty bad year. We've got our annual recap of the fights we've waged in the working class against the billionaire assault and a look to what may be coming up in 2026. From the fight to defend our immigrant neighbors to the defense of the very existence of higher education, workers across the US have been on the defensive from a full on attack from the ruling class. Whether through using AI as a form of labor discipline or shredding the collective bargaining rights of millions of workers, bosses have been aggressive in trying to crush our rights. But we've also seen a staunch defense of workers in the anti-genocide movement and millions of workers taking to the streets in general strikes in countries around the world. As bad as things got in 2025, there's a lot of reason to feel hopeful as we start 2026 looking to build a fightback that can overcome the class warfare of the Trump Regime.

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Professor Schuhrke joins us once again to discuss his newest book No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine. We discuss the history of the Zionist project and how US labor leadership guided a huge amount of support for the settler colonial project, but also ways that the seeds of resistance in the imperial core were there as early as the Nakba. The book gives us a real view of the scope of what we are fighting against when it comes to the history of US labor support for Israel and provides hope in that the free Palestine movement has never been stronger than it is today. We have a long way to go to repair the harms done by people in the past but we know better than any other time in history that victory is possible. 

Check out our previous interview with Jeff on his book Blue Collar Empire: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114816687

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It's our last regular episode of 2025 and we've got a ton of labor news for you all. We start with headlines from Starbucks, Amazon, New Seasons Grocery, Sysco, the WNBA, the University of Maine, and the nations of Portugal, Bolivia, Mexico, and Brazil. Resident doctors in the UK have gone on strike again, this time with a Labour government in power that refuses to pay them. A recent Workday Magazine piece exposes Disney as a user of prison labor in Minnesota. New York City officials are actually standing up against corporate giants Amazon and UPS for once, following recent worker movements. Finally, we discuss the implications of the possible super merger between either Netflix or Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery for workers in the entertainment industry.

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With the world getting worse and worse, the cause of labor remains the hope of the world. With that in mind, we start with headlines from workers on another general strike in Italy, the nationwide Starbucks strike, nurses and Amazon drivers unionizing with the Teamsters, id software workers joining the CWA, and many more. AI is once again exposed as relying on the labor of low paid, highly exploited workers, this time at surveillance company Flock. The New School is the latest institution in higher education being actively dismantled by its administration, we discuss the student-faculty fightback. In These Times this week has an update on the fight by worker organizer Willian Giménez González against ICE attacks. Portuguese workers were the latest to launch a general strike this week, and we discuss the tactics and strategy that would be needed to actually pull one off here in the US.

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2025 is winding down but the fight for workers rights never slows, we're back with another episode! This week's headlines include stories from Pakistan, Italy, the UK, Canada, France, Occupied Palestine, and Philadelphia. Several weeks ago, a massive anti-union purge was carried out by the management of Teen Vogue, we discuss the implications for our so-called "Free Press." Nurses are under attack not only from hospital admins, but the federal government which recently ended the classification of nurses as professionals, slashing availability of student loans. Teachers in Maryland are fighting not only for their students, but for the people of Palestine by launching a campaign to get the state government to divest their pension fund from Israel Bonds. Finally, we cover several recent articles on the ways that different groups of workers are coming together in cities across the country to organize resistance to ICE kidnappings and protect their neighbors.

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Workers have been pummeled by an overload of customers on Black Friday, so there's a lot to catch up on as we enter the final month of 2025. We start with headlines covering Amazon, Highlander Charter School, Brown University, the University of Maryland, Columbia University, the UFW, National Park Workers, Campbell's, Uber and Lyft, and Leonardo S.p.A. Our main stories start by checking in on the nationwide Starbucks strike, that has now grown to 85 cities across the US. Workers have taken serious fire for standing up for truth and justice in many fields, we take a round up to see how workers are facing attacks on anti-genocide speech and for standing up to ICE. Finally, as neo-liberalism turns life for workers in the West into a waking nightmare, more and more are standing up, so we take a tour around major strikes launched or announced this week in Belgium, Portugal, India, Australia, and of course, Italy.

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Long drive ahead of you this week? We've got your labor news ready to go! We start with a ton of headlines checking in with Starbucks, Amazon, Nestle, New Seasons Market, the University of Pennsylvania, Sharp Healthcare, and the nightmare that is the state of Florida. For our full stories this week, we start by checking in on union busting in a place even our jaded listeners might not expect: public libraries. Then we check in on developments with the strike by workers at Canada Post and discuss the ramifications of the end of their nationwide industrial action. Finally, the LA Times released an expose this week showing the stark levels of child exploitation in US agriculture, a scourge which is directly tied to the long history of superexploitation of migrants that US agribusiness fortunes are built on.

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It's another jam packed episode, once again workers are doing so much we struggled to cover it all! We start with headlines from the University of California, Portland State University, University of Chicago, Case New Holland, GM Canada, Walgreens, the ECHL, Kickstarter, and the United States Federal Government. Starbucks workers launched their largest strike ever this past week, we check in on the first pickets and the fight for a contract. The extremely long and hard fought strike by workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette finally came to a conclusion this week through legal action. Over 15,000 workers in Iran's oil sector went on strike recently for pay, benefits, and to preserve their country's sovereignty. Finally, we check in on the malfeasance of the Labour Party who under Keir Starmer are simultaneously attacking both Doctors and Teachers.

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Election day got all the coverage in the major media last week, but workers struggles don't stop so we've got our weekly roundup for you with all the news that got crowded out. We start with headlines from public workers in Memphis, students in Alberta, Teamsters in Philly, climbing gym workers in Minnesota, bartenders in Utah, and Iron Workers in Chicago. Our main stories start covering the impact on workers across the country by the government shutdown combined with the Trump Administration's attacks on the union movement. The VA has seen some of the harshest cuts, and we discuss the ripple effects this is having on veteran's healthcare. UC workers won a tentative agreement after threatening the largest strike in the university system's history, we discuss the organizing effort that made it happen. Finally, Starbucks workers have officially voted to authorize a massive nationwide strike, with the first rallies set to start this week.

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We're back with another packed episode as John returns and people everywhere are talking about general strikes. First we start with headlines from Volkswagen, Breakthrough Beverages, Minneapolis Public Schools, Texas State University, Microsoft, Uber, and the FAA. The Trump Administration has rolled out another policy to attack workers, this time attacking our right to keep all our digits. A recent piece on On Labor raises the possibility of sectoral bargaining in higher education as a solution to intransigent administrators constantly undermining student workers. The UK hit a new low as a recent report shows that even when they rule companies are illegally refusing to pay workers, they don't even bother collecting their fines. The provincial government of Alberta is waging a scorched earth campaign to rob teachers of their right to strike, which may actually prompt a general strike across the province. Finally, we follow up with yet another report exposing that most of the companies claiming they're replacing workers with AI...aren't.

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Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee