By Working People
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The podcast currently has 324 episodes available.
On November 12, unionized nurses at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore held a rally in front of the Marriott Hotel downtown, where the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was holding a meeting. St. Agnes nurses rallied with supporters from around the city, and they were even joined by fellow Ascension nurses who traveled from Wichita, Kansas, and Austin, Texas.
According to a press release from National Nurses Organizing Committee / National Nurses United (NNOC-NNU), the purpose of the rally was to “highlight how Ascension has failed to follow USCCB directives to Catholic health care organizations to both serve and advocate for patients ‘at the margins of society’ and ‘treat its employees respectfully and justly.’... Baltimore nurses have been in negotiations since Feb. 2024, following a successful union election in November 2023. Ascension has failed to bargain in good faith with Saint Agnes nurses on language that would improve safe staffing and protect patients from cuts to services, lawsuits for billing disputes, and surprise billing or excess charges.” In this on-the-ground episode, you’ll hear speeches and chants from the Nov. 12 rally, and we speak with Gideon Eziama, a registered nurse with over 20 years of experience who has worked at Ascension St. Agnes for the last six years, and Lisa Watson, a registered nurse at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis Hospital in Wichita, who traveled to Baltimore to stand in solidarity with her coworkers at Ascension St. Agnes.
Additional links/info below…
National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
NNOC/NNU Press Release: “Ascension nurses call on US bishops to hold Catholic hospital chain accountable to church directives”
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Baltimore nurses at largest Catholic health network in US fight on for first contract”
Aleja Hertzler-McCain, Religion News Service, “Ascension nurses receive tepid response from Catholic bishops after rally”
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Sacrifice zones are areas where people have been left to live in conditions that threaten life itself, from toxic industrial pollution to the deadly, intensifying effects of man-made climate change. In a more just and less cruel society, the very concept of a “sacrifice zone” wouldn’t exist. And yet, in America, after decades of deregulation and public disinvestment, more working-class communities are becoming sacrifice zones, and more of us are being set up for sacrifice at the altars of corporate greed and government abandonment.
America’s sacrifice zones are no longer extreme outliers; they are, in fact, a harrowing model of the future that lies in store for most of us if the corporate monsters, corporate politicians, and Wall Street vampires destroying our communities aren’t stopped. And residents of different sacrifice zones across the country, fellow workers on the frontlines of all this reckless and preventable destruction, are connecting with each other, learning from one another, and working together to fight back. In this Working People liveshow, recorded on Oct. 19 at Red Emma’s worker cooperative bookstore, cafe, and community events space in Baltimore, we speak with a special panel of residents from four different sacrifice zones in the US about how the situations they’re facing in their own communities and their struggles for justice and accountability are connected.
Panelists include: Hilary Flint, communications director of Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community and a former resident of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, a few miles from the site of the Feb 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio; Melanie Meade, a community organizer, educator, and life-long resident of Clairton, Pennsylvania, the site of US Steel's Clairton Coke Works, which was named the most toxic air polluter in Allegheny County in a 2021 report by PennEnvironment; Elise Keaton Wade, a real estate attorney by trade, longtime environmental justice activist, and a native of Southern West Virginia; Angela “Angie” Shaneyfelt, a resident of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, who lives just blocks away from an open air coal terminal owned and operated by rail giant CSX Transportation, which has been polluting her community for generations.
Special thanks to Dr. Nicole Fabricant and the South Baltimore Community Land Trust for organizing this live show.
Additional links/info below…
Coal-Free Curtis Bay Facebook page and Instagram
South Baltimore Community Land Trust website, Twitter/X page, Facebook page, and Instagram
Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community website, Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter/X page
Hilary’s Instagram
Nicole Fabricant’s Instagram
Melanie’s Facebook page
Angela’s Facebook page
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "South Baltimore residents on the toxic reality of living in a 'sacrifice zone'"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "East Palestine residents demand fully-funded healthcare"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “One year later, East Palestine residents want Norfolk-Southern held accountable”
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “‘Towns are gone’: In Helene-devastated Asheville, NC, volunteers battle misinformation and ‘apocalyptic’ wreckage”
Maximillian Alvarez, In These Times / The Real News Network, "Scenes from a sacrifice zone: South Baltimore residents fight back against industrial pollution"
Maximillian Alvarez & Molly Crabapple, In These Times, “Wasteland warriors”
Laura Gottesdiener, The Nation, “You can wipe out coal, but you can’t bring the mountains back”
Nicole Fabricant, University of California Press, Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore
Nicole Fabricant, The Real News Network, “Opinion | CSX explosion in Curtis Bay should alarm Baltimore City and accelerate real change”
Adam Willis, The Baltimore Banner, "A state-backed report found coal dust across Curtis Bay. CSX isn’t convinced"
Melanie Meade, PublicSource, “Family history, loss and hopes for a bright future fuel my fight for clean air in Clairton”
Daniel Shailer, PublicSource, “The Mon Valley holds its breath as the latest U.S. Steel settlement promises a fresh approach”
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music…
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Featured Music...
Last year, we summoned all the Alvarez siblings from the ether to record our annual Halloween episode. Sadly, we were not able to record a new Halloween episode in 2024, but to celebrate the holiday and give listeners a break from all the heavy news, we are publicly releasing last year's spooky special. Jesse, Zak, Max, and MacKenna break down THE defining horror movie of our childhood, the movie that scarred us all: John Carpenter's The Thing. From the whole Alvarez family, we're wishing everyone out there a Happy Halloween!
Permanent links below...
Working People Patreon page
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song
On Monday, Oct 21, 2400 behavior health workers at Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California locations walked off the job in their ongoing struggle for a fair contract. Over the summer, negotiations between the health system and the bargaining committee, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), failed to close the gap between their proposals, opening the door for a strike. The workers are now well into their second week on strike.
The healthcare giant refuses to bargain seriously with the workers, offering paltry raises instead of agreeing to the workers’ demands for better pay, pensions, and safer staffing levels at the Kaiser mental health clinics in and around Southern California. These gains, the union believes, would allow Kaiser to compete with other health systems, drastically improve patient care quality, and solve many of the scheduling issues that have plagued the health system since before the start of the pandemic.
The union hopes that by striking, they can show management that they are serious about securing a fair contract for their members. Last week, on the first day of the strike, Mel sat down with Chris Reeves and Lisa Caroll, two behavioral health workers who work in Los Angeles and San Diego, respectively, to talk about the state of negotiations, what workers are demanding, and how it feels to be out on the picket line in the struggle for a fair contract.
Note: This episode was recorded on Oct 21, 2024, on the first day of the strike.
Additional links/info below…
NUHW’s Strike Announcement Release
Donate to the NUHW Mental Health Workers’ Strike Fund
Stay up-to-date on the strike here
Check out TRNN’s previous coverage of Kaiser workers striking in the east coast
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez
We’re coming up on a pretty mind-blowing anniversary in the news labor world–Two years ago, in October 2022, after the newspaper unilaterally cut off insurance benefits to production workers and newsroom workers filed ULPs for bad-faith bargaining, the workers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette walked off the job on strike.
The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh has been in negotiations for a contract with Post Gazette management for SEVEN years - since 2017 - and have battled bad faith bargaining, illegal and unilaterally imposed changes to working conditions, and loss of vacation time and insurance benefits. In October 2022, newsroom workers voted to go on strike, and strike they did.
Now, two years later, the workers of the Post Gazette are still on strike–and despite the NLRB upholding their Unfair Labor Practice charges against the company, still have a long way to go to total victory.
Today, we’ve brought some of the striking workers onto the show to talk about the last two years of striking, the welcome updates from the NLRB, and what’s next for the workers as their battle continues.
Additional links/info below…
Steve Mellon, ‘This has to stop’: Pittsburgh news workers mark 2 years on strike with billboard truck that names names
The Pittsburgh Union Progress website
Donate to the strike fund here
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Over the past two weeks, people around the country have watched in horror as our neighbors and fellow workers have been battered by the successive disasters of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. “After making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26 and tearing through the Gulf Coast of Florida,” Adeel Hassan and Isabelle Taft write in The New York Times, “Helene plowed north through Georgia and walloped the Blue Ridge Mountains, washing out roads, causing landslides and knocking out power and cell service for millions of people. Across western North Carolina, towns were destroyed, water and fuel supplies were disrupted, and residents were in a communications black hole, scrambling for Wi-Fi to try to reach friends and family... As of Oct. 6, there were more than 230 confirmed deaths from the storm.” The hurricanes have passed, but the devastation and dire need they left in their wake remain. In this urgent mini-cast, we speak with two guests who are on the ground in Asheville, NC, providing relief and mutual aid to their community: Byon Ballard, a cofounder of the Mother Grove Goddess Temple in Asheville, where she serves as Senior Priestess, and Lori Freshwater, a journalist and relief aid volunteer who is originally from North Carolina.
Additional links/info below…
Mother Grove Goddess Temple website, Facebook page, and Instagram
Mother Grove Goddess Temple volunteer and donation information page
Beloved Asheville website, Facebook page, and Instagram
Adeel Hassan & Isabelle Taft, The New York Times, “What we know about Hurricane Helene’s destruction so far”
Dharna Noor, The Guardian, “Double punch of hurricanes could become common due to climate crisis”
Oliver Milman, The Guardian, “‘It’s mindblowing’: US meteorologists face death threats as hurricane conspiracies surge”
Oliver Milman & Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, “Global heating makes hurricanes like Helene twice as likely, data shows”
Lauren Aratani, The Guardian, “Insurance is failing hurricane survivors: ‘People thought they were covered’”
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
The student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into flashpoints of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it, and the right to speak out against it. This year, college and university campuses have become laboratories of repression where different administrative efforts to silence Palestine solidarity and antiwar demonstrators are being deployed. And that is playing out right now at Cornell University.
As Aaron Fernando writes at The Nation, “Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, has taken disciplinary action against an international student that will likely force him to leave the country, and could have a chilling effect on other international students participating in political protests.
Momodou Taal is a PhD candidate in Africana studies and a graduate student worker, attending Cornell under the F-1 visa program. In the last academic year, Taal joined student-led actions demanding that Cornell divest from industries complicit in Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza.”
The Cornell grad worker union, Cornell Graduate Students United-UE, released a statement condemning the university’s disciplinary actions against Taal, and is demanding the administration bargain with the union “over the effects of the discipline administered to Taal.” “CGSU-UE condemns Taal’s suspension, which represents a disturbing pattern of discriminatory discipline against marginalized graduate workers. The union is still fighting for just cause protections in discipline and discharge, due process for academic evaluations, strong academic freedom, and nondiscrimination protections inclusive of political affiliation and action, religious practice, and caste.” In this urgent episode, Max speaks about Cornell’s actions against Taal with two members of the CGSU-UE bargaining committee: Jenna Marvin, a third-year PhD student in the History of Art & Visual Studies at Cornell; and Jawuanna McAllister, a sixth-year PhD candidate in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell.
Additional links/info below…
Cornell Graduate Students United-UE website and Instagram
Petition: “UE Local 300 Member Facing Firing and Deportation for Exercising Free Speech”
Call for other grad unions to sign “Solidarity Statement of Support for Momodou Taal”
Aaron Fernando, The Nation, “A Cornell graduate student faces deportation after a pro-Palestine action”
Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, “Cornell grad student who attended pro-Palestine protest could be forced to leave U.S.”
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
As the climate crisis intensifies, billions of poor and working people around the world are suffering from lack of regular (or any) access to clean water, but the dawn of “AI” is about to make the problem much worse. In their recent report for Context, “Forget jobs—AI is coming for your water,” Diana Baptista and Fintan McDonnell write, “Artificial intelligence lives on power and water, fed to it in vast quantities by data centres around the world. And those centres are increasingly located in the global south.” In Colón, a municipality in Central Mexico that is home to Microsoft’s first hyperscale data center campus in the country, working people are already bearing the environmental costs of man-made climate change, and they will be the ones to bear the costs of AI and Big Tech. “The town of 67,000 is suffering extreme drought. Its two dams have nearly dried up, farmers are struggling with dead crops, and families are relying on trucked and bottled water to fulfill their daily needs.” In the latest installment of our ongoing series, Sacrificed, Max speaks with Diana Baptista, a data journalist at the Thomson Reuters Foundation based in Mexico City, about Mexico’s ongoing water crisis and about the human and environmental costs of AI and cloud computing.
Additional links/info below…
Diana’s Context author page and X page
Fintan McDonnell & Diana Baptista, Context, “Forget jobs. AI is coming for your water (Video Report)”
Fintan McDonnell & Diana Baptista, Context, “Thirsty data centres spring up in water-poor Mexican town (Text Report)”
David Berreby, Yale Environment 360, “As use of A.I. soars, so does the energy and water it requires”
Tamara Pearson, The Real News Network, “Indigenous Mexicans risk their lives to defend the environment from organized crime and ‘insatiable, predatory’ transnational corporations”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “In Brazil, the climate crisis is already turning working people into climate refugees”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “East Palestine residents have been left behind—and they're running out of water”
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Two years ago, workers from several different Trader Joe’s grocery stores joined the wave of unionization efforts spreading across the country. Workers in Hadley, Massachusetts, made history in 2022 by not only becoming the first Trader Joe’s store to vote to unionize but also by opting to form an independent union, Trader Joe’s United (TJU). However, like with Starbucks, Amazon, Medieval Times, and other companies where workers have been exercising their right to organize in recent years, rampant union busting has been part of the Trader Joe’s story from the beginning. What’s worse, as Alex Press writes in Jacobin, rather than be compelled to follow the law and play by the rules, the supposedly progressive grocery chain has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX in attacking the very constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. What is the current state of the union drive at Trader Joe’s? What issues are employees (“crew members”) still dealing with on the job, and what can supporters do to help? In this episode, Max speaks with Alec Plant, a worker organizer at the Lincoln and Grace Trader Joe’s in Chicago and a member of Trader Joe’s United.
Additional links/info below…
Trader Joe’s United website, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
Lauren Kaori Gurley, The Washington Post, “As Chicago Trader Joe’s votes on unionizing, grocer fights other efforts”
Alex Press, Jacobin, “Trader Joe’s rejects the New Deal”
Dave Jameison, HuffPost, “Trader Joe’s threatened workers ahead of union vote, feds allege”
Talia Soglin, Chicago Tribune, “Workers at North Center Trader Joe’s are first in Chicago to file for union election”
Steven Greenhouse, The New Republic, “How corporations crush new unions”
Steven Greenhouse, The Guardian, “Major US corporations threaten to return labor to ‘law of the jungle’”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, "Want to unionize your workplace? These worker-organizers have some advice”
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music… Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
The podcast currently has 324 episodes available.
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