By Working People
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The podcast currently has 308 episodes available.
Two months ago, from April 17-21, workers and labor organizers of all stripes convened in Chicago for the bi-annual Labor Notes conference, which overlapped with the Railroad Workers United convention. As the registration website rightly noted, “Labor Notes Conferences are the biggest gatherings of grassroots labor activists, union reformers, and all-around troublemakers out there." This is not a buttoned up convention of union officials; this is a real grassroots gathering of people on the frontlines of struggle, talking openly, honestly, and strategically about their struggles, victories, and defeats, about what we can all learn from one another as fellow workers and fighters, and about how we can all contribute to growing the labor movement as fellow members of that movement. In this on-the-ground episode, cohosted by Max and Mel Buer, we speak with attendees at the RWU convention, Labor Notes, and participants in the Labor for Palestine protest that took place outside of Labor Notes on April 19.
Speakers include: Johnny Walker, a railroad worker and member of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers—Transportation Division (SMART-TD) Local 610 in Baltimore; Matt Weaver, who has worked on the railroad since 1994, is a member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWED-IBT) Local 2624, where he also serves as legislative director for his state; Marcie Pedraza, an electrician at Ford Chicago Assembly Plant and member of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 551; Jacob Morrison, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), president of the North Alabama Labor Council, and cohost of The Valley Labor Report; Leticia Zavala, legendary farm labor organizer working with farm workers in Mexico and the United States, and a member of El Futuro Es Nuestro (It’s Our Future), a farmworker caucus within the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL-CIO); Colin Smalley, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 777 in Chicago; Berenice Navarrete-Perez, vice president of the Association of Legislative Employees (ALE); Annie Shields, former journalist and union organizer with the NewsGuild of New York; and Axel Persson, a locomotive engineer in France and general secretary of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) Railway Workers Union in Trappes.
Additional links/info below…
Labor Notes website, Facebook page, and Twitter/X page
Railroad Workers United website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
El Futuro Es Nuestro – It's Our Future website and Facebook page
Labor for Palestine website
The Valley Labor Report YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Patreon
Duncan Freeman, The Chief Leader: "At Labor Notes conference, a sense of mission and solidarity"
Axel Persson, ML Today, "CGT leader speaks to Labor Notes conference"
Martha Grevatt, Workers World, "Militant pro-Palestine demonstration during Labor Notes conference takes the street"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
On the morning of Thursday, June 20, unionized nurses at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore held a rally outside the hospital to raise awareness of their efforts to secure a first contract and to show management that they’re not backing down from their core demands for safe staffing and an operational model that puts patients and patient care first. "St. Agnes nurses are calling on Ascension to accept their proposals to improve safe staffing and, subsequently, nurse retention," a press release from National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) stated. "Nearly 20 percent of nurses at St. Agnes began employment at the hospital after January 1 of this year. Meanwhile, just over a third of nurses have more than four years of experience at the hospital... The Catholic hospital system is one of the largest in the country with 140 hospitals in 19 states and also one of the wealthiest, with cash reserves, an investment company, and a private equity operation worth billions of dollars—and, because of its nonprofit status, is exempt from paying federal taxes." In this on-the-ground episode, we take you to the NNOC/NNU picket line and speak with Nicki Horvat, an RN in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit at Ascension St. Agnes and member of the bargaining team, about what she and her coworkers are fighting for.
Additional links/info below…
National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
NNOC/NNU Press Release: "Ascension Saint Agnes nurses demand hospital accept ‘Patients First,’ staffing enforcement policies"
Angela Roberts, The Baltimore Sun, "Saint Agnes nurses rally for better pay, more patient protections"
Gino Canella, The Real News Network, "An oral history of the 10-month St. Vincent Hospital strike"
Gino Canella, The Real News Network, "Striking nurses hold the line against investor-owned healthcare giant"
Robert Glatter, Peter Papadakos, & Yash Shah, Time Magazine, "American health care faces a staffing crisis and it’s affecting care"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "Kaiser workers win big after largest healthcare strike in US history"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
“Southern Brazil is facing its worst climate tragedy ever," Latin-America-based journalist Mike Fox wrote from Brazil for the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) in early May. "Unprecedented floods have impacted 1.4 million people and forced more than 160,000 people from their homes... The images are shocking. Downtown Porto Alegre, the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, is underwater... On May 2, a dam collapsed, unleashing an over 6-foot-high wave and worsening flooding in the area... Although the tragedy is a natural disaster, experts have pointed out that the lack of preparedness on the part of state and local officials may have contributed to the devastation. According to one report, Porto Alegre slashed funds for flooding prevention over the last three years and didn’t spend a cent on it in 2023.” In this episode, we talk with Mike about his reporting trip to Southern Brazil, the devastation he witnessed firsthand, and the conversations he had with poor and working-class people who have borne the worst impacts of the floods and who continue to bear the greatest costs of man-made climate chaos.
Additional links/info below…
Michael Fox, The Real News Network/NACLA, Under the Shadow (podcast series)
Michael Fox Patreon page
Michael Fox, NACLA, "“They’re making it up as they go”: Inside the response to Brazil’s deadly floods"
Michael Fox, Al Jazeera, "‘The future is dark’: Brazilian businesses shattered by floods"
Michael Fox, Truthout, "Climate refugees are occupying abandoned buildings in Southern Brazil"
Bianca Graulau, The Real News Network, "The Puerto Ricans illegally occupying land to resist displacement"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "‘CSX has got to go!’ Industrially polluted South Baltimore residents want rail giant out of their community"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "South Baltimore residents on the toxic reality of living in a ‘sacrifice zone’"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
On June 10, in the working-class community of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, over 50 residents, activists, and supporters from around the city marched through the streets of Curtis Bay to hold CSX Transportation accountable for polluting their community, homes, and bodies with toxic coal dust. Even after an expansive scientific study co-sponsored by the Community of Curtis Bay Association, the South Baltimore Community Land Trust, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, and the Maryland Department of Environment confirmed the presence of coal dust in the air of the South Baltimore community of Curtis Bay, CSX has denied culpability and called the study “materially flawed.” Residents say they’re fed up with the company refusing to take responsibility for the coal dust, and with the city government for ignoring their cries for help for years, and they’re not going to stay quiet.
“We got to stand together for Curtis Bay, for South Baltimore,” one resident and youth leader, Carlos Sanchez, told the crowd. “We have to remove CSX for the health of our communities.” With other locals watching from their porches, sidewalks, and storefronts, the crowd marched from the Curtis Bay Rec Center all the way up to the gates of the CSX terminal. There, they signed and delivered a giant “Eviction Notice” to CSX, a company that recorded over $10 billion in gross profits last year. In this on-the-ground edition of Working People, Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Curtis Bay residents on the day of the march and takes you to the heart of the action.
Speakers in this episode (in order of appearance) include: Shashawnda Campbell of Baltimore Community Land Trust; David Jones, a resident who has lived in Curtis Bay for over 35 years; Angie Shaneyfelt, a resident who has lived in Curtis Bay for 17 years; Angela Smothers, a lifelong resident of Mt. Winans in South Baltimore; Carlos Sanchez, a youth leader born and raised in Lakeland, South Baltimore; Roma Gutierrez, a lifelong resident of Brooklyn, South Baltimore, and an environmental organizer and youth leader with South Baltimore Community Land Trust; an unnamed representative of Malaya Movement Baltimore; and Maria Urbina, a South Baltimore resident.
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
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "South Baltimore residents on the toxic reality of living in a 'sacrifice zone'"
Aman Azhar, InsideClimate News, “South Baltimore communities press city, state regulators for stricter pollution controls on coal export operations”
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”
Michael Middleton & Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Maryland Matters, “Commentary: Maryland deserves a better environmental justice bill”
Chloe Ahmann, Baltimore Sun, “Curtis Bay residents deserve a coal-free future”
Christine Condon & Dillon Mullan, Baltimore Sun, “Curtis Bay residents ask state to shut down South Baltimore CSX facility after study documents toll of coal dust”
Maryland Department of Environment, "New scientific study confirms airborne coal dust in Curtis Bay community"
Adam Willis, The Baltimore Banner, "A state-backed report found coal dust across Curtis Bay. CSX isn’t convinced"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
For the past six years on this show, we've talked to working people from across the United States, from virtually every walk of life, about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles. But today, we’re going to talk about what it’s like to live and work in a country that has been designated a political enemy of US empire, a country that sits only 90 miles away from the US, a country that American politicians have resolved to strangle into oblivion for the past 60 years. In this episode, we speak with Liz Oliva Fernández from Cuba. Liz is an award-winning Cuban journalist with Belly of the Beast, an independent outlet covering Cuba and US-Cuba relations, and she is the presenter of two new documentaries, Hardliner on the Hudson and Uphill on the Hill. In addition to exposing the sinister interests behind, and the devastating real-world impacts of, the Cold War Cuban policy of Joe Biden’s administration, pushed by powerful hardliners like Senator Bob Menendez, former Chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the films also document Liz's experience as a Black journalist from the Global South coming to the US to confront the predominantly white politicians and interests waging economic war on her country. We talk about Liz's new films, and we talk about growing up in Cuba, becoming a journalist, and life for woking people in Cuba under the US-imposed blockade and designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism .
Additional links/info below…
Belly of the Beast website, Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube channel
Belly of the Beast, Hardliner on the Hudson
Belly of the Beast, Uphill on the Hill
Andrew Buncombe, The Guardian, “Two Cuban documentaries show effects of US sanctions on island nation"
Ju-Hyun Park, The Real News Network, "Cuba's protests and the long crisis of US intervention"
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…
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Nearly two months have passed since the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and the city is still reeling from the disaster. The bridge collapse immediately rendered the Port of Baltimore inoperable, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs, and billions in wages, business revenue, and state taxes. While channels into the port have begun to open back up slowly, workers on the waterfront have been deeply affected, and the road to recovery will be long. As questions linger about the root causes of the Key Bridge collapse and what sort of future Baltimore can salvage for itself, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Marc Steiner, host of The Marc Steiner Show, team up to speak with John Blom, a veteran longshoreman who worked in the Port of Baltimore for over 30 years, to get a workers’ history of the port and its meaning to the city it nurtured.
Additional links/info below…
Permanent links below…
Featured Music…
“South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone,” Michael Middleton and Dr. Sacoby Wilson wrote in a guest commentary published in Maryland Matters this February. “The six communities that make up South Baltimore—Cherry Hill, Westport, Mt. Winans, Lakeland, Brooklyn, and Curtis Bay—rank in the top 3% of the state for environmental burden using a Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) screening tool. Curtis Bay, the highest in the state, is Maryland’s poster child for environmental injustice. Industrial areas near Curtis Bay house oil tanks, a wastewater treatment plant, chemical plants, landfills, the country’s largest medical waste incinerator, and more. Heavy diesel trucks frequent residential streets. The Wagner’s Point and Fairfield communities that were once Curtis Bay’s neighbors to the east are gone. Those residents accepted buyouts to leave between the 1980s and 2011 after a series of chemical spills and accidents.” In this episode, we continue our “Sacrificed” series by focusing on communities in South Baltimore and a story that quite literally hits close to home, less than half an hour from where Max lives. We speak with a panel of residents of South Baltimore about how they have seen their communities change over the years, what it feels like to be “sacrificed” by industry and their government, how they and their neighbors are fighting for change, fighting for justice, and what others in Baltimore and beyond can do to help. Panelists include: David Jones, who has lived in Curtis Bay for over 35 years; Angela Smothers, a lifelong resident of Mt. Winans; Carlos Sanchez, a youth leader born and raised in Lakeland; and Tiffany Thompson, who was born and raised in Cherry Hill and has lived in Curtis Bay for the past three years.
Additional links/info below…
Coal-Free Curtis Bay Facebook page
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”
Michael Middleton & Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Maryland Matters, “Commentary: Maryland deserves a better environmental justice bill”
Chloe Ahmann, Baltimore Sun, “Curtis Bay residents deserve a coal-free future”
Christine Condon & Dillon Mullan, Baltimore Sun, “Curtis Bay residents ask state to shut down South Baltimore CSX facility after study documents toll of coal dust”
Aman Azhar, InsideClimate News, “On a ‘Toxic Tour’ of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, Visiting Academics and Activists See a Hidden Part of the City”
Christian Olaniran, Adam Thompson, Caroline Foreback, CBS News, “Residents meet after air quality study reveals presence of coal dust in Curtis Bay”
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...
"Vina Colley was Erin Brockovich before Erin Brockovich," Kevin Williams wrote in a 2020 Belt Magazine article titled, "The Poisonous Legacy of Portsmouth’s Gaseous Diffusion Plant." Williams continues, "Colley has become an unlikely citizen-scientist, spending a lifetime researching and documenting PORTS and its sins... Colley was hired as an electrician at the facility in 1980 and worked there for three years. 'I was exposed to everything. We were cleaning off radioactive equipment that we did not know was radioactive. They never told us,' Colley told me. Then, she said, her hair started falling out, she developed rashes, and 'I got really sick and went to the hospital, not knowing that it was my job causing me all these problems. I had big tumors.' In the four decades since, she’s faced a range of health problems, including chronic bronchitis, tumors, and pulmonary edema." In this episode, we sit down with Colley herself to talk about growing up in Ohio during America's Cold War atomic age, her experience working as an electrician at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, and her decades-long fight to hold the plant and the government accountable for what they've done to her, her coworkers, and her community, and to get them the compensation they deserve.
Additional links/info below…
Vina's Facebook page
DOL Energy Advisory Board Information: Comments for the Record, "My name is Vina Colley and I am a sick worker from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant in Piketon, Ohio..."
Kevin Williams, Belt Magazine, "The Poisonous Legacy of Portsmouth’s Gaseous Diffusion Plant"
Erin Gottsacker, The Ohio Newsroom, "Piketon stopped enriching uranium twenty years ago. Now the nuclear industry is coming back"
Scioto Valley Guardian, "Residents in Pike County closer to justice and compensation for radioactive contaminants"
Sen. Sherrod Brown, Press Release: "Brown secures commitment to work to add Pike, Scioto county residents to radiation exposure compensation program"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "East Palestine residents demand fully-funded healthcare"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
Gene Bruskin was born to a Jewish working-class family in South Philadelphia and has been a life-long social justice activist, union organizer, poet, and playwright. Since retiring from the labor movement, Gene wrote his first play in 2016, a musical comedy for and about work and workers called Pray For the Dead: A Musical Tale of Morgues, Moguls and Mutiny. In this mini-cast we talk to Bruskin about his life in the the labor movement, the role of art and imagination in revolutionary politics, and about Bruskin's new musical, The Return of John Brown, which is premiering this month in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and the John Brown Raid Headquarters in Maryland. "In a staged reading of this new musical, John Brown, who in 1859 became the first person in the nation executed for treason, climbs out of his grave where he was hanged, into the present, only to be rearrested and threatened with another hanging."
Additional links/info below…
The Return of John Brown (musical,) website
Cosmopod, "Gene Bruskin: A Life in the Labor Movement"
Christina L. Perez, Labor Notes, "Labor Musical Brings Morgue Workers' Struggle to Life"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
On March 23, 2024, a coalition of around 80 people convened at the East Palestine Country Club at the first gathering called by the newly formed Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers Coalition. Those in attendance included: East Palestine residents; railroad workers; residents of other “sacrifice zones" in Ohio, Maryland, California, and West Virginia; concerned citizens living near other rail lines; labor activists and labor union representatives; representatives of environmental justice organizations; (striking) journalists; socialists, Trump voters, non-voters, etc.; and more. As journalist Steve Mellon reported, "The newly formed coalition, dubbed Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers, determined they will travel to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8 to further their demand that the federal government step in and make sure those affected by the derailment are provided with fully funded health care. They plan to involve union members, including those who represent workers at railroad companies, as well as environmentalists and members of other communities damaged by chemical contamination. The coalition also determined to schedule a second conference in Iowa — the cause has been embraced by union organizers there; several traveled by bus to East Palestine to attend Saturday’s event — and to seek a meeting with the president of the AFL-CIO. Organizers want the federation of unions representing more than 12 million workers to support the coalition’s demand.”
In this extended episode, you will hear a compilation of speakers from the March 23 conference in East Palestine. Speakers include: Lauri Harmon, East Palestine resident; Chris Albright, East Palestine resident; Jami Rae Wallace, East Palestine resident, president of East Palestine Unity Council; Christina Siceloff, East Palestine resident; Rob Two-Hawks, East Palestine resident; Daren Gamble, East Palestine resident; John Palmer, longtime organizer and officer with the Teamsters, but not speaking on behalf of the Teamsters; Andrew Sandberg, International Association of Machinists (IAM); George Waksmunski, United Electrical Workers (UE); Chris Silvera, Teamsters Local 808 Executive Secretary; Steve Mellon, journalist for the Pittsburgh Union Progress, on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for 18 months; Vina Colley, Portsmouth-Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety & Security; Steve Zeltzer, WorkWeek; David Pfister, Food & Water Watch; Nicole Fabricant, activist, academic, and author of Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore; Hilary Flint, Clean Air Action; Penny Logsdon, Lee County, Iowa, Labor Chapter; Jeff Kurtz, Lee County, Iowa, Labor Chapter; Carrie Duncan, Lee County, Iowa, Labor Chapter; Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network; Mike Stout, Musician.
Additional links/info below…
Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers website
Mike Stout, "Stand Up for East Palestine" music video
Steve Zeltzer, The Labor Video Project YouTube channel
Steve Mellon, Pittsburgh Union Progress, "‘If I don’t talk no one’s going to know’: Stories of pain from East Palestine move coalition members to action"
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...
Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song
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