Every single one of us who considers ourselves part of the labor movement has some real deep, serious, and urgent soul searching to do this Labor Day. After already falling to historically low levels of union density, public and private-sector unions are facing an extinction-level event under the new Trump administration. That is not hyperbole; that is a fact. So the real question is: What the hell are workers, unions, and the labor movement doing to fight back?

These are the essential questions at the center of both of the interviews we are sharing in this special Labor Day episode, which were recorded at the Netroots conference in New Orleans, LA, in early August. In the first interview, Max speaks with Everett Kelley, national President of the American Federation of Government Employees, about the Trump administration's elimination of collective bargaining rights for federal unions. In the second interview, his first public interview since he was arrested by federal agents observing an ICE raid in Los Angeles in June, David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union – United Service Workers (West), speaks with Max about the status of his case and about the roles unions must play in the fight against fascism.

Speakers:

• Everett Kelley is the national President of the American Federation of Government Employees, which is the largest union representing federal and DC government employees. He began his first term of service as national President in February 2020, was elected to another term during the 42nd National Convention in June 2022, and was reelected during the 43rd National Convention in August 2024. Kelley has been a member of AFGE since 1981. He worked at Anniston Army Depot and retired from there after 30 years of service.

• David Huerta is a longtime labor leader, born and raised in Los Angeles County, CA, who currently serves as president of the Service Employees International Union – United Service Workers (West) (SEIU-USWW).

Additional links/info:

• American Federation of Government Employees website, Facebook page, and Instagram

• Hamilton Nolan, How Things Work, "Fragile movements crumble"

• Michael Sainato, The Guardian, "White House cancels union contracts for hundreds of thousands of federal workers"

• SEIU, "STATEMENT: SEIU President April Verrett on David Huerta's release from federal custody"

• Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times, "Trump has put a target on SEIU, and the labor movement is fighting back"

• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "EXCLUSIVE: Union leader beaten & arrested at ICE raid SPEAKS OUT" (Video version of interview with David Huerta)

• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "Unions face extinction under Trump. Is labor fighting back?" (Video version of interview with Everett Kelley)

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Railroad workers are sounding the alarm about the potentially catastrophic consequences of the proposed mega-merger of two of the nation's Class 1 freight rail companies. "Union Pacific said it would buy smaller rival Norfolk Southern in an $85-billion deal to create the country's first coast-to-coast freight rail operator," Reuters reported in July. "If approved, the deal would be the largest-ever buyout in the sector." If this giant merger goes through, what will it mean for railroad workers, customers, and for the general public? In this episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of six veteran railroaders and members of Railroad Workers United to get a workers' eye view of the proposed mega-merger and what it will mean for rail labor, the US supply chain, and for the public writ large. Speakers:

• Ron Kaminkow is a member of Railroad Workers United, currently serving as a trustee, and he is also a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), Division 51 in Reno, Nevada. Kaminkow recently retired from Amtrak; prior to working in passenger rail, he worked on the freight rail system for Norfolk Southern and Conrail.
• Jeff Kurtz was a railroad engineer and union member for 40 years and is a member of Railroad Workers United. He served as a union officer most of his career, including eight years as president of BLET Local 391 and chairman of the BLET Iowa State Legislative Board, where he oversaw safety and legislative matters for the union in the state for four railroads for 10 years. He retired in 2014 and served as state representative for one term in the Iowa House after winning the 2018 election in his House district.
• Derek Masters is a member of Railroad Workers United and works as a conductor for a major Class 1 railroad, primarily in the Northeast. He is a member of SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD).
• Matt Parker is a member of Railroad Workers United who works as a rank-and-file locomotive engineer, based in Nevada, with over 20 years of experience.
• Matt Weaver is a founding member of Railroad Workers United and has been a member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (Teamsters) for 30 years. He serves as the BMWED legislative director for the state of Ohio.
• Nick Wurst currently serves as general secretary of Railroad Workers United who works as a freight conductor and locomotive engineer, based in Massachusetts. Wurst started working for the railroad in 2019 as an intermodal worker and member of the Transportation Communication Union (TCU/IAM) and is currently a member of SMART-TD.

Additional links/info:

• Railroad Workers United website, Facebook page, and X page
• Railroad Workers United press release: "Railroad worker group opposes Class One rail mergers"
• Michael Sainato, The Guardian, "Greater risk of toxic derailments if $85bn railroad merger is approved, warn unions"
• Sabrina Valle, Shivansh Tiwary, & David French, Reuters, "Union Pacific to reshape US freight rail with $85 billion deal for Norfolk"
• CNBC, "Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena & Norfolk Southern CEO Mark George on merger: Deal is 'great for America'"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

After seeing friends and neighbors in their community of Pasadena, CA, being terrorized, assaulted, and abducted by masked federal agents, Daniela Navin and Jeannette De la Riva joined together with other neighbors in their area to form Grupo Auto Defensa and fight back. From chasing ICE cars out of town with bullhorns to setting up security brigades so terrified residents can walk outside and go to the grocery store, from providing know-your-rights information to reclaiming public space, protecting each other, and rebelliously refusing to live in fear, the members of Grupo Auto Defensa are defending their community when no one else will. In this crossover episode of Working People, recorded with Professor David Palumbo-Liu and the Speaking Out of Place podcast, TRNN editor-in-chief Maximillian Alvarez joins Daniela Navin and Jeannette De la Riva to discuss the origins of Grupo Auto Defensa and the power of grassroots resistance in the face of the Trump administration's authoritarian assault on immigrant communities and the rule of law.

Guests:

• Daniela Navin is a resident of Pasadena, CA, and a founding member of Grupo Auto Defensa.
• Jeannette De la Riva is a lifelong resident of Pasadena, CA, and a founding member of Grupo Auto Defensa.

Additional links/info:

• Grupo Auto Defensa Instagram
• Speaking Out of Place website and Instagram
• The Real News Network, "'ICE out of Dena!': CA community FIGHTS BACK against ICE terror"
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "He's worked in the US for 30 years—then masked ICE agents beat and kidnapped him in broad daylight"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

The Real News Network is honored to be one of the 2025 recipients of the prestigious Izzy Award for our on-the-ground documentary report, "Trainwreck in 'Trump Country': Partisan politics hasn't helped East Palestine, OH." "While corporate media covered the catastrophe in East Palestine, Ohio, with aerial views of ruined train cars and plumes of smoke likening the horrific crash to a disaster film," The Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) states in their award announcement, "Steve Mellon of the Pittsburgh Union Progress and Maximillian Alvarez of The Real News Network were on the ground telling the stories of people in the communities devastated by the deadly toxins released into their neighborhoods long after major media outlets left them behind." With permission from the PCIM, we are sharing the audio recording of the award acceptance speeches delivered by Alvarez and Mellon in Ithaca, NY, on April 30, 2025.

Speakers:

• Eleanor Goldfield is an independent filmmaker and creator of the documentary Hard Road of Hope, which details the history and contemporary struggles of West Virginians living and dying in coal country. Currently, Goldfield is the co-host and associate producer of the Project Censored Show, and co-host of the podcast Common Censored along with Lee Camp.
• Maximillian Alvarez is the editor-in-chief and co-executive director of The Real News Network.
• Steve Mellon is a photojournalist and writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he is currently on strike and working as co-editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress.

Additional links/info:

• Maximillian Alvarez, Steve Mellon, & Mike Balonek, The Real News Network, "Trainwreck in 'Trump Country': Partisan politics hasn't helped East Palestine, OH"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Production: Park Center for Independent Media; Park Productions at Ithaca College
• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

On Sunday, July 20, 2025, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez delivered the keynote speech at the national convention of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW), UAW Local 2320. "I am here to report back to you from the front lines of struggle, without hesitation or hyperbole, that we are at risk of losing everything," Alvarez told the crowd of union members. "And so I am here not to extol the virtues of your union or the value of unions in general, but to ask you bluntly: What good is a union in Hell? How much can an organization of the dawned do in a future no one wants to live in? What good does a collective bargaining agreement serve when the world as we know it is dying?"

Additional links/info:

• NOLSW-UAW Local 2320 website, X page, Facebook page, and Instagram

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

After getting a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, Jaz Brisack became a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helped organize the first unionized Starbucks in the US in December of 2021. In their new book, Get on the Job and Organize, Brisack details the hardwon lessons they and their coworkers have learned from building one of the most significant and paradigm-shifting worker organizing campaigns in modern history. In this extended episode of Working People, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian speaks with Brisack about their book, the facts and fictions characterizing today's "new labor movement," and why union organizing is essential for saving democracy and the world.Guests:

• Jaz Brisack is a union organizer and cofounder of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Jaz got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping organize the first unionized Starbucks in the United States in December of 2021. As the organizing director for Workers United Upstate New York & Vermont, they also worked with organizing committees at companies ranging from Ben & Jerry's to Tesla.

Additional links/info:

• Jaz Brisack, One Signal Publishers, Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World
• Jaz Brisack, Teen Vogue, "Starbucks Workers United grew out of Jaz Brisack's undercover organizing. Here's how"
• Starbucks Workers United website, Facebook page, X page, and Instagram
• Inside Organizer School website

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Dozens of peaceful protesters, including disabled people in wheelchairs, were arrested last Wednesday in Washington, DC, while protesting President Trump's massive spending and tax bill, which will dramatically slash taxes, restructure the student loan and debt system, and make devastating cuts to vital, popular programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). With Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to advance Donald Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, which will now go back to the House of Representatives for final approval. In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with Lorraine Chavez and Chrstine Rodriguez, who were among the dozens arrested for their peaceful act of civil disobedience on June 25, about what's in this bill, what it will mean for working people, and how working people are fighting back.

Editor's Note (7/1/25): Before the US Senate voted to advance President Trump's spending and tax bill, the provision to bar states from issuing new regulations on artificial intelligence for 10 years was removed from the legislation.

Guests:

• Lorraine Chavez is an educator, researcher, and community leader based in Chicago. She is also a student debtor and traveled to the Washington DC protest with the Debt Collective.

• Chrstine Rodriguez is a legal assistant and student debtor from Pasadena, California, who also traveled to the Washington DC protest with the Debt Collective.

Additional links/info:

• The Debt Collective website, X page, Facebook page, and Instagram

• Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, "Medicaid defenders in wheelchairs arrested ahead of Senate vote on 'betrayal of a bill'"

• Chris Stein, The Guardian, "What's in Trump's big, beautiful bill? Tax cuts, deportations and more"

• Chris Stein, The Guardian, "Senate Republicans pass Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill, clearing major hurdle"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

In Los Angeles, CA, armed, masked agents of the state are snatching and disappearing immigrants off the street, peaceful protestors and journalists are being attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets, National Guard troops and active-duty Marines have been deployed to police and intimidate American citizens. Fear and uncertainty have gripped America's second largest city as a barrage of misinformation obscures the reality on the ground; nevertheless, Angelinos continue to defy the Trump administration's attacks on immigrant communities and authoritarian crackdown on civil rights. In this episode of Working People, we take you to the streets of LA and speak with multiple on-the-ground eyewitnesses to the events of the past two weeks to help you better understand what's actually happening and where this is all heading.Guests:

• Sonali Kolhatkar is an award winning journalist, broadcaster, writer, and author; she is the founder, host, and executive director of Rising Up with Sonali. She is the author of Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World is Possible and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice.
• Javier Cabral is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning, independent outlet L.A. Taco
• Michael Nigro is an award-winning filmmaker and multimedia journalist who is among the numerous journalists to have been assaulted by police while reporting on assignment in LA.

Additional links/info:

• Tim Javier Cabral, L.A. Taco, "A ride-along with Union Del Barrio, L.A.'s leading community patrol against ICE"
• David Folkenflick, NPR, "Press group sues L.A., alleging police abuse of reporters at ICE rallies"
• Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times, "Trump has put a target on SEIU, and the labor movement is fighting back"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

On June 6, thousands of veterans, union members, VA hospital nurses, elected officials, and more gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. at the "Unite for Veterans, Unite for America rally" to protest the Trump administration's attacks on veteran jobs, benefits, and healthcare. In this on-the-ground edition of Working People, we report from Friday's rally and speak with veterans and VA nurses about how Trump's policies are affecting them now and how to fix the longstanding issues with the VA. Speakers:

• Peter Pocock, Vietnam War veteran (Navy) and retired union organizer
• Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees
• Terri Henry, Air Force veteran
• Ellen Barfield, Army veteran and national vice president of Veterans for Peace
• Lindsay Church, executive director and co-founder of Minority Veterans of America
• Lelaina Brandt, veteran (National Guard), 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate, and part-time illustrator and graphic designer.
• Eric Farmer, Navy submarine veteran
• Irma Westmoreland, registered VA nurse in Augusta, GA, secretary-treasurer of National Nurses United, chair of National Nurses United Organizing Committee/NNU-VA
• Andrea Johnson, registered VA nurse in San Diego, CA, medical surgical unit and the NNOC/NNU director of VA Medical Center- San Diego
• Justin Wooden, registered VA nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU) at James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, FL
• Cecil E. Roberts, Vietnam War veteran (Army) and president of the United Mine Workers of America

Additional links/info:

• Tim Balk & Helene Cooper, The New York Times, "Military parade in Capital on Trump's birthday could cost $45 million, officials say"
• Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press, "Transgender troops face a deadline and a difficult decision: Stay or go?"
• Eric Umansky & Vernal Coleman, ProPublica, "Internal VA emails reveal how Trump cuts jeopardize veterans' care, including to 'life-saving cancer trials'"
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, "Trump cuts leave VA hospital nurses and veteran patients in a crisis"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Already burdened by years of funding cuts and understaffing, registered nurses who work at Veterans Health Administration (VA) facilities across the country are facing a crisis as the impact of the Trump administration's cuts to the federal workforce take effect. In this episode of Working People, Maximillian Alvarez speaks with VA nurses and union representatives for National Nurses United about how these cuts, coupled with Trump's attempt to strip over one million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, are hurting VA workers, the quality of care they've been trained to provide, and the veterans they serve.Guest(s):

• Irma Westmoreland, a registered VA nurse in Augusta, Georgia, who currently serves as secretary-treasurer of National Nurses United and chair of the National Nurses United Organizing Committee/NNU-VA
• Sharda Fornnarino, a navy veteran who has worked as a VA nurse for 25 years, and who currently serves as the National Nurses United director of the Denver VA.

Additional links/info:

• National Nurses United website, Facebook page, X page, and Instagram
• National Nurses United - Veterans Affairs website
• NNU Press Release: National Nurses United RNs join Unite for Veterans, Unite for America rally in Washington, DC
• NNU statement on executive order seeking to strip federal employees of their protected union rights
• Eric Umansky & Vernal Coleman, ProPublica, "Internal VA emails reveal how Trump cuts jeopardize veterans' care, including to 'life-saving cancer trials'"
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, "What's really behind Trump's war on federal unions?"

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor