Working People

We're taking a much-needed break this week, but we'll be back with more worker interviews really soon! To hold y'all over, we're releasing a portion of the amazing group conversation we had on our first ever Working People Listener Hang Session last week. Thank you to everyone who joined us—and if you weren't able to join this time, be sure to call in for our second one next month. If you want to watch the full video version of the Listener Hang Session, go subscribe on Patreon!

Additional links/info below...

• Working People, "Listener Hang Session #1 (full video version)"
• Scott Stump, USA Today, "Nabisco Bakers Across the US Are on Strike, Potentially Disrupting Oreo Supply"
• Stephen H. Norwood, The Journal of Southern History, "Bogalusa Burning: The War Against Biracial Unionism in the Deep South, 1919"
• Food Finder website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Strikewave website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Valley Labor Report YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter page, and Patreon
• The Michigan Robin website and Twitter page
• Joe Allen, Haymarket Books, The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS

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"

Repelling down skyscrapers to clean windows is already a very dangerous job. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, high-rise window cleaners with SEIU Local 26 in Minneapolis were also sent into office buildings to disinfect "hot spots" where outbreaks had occurred, resulting in many workers contracting the virus. Now, after their previous contract expired, 40 window cleaners have walked off the job, demanding pay increases, reduced health care costs, as well as a state-recognized apprenticeship program that would guarantee better training and safety measures for workers in their trade. In this mini-cast, we talk with Eric Crone, a window cleaner who works for Columbia Building Services and union steward. Additional links/info below...

• SEIU Local 26 website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Luis Feliz Leon, LaborNotes, "Striking Window Cleaners Want Their Dangerous Job Recognized as a Skilled Trade"
• Pafoua Yang, CBS Minnesota, "'All We Want Is A Fair Wage, Some Respect & Proper Training': High Rise Window Washers Go On Strike"

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"

Over 1,100 union coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, have been on an unfair labor practices strike against Warrior Met Coal for over five months. And for five months, the mainstream media has barely made a peep about the strike. Instead, a small collection of independent journalists and local and progressive media outlets have been working overtime to cover this important story. Jacob Morrison, David Story, and Adam Keller at The Valley Labor Report (Alabama's only weekly labor radio talk show), have been doing more than almost anyone to cover the strike and support striking miners and their families. There is one person, however, who has done more than anyone to lift the strike at Warrior Met into public consciousness for five months straight, and that is independent journalist and all-around badass Kim Kelly. In Part II of our special, two-part update on the miners' strike, Jacob from TVLR and Kim have a wide-ranging conversation about Kim's labor and writing background, the experience of covering the Amazon union drive and the Warrior Met strike in Alabama, and what it means to truly care about and be invested in the people and struggles we cover in labor media.

Additional links/info below...

• Join our Working People listener hang session on Monday, August 16, from 8-9:30pm ET! Here's the zoom link
• UMWA 2021 Strike Fund
• Donate to the UMWA Auxiliary Strike Pantry
• United Mine Workers of America website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Jacob's Twitter page
• The Valley Labor Report YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter page, and Patreon
• Working People, "On Strike at Warrior Met Coal (w/ Jacob Morrison & Lee Bains III)"
• The Valley Labor Report, "Bad News and Good News for Striking Miners & HOW YOU CAN HELP"
• The Valley Labor Report, "Violence from Bosses and Scabs at the UMWA Picket Line in Alabama"
• The Valley Labor Report, "Breaking Down the Alabama Coal Miner Strike"
• Luis Feliz Leon, LaborNotes, "Striking Alabama Coal Miners Want Their $1.1 Billion Back"
• Kim's Twitter page and Patreon
• Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, "The True Price of Coal"
• Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, "Don't Mess with a Coal Miner's Wife"
• Kim Kelly, The Nation, "Alabama's Coal Miners Are Striking for Their Lives"
• Pre-order Kim's book: Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor
• Democracy Now!, "From Black Lung to BlackRock: Striking Alabama Coal Miners Protest Wall St. Financiers of Warrior Met"
• Elwyn Lopez, Ashley Schwartz-Lavares, & Lulit Tadesse, ABC News, "Alabama Coal Miners on Strike Since April Say They're Fighting for Working Americans Everywhere"
• Jaisal Noor, The Real News Network, "Striking Alabama Coal Miners Hit Streets of NYC to Protest Corporate Greed"
• Hamilton Nolan, In These Times, "At a Massive Union Rally, the Promise of a Better South"
• Your Call Radio, "Worker Uprisings Continue Making Waves Across The Country"

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"

Over 1,100 union coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, have been on an unfair labor practices strike against Warrior Met Coal for over five months. For five months, workers and their families have been holding the line, demanding to get back what was stolen from them with their last contract, demanding to actually have time to spend with their families, demanding to be treated with the respect they deserve for making this mine more productive than ever. The UMWA's strike motto is "One day longer, one day stronger," and workers are showing no signs that they plan to back down. In Part I of this special two-part update on the miners' strike, our brother-in-arms Jacob Morrison from The Valley Labor Report interviews striking workers and supporters who attended a solidarity rally that the union held in Brookwood last week.

Additional links/info below...

• Join our Working People listener hang session on Monday, August 16, from 8-9:30pm ET! Here's the zoom link
• UMWA 2021 Strike Fund
• Donate to the UMWA Auxiliary Strike Pantry
• United Mine Workers of America website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Jacob's Twitter page
• The Valley Labor Report YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter page, and Patreon
• Working People, "On Strike at Warrior Met Coal (w/ Jacob Morrison & Lee Bains III)"
• The Valley Labor Report, "Bad News and Good News for Striking Miners & HOW YOU CAN HELP"
• The Valley Labor Report, "Violence from Bosses and Scabs at the UMWA Picket Line in Alabama"
• The Valley Labor Report, "Breaking Down the Alabama Coal Miner Strike"
• Luis Feliz Leon, LaborNotes, "Striking Alabama Coal Miners Want Their $1.1 Billion Back"
• Kim's Twitter page and Patreon
• Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, "The True Price of Coal"
• Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, "Don't Mess with a Coal Miner's Wife"
• Kim Kelly, The Nation, "Alabama's Coal Miners Are Striking for Their Lives"
• Pre-order Kim's book: Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor
• Democracy Now!, "From Black Lung to BlackRock: Striking Alabama Coal Miners Protest Wall St. Financiers of Warrior Met"
• Elwyn Lopez, Ashley Schwartz-Lavares, & Lulit Tadesse, ABC News, "Alabama Coal Miners on Strike Since April Say They're Fighting for Working Americans Everywhere"
• Jaisal Noor, The Real News Network, "Striking Alabama Coal Miners Hit Streets of NYC to Protest Corporate Greed"
• Hamilton Nolan, In These Times, "At a Massive Union Rally, the Promise of a Better South"
• Your Call Radio, "Worker Uprisings Continue Making Waves Across The Country"

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"

The Mylan pharmaceutical plant in Morgantown, West Virginia, has been in operation since 1965, producing low-cost generic drugs and providing good-paying jobs for generations of workers. On July 31, the plant (now owned by Viatris, Inc.) closed, upending the lives of over 1,400 workers, the economy of Morgantown, and the future of generic drug manufacturing in the U.S. In this mini-cast, we talk to Carla Shultz, who has worked at the plant for 13 years, and legendary journalist Laura Flanders, who recently reported on the plant closure on The Laura Flanders Show, about the last-ditch efforts to keep the plant open and what it will mean for working people in Morgantown and beyond if those efforts are unsuccessful.

Additional links/info below...

• Join our Working People listener hang session on Monday, August 16, from 8-9:30pm ET. Here's the zoom link
• Laura's Twitter

• The Laura Flanders Show website, Twitter, YouTube channel, and Patreon

• Laura Flanders, The Laura Flanders Show, "Big Pharma vs The People: The Fight To Save America's Largest Generic Drug Manufacturer"
• Fraiser Kansteiner, Fierce Pharma, "Feds Throw Lifeline to Shuttered Viatris Plant in West Virginia, But Its Fate Remains Uncertain"
• Democracy Now!, "Workers Beg Joe Manchin to Save West Virginia Pharma Plant as His Daughter Walks Away with $31M"

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"

In this special episode of Working People, we chat with world-renowned economist Richard D. Wolff about how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes to the terrain of work, how we define "working class," and what we need to do to build a broad, diverse, and strong working-class politics in the 21st century

Additional links/info below...

• Join our Working People listener hang session on Monday, August 16, from 8-9:30pm ET! Here's the zoom link
• Professor Wolff's website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Democracy @ Work's website, YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work, The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "Richard Wolff: Capitalism is holding 'all of us hostage'"

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"
• Elder Flower, "Capital Letters"

From workers dying from lack of adequate safety measures and PPE to states viciously cutting off extended unemployment benefits to force people back to unsafe, poverty-wage work, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it horrifyingly clear just how little value the lives and wellbeing of working people have in an economic system where all that matters is the bottom line. But it doesn't have to be this way. We can organize our economy and our workplaces in a more humane way—and we have proof that it works. In this extended mini-cast, we talk with senior reporter Jaisal Noor about his multi-part investigative documentary series for The Real News Network, which examines how 8 worker co-operatives across 4 states have been able to stay in business during the pandemic while prioritizing worker safety and democratic decision making.

Additional links/info below...

• Jaisal's Twitter page and TRNN author page
• Jaisal Noor, The Real News Network, "Worker Cooperatives Prove Your Job Doesn't Have to Be Hell" (Feature documentary in Jaisal's co-op series)
• Jaisal Noor, The Real News Network, "Worker Co-ops vs. COVID" (Full series of Jaisal's co-op coverage)
• The Hill's Rising, "Jaisal Noor: How Worker Co-ops Successfully Weathered The Pandemic"
• CounterSpin, "Jaisal Noor on Worker Co-Ops, Duncan Meisel on Fossil Fuel Greenwashing"

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 Wednesday, July 21, across California, rideshare drivers with Rideshare Drivers United are going on a one-day strike against the exploitative practices of tech giants Uber and Lyft (which have only gotten worse since the passage of Prop 22 in November), and to demand Congress pass the PRO Act. We talk with Ahmad Ibrahim Moss, a rideshare driver in San Francisco, about how drivers' pay, conditions, and work experience has changed since the passage of Prop 22 (and before), and we talk about the dark truth at the center of the "gig economy."

Additional links/info below...

• Rideshare Drivers United website, Facebook, page, and Twitter, page
• Working People, "This Could Change Everything (w/ Veena Dubal"
• The Gravel Institute, "How Uber is Scamming You (w/ Edward Ongweso Jr.)"
• Edward Ongweso Jr., Vice, "Uber, Lyft Give California GOP Millions While Fighting Driver Reclassification"
• Veena Dubal, Dissent, "Digital Piecework"
• Veena Dubal, Berkley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, "The Drive to Precarity: A Political History of Work, Regulation, & Labor Advocacy in San Francisco's Taxi & Uber Economies"

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"

Hundreds of workers at the Frito Lay manufacturing and distribution plant in Topeka, Kansas, have been on strike since July 5th. Workers at Frito Lay have endured years of disrespect and many at the plant have seen their wages stagnate and fall behind other employers in the area. On top of that, workers have been caught in a horrible cycle that was greatly exacerbated by COVID 19: While more people were staying home during the pandemic and eating a lot more chips, the incredibly high turnover at Frito-Lay has meant that folks who have stayed on have been forced to work longer hours, with some pulling 12-hour shifts seven days a week for weeks on end. In this urgent episode, we talk with Cheri Renfro, who has worked at the Frito-Lay plant in Topeka for 9 years and is currently on strike.

Additional links/info below...

• Topeka Frito-Lay Union Members Appreciation Page
• 785 Utility Relief Fund - Support for BCTGM Local 218 Members
• Call Frito-Lay tell them to negotiate with workers in Topeka and find real workable solutions to problems in the workplace
• Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes, "'We Want to See Our Families': Frito-Lay Workers Strike Over 84-Hour Weeks, Meager Raises"
• More Perfect Union, "Frito-Lay workers in Kansas are being forced to work 12-hour days, 7 days a week, in a dangerous factory. Their stories are shocking"

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"
• Utah Phillips, "Solidarity Forever"

In this episode, we sit down with Kate from New Jersey. At the moment, Kate is working primarily as a caretaker for her parents, and we talk a bit about that work and what it means to care for our elders. Up until the pandemic, though, Kate was a massage therapist who loved her job. We discuss how Kate got into working as a massage therapist, all that the job entails, and we talk about the gross and unfair treatment Kate and her coworkers had to deal with when their employer wanted to push folks back to work before they felt safe doing so.

Additional links/info below...

• Allison Steinberg, Allure, "These Massage Therapists Worry About the Effects of COVID-19 on the Future of Their Industry"
• Rachel Urbanski, WCHS ABC 8, "Refusing to Work Because of COVID-19 Concerns Can Risk Unemployment Benefits"

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"
• Ketsa, "Alive"