Working People

We've remastered our Labor Day special from Season One and are re-releasing it for all our new listeners. In this episode, we talk to LaDonna Brave Bull Allard of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We talk about LaDonna's life, the #NoDAPL movement and the erasure of Native peoples, and about learning ways of living with the land.

Additional links/info below...

• Sacred Stone Village Facebook page
• Sacred Stone Camp Facebook page
• Wisdom of the Elders, "Turtle Island Storyteller, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard"
• Democracy Now!, "Standing Rock Sioux Historian: Dakota Access Co. Attack Comes on Anniversary of Whitestone Massacre"
• Democracy Now!, "'Is This America?' Co-Founder of Sacred Stone Camp Recalls Dog Attack on Native Americans"
• Water Protector Legal Collective
• #NoDAPL Archive
• Standing Rock Syllabus

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• King Kong Ding Dong, "Distant Drums"

We close out Season Three of Working People with a critical discussion about why cops have no place in the labor movement and about the rank-and-file push from groups like No Cop Unions (AFL-CIO) and Drop the Cops (SEIU) to get them out. Featuring Kim Kelly, Halimat Alawode, & Julia Wallace.

Additional links/info below...

• No Cop Unions (AFL-CIO) website and Twitter page
• SEIU Drop the Cops Linktree and Twitter page
• SEIU Drop the Cops "Labor Stands Against the Cops" event page
• Kim Kelly Twitter page
• Halimat Alawode Twitter page
• Julia Wallace Twitter page
• Kim Kelly, The New Republic, "No More Cop Unions"
• Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue, "Police Unions: What to Know and Why They Don't Belong in the Labor Movement"
• Kim Kelly, The Baffler, "Rank-and-File Revolt"
• Hamilton Nolan, The Guardian, "It's Time to Kick Police Unions Out of the Labor Movement. They Aren't Allies"
• Paul Clark, The Conversation, "Why Police Unions Are not Part of the American Labor Movement"
• Louis Casiano, The Orange County Register, "Union Law Firm's Private Detective Gets 1 Year in Jail in Scheme to Set up Costa Mesa Councilmen"
• Greg Coy, Fox Memphis, "Activists Find Camera Inside Mysterious Box on Power Pole Near Union Organizer's Home"

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Pete Seeger, "Which Side Are You On?"

UPDATE: We were notified by Libsyn (the service where we host our podcast) that No Evil Foods demanded to have our last episode removed due to our use of an "unauthorized recording" from the union-busting captive audience meetings they subjected their workers to. We are re-uploading the episode with an intro/update from Max. You can still listen to the recordings in question here: http://andrew-miller.com/blog/2020/why-doesnt-no-evil-foods-want-you-to-hear-this/

We talk to Jon, Meagan, Josh, and Cortne, four former employees at No Evil Foods, a vegan plant-based meat producer in North Carolina that made headlines over the past year with its union-busting tactics. We talk about the failed unionization drive, the captive-audience meetings management held, and about companies like NEF using "progressive" branding to mask their anti-union practices.

Additional links/info below...

• Mo Evil Foods website and Twitter page
• Petition: Union for No Evil Foods
• Andrew Miller, The Industrial Worker, "Mo' Evil Foods"
• Paul Blest, The Appeal, "A Vegan Meat Company Purged Its Pro-Labor Employees. Workers Say an Anti-Union Drive Prompted the Firings"
• Lauren Kaori Gurley, Vice, "Audio: No Evil Foods, a Faux Leftist Vegan-Meat Company, Busts Union Drive"
• Kim Kelly, The Baffler, "The New Face of Union Busting"

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Audio Clips provided by Andrew Miller: http://andrew-miller.com/blog/2020/why-doesnt-no-evil-foods-want-you-to-hear-this/
• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Gumbel, "Killing Bosses"

We talk to Jon, Meagan, Josh, and Cortne, four former employees at No Evil Foods, a vegan plant-based meat producer in North Carolina that made headlines over the past year with its union-busting tactics. We talk about the failed unionization drive, the captive-audience meetings management held, and about companies like NEF using "progressive" branding to mask their anti-union practices.

Additional links/info below...

• Mo Evil Foods website and Twitter page
• Petition: Union for No Evil Foods
• Andrew Miller, The Industrial Worker, "Mo' Evil Foods"
• Paul Blest, The Appeal, "A Vegan Meat Company Purged Its Pro-Labor Employees. Workers Say an Anti-Union Drive Prompted the Firings"
• Lauren Kaori Gurley, Vice, "Audio: No Evil Foods, a Faux Leftist Vegan-Meat Company, Busts Union Drive"
• Kim Kelly, The Baffler, "The New Face of Union Busting"

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Audio Clips provided by Andrew Miller: http://andrew-miller.com/blog/2020/why-doesnt-no-evil-foods-want-you-to-hear-this/
• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Gumbel, "Killing Bosses"

We talk to Mel Buer (Protean Magazine), Gabby (DefendPDX), and Garrison Davis, three independent journalists who have been on the front lines this summer covering the anti-police protests in Minneapolis, Portland, and Omaha. We talk about how events have unfolded from their vantage point, the hazards of doing this vital work, and about the importance of anticapitalist media.

Additional links/info below...

• Mel's Twitter page and Patreon; Protean Magazine's website and Twitter page
• Gabby's Twitter page; DefendPDX's website and Twitter page
• Garrison's Twitter page and YouTube channel

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Cletus Got Shot, "Take Out the Fascists"

We talk to writer, organizer, and adjunct lecturer Maggie Levantovskaya about immigrating from the Soviet Union, navigating class differences in the U.S., and about how so many higher education professionals have become gig workers.

Additional links/info below...

• Maggie's website and Twitter page
• Maggie Levantovskaya, LitHub, "On Flannery O'Connor's Chronic Illness ... and Chronic Racism"
• Maggie Levantovskaya, Chronicle Review, "Faculty Are Not Cannon Fodder"
• Maggie Levantovskaya, The Startup, "This Is Your Fight"
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Baffler, "Contingent No More"
• Left Anchor, "Episode 76 UNLOCKED - Maximillian Alvarez on the Politics of Higher Ed"
• Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, and Daniel T. Scott, Johns Hopkins University Press, The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Nicolas Falcon, "Big, Big Boss"

We chat with David Story and Jacob Morrison, the hosts of The Valley Labor Report, a new radio show out of Huntsville, Alabama, about the importance of making pro-worker media in the South.

Additional links/info below...

• The Valley Labor Report Facebook page, Twitter page, Youtube channel, and Patreon

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

We're back from hiatus with a new full-length episode! We talk to Jami Bellefleur, a Maine native and shipbuilder, about her life and work, and about the ongoing strike at Bath Iron Works.

Additional links/info below...

• IUMSWA IAMAW Local S6 website, Twitter page, and Facebook page
• Local S6 strike fund
• Andy O'Brien, Labor Notes, "Maine Shipbuilders Bring the Hammer Down to Reject Concessions"
• Dan Neumann, Maine Beacon, "Younger Generation Takes Lead in Uniting Workers at BIW"
• Todd Chretien, Jacobin, "Over 4,000 Shipbuilding Workers Are on Strike in Maine"

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Derek Clegg, "If Only We Had More Time"
• Big Luisiana, Willy Rafus, & Arthur Davis, "Let Your Hammer Ring"

Oh shiiiit, it's mailbag time!! Max, Zak, and MacKenna (3/4 of the Alvarez siblings) sit down to answer listener questions.

Listen to the full bonus episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mailbag-episode-38475818

UNLOCKED BONUS EPISODE: We talk to Kooper Caraway, President of the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO and Labor Rep for AFSCME Council 65 about the labor movement in South Dakota and about doing labor organizing that is bold, inclusive, anti-racist, and antifascist. (If you want to hear more bonus episodes like this, subscribe to our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/WorkingPeople)

Additional links/info below...

• Kooper's Twitter page
• Sioux Falls AFL-CIO's website and Twitter page
• Rebecca Zweig, The Nation, "'Organize or Die': Kooper Caraway Ushers in a New Labor Movement"
• Brendan O'Connor, Strikewave, "Want to Celebrate May Day? Fight for Antifascist Unions"

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Roger McGuinn, "When I First Came to This Land"