Working People

We talk to Michael Brooks about his new book, Against the Web, and we try to move the ball forward on debates about the "woke left," working-class politics, and left internationalism.

Additional links/info below...

• Michael's Twitter page
• Michael Brooks, Zero Books, Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right (buy through Red Emma's)
• The Michael Brooks Show Facebook page, Twitter page, YouTube page, and Patreon
• Weekends with Ana Kasparian & Michael Brooks YouTube page
• The Majority Report with Sam Seder Twitter page and YouTube page
• Benjamin Fong, The Bellows, "Unpacking the Left's Cultural Baggage"
• Emily Jashinsky, The Federalist, "Could Surging Pandemic-Era Populism Help Forge A Left-Right Labor Coalition? (An Interview with Matthew Stoller & Saagar Enjeti)"
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Nation, "Against the Pundits' Class"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Benjamin Banger, "June"

In this installment of The Break Room, Daniel Stone, a now-former employee of Dollar General in Nashville, tells us about issues with how the national chain has handled the #COVID19 crisis—and how he was fired after raising concerns with corporate about lack of protection for frontline employees.

If you'd like to send something in to The Break Room, hit us up at [email protected]!

Additional links/info below...

• Daniel's Twitter page
• Kenya Slaughter, The New York Times, "I Never Planned to Be a Front-Line Worker at Dollar General"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

(We are making this Bonus Episode public to provide a follow-up to Max's latest In These Times article on whether or not the working class and progressive professionals can form a political alliance.) Max and his brother Zak talk about meritocracy, work in the corporate world, and that feeling in your gut that most of what you do is pointless. Subscribe to our Patreon if you want more bonus episodes like this one!

Additional links/info below...

• Zak's Twitter page
• Daniel Markovits, Penguin Random House, The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite
• Maximillian Alvarez, In These Times, "Class Traitors, Welcome to the Revolution"

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

• Misty Mammas, "It's Gonna Rain"

Welcome to The Break Room, our new, ongoing series where workers and organizers send in 15-20-minute clips to talk about issues they're facing, actions they're taking, and more! (Think of it as a community message board of sorts). In this installment, Aminah Sheikh, a labor organizer with Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), tells us about how she worked with educators in Ontario to launch a successful unionization campaign during the Covid-19 pandemic.

If you'd like to send something in to The Break Room, hit us up at [email protected]!

Additional links/info below...

• Aminah's Twitter page
• Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) website
• Ryan Hayes, Labor Notes, "Ontario Early Childhood Educators Unionize during Pandemic"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

Happy #TeachersDay! To celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week, we are putting this special bonus episode on the main feed: Another Alvarez joins the Working People universe! Max and his sister, MacKenna, a middle-school teacher in NYC, talk about the politics of charter schools and the disconnect between their touted CORE VALUES and how they treat their workers and students.

Additional links/info below...

• Frank Adamson, Björn Åstrand, and Linda Darling-Hammond (eds), Stanford University Press, Global Education Reform: How Privatization and Public Investment Influence Education Outcomes

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Bandana Splits, "Back to School"

Our Season Three finale: we talk with Adam Ryan, a Target worker in Virginia and liaison for Target Workers Unite, one of the groups that has been organizing the coordinated strike actions planned for May 1st, 2020. We talk about Adam's life, his path to becoming a leftist and getting involved in labor organizing, and we talk about the conditions that Target employees have been working under even before the Covid-19 crisis began.

Additional links/info below...

• Target Workers Unite Facebook page and Twitter page
• Target Workers Unite Strike Fund (please donate!)
• Amazonians United New York City Twitter page
• Whole Worker United Twitter page
• Gig Workers Rising Twitter page
• Lauren Kaori Gurley, VICE, "Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart Workers Organize a Historic Mass Strike"
• Daniel A. Medina, The Intercept, "As Amazon, Walmart, and Others Profit Amid Coronavirus Crisis, Their Essential Workers Plan Unprecedented Strike"

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

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

This is a clip from our bonus episode with Ken Klippenstein, DC correspondent for The Nation, about the Covid crisis and the scary powers our government has granted itself to deal with it. Subscribe on Patreon.com/WorkingPeople to listen to the full episode!

Additional links/info below...

• Ken's author page and Twitter page
• Ken Klippenstein, The Nation, "An Internal Pandemic Document Shows the Coronavirus Gives Trump Extraordinary Powers"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

Part II: The Covid-19 crisis and the current economic crash have broken our world apart. These are the voices of the people living, working, and fighting through it.

Additional links/info below...

• Change.org petition: Stand with Sprouts Farmers Market Workers: COVID-19 PPE for Workers & Customers Now!
• Farmworker clip from UFW member Maria - video
• No Rent Michigan Facebook page
• Connecticut Workers Crisis Response Facebook page
• BeauJon McNally, Black Rose, "Labor Organizing During Covid-19: A University Janitor's Account"
• Debt Collective website and Twitter page
• Gig Workers Rising website and Twitter page
• Saatvik Ahluwalia Twitter page
• Jules Taylor Twitter page
• Kenzo Shibata Twitter page
• Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United website and Twitter page
• Half-Price Books Layoffs Twitter page

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Lia Nadja, "Soy Como El Espacio"
• Scott Holmes, "We Used to Paint Stars in the Sky"

The Covid-19 crisis and the current economic crash have broken our world apart. These are the voices of the people living, working, and fighting through it.

Additional links/info below...

• Clip from We the Unhoused by Theo Henderson: "All in the Same Boat"
• Clip from Rustbelt Abolition Radio: "Bruce X Parker"
• Southern Solidarity — Solidarity for the Unhoused in New Orleans
• Food Finder website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Alex (Instacart worker) PayPal address: [email protected]

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Life of an Owl in Alaska, "Sheffield"
• Return to Normal, "The Observer"

The second installment of the Workers' Book Club is finally here, and it's a doozy! Our friend John Tormey, a track laborer and writer from just outside Boston, interviews working-class Kentucky artist, writer, and radio host Terry Tapp about his latest book from Zero Books, A Serf's Journal: The Story of the United States' Longest Wildcat Strike.

Additional links/info below...

• Terry's website and Facebook page
• Terry Tapp, Zero Books, A Serf's Journal: The Story of the United States' Longest Wildcat Strike
• John's Twitter page
• John Tormey, The Baffler, "Known Assailants"
• Working People, "Mini-Cast: Known Assailants (w/ John Tormey)"

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

• Maya Angelou reading 'Workers' Song'
• Birds of Paradise, "Dying"
• Flection Big Sky, "She's Out of Sight"