Working People

This Monday (March 30) Instacart shoppers around the country will walk off the job to demand hazard pay and basic protections for working during the Covid-19 crisis. In this urgent mini-cast, we bring our friend, gig worker, and organizer Vanessa Bain back on the show to talk about the strike.

Additional links/info below...

• Working People, Season 3, Episode 6: Vanessa Bain
• Gig Workers' Collective website
• Gig Workers' Collective, Medium, "Instacart Emergency Walk Off"
• Gig Workers' Collective, Medium, "Instacart's "Response" is a Sick Joke — The Strike is Still On"
• Lauren Kaori Gurley, Vice, "Instacart's Gig Workers Are Planning a Massive, Nationwide Strike"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

We're briefly coming back from hiatus to check in with an old friend and offer some thoughts on our breaking world.

Additional links/info below...

• Tom's Twitter page
• Gary Rivlin, The Intercept, "A Giant Pile of Money: How Wall Street Drove Public Pensions Into Crisis and Pocketed Billions in Fees"
• Eric Levitz, NY Mag, "American Capitalism Can No Longer Afford to Let Workers Retire in Dignity"
• Kathleen Elkins, CNBC, "A Brief History of the 401(k), Which Changed How Americans Retire"
• Peter F. Drucker, Harvard Business Review, "Reckoning with the Pension Fund Revolution"
• The Economic Policy Institute, "The Productivity Pay Gap"
• Kim Kelly, The Nation, "This Is a Horror Story: How Private Equity Vampires Are Killing Everything"

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

• Cletus Got Shot, "Don't Ya Blame Me, Son"

We talk to activist and oral historian Candace Wolf about her self-published book of interviews with workers all over the world, Shifting the Universe, and about working people's birthright to tell their stories.

Additional links/info below...

• Candace Wolf, Shifting the Universe: Spoken Histories of Work & Resistance

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Lea Thomas, "Talk Like the Trees"

In the newest installment in our ongoing series Working-Class Politics, we talk with Phara Souffrant Forrest, a union nurse, tenant activist, and democratic socialist running for Assembly in New York's 57th District.

Additional links/info below...

• Phara's website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• Theodore Hamm, The Indypendent, "NYC's Next Socialist Wave: DSA Takes Aim at the State Assembly's Old Guard"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

Our election-themed crossover panel collective continues to grow! We're excited to share on the Working People feed the newest installment of these ongoing panel conversations, in which our friends at the Season of the Bitch coven and Lyta Gold and Vanessa A. Bee of Current Affairs share their Super Tuesday thoughts. GET YOUR HOT TAKES WHILE THEY'RE ... UMM ... HOT!

Previous election-themed crossover panels...

• "The 2020 Election & Building Working-Class Power"
• "The Billionaires' Caucus"

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

• Theme music by Brandon Payton-Carrillo

In this special compilation episode, we hear testimonies from 10 different freelancers—journalists, artists, musicians, designers, and more—about the pains, joys, needs, and struggles of freelance work today. (This episode is supported by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project)

Additional links/info below...

• Economic Hardship Reporting Project website and Twitter page
• IWW Freelance Journalists Union website and Twitter page
• Freelance Solidarity Project website and Twitter page
• Colleen Tighe's website and Twitter page
• Lia Russell's Twitter page
• Michael Sainato's Twitter page
• Colin Poulton's website and Twitter page
• Cal's Twitter page
• Hether Fortune's Twitter page
• Frida Garza's website and Twitter page
• Scott Heins's website and Twitter page

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Jon Worthy & the Bends, "Please Tell Me"
• Wildlight, "Grace, Fully"
• Les Hayden, "A Barefaced Lie"

In The Workers' Toolkit we take deep dives into the legal and institutional barriers that prevent workers from building collective power in the United Stated today. In this first installment, we talk with economist Marshall Steinbaum about the history of antitrust law in this country, how it shapes workers' lives, and what we can do about it.

Additional links/info below...

• Marshall's Twitter page and faculty page
• Marshall Steinbaum, Law and Contemporary Problems, "Antitrust, the Gig Economy, and Labor Market Power"
• Marshall Steinbaum, The American Prospect, "Uber's Antitrust Problem"
• David Weil, Institute for New Economic Thinking, "Why We Should Worry About Monopsony"
• Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrahi, Havard Business Review, "The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the U.S. Antitrust Movement"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• "Tyree Scott Speaking on Workers Rights"
• Alex Mason, "The Inspiration"
• Lobo Loco, "Driving to the Delta"

Our second election-themed crossover panel of the season: We team up with Mel from Protean Magazine and Dwight and Shane from Eat the Rich to break down the two billionaires running in the 2020 Democratic primary: Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg. Who are these men? What do we know about their records? What could we expect if they somehow became President? And what does it say about our political system that they've been able to buy their way into viability?

Additional links/info below...

• Mel's Twitter page; Protean Twitter page and Patreon
• Shane's Twitter page; Dwight's Twitter page; Eat the Rich Twitter page and Patreon

Reading List ...

• John Surico, Brooklyn Rail, "Mike's Labor Legacy"
• Libby Watson, Splinter News, "Former Staffers at Tom Steyer's Political Action Group Say It's Hell to Work For"
• Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs, "A Republican Plutocrat Tries To Buy The Democratic Nomination"
• Alan Singer, Huffington Post, "Union-Busting, Bloomberg-Style"
• Al Baker, The New York Times, "School Bus Drivers End Strike, in Win for New York Mayor"
• Melissa Petro, Business Insider, "10 years ago, Michael Bloomberg called for my removal as a teacher because of my past in sex work"
• Craig Frazer, Amsterdam News, "Union Official Protests Cuts in Child Care"
• Joe Maniscalco, Labor Press, "Child Care Workers Press Bloomberg for Back Pay"
• Michael Howard Saul, The Wall Street Journal, "Mayor Pledges Tough Stance on Unions"
• Al Baker, The New York Times, "Teachers Irate as Bloomberg Likens Union to the N.R.A."
• Dana Rubinstein, Politico, "'Living Sage' Reminds Bloomberg of Soviet Communism; He Says He'll Stop It in Court If He Has To"
• Color Lines, "How Does It Feel to Be Stopped and Frisked?"
• Steven Malanga, City Journal, "Hudson Yards and New York's Union (or Non-Union) Future"
• Janaki Chadha, Joe Anuta, & Sally Goldenberg, Politico, "Related and Construction Unions Call Truce in Bitter Hudson Yards Fight"
• Kim Kelly, The Nation, "This Is a Horror Story: How Private Equity Vampires Are Killing Everything"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Carroll, "Billionaire"

We talk to the one and only Sara Nelson, flight attendant, union activist, and President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, about the labor movement and the AFA-CWA's current campaign to unionize Delta flight attendants.

Additional links/info below...

• DeltaAFA.org
• Sara's Twitter page
• AFA-CWA website and Twitter page
• Sara Nelson & Randi Weingarten, The American Prospect, "Why America Needs a Better Labor Law"
• Sarah Jones, NY Mag, "Delta's Flight Attendants Are Organizing"
• Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post, "Delta Agrees to Change Uniforms Workers Said Were Toxic, After Months of Pressure"
• Kim Kelly, The New Republic, "Sara Nelson's Art of War"
• Meagan Day, Jacobin, "Once Again, Flight Attendants Are Leading the Way"
• Chris Matyszczyk, Inc, "Congress Voted To Give Flight Attendants a Better, Safer Life. It Hasn't Happened. United Airlines Staff Blame Delta"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

We talk to professional yoga teacher Deidra Demens about the path that led her to yoga and about working in the yoga industry in New York City. We also talk about the historic campaign Deidra was involved in to form the nation's first union of yoga teachers at YogaWorks NYC, which is affiliated with the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers

Additional links/info below...

• Deidra Demens Yoga Facebook page
• Unionize Yoga website, Twitter page, and Facebook page
• Press Release: "New York City YogaWorks Teachers Join the IAM"
• Sarah Jones, The Cut, "Yoga Teachers Are Unionizing to Heal the Wellness Industry"
• Lauren Krauze, Tricycle, "Unionizing Yoga"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Dee Yan Key, "Rather Slow"