Working People

By popular demand, we teamed up with Protean Magazine and brought a panel of amazing people together—Ash (Horror Vanguard), Mel (Protean), Bryan (Strikewave), Lyta (Current Affairs), and Max (Working People)—to break down the top presidential candidates from a working-class perspective and share their thoughts on how working people should approach elections.

Additional links/info below...

• Ash's Twitter page; The Horror Vanguard Twitter page and Patreon
• Mel's Twitter page; Protean Twitter page and Patreon
• Bryan's Twitter page; Strikewave Twitter page and website
• Lyta's Twitter page; Current Affairs Twitter page and website

Working-Class 2020 Reading List...

• Alexia Fernández Campbell, Vox, "The Boldest and Weakest Labor Platforms of the 2020 Democratic Primary"
• Sarah Jones, NY Mag, "Klobuchar's Alleged Staff Mistreatment Is a Valid Concern for American Workers"
• Carly Regina and Joanna Wuest, Jacobin, "Labor Has Only One Candidate: Bernie Sanders"
• Dan Solomon, Texas Monthly, "What You Should Know About Bernie Sanders And A Controversial Proposal To Bring Toxic Waste To Sierra Blanca"
• Molly Redden, HuffPost, "Pete Buttigieg's McKinsey Client List And A Canadian Grocery Scandal"
• Ryan Grim and Lee Fang, The Intercept, "Joe Biden Lied about His Record on Social Security"
• Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times, "Elizabeth Warren Isn't Talking Much About 'Medicare for All' Anymore"
• C.M. Lewis and Kevin Reuning, Strikewave, "Union Membership for 2019 Is Out. Here's How Labor Did"
• Celine McNicholas, Margaret Poydock, and Lynn Rhinehart, Economic Policy Institute, "Unprecedented: The Trump NLRB's Attack on Workers' Rights"
• Steven Greenhouse, NY Mag, "A to F+: Grading the Presidential Candidates on Their Labor Plans"
• Eric Levitz, NY Mag, "Two More Signs Trump's 'Great' Economy Is Failing Workers"
• Jane McAlevey, In These Times, "How to Elect Democrats Who Actually Answer to Workers"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Beethoven, "Moonlight Sonata"

We're excited to launch our new, ongoing series, Working-Class Politics. In this series, we'll talk with working-class candidates who are running for elected office as well as candidates who are fighting for working-class people. In our first installment, we talk with Nabilah Islam, a millennial Democrat running for Congress in Georgia's 7th District.

Additional links/info below...

• Nabilah's website and Twitter page
• Jonathan Allen, NBC News, "Atlanta May Have Its Own AOC"
• Helainie Olen, The Washington Post, "Can 'Atlanta's own AOC' Make It Easier for Working-Class Americans to Run for Office?"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

Part III of our mini-cast series on undocumented workers and the fight to repeal the employers' sanctions provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) (in collaboration with the Break the Chains Alliance). We talk to Shirley Lung, Professor of Law at the CUNY Law School, about the passing of IRCA, its immediate and longterm effects, and the American tradition of criminalizing marginalized workers.

Additional links/info below...

• Shirley's Faculty page
• Shirley Lung, U. Mass Law Review, "Criminalizing Work and Non-Work: The Disciplining of Immigrant and African American Workers"
• Break the Chains website: https://equalrightsforallworkers.org/
• Break the Chains Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/equalrightsforallworkers/
• Maximillian Alvarez & William Lopez, In These Times, "It's Not Just About Deportations: Trump Wants to Create a Permanent Underclass"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

We needed to take a break this week after all the work we did to put together our special episode on the French general strike, but here is a crossover episode we did with the Left Anchor podcast. Max and his brother Zak joined Alexi and Ryan to talk about our podcast, the 2008 crash, and all the ways finance capital is screwing you over.

Additional links/info below...

• Left Anchor Twitter page and Patreon
• Zak's Twitter page
• Cover image by Lalo Alcatraz

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Left Anchor Intro

In this very special episode, we talk with eight workers from France about the ongoing general strike that began on December 5th.

Please donate to the CGT Solidarity Fund

Additional links/info below...

• Le Stream Reconductible Twitch Feed and Twitter page
• Izquierda Diario/Left Voice, "France Paralyzed by Largest General Strike in Decades"
• Maxime Quijoux and Guillaume Gourgues, Tribune, "France's Strike Against Macron"
• Axel Persson, Jacobin, ""This Strike Is Uniting the Resistance Against Macron""
• The Detroit News, "Protesters March against Nancy Pelosi's Leadership"
• Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, "France strikes: nurses, teachers and lawyers join pension protests"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• The United Sons of Toil, "Operation Cast Lead"
• Coral Reivindicativa Revolucionaria, "L´internnationale"

We talk with former nail salon worker and organizer Glenda Sefla about the NY Nail Salon Workers Association and their fight to secure #HealthDignityJustice for workers in and beyond the nail salon industry (translation by Leanne Tory-Murphy)

Additional links/info below...

• NY Nail Salon Workers Association website, Twitter page, and Facebook page
• Glenda's Twitter page
• Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue, "The Human Cost of a Cheap Manicure"
• NY State, "Governor Cuomo Announces End of Subminimum Wage Across Miscellaneous Industries Statewide"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

In this first installment of our new series on unpaid labor, we chat with Bridget Huff, a stay-at-home mom and political organizer. We talk about Bridget's life and about the pains, joys, and social pressures of being a stay-at-home parent. We also talk about how political organizations can and should make themselves accessible to folks like Bridget.

Additional links/info below...

• Bridget's Facebook page and Twitter page
• Movement School website and Twitter page
• The Detroit News, "Protesters March against Nancy Pelosi's Leadership"
• Sarah Jaffe, The Nation, "The Factory in the Family"
• Jason Beaubien, NPR, "Stay-At-Home Dads Still Struggle With Diapers, Drool, Stigma And Isolation"
• Tithi Bhattacharya (ed.), Pluto Press, Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression
• Loree A. Primeau, The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, "A Woman's Place: Unpaid Work in the Home"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Evie Sands, "Shine for Me"

In this week's mini-cast, we talk with Veronica, Marcelo, and Justin, three grad student workers involved in the ongoing wildcat strike at the University of California – Santa Cruz.

Additional links/info below...

• UCSC Strike website, Twitter page, Facebook page, and Instagram
• Colin Dwyer, NPR, "'There's Really No Refuge': Santa Cruz Grad Students Strike Amid Housing Crunch"
• Coleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, "UC Santa Cruz Grad Assistants Strike for COLA"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

We've got a super special crossover with the Wrong Boys themselves, Aaron and Shawn from the Srsly Wrong podcast! We teamed up to take a deep dive into the history and meaning of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the largest labor strike in Canada's history. Additional links/info below...

• Srsly Wrong website, Twitter page, and Patreon
• Alberta Advantage, "General Strike! Winnipeg 1919-2019"
• The Magnificast, "The Winnipeg General Strike"
• Dennis Lewycky, Fernwood Books, "Magnificent Fight The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike"
• Reinhold Kramer & Tom Mitchell, University of Toronto Press, "When the State Trembled: How A.J. Andrews and the Citizens' Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike"
• Graphic History Collective & David Lester, Between the Lines, "1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike"
• Darren Bernhardt, CBC News, "The Wild Woman of the Winnipeg Strike"
• Mary Horodyski, Manitoba Historical Society, "Women and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919"
• Tom Jokinen, The Walrus, "What the Winnipeg General Strike Can Teach Us About Class, Capitalism, and Greed"
• Meagan Day, Jacobin, "The Winnipeg General Strike Is Immortal"
• Ian Angus, Marxists.org, "What Socialists Learned from the Winnipeg General Strike"
• Isaac Wurmann, Luma, "Navigating History, Memory, and Mythology: The Challenges of Depicting the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike"

Featured Music

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall" - from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org
• Srsly Wrong theme by dope creature - https://soundcloud.com/dopecreature
• Fast Talkin by Kevin MacLeod - from Incompetech: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100590

Working People is back and we are excited to announce our official partnership with In These Times magazine! In this episode, we chat with new father Clarke, a contract commercial diver who works on different jobs for different companies throughout the year, completing tasks from underwater welding to removing shoreline debris. Clarke is a navy veteran and a member of the IWW and DSA-LSC. We talk about how he got into this line of work, and we also discuss labor issues in the commercial diving industry and how doing this work has given Clarke a front-row seat to the devastation we are causing to our oceans and our coastlines.

Additional links/info below...

• Clarke's Twitter page
• In These Times, "Press Release: Announcing Our New Partnership with Working People Podcast"

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

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Marco Trovatello, "Violin Spider"