Work Stoppage

We are joined by Jeff Schuhrke, Assistant Professor of Labor Studies at Empire State University to discuss his new book Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade. This incredible book documents the sordid collaboration between the highest levels of the AFL and the CIA, how to understand this history of labor officials collaborating with imperialism, and how we...

We start this week with a quick check-in on rideshare drivers in NYC, hotel workers in Boston, and nurses in North Carolina and Michigan. For our first major story, letter carriers across the country in the NALC are organizing a national vote no campaign in response to a concessionary contract. We continue coverage of workers under attack for speaking out against the genocide in Palestine, from un...

We are joined by Jeff Schuhrke, Assistant Professor of Labor Studies at Empire State University to discuss his new book Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade. This incredible book documents the sordid collaboration between the highest levels of the AFL and the CIA, how to understand this history of labor officials collaborating with imperialism, and how we...

After our headlines we discuss a new piece from Workday Magazine this week covering the progress in growing the coalition for a May Day 2028 general strike. Workers at GE Appliances are gearing up for a strike after years of lost benefits and stagnant wages since new owners Haier bought the company. More companies are making use of AI, effective or not, to justify cutting jobs, we discuss how some...

Tell Goodwill to Stop Union Busting: https://goodwillcolorado.org/about-us/contact-us/ We start this week with updates from academic workers, retail workers, nonprofit workers, and several organizing drives by the Teamsters.  Workers in Florida faced nightmare conditions this week after a second hurricane slammed into the already reeling region. Samsung workers in India continued their fight for u...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. In this episode we go over a ton of classic anti-union talking points and tear them apart. From tired points like "unions are a business" to unions "protecting  lazy workers", in this first episode in the series we focus on the more reactionary arguments against unions. In futur...

After commemorating one year of the US-Israeli genocide in Palestine, we discuss the response from workers in Spain, who launched a one day nationwide strike demanding an end to all relations with Israel. After following up on several UAW stories,  the Teamsters at Amazon, and striking hotel workers, we have an update on the Boeing strike as it moves into the long haul. Of course the big story thi...

This week we start with messages of solidarity to workers across the South affected by Hurricane Helene, and workers across Lebanon affected by the horrific expansion of US-Israeli attacks. We also follow up with Unite Here hotel workers, The Bird Union's new contract, and the unsafe tobacco factories of NYC. Our first story this week examines the long struggle by Filipino healthcare workers for a...

Support Striking ILWU Local 6 Workers: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-local-6-workers-in-their-fight-for-fair-wages We start this week's episode with follow-ups at the University of Maine, Boston hotels, Trader Joe's in Manhattan, Starbucks in Ithaca, and Wonderful Nurseries in California. We follow up on the second week of the strike by over 30,000 Machinists at Boeing as the company digs in...

We are joined by Judy Gearhart to talk about her podcast Labor Link. On her show she interviews workers and worker advocates in many highly exploited industries in Southeast and Southern Asia. From garment workers in Bangladesh to migrant fishers in Thailand appalling working conditions and forms of modern slavery are highly present, and she talks to people trying to make a difference. Find her sh...

Legal Fund of Michigan Students for Palestine: https://chuffed.org/project/um-palestine-legalfund Lina's back and there's so much news! We discuss repression of worker organizing at the SPLC, the Noguchi Museum, and Air Canada in our headlines segment, as well as following up on the strike by 17,000 CWA workers at AT&T. As the school year begins, we discuss a roundup of stories covering the cr...

We start with updates on The Bird Union, Unite Here hotel workers, the UAW, and AT&T workers on strike across the South. Following our headlines, we discuss the recent firing of rail engineer, and popular commentator, Gareth Dennis, in response to (true) statements he made about safety concerns. Thousands of rideshare drivers and supporters rallied in NYC this week to demand the city stop Uber...

It's Labor Day, and that can only mean workers standing up for our rights on the job. We begin this week with the launch of this weekend's national hotel strike by workers in Unite Here. After some quick stories on workers fighting for Palestine, the massive surge in unionization in academia, and more warehouse organizing by the Teamsters, we get into our main stories. We follow up with the UAW st...

UAW GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-uaw-brother-antonio-gastons-family-after-tragedy AT&T Petition: https://www.cwa.org/attse-support Another news packed week starts with some follow up on the Teamsters negotiations with Costco, the UAW's fight to hold Stellantis to the contract, and more workers fighting for heat protections. Our first major story is last week's one day rail lock...

We start this week's episode with some quick check ins on: recent organizing wins by the Teamsters, a new strike at Samsung, ULPs filed against Donald Trump by the UAW, a new CEO at Starbucks, and flight attendants at Alaska Airlines fighting for a record contract. We also follow up on the long haul strike by workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as the NLRB has finally intervened. Workers stood...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. In this installment of “The Weed Series,” the gang discusses the conditions of the cannabis industry in New Mexico and Arizona. We cover workers who organized the first agricultural cannabis union in New Mexico, and Arizona workers who unionized with UFCW Local 99, including one...

Another jam packed week of labor news! We start this week with follow-ups on workers at Samsung, REI, and Apple. We also follow up on the impact of Florida politicians' attempts to destroy the state's public unions, and how that has been devastating for academic workers. Reporters from the LA Times have documented how public pensions won through union struggle are now being used to fuel the crisis...

We start this week with workers advancing the struggle for solidarity with Palestine in the UE and AFT, along with international stories from Brazil and The Netherlands. Also this week, workers ratified major new contracts at Amtrak and Disneyland, and new unions were formed at Prism Reports and The Frick Museum. In our first major story, the ALU Democratic Reform Caucus swept the recent union ele...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. In this installment of “The Weed Series,” the gang discusses New York. We cover workers in Syracuse who unionized with RWDSU/UFCW 338, the state of employee protections in New York for lawful cannabis users, the multifaceted disaster of Hochul’s legal cannabis rollout, a cannabi...

We've got an especially internationalist show this week. After our headlines we start our main stories with some of the recent industrial action taken by French workers ahead of and during the ongoing Olympic Games. Next we discuss the mass protest last week against the speech by genocidal war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC, including a historic contingent from the labor movement. Wo...

AFT 4 Palestine Petition: https://www.aft4palestine.org/take-action We've got an absolutely packed show this week, starting off with checkins on the Samsung strike, the IATSE contract ratification vote, and the struggle to unionize workers at Wonderful Nurseries. Our first big story is discussion of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien's speech at the Republican National Convention, the fallout, and t...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. In the second episode of this THC-infused Overtime series, the gang investigates the cannabis industry stronghold: California. We examine the status of employee protections for lawful cannabis users, the pesticide and additive issues prevalent in California cannabis, fake cannab...

Amazon Worker Support GoFundMe's Keith Williams: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-keiths-family-overcome-hardship Christine Manno: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-christine-manno-overcome-injury-crisis First up this week we discuss a strike by 14,000 workers at stores owned by Walmart in Chile, which has shut down over 100 stores across the country. This week we also discuss a trio of stories of th...

We start this week's episode discussing some of the recently announced details of the historic agreement reached by flight attendants at Alaska Airlines, and the strategic foresight shown in their campaign. We have yet another horrific story of prison slavery in the US, this time with a judge ruling that Louisiana can continue to force incarcerated workers to labor in dire conditions even in extre...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. The Work Stoppage crew starts a new series examining the conditions for workers and consumers in the exploding cannabis industry. First congratulating the workers at Ascend Cannabis in Aberdeen for joining the Teamsters, we launch an investigation into the conditions faced by ca...