Working People

Earlier this month, No Evil Foods, a vegan meat company founded in North Carolina, notified its staff that they were closing their Asheville production plant and moving to a co-manufacturing facility in Illinois. After sticking it out and working through the COVID-19 pandemic, employees were suddenly notified that they would now be unemployed and would be receiving no severance. In this urgent epi...

We will be back to our regular Working People schedule next week. Until then, to tide y'all over, and to celebrate his book recently receiving Honorable Mention for the Merle Curti Intellectual History Award, we're unlocking our bonus episode conversation with historian Nate Holdren. We talk with Nate about his latest book, Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progr...

Max is traveling for The Real News Network, so Working People producer Jules Taylor hosts this episode as he interviews his stepfather about his career as a death investigator and paramedic.  In a way, Ric feels like he was meant to work around death as he grew up across the street from a cemetery, and his first job was helping the grave digger before he was 10 years old.  He would go on to work a...

Right now, working people in other parts of the world are being crushed by a relentless onslaught of murderous violence and dispossession, economic degradation, and inhumane exploitation—they are fighting for their lives, and they are asking for our help. In Palestine, against the ceaseless violence of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, Palestinians are rising up to resist their own eras...

Over the past couple years, the Vermont State AFL-CIO and its membership have embraced a more democratic, rank-and-file strategy, building up bonds of solidarity with community organizations, and bringing much-needed energy into a labor council that was on the verge of dying. Instead of commending and encouraging these efforts, however, the AFL-CIO national and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka are...

In this special episode, we talk with three veterans about how the military and the class system (in the U.S. and around the world) go hand in hand. How does the military market itself to the poor and marginalized (and why is that marketing so effective)? How does our broken economy ensure a constant stream of recruits who will be sent to fight endless imperialist wars just so they can pay for col...

Happy May Day, everyone! All power to the international working class! Celebrate this most glorious of holidays by refusing to work and listening to this special crossover episode on the history and spirit of May Day from our friends at the Srsly Wrong podcast, which our host Max participated in.     Spring is here – a time to feast, dance around the maypole, and organize the working class to achi...

In this important episode, we interview worker-organizers with the Federation of General Workers Myanmar about the brutal military coup that has been unfolding in their country since February 1 of this year, and we talk about working people's brave and dangerous efforts to stand up and fight back. Please help us spread the word, and stand in solidarity with the working people of Myanmar.   Additio...

In this pre-pandemic Working People recording that we thought was lost to history, we talk to filmmaker Dominique Rémy about her important full-length documentary on maternal morbidity and mortality rates in Black and Indigenous communities in the U.S.    Additional links/info below... Dominique's Twitter page Maternal Mortality Documentary Film Fund (please donate!) Linda Villarosa, New York Time...

On top of the typical stresses, intense work, and long hours common to the profession, nurses working at smaller hospitals in more remote parts of the country face many unique challenges. With fewer staff and 24-7 services, facilities like the two Lehigh Valley Health Network hospitals in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, rely on nurses, nursing assistants, and other staff to perform many jobs simu...

Last Thursday, around 1,100 coal miners at Warrior Met Coal in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, went on strike. According to the union, the United Mine Workers of America, a tentative bargaining agreement has now been reached with the company, but workers must still vote on whether or not to ratify it. In order to cover this important strike and spread these workers' stories, we've teamed up with our b...

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world of higher education: forced campus re-openings have pushed many directly into harm's way; colleges and universities have suffered massive budget shortfalls; some institutions have closed permanently; the academic job market has been blown up; etc. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education , "the U.S. Labor Department has estimated that American academic...

In the middle of a deadly pandemic that has shaken the world of higher education to its core, graduate workers at Columbia University are heading into their third week on strike, braving both physical and digital picket lines. We talk with three grad workers and members of GWC-UAW Local 2110 and the Columbia Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (C-AWDU) caucus about the strike, the workers' dem...

We sit down and chat with (former) Philly sanitation worker and Instagram sensation Terrill Haigler—or, as listeners may know him, "Ya Fav Trashman." Terrill's incredible and inspiring story took an interesting turn during the COVID-19 pandemic when he was working for the Philly sanitation department and started an Instagram account where he would post updates from the job and answer residents' qu...

In this special episode, we chat with the one and only Rick Perlstein. Rick is an internationally acclaimed and bestselling author and historian who has published perhaps the most singularly definitive series of books on late twentieth-century American politics, culture, and the rise of the modern conservative movement. In past interviews, Rick has discussed the origins of his books and the influe...

HAVE WE GOT A TREAT FOR YOU... Working People will be taking a much-needed break next week, but never fear—we've got something special to hold you over. Last week, Max drove 14 hours from Baltimore to Bessemer, Alabama, to report on the historic Amazon union drive for The Real News Network . While he was down there, Max was fortunate enough to snag an interview with world-renowned actor, activist,...

At this very moment, one of the most historic union drives of our era is taking place at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. Around 5,800 workers at the facility, the majority of whom are Black, are currently voting on whether or not to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU). If they are successful, the workers in Bessemer would become the first uni...

In this episode, we talk to Rev. Lindsey Joyce of the United Church of Rogers Park in Chicago and the Institute for Christian Socialism. We talk about Pastor Joyce's life and path to being a full-time pastor and about the community she serves. We also discuss the work of ministry: What is it like to be a worker who works in the church? What is the relationship between the higher calling—the vocati...

***This is a Patreon Exclusive episode*** Subscribe to our Patreon:  www.patreon.com/workingpeople Thank you to all the Patreon subscribers for their love, support, and generosity. 

We're back with Part II of our special mini-series on work and politics in the sex industry, guest-hosted by friend of the show Jessie Sage. Jessie is a writer, podcaster, phone sex operator, clip artist, and co-owner of Peepshow Media . In this rich and expansive two-part series, Jessie interviews sex worker, activist, writer, undocumented migrant, and DACA recipient from Honduras, Maya Morena. I...

We're excited to share Part I of a special mini-series guest-hosted by friend of the show Jessie Sage! Jessie is a writer, podcaster, phone sex operator, clip artist, and co-owner of Peepshow Media  (which everyone should check out). In this rich and expansive two-part series, Jessie interviews sex worker, activist, writer, undocumented migrant, and DACA recipient from Honduras, Maya Morena, about...

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many serious and dangerous challenges for workers everywhere—not just for workers on the job, but for workers trying to exercise their right to organize. But there have also been unexpected bright spots on this front over the past year, including a boom in union drives at nonprofits around the United States. One of those nonprofits is the American Civil Liberties Un...

Working People is excited to announce that, along with our ongoing partnership with the amazing In These Times magazine, we are now partnered with The Real News Network in Baltimore!   In this episode, we sit down with Justin Whittaker for the first part of an ongoing series of interviews where we'll be talking to workers on all sides of the marijuana industry—in states where that work is legal an...

Production workers at Cargill Turkey were unfairly dismissed on April 17, 2018, while trying to unionize. Listeners will probably recognize the name Cargill: based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the United States. And Cargill's reach is truly global, with operations around the world focusing on the trading, purchasing, distributing, and producing of...

This week, the first wave of children, teachers, and clinicians in the Chicago Public Schools system were required to appear at their schools for the first time in nearly a year. While COVID-19 cases and deaths have only increased (and increased dramatically) across the country since last spring, CPS officials and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot insist on reopening schools. What's worse, teachers who...