Black Work Talk

In this third episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with Bert Bayou. Bert is DC Chapter Director of African Communities Together (ACT) and Vice President of UNITE HERE Local 23. ACT is an organization of African immigrants with chapters in Washington DC and New York. ACT provides services and organizes for power. Local 23 represents airport...

In this second episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with April Verrett. April is president of SEIU 2015, a union of 400,000 long-term caregivers in California. April talked about the importance of Democracy Schools the union operated to engage members in basic political governance activities at the local level.  These schools were an important...

In this first episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with Rob Baril.  Rob is the president of SEIU 1199NE, a union of health care workers in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Rob talked about how members of SEIU 1199NE have been fighting state officials in Connecticut for better working conditions during the pandemic.  He indicated this fight no...

In preparation for the Season Two of Black Work Talk, podcast host Steven Pitts got together with the four co-hosts of the new season: Bill Fletcher; Lauren Jacobs; Sheri Davis; and Toussaint Losier. In this trailer, they discussed the challenges facing the Left in 2022. Season Two launches Wednesday, November 17.

Season Two of Black Work Talk will launch on November 17.  In this Preview Episode, host Steven Pitts reviews Season One highlighting the reality that Black workers are impacted by race and class and debates within the movement over the primacy of one over the other are not just fruitless, but counter-productive. His review concludes by discuss the need for more power on the part of the Left...

In this eighteenth episode of Black Work Talk, we end Season One as we began it with Bill Fletcher, long-time racial justice and labor activist.  We reviewed the events over the past 8 months: the insurrection; the determined GOP efforts to promote the Big Lie about the election and insist the adherence to the Big Lie would be a litmus test for GOP elected officials; and the effort of the Bid...

In this seventeenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest today is Dawn Gearhart.  Dawn is the Director of Gig Economy Organizing for the National Domestic Workers Alliance.  Dawn is leading efforts to organize workers who utilize an app to connect with potential clients desiring domestic work services.  Prior to joining NDWA, Dawn organized taxi drivers and gig workers in Seattle....

In this sixteenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest is Michael Dawson. Michael is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he has written extensively about the intertwined nature of Black politics and Left politics. Currently, he co-leads the Race and Capitalism Project that seeks to understand how the racial and capitalist systems of domination interact. ...

In this fifteenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest is Lauren Jacobs.  Lauren is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Working Families – a national network of regional power-building organizations.  Lauren and I have been friends for over 15 years…I remember when she was a union organizer in Boston. I have always loved the way Lauren combines things: race and class…theory an...

In this fourteenth episode of Black Work Talk, today’s Sheri Davis.  Sheri is the Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) at Rutgers University and the Senior Program Director – WILL Empower at CIWO. The purpose of WILL Empower is to develop the next generation of women in the labor movement - unions and worker centers. Sheri fuses her desire to promote d...

In this thirteenth episode of Black Work Talk, Today’s guest is Maurice Mitchell.  Maurice is the National Director of the Working Families Party.  Since its inception, the Working Families Party has done a good job of navigating the complicated waters of combining Left political perspectives with building bases among working class people and maintaining effectiveness in the electoral ar...

In this twelfth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Barbara Ransby, professor of history at the University of Illinois-Chicago.  Barbara has written extensively on the Black Freedom Movement on topics ranging from Ella Baker and Eslanda Robeson to the current Black Lives Matter movement. Our conversation took place soon after the release of the videos of the Chicago police’...

This eleventh episode of Black Work Talk was a joint effort with Dissent Magazine’s podcast, Belabored.  Belabored’s co-hosts, Michelle Chen and Sarah Jaffe, and Black Work Talk’s host, Steven Pitts were joined by historian Robin D.G. Kelley.  Robin’s book, Hammer and Hoe, details the organizing work in the Birmingham metropolitan area during the 1930s where key Black workers were Commun...

In this tenth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Maurice BP-Weeks, co-founder of the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE). ACRE sits at the nexus of the struggles for racial and economic justice. As such, they provide campaign assistance to local organizations and engage in national campaigns against corporate elites.  Equally important, ACRE shapes the national na...

In this ninth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Jesse Hagopian, an Ethnic Studies teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington.  The public schools in the United States have been near Ground Zero during this confluence of COVID, the recession, and the fight for racial justice and because of this, education has become a flashpoint for political struggle. Jes...

In this eighth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Michelle Crentsil, political director for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). The members of NYSNA have been through hell this past year dealing with the extreme conditions caused by COVID and federal government ineptitude. We talked about these struggles and the reality that the pandemic has forged greater solidarity...

In this seventh episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Erica Smiley, Executive Director of Jobs with Justice. Smiley has been with Jobs with Justice for over 15 years. Prior to joining the organization, she worked at a number of unions and community-based organizations. During the episode, we spoke about a variety of topics including the need to go beyond the red state/blue state v...

In this sixth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes William A. Lucy. Bill retired in 2010 after over 50 years in the leadership of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Union (AFSCME). Bill talked about his beginnings in the labor movement organizing government workers in Contra Costa County (CA). He later represented the national staff of AFSCME during the campa...

In the fifth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes April Sims, Secretary-Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council.  April told us a bit about her background, in particular, how the experiences of her mother led April to understand the importance of unions to working people’s lives.  She also talked about the work of the State Labor Council in developing and rollin...

In the fourth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Greg Kelley, President of SEIU Health Care Illinois.  Greg gave us a sense of how he got into labor organizing.  We moved to get a sense of how COVID has impacted union members and their resolve to use the power of their union to protect their quality of life on the job.  Greg relayed stories of how efforts to buil...

In this third episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Tanya Wallace Gobern, Executive Director of the National Black Worker Center. Tanya spoke of how growing up in Chicago shaped her passion for social justice and worker organizing. She continued to share lessons from her years of organizing Black workers especially to need to build a “joyous militancy”. We talked ab...

In this second episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Dorian Warren, President of Community Change. Dorian talks about the organizational weakness of the Democratic Party and the subsequent growth of grass-roots groups at the local and state level to fill this void. We also talk about the need for a Third Reconstruction and the nature of democracy and freedom during this Third...

In this first episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Bill Fletcher, long-time racial justice and labor activist. Bill talks about key takeaways from the 2020 Election and steps needed to build a progressive governing majority. Also, we discuss why it is important to build Black worker power and how to go about doing this.

Guest Bill Fletcher sits down with Steven and previews for us the big questions he will address in our first real episode, dropping November 11th, one week after the election. Bill tells us what he thinks Black workers and organizers should be paying attention to as election day approaches. This is an important glimpse into the most important challenges and opportunities facing all of us in this c...

Welcome to Black Work Talk, an Organizing Upgrade podcast by Steven Pitts launching on Wednesday, November 11th. We'll look at struggles to build the collective power of Black workers and challenge racial capitalism. Come be a part of our community of supporters on Patreon today!