Convergence

Throughout this season of Black Work Talk, we've explored how Black workers have shown up in many of the big labor wins that happened in 2023. This season finale brings the full picture into perspective as Carlos Jimenez, head of the special projects division of the AFL-CIO, joins host Jamala Rogers to analyze the history of labor fights that got us…

Rashaad Pritchett and Theresa Mtles of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) join hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers for this episode of Black Work Talk. They delve into the challenges faced by Black healthcare support workers, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rashaad and Theresa recount their experiences of being on the…

In this episode, United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz joins Bianca and Jamala to discuss the challenges she has faced as the first woman of color to head this powerhouse union, and a leader who took over during the COVID-19 pandemic. When she advocated for educators and students in 2020, she faced immediate backlash. The interview…

BWT co-hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers take time this episode to explore a few of the crises and challenges shaking the world and the Left in this moment. The recent demands by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and a few other national unions for a ceasefire in Gaza suggest an opening for a worker-led movement for peace. Bianca and Jamala discuss…

Fifty-six percent of people in the US who self-identify as Black call the South home. Today's guest, Shafeah M'Balia, explains why and how we need to focus organizing strategies on Black workers in southern states. Shafeah is a lifelong activist and organizer with Black Workers for Justice and Muslims for Social Change. In this episode Shafeah talks…

After the second-longest strike in Hollywood history, members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) voted to ratify a new contract in October 2023. Their 146-day walkout brought wins on some of the most pressing issues they were fighting for. These included new standards governing the use of AI for producing content and the distribution of residuals…

Within this moment of labor upsurge, the National Black Worker Center (NBWC) exists to build the collective leadership of Black workers. NBWC is "a Black worker power building and worker’s rights advocacy organization that leads with militant joyfulness and Black movement culture." In addition to the national center, 11 local centers operate around…

Around 340,000 members of the Teamsters Union who work for UPS came within days of walking off the job in July 2023 in what would have been the one of the largest strikes in US history. In August, they voted 86.3% in favor of ratification of a new five-year contract with the company. The contract provides provisions like a $21 per hour minimum wage…

Black Work Talk’s third season goes to the source of the energy for this current wave of labor activism, looks at how this surge impacts Black workers, and offers a fresh vision for what’s next. Listeners will hear conversations with rank-and-file workers from unions including the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, and the Writers Guild of America.…

Black Work Talk comes full circle: This is the last episode of this iteration of Black Work Talk, and host Steven Pitts talks with Bill Fletcher Jr, who was the show’s first guest in November 2020. Their wide-ranging conversation started with some historical reflection on Black worker organizing and leadership, beginning with the National Negro Labor…

Carroll Fife didn’t want to run for office, but a movement candidate dropped out of the race to represent Oakland’s District 3 on the City Council. As Fife searched the community for others to step up, people turned to her. “They said, ‘Because you are a servant of the work we are doing together, and you know how to do this, it makes sense for you …

“Where people live is changing very rapidly. When most of us say we organize locally, usually we mean in the central city,” said San Diego-based Kyra Greene, Executive Director of the Center on Policy Initiatives.  “But more and more, as we’re seeing all over the country, it means going out to these suburban communities where our people are being…

As a writer, activist, strategist and political educator, Linda Burnham has developed a nuanced understanding of the complex path to building more power in this country. In this episode of BWT, she talked with co-hosts Steven Pitts and Lauren Jacobs about the new book she co-edited, Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections. …

Just before the tenth anniversary of the landmark 2012 Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike, new CTU President Stacy Davis Gates sat down with Black Work Talk co-hosts Steven Pitts and Sheri Davis. They started off with the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), which Gates co-founded in 2008, and reflected on the new politics and leadership practices…

This is the second of two episodes drawn from “Black Labor Struggles Over Time,” the Black Work Talk panel at the 2022 Labor Notes conference. Panelists Jerome Scott (Project South and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers), Stacy Davis Gates (Chicago Teachers Union), Susan DeCarava (NewsGuild of New York), and Chris Smalls (Amazon Labor Union)…

At the June 2022 Labor Notes conference, Black Work Talk presented a panel of organizers spanning generations and geographies: Jerome Scott of Project South and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union; Susan DeCarava, president of the NewsGuild of New York, and Chris Smalls of the Amazon…

Burnout nearly took Erica Iheme out of the labor movement twice. “Our organizing culture excludes the most impacted,” Iheme said on the July 7 episode of Black Work Talk. In her work with Jobs To Move America, she’s about changing that to allow people to bring their full selves to the work—and practice an organizing model that brings community partners…

For more than a century, Black women’s organizations—whether explicitly working-class or not—have fed what Dr. Danielle T. Phillips-Cunningham calls “comprehensive labor resistance.” The Washing Society organized the Atlanta washerwomen’s strike of 1881. The National Council of Colored Women’s Clubs, with chapters in every state, organized around…

“Black feminism is the political idea that all forms of oppression, which are global and persistent, are interconnected and structural: white supremacy, racism, heterosexism, ableism, class disparities,” said Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, referencing bell hooks. “All of those systems of oppression are connected, and we experience them simultaneously. We…

In this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier, talk with Mariame Kaba. Mariame is one of this country’s leading abolitionist thinkers and practitioners. She has founded several projects organizing around abolitionist principles including Project NIA. Many of her writings on abolition are collected in a recent book,…

In this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier talk with NTanya Lee, National Secretary of LeftRoots, a national organization of social movement organizers and activists. We began by reviewing the landscape of the Black Left today and continued by discussing the distinctions between the Black Left and Black Lives…

When thousands of people occupied the park across from New York City Hall in 2020 to demand defunding of the police, “it turned into a huge mutual aid project, and we had to look at what keeps a community safe,” Bianca Cunningham said. Cunningham, now a  campaign director at Action Center for the New Economy, reflected on her range of organizing…

Lester K. Spence parsed the nature of power in his wide-ranging conversation with Black Work Talk co-hosts Steven Pitts and Toussaint Losier. Spence is perhaps best-known for his work on neoliberalism in the Black community. “Neoliberalism turned cross-class solidarity in the Black community towards upper-class interests,” he said, but that is changing.…

In this fifth episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, Steven Pitts talks with Toussaint Losier, his co-host for the second mini-series of Black Work Talk on the Black Left. Toussaint is a professor in the African American Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During this episode, we previewed the mini-series by presenting …

In this fourth episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with Will Jones. Will is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. His particular emphasis is understanding the relationship between race and class in the United States during the 20th Century. His 2013 book, “The March on Washington:…