Laborwave Radio

"Rather than viewing strikes as a last-resort bargaining tactic, the labor movement must embrace them as engines of political transformation." Erik Baker, an American historian, associate editor at The Drift, and a former UAW staff organizer, joins Laborwave to discuss his article for Jewish Currents, Revaluing the Strike. You can read the full article at https://jewishcurrents.org/revaluing-the-s...

Eric Dirnbach joins the show to discuss premajority unionism, where you don't need to wait around to act like a union but can be a union from the start! We also talk about strikes, dues checkoff, fighting corporate giants like Starbucks and Amazon, and more. Check out the article written by Eric Dirnbach and Colette Perold on premajority unionism at https://workerorganizing.org/premajority-unionis...

Back from hiatus with a no holds barred takedown of every popular argument for reviving the power of organizing labor! Marianne Garneau, editor in chief of Organizing Work, joins the discussion to breakdown the debates on organizing the unorganized, the rank and file strategy, and forming new types of contemporary unions. Check out my new article in Organizing Work that dives deeper into the probl...

Matthew Dimick, Professor of Law at the University of Buffalo, joins the show to respond to recent debate over the Wagner Act. Dimick makes clear that rather than trying to posit the Act was a gift to labor that the labor movement should be cautious whenever the state seeks to substitute its powers for unions own self-activity. Our discussion touches on the following articles written by Dimick in...

Toni Gilpin joins the show to discuss her book, The Long Deep Grudge, which chronicles the epic battles of the Farm Equipment Workers Union (FE) against corporate giant International Harvester. From the book description, "International Harvester – and the McCormick family that largely controlled it – garnered a reputation for bare-knuckled union-busting in the 1880s, but in the 20th century also p...

Second episode in our discussion of the life and thought of William Z. Foster. On this go around Lucas Carpenter and Tim Shields join the show to do a deep dive over Foster's proposed methods for effective labor organizing. In particular we examine his pamphlets Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry and Strike Strategy. We also discuss the techniques of pink sheeting, role of popular education...

Nick Driedger joins the show to discuss the legacy and ideas of William Z. Foster, former president the Communist Party USA and trade unionist involved in the early IWW and AFL. We adopt a critical lens discuss Foster's concepts of a "militant minority" and "boring from within" as a strategy for pulling conservative unions to the left. Driedger also explains the reaction and criticism leveled agai...

Graham Kovich joins the show to discuss varying media and communications strategies for increasing union power. Graham is running for the role of Communications Officer for the IWW and explains his viewpoints on the need for internally focused communications that are member-driven, and how and when it's most effective to utilize external communications to meet union needs. Laborwave Radio has join...

Daisy Pitkin joins the show to discuss her book about labor organizing and solidarity, On The Line. Daisy Pitkin has spent more than twenty years as a community and union organizer, working first in support of garment workers around the world, and then for U.S. labor unions organizing industrial laundry workers. Her essays have been awarded the Montana Prize, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, the New M...

Joe Burns discusses class struggle unionism on this joint episode between Laborwave Radio and Wobcast of Organizing Work. Marianne Garneau collaborates on this interview with Joe Burns about his forthcoming book from Haymarket, Class Struggle Unionism. The current labor movement is dominated, and negatively influenced, by what Burns describes as "labor liberalism." In order to revive a militant un...

Michael Beyea Reagan discusses the characteristics of intersectional class struggle and shares insights around movement-building geared toward the task of fighting all forms of oppression. Get a copy of the book that informs this conversation at https://www.akpress.org/intersectional-class-struggle.html Laborwave Radio has joined the Channel Zero Network, an english-based anarchist radio/podcast n...

Liz, host of Rebel Steps podcast, joins the show to discuss a fictional workplace campaign to unionize the hotel workers at the illustrious White Lotus! Laborwave Radio has joined the Channel Zero Network, an english-based anarchist radio/podcast network run by radical media makers. Explore the network's co-conspirators at channelzeronetwork.com Send comments and questions about labor organizing t...

Andrea Haverkamp, a labor organizer based in Seattle, joins the show to talk shop about organic leaders, private vs public sector organizing approaches, one-on-one conversations, internal democracy, and more! Laborwave Radio has joined the Channel Zero Network, an english-based anarchist radio/podcast network run by radical media makers. Explore the network's co-conspirators at channelzeronetwork....

Bill Fletcher Jr joins the show and discusses the need for "social justice unionism" in a post-Janus United States. Workers are increasingly atomized in the US, and the state continues to rollback any investments into the reproductive labor that stitches society together. The moment, as Fletcher Jr states, that organized labor can seize for victory is almost over. We might not get another moment....

Joe Burns, a veteran union negotiator and labor lawyer and the author of Strike Back and Reviving the Strike, joins the show to discuss the role militant traditional labor strikes have in revitalizing the labor movement. His forthcoming book is Class Struggle Unionism, from Haymarket Books. Burns highlights the limitations of labor strategies that prioritize either reforming labor law, electing ne...

Marianne Garneau, publisher of Organizing. Work, joins the show to discuss her article Workplace Struggles Are Political. Garneau's provides a necessary corrective over common views amongst "socialists" that work and politics are two separate spheres in which struggle takes place. Following the wrongheaded opinion of Lenin, who assessed workers as only capable of rising to a level of "trade union...

Graham Kovich joins the show to plan an organizing campaign for the servants in Beauty & the Beast! Graham and I imagine ourselves as two salt shakers, transformed into our alienated selves along with our fellow servants, under the repressive thumb of the "Beast" in a far-away castle in a long ago time. What pressure do we as servants have to change our circumstances? How can we recruit Belle into...

Eric Laursen, author of The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the Modern State, joins the show to provide a concrete analysis of the State as opposed to states and compares the modern state to an operating system. As he explains, the State seeks to be everything. The State absorbs dissent and incorporates it into building a more expansive State. Though humans created the State, it has becom...

Eric Dirnbach joins the show to discuss his experience as an advanced organizer with EWOC, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, a joint partnership of the DSA and UE. Dirnbach challenges organized labor to train one million workers for unionizing the masses, and we discuss whether popular education models such as EWOC are suited for the task. Also discussed are the prospects for syndicali...

Gabriel Winant, historian and author of The Next Shift, joins the show to discuss the decline of union power in the face of speed-ups and an expanding framework of labor relations. Our conversation focuses on worker rebellion, the political failure alongside economic gains for organized labor in the postwar era, and the lessons we can learn from the defeat of the New Deal. He draws attention to th...

Comrades Luke and Tim join the show to discuss the rank and file critique of business unionism put forward by Stan Weir. Throughout his writings and his life Stan Weir operated by the creed that one should not "let people feel that their job is to sit back and admire somebody else." Our conversation focuses on Stan Weir's critique of "business unionism," guided by his confidence in the capacity of...

Re-issue of our conversation with Marianne Garneau discussing her article in Organizing. Work, "You Say You Want a General Strike?" Garneau takes a critical look at general strikes conducted in Europe and argues they have not had the powerful impacts popularly imagined by US audiences. She then discusses the possibilities of importing the tactic to the United States. Read the full article at https...

Hamilton Nolan joins the show to elaborate on his article "Get Rid of No Strike Clauses and Stop Begging" written for In These Times. Nolan argues that the right to strike is the only thing that gives working people power. He identifies the weaknesses of organized labor within a paradigm of collective bargaining where surrendering the right to strike is the norm, and argues that in order to turn t...

Veteran labor organizer, Elizabeth Laycak, joins the show to discuss how two new workers employed by Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. in Scranton, PA would initiate a unionization campaign with a strategy to win. We cover mapping and charting, assessments, identifying leaders (and isolating anti-union workers), along with the importance of secrecy and inoculation throughout the campaign. Very fun episode...

Ruby and Zama, workers at Amazon and members of Amazonians United, join the show to discuss their methods of shop floor organizing and direct unionism. They share stories of how AU emerged, initially through breaking bread and resocializing the workplace, to their first direct action demanding access to water in the shop. We also discussed the dismissal of AU by proponents of business unionism, an...