The Labor Notes Podcast

On the cover of the upcoming Labor Notes August/September issue is the divided, tentative response of building trades union leaders to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant members and equity initiatives, and its cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of construction projects. Labor Notes organizer Keith Brower Brown joins the pod.

There's a perception that unions shouldn’t take up “divisive” issues like immigration, and should focus instead on bread-and-butter topics members already agree on. We think that’s bad advice! Organizing around social issues like the defense of immigrant workers is an opportunity for open, productive conversations based on mutual respect—and it can mobilize members who feel left behind by their un...

As the GOP budget bill formalizes this administration’s large-scale attacks on government agencies and programs meant to support working people, it’s worth remembering the labor struggles that built them in the first place. Labor Notes editor Jenny Brown joins the pod.

What's the secret of winning a strong contract? Hint: You won't find it at the negotiations table! In our "Winning a Strong Contract" workshop series, we talk about how we can build power away from the table to win our demands in bargaining.   Labor Notes Organizer Lisa Xu joins pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Ulhmann for an overview of the workshop, including concepts like the camp...

Peek into the upcoming July issue of the Labor Notes magazine, featuring stories about grocery workers in Indiana fighting for a strong contract, and stories on the running theme of what it means to live under attempts at authoritarian rule and how working people are organizing right now.  Get the Labor Notes magazine! To start with the August issue, subscribe by July 22: labornotes.org/store/labo...

Auto executives are well aware of what could be won should Mexico's independent auto union continue its winning streak: there hasn’t been a shared contract at 2 facilities in the Mexican auto industry’s 100-year history, a precedent SINTTIA is determined to break.  The union made headlines when 6,500 workers voted overwhelmingly to join at GM’s Silao, Guanajuato plant in 2022. On the eve of a unio...

California educators across the state are joining forces in their fight for full staffing, safe and stable schools, and competitive compensation in their contract negotiations this year. The “We Can’t Wait” campaign involves 32 locals covering 77,000 public school educators in California. That’s about a quarter of the California Teachers Association’s total membership, and those educators serve 1...

What grocery workers are organizing for, and the way they’re doing it, can be a model for working class unionism. In recent years, reform-minded members of the United Food and Commercial Workers—UFCW, one of the largest unions in the U.S.—have ramped up their campaigns to make their union more democratic and responsive to the needs of its 1.3 million members. These members have organized toward re...

Most union meetings are, frankly, pretty dry and ineffective. To an outsider, the agenda looks more or less the same every month, and it seems like the usual suspects show up to either pat themselves on the back, or fight. Labor Notes Organizer Joe DeManuelle-Hall joins pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann as they share ideas to make union meetings more engaging and useful. 

In this moment of existential struggle, what would it mean for our unions to act like a movement? How do we make sense of and tie together the multitude of attacks against working people? We're joined again by Luis Feliz Leon, who walks us through strategic organizing formations and building on our victories. If you haven't listened to part 1 of our conversation, don't miss it! We establish why un...

Billionaires and powerful interests are attempting to hijack our government to marginalize dissent, crush worker power, and drive immigrant workers and trans people out of public life—and that's just their starting point. Meanwhile, workers have been building actions with their coworkers, most recently at more than a 1,000 May Day rallies across the US. How do we escalate from this month's massive...

Stewards are often thought of merely as enforcers of a union contract on behalf of the unit. But as unit members themselves, stewards are in a real position to organize their co-workers—not just play a form of de facto legal defense in individual grievance cases.  Joining this week's pod is Labor Notes organizer Joe DeManuelle-Hall, who leads Labor Notes stewards’ workshops on how to think like an...

Labor Notes Organizer Barbara Madeloni joins the pod to share her notes for building power in a weary and anxious moment: Keep walking toward each other; Make a sober assessment of our landscape (avoid toxic positivity); and respond to attacks while building an offensive movement—one with a vision for providing the things people need to have full lives. As a one-time reform president of the Massac...

Workers at GM’s Silao, Guanajuato plant had a salary review period right in the midst of Trump’s tariff threats. It would have been easy for the company to extract concessions in the face of widespread uncertainty, but workers held the line and won double-digit raises for the second time in recent years. Their winning streak is also forcing pro-boss, company unions to wake up and deliver for worke...

There’s a straight line from years of bipartisan support for ICE and CBP to the alarming political repression we’re experiencing today, where workers and students are being ripped from their daily lives and hauled into detention centers hundreds of miles away.  Over the past year, union members and workers centers have been more intensively building networks and resources to support immigrant work...

How does a letter get from rural Alaska to tip of Florida for less than a dollar? The U.S. Postal Service of course! The USPS is such a staple of our daily lives, it’s easy to take the public service for granted. But corporate greed has threatened to privatize and consolidate the agency in ways that would make the service more costly for the public and help the rich get richer. Fortunately for us,...

What do you do when neoliberal ghouls are set on privatizing services you love and rely on? For Mexico City’s trolleybus workers, the answer was building a coalition of public transit riders, climate activists and labor allies prepared to fight back. They turned fear into action, and supporters into organizers—mobilizing commuters who relied on the transit network to bring other riders into the fi...

Facing an administration bent on privatizing public services, federal workers are flocking to their unions in large numbers and connecting with one another through the new rank-and-file group the Federal Unionists Network.  TSA agents are among the latest groups of workers organizing a response after the Department of Homeland Security decided earlier this month to abruptly end their collective ba...

It matters to us as workers to have a liveable planet! And the labor movement has unique leverage and responsibility to push for climate action in the workplace and in contracts. The upcoming April issue of Labor Notes spotlights how workers are fighting for better conditions as they contend with storms, heat waves, and wildfires while on the job, and how they are staking their place in the transi...

When Nippon sought to acquire U.S. Steel in a $15 billion acquisition last year, the companies went to great lengths to convince U.S. Steel workers that the deal would benefit them too (and not just line executives’ pockets). But the workers didn’t buy it. Tune in to the inaugural episode of the Labor Notes Podcast to hear about how the workers saw through the companies’ shenanigans and resisted a...