Work Stoppage

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. 2023 has already been a monumental year for labor, with over 300,000 workers striking in just the first 7 months. Now, in just six weeks, we could see tens of thousands of UAW autoworkers on strike at any one or all of the Big 3 US automaking companies, Ford, GM, and Stellantis....

We know everyone wants to talk about the biggest labor news this week but first: Union Pizza! Workers at Barboncino Pizzeria in Brooklyn became the first union pizza shop in NYC this week. Also we have a quick update on the ILWU Canada strike, with workers voting on a new TA after rejecting an earlier one. In a sad story, Yellow Freight's bosses have so mismanaged the company that it is shutting d...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. We're diving back into labor history with a return to our short series on the history of general strikes in the US. On this episode, we round out the strikes of 1934 by discussing the Toledo Auto-Lite and Minneapolis general strikes. The pitched battles fought by workers across...

After a few quick headlines, we start this week's labor news checking in on updates from the massive nationwide actors and writers strike. Next we discuss how hotels are using gig apps to hire scab labor and blacklist workers. Yellow Freight nearly caused a nationwide strike by failing to pay $50 million they owe the Teamsters' pension fund. Several recreational cannabis companies in California ha...

With just a week until 350,000 Teamster workers could strike at UPS, we want to share with as many listeners as possible our great interview with several rank and file UPS workers. So we are unlocking it for everyone to hear! If you like these sort of episodes, please support us at patreon.com/workstoppage. Original Description: The biggest labor story of the year has been the ongoing negotiations...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. For our eighth and final episode (for now) in our series on the basics of Cybernetics and how it relates to the labor movement, we finally explore the details of Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model (VSM). John walks us through the various subsystems of Beer's model for analyzin...

This was another major week in labor as the biggest strike of the year so far kicked off with 160,000+ actors joining the writers on picket lines across the country. Also this week, a new reform caucus was announced in the ALU, calling for leadership elections. Starbucks workers launched their nationwide organizing bus tour, hitting cities across the country and shutting down stores tom demand Sta...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. The biggest labor story of the year has been the ongoing negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters and the possibility of 350,000 workers launching the biggest strike in the US in decades. So we're thrilled this week to be joined by three rank and file UPS workers from Teamster...

We start this week's episode with congratulations to workers at Powerhouse Animation, who became the first unionized animation studio in Texas last week. Next we discuss the pausing of the LA hotel strike....and its resumption. Refresco workers finally won a contract after 3 years of fighting this week, winning big pay raises and other gains. Starbucks has lost in court AGAIN this week, losing cas...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. We're back in the world of Cybernetics for this week's Patron episode. On Part 7 of our series, John explains the admittedly very complex concepts of Autopoiesis and Eudemony, key ideas for understanding Stafford Beer's "Viable Systems Model" which stands are the core of his tho...

It may be a long weekend, but people still gotta work, and that means more labor stories. First we do a quick run through the headlines, discussing where things stand with the WGA strike, the independent labor movement in Mexico, and the fight to defend Pride at Starbucks. Next, workers in South Korea have launched a two week long mobilization to demand the far right anti worker Yoon regime resign...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. We've got a quick break from our series on the intersection of the study of Cybernetics and the Labor Movement for an interview! This week we were very excited to speak with AshlyRuth and Diana, two worker organizers with the Union of Southern Service Workers. The South has long...

On this week's episode of Work Stoppage, Trader Joe's continues to drag out the process of certification at its Louisville store. Negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS have moved to discussions of economic issues, with only a month to go before a strike. Nearly 2000 nurses struck for a week in Oregon and are now demanding their employer be investigated for hiring professional scabs. Over 1000...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. Our series on Cybernetics and Labor continues this week as we dive into the beginning of Project Cybersyn and Stafford Beer's arrival in Chile. We discuss Beer's invitation from the government of Salvador Allende, his work with prominent government officials, and the incredible...

We're back from our break for Lina's wedding, which was wonderful and we all had an amazing time, but now it's time to catch up on two weeks of labor news! We start the show with a quick trip through as many short labor stories as we can, covering developments at Starbucks, Amazon, REI, Barnes & Noble, AT&T, Colectivo, Paizo, UPS, and more. Then we follow up with the workers at the Wharf InterCont...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. We're back from our week off for Lina's wedding and in the latest episode of our series on the history of Cybernetics and its relationship to labor, we've finally arrived at the work of Stafford Beer. Beer's work on complex systems revolutionized the way management operations ar...

This week was a exciting but busy one with all of us getting together to celebrate Lina's wedding, which unfortunately made it impossible to put together the regular episode. So we've decided to unlock the first episode in our new series on the history of the field of cybernetics and how the labor movement has interacted with it. It's been a super fascinating topic learning about figures like Norb...

We're back with another weekly roundup of the labor news. This week was a big one, and after a few quick headlines we discuss developments in the ongoing strike by grad students at the University of Michigan, now facing police harassment at home. Next we get into the biggest story of the week, the Supreme Court's ruling weakening the right to strike in the Glacier Northwest case. We discuss immedi...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. We know this week's episode is a little late folks, but we think it's well worth the wait. We've been fans of the Working People podcast ever since we started the show, so it was a big honor this week to sit down and have a conversation with Maximillian Alvarez. While it isn't t...

We start this week with congratulations for workers at REI, Barnes and Noble, and the Chicago Nature Museum who all won union elections last week. Our first full story covers an ongoing strike by San Diego bus drivers over being forced to work split shifts that take up 13 hours of their day. In DC, workers with UNITE HERE are protesting the move to close one of the most popular and acclaimed new r...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. On the fourth episode of our series on the history of the discipline of Cybernetics and its relationship to the labor movement, we continue our discussions on the work of W Ross Ashby with his creation of the first fully self regulating machine, the Homeostat. This machine and i...

Turns out the CIA has trained gremlins and is trying to disrupt our podcast by breaking John's audio setup, but we soldiered on with a tin can on some string. After a few quick congratulations, we discuss the University of Michigan's choice to sacrifice its academic integrity to try and break a strike. We also follow up with developments in the fight back by the South Korean working class against...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. On the third part of our deep dive into the history of the discipline of Cybernetics and its relations to the labor movement, we discuss the life and theories of W. Ross Ashby. His work on measurement of the complexity of a system with the concept of "Variety", helps us understa...

Our first story this week is on the approaching possibility of a strike by 25,000 pilots at Southwest and American Airlines. Next we discuss the possibility of workers in Coventry, England becoming the first officially recognized Amazon warehouse in the UK. We have two tragic stories of deaths of labor organizers after facing an onslaught of harassment from far right regimes in South Korea and the...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. For our second episode on the history of the discipline of Cybernetics and its relationship to the labor movement, we dive a little deeper into what Cybernetics actually is. We discuss the way Cybernetics seeks to bridge varying disciplines and systems and examine their interrel...