Work Stoppage

Another packed episode this week as the class struggle never stops. After quite a few short stories, our first big discussion this week is the massive Supreme Court ruling which overturned 40 years of precedence and threatens to eliminate the ability of agencies like the NLRB to function. Next we discuss a recent story exposing the systemic nature of racism and wage theft in the Minnesota construc...

We've got quick stories from Kentucky, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Greece, Australia, and Japan this week, before we get into a short follow up as the limited energy workers of IBEW Local 46 in Seattle have voted to end their strike. Then we check in with Starbucks Workers United, where despite continued union busting by the company, have continued to rack up tons of new union wins. Also this week...

After a quick follow-up with the IBEW workers of Local 46, still on strike, we jump into this week's labor stories. First we discuss the Supreme Court's latest ruling gutting the NLRA, making it harder to force companies to rehire illegally fired workers. Next we start some international stories, discussing a massive strike by workers in Nigeria demanding a major increase to the minimum wage. In I...

While looking for recordings of Elizabeth G. Flynn I found this in the Walter P. Ruther Online Library at Wayne State University. The audio player was broken on the website, but I figured out a way to downloaded the source audio anyway. It was also very low quality so I put a little effort into remastering it so everyone can enjoy it. Solidarity. -Lina Source: https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/12892...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. By the time she was in her mid thirties, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had been on a non-stop, nationwide tour of the class struggle in the United States, joining every fight she could. That work made her one of the most beloved organizers in US history, but also took a toll on her hea...

Starting our labor news this week we discuss big union election news by healthcare workers in California, construction workers in Quebec, and Starbucks workers all over the country. In our first main story, we discuss attempts to quash organizing around Palestine by conservative leadership in a major AFSCME local in NYC. Next we cover this week's update in the historic UC stand up strike for Pales...

This week we are going deep into the vault of the many Overtime series we have done to bring ALL of the listeners something that feels applicable to the times we face right now. Some of our views on these important topics have been slightly reexamined since 2021 when this episode came out, but overall it still covers this history well. To get all 4 episodes in this series, become a patron. We appr...

We start this week with a brief update on national negotiating with Starbucks Workers United and the continued growth of the union. We also follow up with the Boeing firefighters of IAFF I-66 who ratified a new contract this week, ending a nearly month long lockout. The Department of Labor finally announced some higher than usual penalties for child labor at Hyundai. The historic stand up strike f...

We briefly discuss new ULP charges against Amazon for surveillance, Boeing's latest lowball offer to their locked out fire fighters, Teamsters at MolsonCoors winning a tentative agreement, and Scarlet Johansson fighting the theft of her voice by AI to start out with some headlines. Also this week, dockworkers in Oakland are pushing for the ILWU to blockade military goods to Israel. Academic worker...

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 first Red Scare following the US entry into World War 1 threw the US left into intense turmoil. Though Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had left the IWW over organizational and strategic differences, she was swept up in the Palmer Raids alongside many of her comrades. She would devote...

We've got another packed episode after a ton of news in the labor movement this week. First, workers in Quebec have successfully formed the first recognized union at an Amazon warehouse in Canada. Next we discuss efforts by agribusiness giant Wonderful Nurseries to overturn California labor law to fight the UFW. We've got a lot of news about the UAW this week. First, the historic political strike...

The whole gang's back together for the first time in a month! This week, we saw faculty at both NYU and UNC-Chapel Hill, among other schools, launch grading strikes to demand amnesty for protestors brutally arrested during encampment sweeps. Also this week, train drivers in the UK launched yet another series of rolling strikes as the train operators continue to believe they can get away with not p...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. Following the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn became a national name in labor. Her organizing skills and rousing speaking were sought after by workers all over the country. Flynn helped organize many epic struggles during this pe...

We continue our host shuffle this week as Dan is back, but John is away. We do run through a bunch of headlines but our focus this week is on a few stories. The biggest story in the country, the fight by college students against the genocide waged by our government in Palestine, is also a labor story. The attack on these students is an assault on any concept of rights but also on the labor movemen...

After a few headlines touching on a vetoed farm worker bill in Maine, Amazon organizing in Canada, a life changing win by GM sanitation workers, and UFCW rank and file action updates, we begin this week with a massive protest in Argentina to defend the university system. Then we talk about striking Indiana University graduate student workers which leads us directly into talking about the resistanc...

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 strike by textile mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in January of 1912 was one of the biggest labor struggles of the era, and launched Elizabeth Gurley Flynn onto the national stage. Already famous among radical workers for her fiery speaking abilities, her role in org...

This week we are very lucky to be joined by Mel Buer, Staff Reporter for The Real News Network while Dan is away. We begin by talking about WGA workers at Sesame Street who won a TA after threatening to strike, making a conversation with children about working conditions loom over the non-profit Sesame Workshop. We celebrate 1700 performers at Disney Land filing for a union to join 21,000 other un...

We talk about a lot of labor history on our show, and one of the organizations we've come back to again and again is the Industrial Workers of the World. We've talked about the epic struggles in the early 20th century, but where is the IWW today, a century after its peak? We're joined by IWW Organizer and Trainer Maria Cunningham for a discussion of the modern IWW. We talk recent history, some pro...

We've got another episode jam packed full of new labor stories this week. After a run through the headlines, we've got big news from Canada, as workers at two Amazon warehouses in British Columbia have filed for a union election. Trader Joe's workers in Chicago have also filed, fighting a vicious union busting campaign. BU Grad workers have been on strike for weeks, fighting for wages to survive i...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was already an organizer before she even left High School. Traveling the industrial cities of the northeast to speak for workers, she quickly decided to dedicate her life to the cause of the working class. Her work with the IWW would take her across the wh...

We start our labor news updates this week with a big one from the UAW as 5000 workers at Mercedes Benz in Alabama have filed for a union election. Next we've got an update on Amazon, where illegal union busting continues at sites across the country. Also we discuss updates on union busting campaigns at REI, where even managers are getting fired for being pro union, and Trader Joe's, where managers...

If you're not a patron you can get the full episode by visiting patreon.com/workstoppage and support us with $5 a month. Normally our history series tend to focus on mass movements, on structures, on the broad forces at play in the class struggle. But just because the class struggle is the motor of history, doesn't mean that individuals don't play critical roles. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of...

After running down some quick headlines (boycott Molson Coors!), we jump into our first story of the week, Amazon paying restitution to migrant workers who faced abuse while working in Amazon's Saudi Arabian warehouses. Next we discuss attacks on labor rights in Finland by the new right wing government, which threaten to roll back decades of labor gains. UAW supporters at Mercedes Benz in Alabama...

Episode 1 - Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution We've covered a ton of different eras and stories of the US labor movement on our show, but unfortunately much of it has been heavily focused on solely male workers, leaving out the historic role women have played in shaping the trade union movement in this country. So in an attempt to help rectify that, we're embarking on the longest series w...

200 episodes and the labor organizing doesn't stop. After checking in on some quick headlines, we discuss the latest major milestone in the UAW organizing drive at nonunion automakers, with workers officially filing for an election at VW. Also this week, a recent in-depth report in The Guardian documents awful, slavery-like conditions in the fishing industry. Similarly exploited workers, migrant a...