Working People

In this week's mini-cast, we talk with Veronica, Marcelo, and Justin, three grad student workers involved in the ongoing wildcat strike at the University of California – Santa Cruz.    Additional links/info below... UCSC Strike website , Twitter page, Facebook page, and Instagram   Colin Dwyer, NPR , " 'There's Really No Refuge': Santa Cruz Grad Students Strike Amid Housing Crunch " Coleen Flahert...

We've got a super special crossover with the Wrong Boys themselves, Aaron and Shawn from the Srsly Wrong podcast! We teamed up to take a deep dive into the history and meaning of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the largest labor strike in Canada's history.   Additional links/info below... Srsly Wrong website , Twitter page, and Patreon   Alberta Advantage, " General Strike! Winnipeg 1919-2019...

Working People is back and we are excited to announce our official partnership with In These Times magazine! In this episode, we chat with new father Clarke, a contract commercial diver who works on different jobs for different companies throughout the year, completing tasks from underwater welding to removing shoreline debris. Clarke is a navy veteran and a member of the IWW and DSA-LSC. We talk...

Part II of our mini-cast series on undocumented workers and the fight to repeal the employers' sanctions provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986)  (in collaboration with the Break the Chains Alliance). We talk to David Tieu, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3, about working on the Hudson Yards project in New York City and seeing firstha...

Instacart shoppers walked off the job this Sunday in protest of the company's rampant wage/tip theft and dishonest, exploitative practices. We chat with Vanessa Bain, a full-time gig worker and one of the organizers of the protest.   Additional links/info below... Vanessa's Twitter page Vanessa Bain, Medium , " Dear Instacart Customers " Instacart Workers, Medium , " Dear Apoorva Mehta (Founder an...

In Part II of our two-part episode on workers in the Maine logging industry, we chat with Dana Garner, a veteran trucker and wood hauler from St. Francis, and an organizer with the Machinists Union. We talk about Dana's days driving his rig all over the United States and about coming back home to Maine to work full-time hauling logs out of the woods. We talk about the strains of working 20-hour sh...

Our Working People Halloween special! We talk with Jon and Ash from The Horror Vanguard  podcast about horror, the working class, and how there's nothing scarier than capitalism...   Additional links/info below... The Horror Vanguard Twitter page and Patreon page Jon's Twitter page Ash's Twitter page   Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Joro Gamin...

Part I of our mini-cast series on undocumented workers and the fight to repeal the employers' sanctions provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) and secure equal rights for all workers (in collaboration with the Break the Chains Alliance).    Additional links/info below... Break the Chains website: https://equalrightsforallworkers.org/   Break the Chains Facebook page: https://ww...

In Part I of our two-part episode on workers in the Maine logging industry, we chat with Mark Hardison, a longtime woodcutter from Eastern Maine, near the town of Ellsworth. We talk about Mark's life, getting involved in the woods industry, and about the ways that the industry has changed over the years. We also talk about efforts to organize workers in the woods industry and the long and complica...

We talk with John Jayne, a GM worker in Philadelphia and member of UAW Local 2177, about the month-long UAW strike and the new tentative contract agreement.    Additional links/info below... Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press , " GM-UAW Deal Calls for 9,000 Jobs, $9,000 Ratification Bonus, E-truck at Detroit-Hamtramck " Jamie McCallum, Jacobin , " "They Made That Money off Our Blood, Sweat, and T...

We talk with Darrow, office coordinator for Portland State University's Women, Sexuality, & Gender Studies Department and member organizer for SEIU Local 503. We talk about Darrow's involvement in the union and about the planned statewide strike that was narrowly averted soon after we recorded this episode. But we also got a chance to talk about Darrow's life as a queer millennial from the Norther...

SPECIAL EPISODE: We chat with the one and only Sarah Smarsh, author of Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard & Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth .   Additional links/info below... Sarah's Twitter page and website   Sarah Smarsh, Scribner Books, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard & Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth   The Homecomers (podcast) Twitter page   Featured Music (all son...

In Part II of our season-opening special on indie professional wrestlers, we talk with Noah (The Sorceress), Chris Hutton (Rob Matter), and Joella (Incogneato/Chronic Pain) about their experiences at different levels of the indie wrestling scene.    Additional links/info below... Chris's Twitter Page Incogneato's Instagram page Noah's Twitter page  Wrestle Yr Friends Twitter page   Featured Music...

We kick off Season 3 with news from Andy O'Brien (AFL-CIO) about a unionization push in the Maine logging industry and we talk with indie professional wrestler Angel Blue. We talk about how Angel first got into wrestling when she was still in high school, all the work and the physical and mental stress that goes into being a professional wrestler, and what it's like when you walk through the curta...

Directed by the Trump administration, the US Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed changes to apprenticeship programs that could spell disaster for union workers in the building trades, giving businesses  the ability to create their own apprenticeship programs (IRAPs), underpay workers, and undercut unions. We recorded this PSA to let listeners know what is going on, why it's bad, and what you ca...

We talk with Josh Holbrook, one of the Kentucky coal miners currently protesting coal companies Black Jewel, Black Hawk, and Revelation for stiffing him and his coworkers on backpay after going bankrupt.    Additional links/info below... GoFundMe - Letcher County BlackJewel Coal Miners   Action Network - Fund for Former Revelation, Black Hawk, and Black Jewel Miners Demonstrating in Harlan County...

A section from our chat with Astra Taylor, writer, filmmaker, organizer, and co-founder of the Debt Collective. We talk about Astra's new documentary, What Is Democracy? , and her companion book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone .    Additional links/info below... Astra's Twitter page Debt Collective website and Twitter page Astra Taylor, Zeitgeist Films, What Is Democracy...

We chat with journalist Emily Guendelsberger about her new book, On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane .   Additional links/info below... Emily's Twitter page Emily Guendelsberger, Little, Brown, On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane     Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org )...

Last Monday, Representatives Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal, and Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled the Student Debt Cancellation Act of 2019, which includes a plan to wipe out the $1.6 trillion in student debt held by 45 million Americans. In this this special episode, we talk to Ami Schneider and Sanders Fabares, two debt holders and graduates from the for-profit Art Institute college chain who decide...

In this urgent special episode, we talk with Diana Marin, Supervising Attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, and Professor Bill Lopez about what to do if ICE raids your workplace. We discuss what precautions individuals, families, and communities must take in anticipation of a possible raid, what you should do if a raid occurs at your work, and what the impacts of these raids are.    NO...

We chat with Current Affairs Amusements and Managing Editor, Lyta Gold, about her latest viral tweet and about why upper-middle-class liberals get so mad when you talk about class.    Additional links/info below... Lyta's Twitter page THE tweet   Current Affairs website , Facebook page, and Twitter page   Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Lobo Lo...

We wrap up Season Two by chatting with Erin Fristad. Erin is currently an adjunct professor at a community college and she works with combat veterans as an equine therapy specialist. She is also a writer and she worked in the commercial fishing industry around Alaska for many years. We talk about her time as a commercial fisherwoman, how she ended up there, what sort of jobs she did, and what sort...

Our friend David Parsons from The Nostalgia Trap podcast comes back on the show to talk about their exciting new video project, left media, and about the importance of telling history a different way.   Additional links/info below... The Nostalgia Trap website , Twitter page, and Patreon page David's Twitter page   Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org...

We are excited to launch our new ORGANIZE! series. In this ongoing series, we'll be talking to working people who have had enough of this rigged system and who have taken it upon themselves to band together and fight back. In a world where so many avenues for political change have just been swallowed up, colonized, and defanged by the ruling class, we want to see where working-class folks are turn...

Friend of the show Kaytlin Bailey is back to tell us about the work she's doing at Decriminalize Sex Work and about the hysterical, disastrous push by legislators in Florida to further criminalize sex workers.    Additional links/info below... Kaytlin's website and Twitter page  Decriminalize Sex Work website and Twitter page SWOP USA website and Twitter page SWOP Behind Bars website and Twitter p...