Working People

We chat with Christina Clark and John Deitcher from Endorphin Films about their viral short documentary, Dish Pigs , which tracks the lives and jobs of three professional dishwashers in Montreal.    Additional links/info below... Dish Pigs Endorphin Films' website and Twitter page Tim Forster, Montreal Eater , " Refreshing New Documentary Spotlights Dishwashers in Montreal Restaurants "    Feature...

We chat with Professor Miriam Posner about her recent articles in The New Yorker and LOGIC m agazine on the global supply chain software that shapes workers' lives.     Additional links/info below... Miriam's website and Twitter page Miriam Posner, The New Yorker , " The Software that Shapes Workers' Lives " Miriam Posner, LOGIC, " See No Evil "    Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free M...

We talk with Lucy Lloyd,  a self-taught Apple product repair and support technician living in Sedan, Minnesota, a town with a population of less than fifty people. We talk about everything from growing up in a small town to setting up her independent repair business in the corner of her mom's flower shop. We also talk a lot about the right to repair , a really important political issue that direct...

We chat with Tarence Ray, writer and 1/3 of the Trillbilly Workers Party, about his recent article in The Baffle r about what liberal pundits like Paul Krugman get wrong about rural America.     Additional links/info below... Tarence's Twitter page Tarence Ray, The Baffler , " Get Real " Trillbilly Workers Party Patreon , Twitter , and Facebook page Tarence's author page on Popula and The Baffler...

We chat with with author and scholar Nate Kalman-Lamb about his extensive work on the labor politics of professional sports, and about his and Dirk Hayhurst's recent Jacobin piece on the exploitation of professional baseball players.   Additional links/info below... Nate's website and Twitter page Nate Kalman-Lamb & Dirk Hayhurst, Jacobin , " "Inside the Game, You Are Still a Commodity" "  Nate Ka...

In this special compilation episode, we talk to eight working-class scholars about loving, leaving, and being left behind by academia.   Additional links/info below... Working People , Season 1, Bonus Episode #2, Trevor Griffey   Working People , Season 1, Episode 10, John Buckley   Maximillian Alvarez, The Baffler , " Contingent No More "  Erin Bartram, " The Sublimated Grief of the Left Behind "...

A special Alvarez family sequel to the very first episode of Working People .    Additional links/info below... Working People , Season 1, Episode 1, Jesus Alvarez   Maximillian Alvarez, Current Affairs , " Can the Working Class Speak? "   Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall" Small Tall Order, "Easily" Anamoli, "En l...

While all eyes have been on a high-profile #CollegeAdmissionScam involving super-rich people buying and bribing their kids' way into elite universities, hardly anyone noticed that an entire network of private and for-profit universities was shut down this month. Faculty and staff have been abruptly fired and tens of thousands of students have been completely abandoned with no more financial suppor...

We brought friend of the show Lauren Schandevel back on to vent about and break down last week's college admissions scandal. Lauren (whom we interviewed back in Season 1) is a brilliant, working-class student at the University of Michigan and she has some thoughts about rich people buying and bribing their kids' way into elite colleges and universities.    Additional links/info below... Working Pe...

We chat with  Katelyn O'Brien, a pipefitter working for a shipbuilding company in Virginia. Katelyn is a trans woman with a degree in History and an adorable cat named Merlyn—she's also, by her own admission, a comic book nerd.  We talk all about how she came to work as a pipefitter out of college and what exactly goes into a day's work doing this difficult and quite dangerous job. We also have a...

We talk with labor writer and activist Joe Allen about his recent Jacobin article on the death of FedEx freight driver William L. Murphy.    Additional links/info below... Joe's Facebook and Wikipedia page Joe Allen, Jacobin , " Worked to Death at FedEx " Joe Allen, The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service   Amanda Woods, New York Post , " FedEx Worker Froze to Death Outs...

We talk with Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, the young socialist brains behind Means Media, the Detroit-based leftist media cooperative that produced the viral campaign video for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and is about to launch a "Netflix for the left."    Additional links/info below... Means Media website , Twitter , and Facebook page SIGN UP FOR MEANS TV !  Meagan Day, Jacobin , " "Trust the Rich Le...

We chat with Rick Sturgill, a retired coal miner and electrician from Letcher County in South East Kentucky. Rick is a straight shooter, he calls things like he sees them. And, having spent most of his life around coal, he has a lot of sobering things to say about working in coal and about the far-reaching effects the coal industry has had on cities and towns in Appalachia, on politics and the env...

We talk with Katy Slininger about her latest piece for Popula magazine, " Alienated Labor ," in which she explains--in heartbreaking detail--why it became impossible for her to continue working for the postal service once she got pregnant.    Additional links/info below... Katy's Twitter page   Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Lobo Loco, "Malte...

We talk with Jared Sacks and Buka Okoye, two members of the Columbia grad union (GWC-UAW Local 2110 Graduate Workers of Columbia) about graduate student-workers' fight for more transparent, democratic representation.    Additional links/info below... Jared Sacks, Columbia Spectator , " What Is "Open Bargaining" and How Will it Transform Columbia? " Graduate Workers of Columbia website , Twitter ,...

We chat with Evan Montgomery, a third-generation grain farmer on the North Dakota side of the Red River Valley. Evan is also a trained musician--he has a degree in music, he sings classical music--and we talk all about his life growing up on the farm, getting into music, and finding a way to strike a balance and pursue both of those passions at once. We also talk about this year's "harvest from he...

Carl Slone is a coal miner who lives in Whitesburg, Kentucky, a town of about 1,200 people. He's never protested before. But when he saw a local establishment publicly shaming poor people in his community, he decided to do something about it.    Additional links/info below... Tweet about Carl's protest     Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Lobo L...

We talk with DSA member and Jacobin staff writer Meagan Day about her recent article " The 'Skills Gap' Was a Lie "   Additional links/info below... Meagan Day's Jacobin author page     Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"    

Faculty have been on strike at Wright State University for over two weeks now, and things are coming to a head. In this special episode, we check in with Doctor Noeleen McIlvenna, a professor of early American history at Wright State and Executive Committee member of the AAUP-WSU.  We talk about the strike and how the university's underhanded attempts to undercut the union fit into the larger hist...

We talk to journalist Ross Barkan about his recent article in Gothamist , " Amazon's NYC Campus, Donald Trump's Rise, & NY's Prison Boom All Share A Common Ancestor "    Additional links/info below... Ross Barkan's Twitter     Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org ) Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"

Represented by UNITE HERE Local 11, workers at hotels in Southern California have been taking bold and necessary actions to secure a contract that addresses workers' serious concerns: from receiving fairer wages that can actually allow workers to keep up with high costs of living, to mitigating the constant threat of sexual harassment and abuse workers in these hotels face every day, especially co...

Working People is back for Season Two! In this #RedForEd special, we talk to Trevor, Jesenia, and Danielle, three teachers and members of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) who are currently joining their brothers and sisters in a historic strike across the LA Unified School District.   Additional links/info below... UTLA Twitter and Facebook   UTLA website   WeArePublicSchools. Org   Sarah Jaffe,...

2018: On the Monday after Thanksgiving, General Motors workers in the U.S. and Canada learned of the company's announcement that it would be idling five plants and cutting around 14,000 jobs. In this urgent, multi-episode series, we will be talking to workers at plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Canada. In the fourth and final part of this series, we speak with activists, workers, scholars, and writer...

2018: On the Monday after Thanksgiving, General Motors workers in the U.S. and Canada learned of the company's announcement that it would be idling five plants and cutting around 14,000 jobs. In this urgent, multi-episode series, we will be talking to workers at plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Canada. In Part IIII, we talk to Cory Weir and Rebecca Keetch, two workers at the award-winning GM plant in...

2018: On the Monday after Thanksgiving, General Motors workers in the U.S. and Canada learned of the company's announcement that it would be idling five plants and cutting around 14,000 jobs. In this urgent, multi-episode series, we will be talking to workers at plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Canada. In Part II, we talk to Lilly and Sean, Tier 2 and Tier 3 workers at the GM plant in Hamtramck, and...