The Labor Notes Podcast

Are you and your co-workers looking for ways to defend and support immigrants on your shop floor?

Maybe you’re trying to practice organizing skills that you’ve picked up at a Labor Notes workshop or Troublemakers School? 

Or your bargaining unit is building toward a strike? You and other union-members are talking about having more of a voice in your union? You’re organizing in the South? 

There’s a Labor Notes Resource for that! 

Along with our regular shop floor coverage and magazine, Labor Notes has created resources, including special issues, How-To guides, and book handouts for stewards, reformers, contract action team and bargaining committee members, and all rank-and-file activists fighting for more.

In this episode, pod co-hosts Natascha Elena Uhlmann and Danielle Smith talk about two in particular: Winning protections in your contract for immigrant workers and Using our handouts that accompany the hit Labor Notes book “Secrets of a Successful Organizer.”

They’re calling it the Be Normal challenge. Sure, an important goal of an organizing conversation with a co-worker is to move them toward action. But there are ways to do that while treating them with respect, and continuing to build a relationship that keeps them connected to the union. 

Order your copy of Ellen’s new book for Labor Notes! Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It’s Hard

You and your co-workers have worn boo-nion pins. You’ve sent reply-all emails demanding a “Fair Contract Now and For All of Eternity.” But to take your ghoul-idarity to the next level, get ready to march on the boss and read your list of demands off the ritual book.
 
Three spooky season classics—Beetlejuice (1988), Halloweentown (1998), and The Exorcist (1973)—have bone-chilling yet practical tips to build power on even the most cursed shop floor, and sure to leave the boss’s head spinning 360 degrees. 
 
PLUS: Don’t miss these upcoming trainings!

Spanish language online training: Serie de Capacitaciones: Secretos de un Organizador Exitoso, los jueves 5, 12 y 19 de noviembre

Online Workshop: How To Beat Tiers And Rebuild Unity In Our Unions, Tuesday, Nov. 17

Stewards' Workshop: How to Have a Good Meeting, Wednesday, Nov. 18

In honor of The Strokes’ ongoing Reality Awaits tour, which the Labor Notes pod cares about a normal amount, we talk about organizing lessons we’ve pulled from films of the grimy Lower East Side dive bar era of 2006-2013 with our favorite indie rock needledrops: Marie Antoinette (2006), 500 Days of Summer (2009), and The Bling Ring (2013). 

If you’re a fan of Secrets of a Successful Organizer and have complicated feelings about Zooey Deschanel and Sofia Coppola, you are the target demographic for this episode.  

PLUS: Don’t miss these upcoming trainings!

-Secrets of a Successful Organizer online training series on Mondays, Oct. 26, Nov. 2 & 9!

-Spanish language online training: Serie de Capacitaciones: Secretos de un Organizador Exitoso, los jueves 5, 12 y 19 de noviembre

Mexican Volkswagen workers who build the Jetta, Tiguan, and Taos at the company’s Puebla plant are poised to strike, after rejecting the company's latest contract offer on October 15.

The 6,500 workers work at the largest Volkswagen facility outside of Germany and belong to SITIAVW, one of Mexico's most storied independent unions.

Read pod co-host Natascha Elena Uhlmann’s report on the campaign: Mexican VW Workers Weigh Strike as Company Cuts Jobs Globally