The Labor Notes Podcast

The documentary Partners: How Starbucks Baristas Started a Labor Revolution charts the seemingly improbable course set off by a group of workers in Buffalo, New York, who organized the first Starbucks location in 2021 and helped to grow a highly visible, energetic movement. The film casts Starbucks workers as a symbol of persistence in the face of vicious union-busting, and projects hope for renewed militancy among rank-and-file workers everywhere. Director Chris Sessions and Andy Myers from Working Films join pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann. Support Striking Baristas!  1. Organize a screening of "Partners" in your community! Learn more: https://www.partnersthefilm.com/   2. Sign the "No Contract, No Coffee" pledge and don't buy from Starbucks during the strike: nocontractnocoffee.org   3. Contribute to the Starbucks Workers United national strike fund.   Check out our previous episode on the SBWU strike from November, featuring barista Sabina Aguirre and Labor Notes editor Jenny Brown.

Listen here to part 3 of our webinar in November with Haymarket Books and The American Prospect, featuring contributors to our Roundtable Series on how unions can defend worker power under Trump 2.0. You can read all the articles in the series here! Hear perspectives from Baltimore Teachers Union President Diamonté Brown, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter, and UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla. This webinar was co-moderated by pod co-host Natascha and David Dayen from The American Prospect. Listen to Part 1 here.  Listen to Part 2 here. 

Making new year’s resolutions we can actually keep *and* working on rebuilding the labor movement? That’s two birds with one handful of birdseed, as our gentle-hearted editor Al Bradbury would say. What would other Labor Notes staff say? Tune in to hear their voice note resolutions!  And if you too are going into the new year with a fresh sense of resolve and vigor—and maybe more than a few battle scars—you're not alone, and we want to hear from you!  Send us your resolutions, organizing questions, and even your holiday movie organizing takes, and we’ll try to tackle them on air! You can record a voice note on your phone or computer and email it to [email protected].

What do a "Charlie Brown Christmas," "Love Actually," "Little Women" and many of your other holiday faves have in common? We at the Labor Notes pod have played them backwards to decipher their coded organizing messages. 

You can count cards, mute your poker tells, or patiently coax the windfall out of a slot machine that someone just gave up on—but the house always wins, right?  And yet, 200 casino dealers at the Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino in Shelbyville, Indiana, just found a surefire strategy to stack their odds: solidarity. Dealer Tera Arnold joins the pod, along with our editor Al Bradbury, who reported last month on what has since become a victorious strike for union recognition, as members voted  overwhelmingly on Dec. 5 to join Teamsters Local 135.