The Labor Notes Podcast

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.

Listen here to part 2 of our webinar this month 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.

Mail and parcel delivery workers at Canada Post, who are members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, have been bargaining for two years against an intransigent management whose stonewalling is being supported by the Canadian government.  CUPW members have mounted full on strikes twice in just the past year, and taken several other disruptive actions. Management meanwhile has largely ignored their proposals and advanced policies that would end vital services and slash jobs.  This story reflects a phenomenon of the privatization era: the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility is being used to erode affordable, quality public services, and to eliminate stable middle class jobs. And the way that CUPW members are organizing to fight back has lessons for workers everywhere.  Read the story by pod co-host and staff organizer Danielle Smith: “Canadian Postal Workers Strike Again.”

Listen here to part 1 of our webinar this month 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-cohost Natascha and David Dayen from The American Prospect.

International solidarity more than just a chant. It’s how we will raise conditions for workers across borders without allowing the bosses to play us against each other.  Few things make that more explicit than the story of what auto workers in Mexico have been dealing with—from their employers, from some of their unions, and from U.S. trade policy. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), passed in 2020, was tasked with reviewing the implementation of Mexico’s labor reforms. But those reforms have proved challenging to implement, demonstrating the limits of legal solutions to problems that ultimately call for organizing. Read the story by Labor Notes pod co-host and staff writer Natascha Elena Uhlmann: "We Can’t Bridge the U.S.-Mexico Wage Gap Without Supporting Organizing in Mexico."