The Labor Notes Podcast

This fall, 200,000 members of the Letter Carriers will get the chance to vote (perhaps fittingly, by mail ballot) for new leadership. 

For many postal workers fed up with low pay, forced overtime, dangerous heat, and robberies—conditions they see their opaque, undemocratic leadership failing to address—the upcoming election is a focal point for recent reform currents brewing in the union.  

They’ll be voting on 10 officers, three trustees, and 15 regional business agents. Labor Notes Editor Al Bradbury joins the episode. 

Also check out: 

Letter Carriers Set to Deliver Change in Upcoming Union Election by Alexandra Bradbury, July 29, 2026

On the Labor Notes Pod, in April 2025: Facing Privatization And DOGE Attacks, Postal Workers Are Fighting Back

Labor Notes Online Workshop: What to Do When Your Union Breaks Your Heart, Tuesday, August 18 

Labor Notes Online Workshop: Running for Union Office, Tuesday, September 15 

New Labor Notes Book: Running for Local Union Office

You want to bring in more members to share the work of your contract action team? Think like an organizer. You want to win more grievances? Think like an organizer. Your group chat won’t commit to wearing Hawaiian shirts together to the Jaws screening? Think like an organizer.

This is a common Labor Notes refrain to many organizing conundrums—but what does it mean in practice? Is it bringing a problem-solving approach that engages and involves more people? Making direct asks of our fellow union members? Watching more movies together?

Labor Notes Organizer Joe DeManuelle-Hall joins the pod for philosophical takes and practical tips on this eternal question.

And don't miss our upcoming online Stewards' Workshop on this topic: Thinking Like an Organizer! Monday, August 10, 8 p.m. Eastern. SIGN UP HERE!

For over four decades now, workers have seen their steady, reliable pension payouts replaced by more uncertain returns from 401(k) plans—where employees’ payments are invested in retirement accounts that are vulnerable to the stock market.

But just this month, power workers in Pennsylvania did something that worked—workers at PECO, the electric company for the Philadelphia region and Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility, won defined-benefit pensions for 600 newer hires who had been offered 401(k)s, and they won full medical coverage in retirement, Mindy Isser reported for Labor Notes. 

Pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann talk about Mindy’s piece on how they did it.

More than 2,000 stadium workers in Los Angeles scored a goal that VAR can’t take away: they overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike and built a credible threat to walk off the job during World Cup matches scheduled at the SoFi stadium—and they won the right to strike over ICE. 

Their campaign, and others like it this summer—including in Philadelphia where workers at the Sheraton and Warwick hotels won contracts that will raise wages to $30 an hour by 2028—show how workers are strategically assessing their leverage and notching concrete wins.

Read the story by Labor Notes Organizers Paul Prescod and Natascha Elena Uhlmann. Paul and UNITE HERE Local 274 member Kathleen Householder from Philadelphia join the episode.

Gig workers are often sold the lie that their job is flexible, customizable, and lets them be their own boss. But that hides the reality that they don’t control a lot of their own basic working conditions, including the rates they’re paid or even if they can continue working with the app, if they’re arbitrarily deactivated. 

In May, hundreds of app workers across Mexico held a two-hour work stoppage to escalate their demands and to fight for a collective agreement with app giants like Uber, DiDi, and Rappi (two Uber Eats-style delivery platforms), reported Natascha Elena Uhlmann. 

Joining Natascha and Danielle this week is Luis Fernando Mora Reyes, an app worker from Mexico City and the secretary of training and culture for the National App Workers Union (la Union Nacional de Trabajadores por Aplicación or UNTA). 

Read Natascha’s story in English: Mexico's Gig Workers Fight Efforts to Hollow Out Their Employee Status Win

Lee el artículo de noticias de Natascha en español: Los trabajadores por aplicación luchan por hacer valer sus derechos bajo la reforma laboral