How Do We Build Worker Power Under Trump 2.0? (with guest Eric Blanc)
The current moment in the U.S.—marked by billionaire assaults on the working class, the Trump administration’s authoritarian maneuvers, and widespread voter dissatisfaction with both major political parties—presents new challenges and opportunities for the labor movement.
Rank-and-file members can and are demanding more of their leaders, and unions are being challenged to think about how they should be mobilizing their roughly 14 million members right now.
If the goal is to lift up independent working-class leaders and organizations, what should unions be doing differently to rebuild union density and democracy?
Eric Blanc, one of the contributors to the Labor Notes Roundtable series, where we have invited organizers and scholars to address that question, joins the pod to discuss his piece, “After No Kings, How Can We Escalate?”
Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University and an organizer trainer in the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.
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All Horror Movies Are About Organizing, Actually: The Labor Notes Hallowepisode
What can horror movies and fiction teach us about fighting back against the real life horrors of our bad bosses? Tune in to our Hallowepisode to hear about the organizing lessons we saw in the 1988 cult classic from John Carpenter, They Live, and Shirley Jackson’s 1959 pillar in the horror genre, The Haunting of Hill House. Plus, a little Stewards Corner with… Nosferatu (2024) Gulp! But don’t worry, we don’t bite.
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Are the Democrats F*cking Up the Shutdown?
Federal Workers organizing with the Federal Unionists Network have been using the shutdown to organize within their unions, and to push the message that workers should collectively stand firm against cuts to vital programs and executive overreach.
Their actions are bringing clarity and organization to the fight at a time when leading Democrats are framing the shutdown as an inconvenience and Donald Trump as its perpetrator.
Labor Notes editor Jenny Brown joins the pod.
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Stewards’ Corner: Workplace Safety Is Not a Game
Employer-run safety games are not merely instructional or even “fun.” They’re there to trivialize workplace hazards and to pass the buck onto individual workers for their own safety, instead of listening to workers about how to eliminate the dangers they encounter at work every day.
Labor Notes Organizer Kari Thompson joins pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann to talk about a Stewards’ Corner piece we ran on this topic, titled, “Workplace Safety is Not a Game.” This piece was adapted from the UE Steward, a project by the United Electrical Workers Education Department that publishes how-to articles. Browse them all at bit.ly/UESteward.
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Wells Fargo Workers Push to Bring A Union to the Banking Industry
Workers at Wells Fargo are organizing the first union at a major U.S. bank—in one of the least-organized industries in the country.
Labor Notes Editor Dan DiMaggio, whose story on their organizing efforts is on the cover of our October issue, joins the pod. You can also read his piece,“Wells Fargo Workers Push to Bring A Union to the Banking Industry,” on our website.
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The Labor Notes Podcast is a new show from the folks who put on the Labor Notes conference every two years.
We’ll talk each week about the strikes, contract campaigns, shop floor actions, reform caucus organizing, and union elections that our staff and rank-and-file workers in the labor movement’s troublemaking wing write about and work on all year round.
New episodes on Fridays.
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