Labourwave Revolution Radio

Comrades Luke and Tim join the show to discuss the rank and file critique of business unionism put forward by Stan Weir. Throughout his writings and his life Stan Weir operated by the creed that one should not "let people feel that their job is to sit back and admire somebody else." Our conversation focuses on Stan Weir's critique of "business unionism," guided by his confidence in the capacity of workers organizing their own independent and radical unions. Weir provides a corrective to the story of the CIO where he highlights how the CIO was formed by rank and file workers and then was pushed into bureaucratic forms by labor officialdom. Weir also challenges the romanticized historiography of union leaders like Walter Reuther and Harry Bridges, pointing to their methods of suppressing rank and file militancy. From the book jacket, "Blue-collar intellectual and activist, Stan Weir devoted his life to the advocacy of his fellow workers. Singlejack Solidarity offers a rare look at life and social relations

Re-issue of our conversation with Marianne Garneau discussing her article in Organizing.Work, "You Say You Want a General Strike?" Garneau takes a critical look at general strikes conducted in Europe and argues they have not had the powerful impacts popularly imagined by US audiences. She then discusses the possibilities of importing the tactic to the United States. Read the full article at https://organizing.work/2019/08/you-say-you-want-a-general-strike/ Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our patreon at patreon.com/laborwave We have gifts depending on the tier you join, and exclusive access to our archives and Discord server. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871

Hamilton Nolan joins the show to elaborate on his article "Get Rid of No Strike Clauses and Stop Begging" written for In These Times. Nolan argues that the right to strike is the only thing that gives working people power. He identifies the weaknesses of organized labor within a paradigm of collective bargaining where surrendering the right to strike is the norm, and argues that in order to turn the tide of union power in the US it is necessary for rank and file union members to commit to reclaiming the strike and eliminating no strike clauses from their contracts. Read the article at https://inthesetimes.com/article/no-strike-clause-labor-peace-union-contracts Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our patreon at patreon.com/laborwave We have gifts depending on the tier you join, and exclusive access to our archives and Discord server. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871

Veteran labor organizer, Elizabeth Laycak, joins the show to discuss how two new workers employed by Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. in Scranton, PA would initiate a unionization campaign with a strategy to win. We cover mapping and charting, assessments, identifying leaders (and isolating anti-union workers), along with the importance of secrecy and inoculation throughout the campaign. Very fun episode and Laborwave Radio is making an open invitation to any of our listeners that wish to discuss the hypothetical union campaign they would conduct at any fictional workplace on television or the big screen! Contact LR at laborwavenews@gmail.com if you've got a pitch! Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our patreon at patreon.com/laborwave We have gifts depending on the tier you join, and exclusive access to our archives and Discord server. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871

Ruby and Zama, workers at Amazon and members of Amazonians United, join the show to discuss their methods of shop floor organizing and direct unionism. They share stories of how AU emerged, initially through breaking bread and resocializing the workplace, to their first direct action demanding access to water in the shop. We also discussed the dismissal of AU by proponents of business unionism, and offer a critique of conventional labor union practices. Learn more about AU at https://www.amazoniansunited.org/ Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our patreon at patreon.com/laborwave We have gifts depending on the tier you join, and exclusive access to our archives and Discord server. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871 Music: Ty Segall- Love Fuzz

Marybeth Seitz-Brown, organizer and former rank-and-file member with the NewsGuild of New York, joins the show to discuss how deep organizing is necessary for building robust union democracy and pushing union members to tackle the biggest issues of the day. Building off her article, "The Left Needs to Engage Members If We Want to Win Big" in The Forge, Marybeth puts forward grounded advice on how to develop methods for ensuring union democracy is an active practice and organizing approaches workers with the expectation that their politics and activity can change over time. We discuss why it matters to view democracy as the practice of "governing by obeying," the need to expand the political imagination around what unions can fight for and win, and how deep organizing can build the structures within our unions necessary for accomplishing the above. Read the article at https://forgeorganizing.org/article/left-needs-engage-members-if-we-want-win-big Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our pat

Comrades Andrea, Kali, Luke, and Nick join the show to discuss the film Lapsis, from writer/director Noah Hutton. In a parallel present, delivery man Ray Tincelli takes a job in the gig economy. He begins pulling cable to link together the new quantum trading market. We talk about the film's realistic depiction of working in the gig economy and the power of organizing against it, the tactic of sabotage, and how capitalism is a ponzi scheme that keeps us sick and pits automation against the toiling masses and natural environment. Thanks to Taylor Hess, film producer for making it possible for us to have this discussion, and director Noah Hutton for allowing us to screen the movie! You can find Lapsis online for rent at vudu.com and Laborwave Radio highly recommends it for you and all your friends. Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our patreon at patreon.com/laborwave We have gifts depending on the tier you join, and exclusive access to our archives and Discord server. Leave us a review on Ap

MK Lees, contributor and regular editor of Organizing Work, joins Laborwave Radio to discuss the strategy of "salting" a workplace to boost a union campaign, and the need to refine this practice for optimal impact. Among topics discussed in this episode is a response to the claim that salting is the best strategy for revitalizing a militant labor movement, and how salting done well abides by understanding that a salt cannot substitute for a committee of rank and file workers. The article, "Salt: The Flavor, Not the Meal," published in Organizing Work formed the basis of our conversation. Read it at https://organizing.work/2020/06/salt-the-flavor-not-the-meal/ Please support Laborwave Radio by subscribing to our patreon at patreon.com/laborwave We have gifts depending on the tier you join, and exclusive access to our archives and Discord server. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871

Tom Wetzel, author of the forthcoming book Overcoming Capitalism from AK Press, joins Laborwave Radio to discuss a syndicalist critique of Kim Moody's rank and file strategy. Our conversation focuses on arguments made by Wetzel in two pieces for Black Rose Anarchist Federation, The Case for Building New Unions https://blackrosefed.org/the-case-for-building-new-unions-wetzel/; and The Rank and File Strategy: A Syndicalist View https://blackrosefed.org/wetzel-rank-and-file-strategy-syndicalist/ Wetzel points out that Moody's strategy exclusively relies on transforming existing business unions, an unlikely task but also one that overlooks how nearly 90% of workers do not belong to unions and can be organized into independent unions. Rather than reforming business unions and then hoping it expands into more unions, Wetzel maintains our primary focus should be on organizing the non-unionized workers into entirely different types of unions. This and more in our conversation. Please support Laborwave Radio by s

Comrades Andrea Haverkamp, Nick Fisher, Tim and Joe Clement join Laborwave Radio for another series of Comrades Read! We dig into the "Rank and File Strategy" a popular 30-page pamphlet written by Kim Moody in 2000 for the publication Solidarity. We provide a summary of Moody's argument, that socialists are marginal in labor unions and therefore need to create "transitional organizations" to insert radical activity into unions and build toward a larger international socialist organization, and also talk through our points of agreement, departure, and the possible limits of the rank and file strategy. Comrades challenged the idea that unions need to build toward a "socialist party" apparatus, while others acknowledged Moody's emphasis on focusing where we have current capacity in the working-class and therefore the rank and file strategy gives us a pathway for contemporary conditions. This and more in the first episode of another mini-series where we'll be discussing the Rank and File Strategy! Read the

Peter Cole joins the show to discuss the second edition of his book Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly published by PM Press. The range and scope of this episode expands over the backdrop of early 20th century Philadelphia and recounts the biographical details of Wobbly organizer Ben Fletcher and the tale of IWW Local 8, a powerful dock workers union that practiced anti-racist unionism which Ben Fletcher helped to create. We also discuss the demise of Local 8, brought down by a multitude of historical forces such as WWI and employer counter-offensives as well as fraught internal divisions between the IWW and Communist Party and competition from business unions such as the International Longshoremen's Association. Get a copy of the book at https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1144 Become a Laborwave Radio patron to support this show at patreon.com/laborwave Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast

Laborwave Radio and the One Big Podcast collaborate on this episode discussing the particulars of solidarity unionism in contrast to business unionism. We dig into the various tenets of solidarity unionism; its emphasis on direct action over contracts, focus on the workplace and industry over legal strategies and electoralism, and the prospects for dual-carding in a shop represented by a business union. One Big Podcast is the official podcast of the Ypsilanti IWW, listen to the podcast and find out more about the branch at https://www.iwwypsi.org/ Become a Laborwave Radio patron to support this show at patreon.com/laborwave Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871 Music: Natural Child- Sure Is Nice

Sarah Jaffe, author, labor journalist, and one of the hosts of Belabored Podcast, joins Laborwave Radio to discuss her new book, Work Won't Love You Back published by Bold Type Books. You’re told that if you “do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” But as Sarah Jaffe shows, “doing what you love” is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. We discuss the themes of the book, the downsides when punk rock is created by trust fund kids, and what love might look like in a world free of capitalist forms of work. Get a copy of the book at https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/sarah-jaffe/work-wont-love-you-back/9781568589398/ Find more work from Sarah Jaffe at https://sarahljaffe.com/ Become a Laborwave Radio patron to support this show at patreon.com/laborwave Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/labo…io/id1536697871 Music from In The

Support Laborwave Radio at patreon.com/laborwave Alex Press, labor reporter and staff writer at Jacobin Magazine, joins the show to discuss Joe Biden's union credentials and what organized labor should and shouldn't expect from a Biden administration. As made clear in this interview- not much without a fight. We also dig into the details of the PRO Act, the types of unions the working class wants and needs, and how the primary means for workers to win progressive legislation is to form militant unions and engage in class struggle. This interview follows an article from Alex Press that you can read at https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-labor-unions-afl-cio-kamala-harris Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, it helps our content reach new listeners. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laborwave-radio/id1536697871 Music from In The Red Records: Fuzz- Rat Race

Sustain Laborwave Radio by becoming a patron at patreon.com/laborwave Laborwave spoke with workers at No Evil Foods about the company's union busting strategy against a unionization campaign organized by employees. Megan, John, and Max discuss in detail the tactics of No Evil Foods union busting, including a marathon series of captive audience meetings totaling 14 hours, illegal firings, and censorship, and how workers should prepare for aggressive anti-union campaigns conducted by bosses. We also delved into a conversation about "solidarity unionism" and the IWW as a viable alternative to conventional union recognition campaigns. This episode includes never heard before leaked audio from captive audience meetings owners of No Evil Foods forced their employees to attend! Despite being a "progressive" company producing vegan meat alternatives and naming their products in socialist language like "comrade cluck," No Evil Foods prioritizes profit over people and demonstrates a no-holds-barred approach to un

Support Laborwave Radio at patreon.com/laborwave Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese are the editors of The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy published by Pluto Press. Order a copy at https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341484/the-cost-of-free-shipping/ With cutting-edge analysis, this book looks at the many facets of the corporation, including automation, surveillance, tech work, workers' struggle, algorithmic challenges, the disruption of local democracy and much more. Mentioned in the talk is a panel event with the editors from November, when this episode was recorded, you've missed that discussion but you can watch the video of it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYeH0jLmHFM Join the fight against Amazon by connecting with Amazonians United at https://www.amazoniansunited.org/ and read an interview with the workers at https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/amazon-manages-us-through-stress/ Learn more about forms of solidarity work from this piece at Jacobin, Amazon Workers Desperately

The IWW is 115 years old! In celebration we invited Marianne Garneau & Nick Driedger from Organizing Work to discuss the nuts and bolts of organizing within the IWW and our future as a union. What accounts for the recent upsurge in IWW organizing campaigns? How do we make more universal for all Wobblies our educational documents and training programs? What, if any, strategic industries should we focus on and should we target smaller workplaces or larger ones to build power? Finally, how much should we branch off from organizing in the workplace to forms of organizing outside of it? We discuss all of the above questions, as well as the challenges we face in building one big union, including the dominant presence of business unions and increasing precarity of workers in North America. Transcript forthcoming! Links: Laborwave Radio patreon patreon.com/laborwave Organizing Work https://organizing.work Join the IWW! (but you have to promise to organize your coworkers!) https://iww.org The Civil Wars in U.S

Laborwave Radio presents a podcast mini-series, After The Revolution. ​ After the Revolution is inspired by the desire to offer more than a diagnosis of what is wrong with today by focusing on what we might be able to bring about instead. Each episode within this series will begin by highlighting the importance of one particular feature of society, then imagining what it might look like after the revolution, and finally offering some ideas on how we get to this revolutionary society. Our fourth episode is Malls After the Revolution featuring Shawn of Srsly Wrong, a utopian leftist comedy podcast (https://srslywrong.com/). "We can't just have a perfect mall that works and is static. We can think of a bunch of different things that are the conditions of a good mall that we can try to increase over time, such as making sure that community members have access. We could try to make a static mall, but it's like trying to paint the smell of oranges. Or trying to translate the taste of soup into a song. It does n

Crossposting an interview Laborwave Radio host, Alex Riccio, had with Joseph Orosco of the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures about the #ScholarStrike. The recent online #ScholarStrike claimed to be a way for higher ed faculty to engage in radical action in support of racial justice and against police violence in the US. In the conversation I argue that the #ScholarStrike missed big opportunities for social change and revealed some misunderstandings that many academics have about power and their own place in systems of oppression. Rather than have digital conferences, higher education workers should build alternative organizations to challenge the power structure of their universities to bring racial justice to the BIPOC staff and community that work at their institutions. Read the full article at https://www.laborwaveradio.com/post/strikes-are-not-for-spectacle For more information on the Anarres Project, visit @AnarresProject on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or go to anarresproject.org. Suppo

Join in on the fun Discord conversations by becoming a Laborwave Patron at patreon.com/laborwave We're reading books, sharing articles, and watching movies via discord with our patreon subscribers. We've finished No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power by Jane McAlevey! Each chapter has been discussed at length in our series Comrades Read Together, and three veteran labor organizers join us for this final conversation. Michael Marchmann, staff organizer for GTFF 3544, Sarah Pishioneri, staff organizer for CGE 6069, and Andrea Haverkamp, president of CGE 6069, chat with Laborwave Radio about the difference between "pretend power" and "real power." Our conversation circles largely around the question of, what Marx famously described, "class in itself" vs. "class for itself." How do we, as leftist organizers, connect disparate movement agents during times of crisis to move from having history enacted upon the working class to the working class enacting history? With the looming pandemic providing pathways towa