The Labor Notes Podcast

How to Win a Strong Contract

What's the secret of winning a strong contract? Hint: You won't find it at the negotiations table!In our "Winning a Strong Contract" workshop series, we talk about how we can build power away from the table to win our demands in bargaining.  Labor Notes Organizer Lisa Xu joins pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Ulhmann for an overview of the workshop, including concepts like the campaign mountain and campaign power spiral."Winning a Strong Contract Parts I & II" will be running the next two Mondays (July 7 and July 14th), and you can sign up at labornotes.org/events.

How Grocery Workers in Indiana Said No to a Crappy Contract, and More from Our July Issue

Peek into the upcoming July issue of the Labor Notes magazine, featuring stories about grocery workers in Indiana fighting for a strong contract, and stories on the running theme of what it means to live under attempts at authoritarian rule and how working people are organizing right now. 
Get the Labor Notes magazine! To start with the August issue, subscribe by July 22: labornotes.org/store/labor-notes-subscription

Mexico’s independent auto union has bosses scared

Auto executives are well aware of what could be won should Mexico's independent auto union continue its winning streak: there hasn’t been a shared contract at 2 facilities in the Mexican auto industry’s 100-year history, a precedent SINTTIA is determined to break. 
The union made headlines when 6,500 workers voted overwhelmingly to join at GM’s Silao, Guanajuato plant in 2022. On the eve of a union election at a second GM facility, the company is flagrantly favoring a competitor union, SINTTIA says—a union that some allege has ties to organized crime. 
“It’s no use having a little plant with great working conditions and pay,” said Willebaldo Gómez Zuppa, a SINTTIA advisor. “Because ultimately, across the auto sector, all of the other plants are pushing conditions downward.” Improving standards for the long haul will depend on independent unions like SINTTIA building density in the sector as a whole, starting with key players like GM.

77,000 California Educators Are Joining Forces

California educators across the state are joining forces in their fight for full staffing, safe and stable schools, and competitive compensation in their contract negotiations this year. The “We Can’t Wait” campaign involves 32 locals covering 77,000 public school educators in California. That’s about a quarter of the California Teachers Association’s total membership, and those educators serve 1 million students.  Educators spoke with Labor Notes organizer and pod co-host Danielle Smith about how they united around common issues, lined up their contracts and organized their coworkers to maximize their leverage.

Grocery Workers at the UFCW are Organizing for a Fighting Union

What grocery workers are organizing for, and the way they’re doing it, can be a model for working class unionism.
In recent years, reform-minded members of the United Food and Commercial Workers—UFCW, one of the largest unions in the U.S.—have ramped up their campaigns to make their union more democratic and responsive to the needs of its 1.3 million members.
These members have organized toward resolutions at the 2023 convention, including to have direct elections of the international union’s top officers.
They sued the international in the spring of 2024 over other union democracy issues, pointing out how the UFCW allocates fewer delegates to larger locals. 
And they’re leading more vigorous contract fights and campaigns than we've seen in these sectors in decades.
Their fight can tell us a lot about how vital a reform current can be in transforming a union to actually represent its members’ interests, and fight for the working class as whole.
 
 

Stewards’ Corner: What if Union Meetings Were Actually Good?

Most union meetings are, frankly, pretty dry and ineffective.To an outsider, the agenda looks more or less the same every month, and it seems like the usual suspects show up to either pat themselves on the back, or fight. Labor Notes Organizer Joe DeManuelle-Hall joins pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann as they share ideas to make union meetings more engaging and useful. 

Beyond May Day, Part 2: Organizing in the Authoritarian Whirlwind

In this moment of existential struggle, what would it mean for our unions to act like a movement? How do we make sense of and tie together the multitude of attacks against working people?
We're joined again by Luis Feliz Leon, who walks us through strategic organizing formations and building on our victories.
If you haven't listened to part 1 of our conversation, don't miss it! We establish why unions are such a critical site for building power, and concrete tasks for organizers today.

Beyond May Day: Part 1

Billionaires and powerful interests are attempting to hijack our government to marginalize dissent, crush worker power, and drive immigrant workers and trans people out of public life—and that's just their starting point.
Meanwhile, workers have been building actions with their coworkers, most recently at more than a 1,000 May Day rallies across the US.
How do we escalate from this month's massive rallies and walkouts? How can workers build a movement that can resist against state terror and carry a vision for a society that works for all of us? How and where should we be meeting each other right now? 
Labor Notes Organizer Luis Feliz Leon joins the pod this week to talk about what organizing in this phase can look like.
This is part 1 of a two-part episode. Tune in again on Friday, May 23, for part 2! 

Stewards' Corner: Did You Know You're Allowed to Read Your Boss' Emails?

Stewards are often thought of merely as enforcers of a union contract on behalf of the unit. But as unit members themselves, stewards are in a real position to organize their co-workers—not just play a form of de facto legal defense in individual grievance cases. Joining this week's pod is Labor Notes organizer Joe DeManuelle-Hall, who leads Labor Notes stewards’ workshops on how to think like an organizer, and how to get the information you want from the boss.

Everything Sucks! Here’s What We Can Do About It

Labor Notes Organizer Barbara Madeloni joins the pod to share her notes for building power in a weary and anxious moment: Keep walking toward each other; Make a sober assessment of our landscape (avoid toxic positivity); and respond to attacks while building an offensive movement—one with a vision for providing the things people need to have full lives. As a one-time reform president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Barbara learned what it meant to organize in the face of attacks on public schools in Massachusetts. Here’s how she thinks some of those strategies could be put to use now on a broader scale.