The Labor Notes Podcast

The Fair Share Amendment in Massachusetts, which passed in 2022, has helped offer free community college to tuition residents, provide free school meals for students, run free regional buses, and has helped to fund a multi-billion-dollar capital program for public higher education and vocational high schools.
It’s a tax on the rich that brought in $3 billion in 2025 and went toward public education and transportation. Read more in the piece by MTA president Max Page: “We’re Making ‘Tax the Rich’ More Than a Slogan.”The measure was the result of organizing by groups including the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, which the Massachusetts Teachers Association has teamed up with. Page, also a member of the Raise Up Massachusetts steering committee, joins the pod along with former MTA president and retiring Labor Notes Organizer Barbara Madeloni.

There’s no magic formula for moving your co-worker (nor should there be)! Organizing is about building real relationships across the shop floor based on mutual trust and a shared vision for a better workplace—and having good 1-1 conversations is an important first step! If you’ve ever been to an organizing training, you’ve probably also heard the mantra to listen more than you talk. But what does that mean? You’re not just here to be someone’s therapist or provide a parallel HR service or create endless surveys! You want to transform your workplace into one that meets your bargaining unit’s needs on the job by building power together. To do that, it helps to understand what makes a good organizing conversation. Drawn from decades of tested tactics that have worked in shop floors across industries, here are some ways to have great 1-1 conversations that will leave you and your co-workers energized and more connected to the union you’re building together!  Labor Notes Organizer Sarah Hughes joins the pod.

“Secrets of a Successful Organizer” is a core Labor Notes workshop that packages a member-led organizing philosophy into a concrete action plan that you can start using in your union campaigns. It’s also based on our bestseller of the same name where we explore the basics of bringing members into the union, understanding how your co-workers are already organized, and identifying leaders who can amplify members’ demands and help build power. Our “Secrets of a Successful Organizer” online workshop series usually takes place in three sessions on different themes: Beating Apathy, Assembling Your Dream Team, and Turning an Issue Into a Campaign. In this third and final episode in a three-part pod series on this training, we’ll focus on “Turning an Issue Into a Campaign.” Labor Notes Organizer Sarah Hughes joins the pod. Listen to Part 1 and to Part 2 here!

“Secrets of a Successful Organizer” is a core Labor Notes workshop that packages a member-led organizing philosophy into a concrete action plan that you can start using in your union!
This workshop series, based on our bestselling manual of the same name, usually takes place in three sessions focusing on different themes: Beating Apathy, Assembling Your Dream Team, and Turning an Issue Into a Campaign.
In this second of our three-part pod series on our “Secrets” training, we’ll get into the theme of “Assembling Your Dream Team.”
Labor Notes Organizer Sarah Hughes joins the pod. Listen to Part 1 of this series here. 

If you’ve been to a Labor Notes event before, you’re probably familiar with “Secrets of a Successful Organizer,” one of our main workshop series that packages a member-led organizing philosophy into a concrete action plan that you can take to your union and start using in your campaigns.
It’s also based on our bestselling manual of the same name where we explore the basics of bringing members into the union, understanding how your co-workers are already organized, and identifying leaders who can amplify members’ demands and help build power.
Our “Secrets of a Successful Organizer” online workshop series usually takes place in three sessions where we focus on different themes: Beating Apathy, Assembling Your Dream Team, and Turning an Issue Into a Campaign.
In this first of a three-part pod series on our “Secrets” training, we’ll focus on the theme of “Beating Apathy,” i.e. Your Co-Workers Actually Care About Making Your Workplace Better!
Labor Notes Organizer Sarah Hughes, who often leads “Secrets” trainings and teaches union members to run them too, joins the pod.

This next one's for soup lovers, haters, and everyone in between. You will learn a little about soup and less about what makes something a soup movie. But if you're here for the organizing take on The Birdcage (1996), American Psycho (2000) and Ratatouille (2007), grab a big spoon and a napkin, because soup's on! 🍜

Update on 4/6: JBS workers have agreed to go back to work and the company is returning to the table, Mother Jones reports. 
Listen to / read our previous coverage on this strike, which workers had extended last week: Nearly 4,000 workers at the JBS beef processing plant in Greeley, Colorado, walked off the job on March 16, launching a two-week unfair labor practice strike that they had extended then into a third week. Workers spoke to Caitlyn Clark, an organizer at Essential Workers for Democracy, and Lisa Xu, a Labor Notes Organizer, who both join the pod this week.Read Caitlyn and Lisa’s Labor Notes story on the strike here.
Learn more about the 1980s Hormel strike here. 
Support striking JBS workers by contributing to their strike fund, supporting Essential Workers for Democracy’s fundraiser, and learning more about the strike here. And learn more about the movement to revitalize the United Food and Commercial Workers in our podcast episode from June: “Grocery Workers at the UFCW are Organizing for a Fighting Union.”

The new Labor Notes guide to Organizing a Union Reform Caucus spells out some basic concepts and definitions around reform caucuses and organizing, but will also be useful to anyone who has been on this path for a while.Labor Notes Organizers Lisa Xu and Barbara Madeloni (who is retiring) join the pod to talk through some deeper questions around running for office, the relationship between caucuses and leadership, and building democratic structures that can help members work through decision-making and conflict. This is part 2 of a two-part series on this new resource, which you can find on labornotes.org/caucus.  Listen to part 1 here.

Have you and your co-workers been shut out of bargaining? Have you felt pressured to vote yes on a contract you really didn't like? Do you feel like there aren't a lot of ways to address issues in your union besides filing complaints or grievances that seem to go into a void? Rank-and-file members win more and build power in their workplaces when they also have a voice in their unions! It’s the lesson that hundreds of thousands of workers—including educators, building trades workers, Hollywood film production crew members, Teamsters, United Auto Workers members, letter carriers and grocery workers— have held onto as they’ve fought for better from their unions and waged militant fights against the bosses. If you and your co-workers are on this path, you’ll love the new Labor Notes Guide: How to Build A Union Reform Caucus. Find answers to questions like: What’s a reform caucus? Is that even the right option for me and my co-workers? How would it work? What about running for union office? This is part 1 of a two-part series on this new resource, which you can find on labornotes.org/caucus.  Labor Notes Organizer Lisa Xu and and retiring Labor Notes Organizer Barbara Madeloni join the podcast.

In this first year of the Labor Notes Podcast, our weekly show on rank-and-file news and organizing tactics, we’ve covered mass strikes, contract fights, and organizing breakthroughs even in this era of escalating repression at work and on the streets.
Retail workers are leading organizing drives. Building trades workers, letter carriers and grocery workers are pushing for more transparency and democracy in their unions. Immigrant workers and allies are strategizing ways to build power with their co-workers and neighbors to fight back against the brutality of immigration raids.
In this anniversary episode, we look back at a year of workers banding together and raising expectations for what we can win.
Here are links to past episodes we highlight in this one: 
How Workers Pulled Off a Mass Strike in Minnesota (February 6, 2026)
Casino Dealers Brought Back the Recognition Strike and Won (December 19, 2025)
Starbucks Workers are on a Nationwide Strike for a First Contract (November 14, 2025)
Are the Democrats F*cking Up the Shutdown? (October 24, 2025)
Stewards’ Corner: Workplace Safety Is Not a Game (October 17, 2025)
Grocery Workers at the UFCW are Organizing for a Fighting Union (June 6, 2025)
Stewards’ Corner: What if Union Meetings Were Actually Good? (May 30, 2025)
Facing Privatization And DOGE Attacks, Postal Workers Are Fighting Back (April 11, 2025)