The Labor Notes Podcast

15,000 Nurses are on the Largest Nurses Strike in New York City in Decades

Thousands of nurses, members of the New York State Nurses Association, are heading toward the third week of their open-ended strike, an uncommon strategy among nurses and a rare show of organized strength and resolve.
They’re defending the safe staffing ratios that nurses have fought hard for and won through prior strikes; they’re fighting for better conditions for patients at underfunded hospitals like Montefiore in the Bronx; they’re demanding better protocols against workplace violence; and they’re fighting to make sure that management won’t just recklessly force the use of A.I. to replace the medical judgement of skilled and experienced human nurses.
Read Labor Notes' coverage this month of the NYSNA strike. 
Follow us on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for labor news updates! 

Why Don't We Have More Labor Films? (w/ director Chris Sessions and Working Films)

The documentary Partners: How Starbucks Baristas Started a Labor Revolution charts the seemingly improbable course set off by a group of workers in Buffalo, New York, who organized the first Starbucks location in 2021 and helped to grow a highly visible, energetic movement.
The film casts Starbucks workers as a symbol of persistence in the face of vicious union-busting, and projects hope for renewed militancy among rank-and-file workers everywhere.
Director Chris Sessions and Andy Myers from Working Films join pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann.
Support Striking Baristas! 
1. Organize a screening of "Partners" in your community! Learn more: https://www.partnersthefilm.com/
 
2. Sign the "No Contract, No Coffee" pledge and don't buy from Starbucks during the strike: nocontractnocoffee.org
 
3. Contribute to the Starbucks Workers United national strike fund.
 
Check out our previous episode on the SBWU strike from November, featuring barista Sabina Aguirre and Labor Notes editor Jenny Brown.

Part 3: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Under Trump 2.0.?

Listen here to part 3 of our webinar in November with Haymarket Books and The American Prospect, featuring contributors to our Roundtable Series on how unions can defend worker power under Trump 2.0. You can read all the articles in the series here!
Hear perspectives from Baltimore Teachers Union President Diamonté Brown, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter, and UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla.
This webinar was co-moderated by pod co-host Natascha and David Dayen from The American Prospect.
Listen to Part 1 here. 
Listen to Part 2 here. 

2026 is OUR Year (w/ Labor Notes staff)

Making new year’s resolutions we can actually keep *and* working on rebuilding the labor movement? That’s two birds with one handful of birdseed, as our gentle-hearted editor Al Bradbury would say. What would other Labor Notes staff say? Tune in to hear their voice note resolutions! 
And if you too are going into the new year with a fresh sense of resolve and vigor—and maybe more than a few battle scars—you're not alone, and we want to hear from you! 
Send us your resolutions, organizing questions, and even your holiday movie organizing takes, and we’ll try to tackle them on air! You can record a voice note on your phone or computer and email it to podcast@labornotes.org.

All Holiday Movies Are About Organizing, Actually: The Labor Notes Pod Holidaypalooza

What do a "Charlie Brown Christmas," "Love Actually," "Little Women" and many of your other holiday faves have in common? We at the Labor Notes pod have played them backwards to decipher their coded organizing messages. 

Casino Dealers Brought Back the Recognition Strike and Won (w/ Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino dealer Tera Arnold)

You can count cards, mute your poker tells, or patiently coax the windfall out of a slot machine that someone just gave up on—but the house always wins, right? 
And yet, 200 casino dealers at the Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino in Shelbyville, Indiana, just found a surefire strategy to stack their odds: solidarity.
Dealer Tera Arnold joins the pod, along with our editor Al Bradbury, who reported last month on what has since become a victorious strike for union recognition, as members voted  overwhelmingly on Dec. 5 to join Teamsters Local 135.

Part 2: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Under Trump 2.0.?

Listen here to part 2 of our webinar last month with Haymarket Books and The American Prospect, featuring contributors to our Roundtable Series on how unions can defend worker power under Trump 2.0. You can read all the articles in the series here!
Hear perspectives from Baltimore Teachers Union President Diamonté Brown, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter, and UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla.
This webinar was co-moderated by pod co-host Natascha and David Dayen from The American Prospect.
Listen to Part 1 here. 

Canadian Postal Workers Have Had Enough of Government Backed-Management Stonewalling

Mail and parcel delivery workers at Canada Post, who are members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, have been bargaining for two years against an intransigent management whose stonewalling is being supported by the Canadian government. 
CUPW members have mounted full on strikes twice in just the past year, and taken several other disruptive actions. Management meanwhile has largely ignored their proposals and advanced policies that would end vital services and slash jobs. 
This story reflects a phenomenon of the privatization era: the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility is being used to erode affordable, quality public services, and to eliminate stable middle class jobs. And the way that CUPW members are organizing to fight back has lessons for workers everywhere. 
Read the story by pod co-host and staff organizer Danielle Smith: “Canadian Postal Workers Strike Again.”

Part 1: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Under Trump 2.0.?

Listen here to part 1 of our webinar this month with Haymarket Books and The American Prospect, featuring contributors to our Roundtable Series on how unions can defend worker power under Trump 2.0. You can read all the articles in the series here!
Hear perspectives from Baltimore Teachers Union President Diamonté Brown, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter and UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla.
This webinar was co-moderated by pod-cohost Natascha and David Dayen from The American Prospect.

Notes on the USMCA: The Real Solution to Offshoring and Union-Busting is Cross-Border Solidarity

International solidarity more than just a chant. It’s how we will raise conditions for workers across borders without allowing the bosses to play us against each other. Few things make that more explicit than the story of what auto workers in Mexico have been dealing with—from their employers, from some of their unions, and from U.S. trade policy. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), passed in 2020, was tasked with reviewing the implementation of Mexico’s labor reforms. But those reforms have proved challenging to implement, demonstrating the limits of legal solutions to problems that ultimately call for organizing. Read the story by Labor Notes pod co-host and staff writer Natascha Elena Uhlmann: "We Can’t Bridge the U.S.-Mexico Wage Gap Without Supporting Organizing in Mexico."