The Labor Notes Podcast

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. 

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.

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. 

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.”

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.

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."

As of Thursday morning, members of Starbucks Workers United were on strike in 65 stores across the U.S., a massive escalation in their fight for a first contract. They are asking customers not to buy coffee at any Starbucks location during their strike.Starbucks baristas have been in bargaining for over a year and half now, after striking regularly to get the company to the bargaining table in February 2024, as our editor Jenny Brown reported at the time.Baristas have said that they are subjected to low pay (starting at $15 to $19 an hour) that leaves them dependent on SNAP and Medicaid, and that they are dealing with dire understaffing that's led to overwork for them and long wait times for customers.Joining the pod this week are Jenny Brown, and Starbucks barista Sabina Aguirre, who works in Columbus, Ohio. Learn more about how members organized to get strike ready in Jenny’s recent piece, “Strike Captains and Practice Pickets: Starbucks Workers Aim to Bring a Contract Home.”Starbucks Workers United members are asking customers to show solidarity by: 
Not crossing the picket line — don’t buy Starbucks from any of its locations during the strike.
Joining a picket line near you by using the Starbucks Workers United picket line map. 
Joining the allies call on Monday, November 17 
Amplifying their posts on Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and Bluesky. 
Learn more at nocontractnocoffee.org.

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.

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.

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.