The Labor Notes Podcast

Talking to neighbors about the issues they care about can be a lot like organizing coworkers to make your workplace better. The goal is to listen, cultivate relationships and build power as a working class.
Tune in to hear pod co-hosts Natascha and Danielle talk about Danielle's experience volunteering on the Zohran campaign and why it's meaningful for workers everywhere.

Francisco Ortiz, president of United Teachers Richmond in California, and Chris Spurlock, a steward in Teamsters Local 135 at Zenith Logistics (a third-party operator for Kroger), shared how their unions organized to coordinate on bargaining and contract expirations.
They shared their experiences in a recent Labor Notes online webinar. Hear the main highlights in this episode.

On the cover of the upcoming Labor Notes August/September issue is the divided, tentative response of building trades union leaders to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant members and equity initiatives, and its cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of construction projects. Labor Notes organizer Keith Brower Brown joins the pod.

There's a perception that unions shouldn’t take up “divisive” issues like immigration, and should focus instead on bread-and-butter topics members already agree on. We think that’s bad advice!
Organizing around social issues like the defense of immigrant workers is an opportunity for open, productive conversations based on mutual respect—and it can mobilize members who feel left behind by their unions. 
Ryan Andrews, an English teacher and member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) put it this way: “Anybody who thinks we have to ignore certain issues or avoid certain political conversations in order to grow the base, they don’t understand what it means to grow the base.” 
As Natascha Elena Uhlmann and Sarah Lazare report in a collaboration with Workday Magazine, workers across the country are taking up the fight against ICE, and strengthening their unions in the process.

As the GOP budget bill formalizes this administration’s large-scale attacks on government agencies and programs meant to support working people, it’s worth remembering the labor struggles that built them in the first place. Labor Notes editor Jenny Brown joins the pod.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.