Labor Radio-Podcast Weekly

Solidarity Breakfast; Your Rights At Work; OnWriting; Heartland Labor Forum; My Labor Radio; LRPN Livestream; We Do The Work

On today’s show, we welcome a new member of the Network from Down Under, as Solidarity Breakfast, based in Melbourne, Australia, reports on workers at an ice cream shop fighting for their rights.
On this week’s Your Rights At Work radio show, labor journalist Sarah Jaffe told us why Work Won’t Love You Back.
Then, the OnWriting podcast talks with award-winning screenwriter Lena Waithe, creator and writer on the BET comedy series TWENTIES.
We’ve got a mini-theme on plant closings as the Heartland Labor Forum features Mike Stout on his new book The Homestead Steel Mill: The Final 10 Years and on My Labor Radio we hear about an auto supply plant that’s closing down later this year in Auburn Indiana.
On this week’s Labor Radio Podcast Network Livestream, the topic was what a progressive, pro-labor migration policy might look like.
Our final segment today is a special presentation of the final edition of We Do The Work, which is ending an amazing 8-year run on KSVR-FM in Washington state’s Skagit Valley. They go out with a lovely interview with Anne Feeney, one of the finest labor singers in the country, and several of her favorite songs. We’re playing the entire program in tribute to a show that’s been such a great resource for that community’s workers. They really did the work, on We Do The Work!

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns.

Also, check out our weekly livestream show, available on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Labor Radio on KBOO; Building Bridges; Talking SMART; Your Rights At Work; Working to Live in Southwest Washington; 141 Report; Heartland Labor Forum; Empathy Media Lab

On today’s show, Labor Radio on KBOO and Building Bridges on WBAI explore and celebrate Martin Luther King Junior’s struggles for labor rights and economic justice…
Then, labor news headlines of the week, including Talking SMART’s report on insurrectionists on trains, Your Rights At Work on President Biden firing the anti-union general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, and, from the other Washington, the upcoming legislative session in Olympia, on the Working to Live in Southwest Washington podcast.
We get ultra-local with The 141 Report, a brand-new member of the Network, which visits with Wendy Goodell, President of Machinists’ Local 1782, and then we zoom back out for historical overviews:
Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas, talks with the Heartland Labor Forum about his new book about American populism and the long trail of elites who hate it,
And from the Empathy Media Lab, Harvey J. Kaye talks about another moment of great crisis in American history and the effect on working people.

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the international Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns.

Also, check out our weekly livestream show, available on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod @bbridgesradio @smartunionworks @dclabor @SWWACLC @Heartland_Labor @empathymedialab

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

RadioLabour; America's Workforce Radio; UCOMM Live; LRPN Live; Union Strong; LRPN Spotlight; Labor History in 2:00

On today’s show, we’ve got reactions to Joe Biden’s nomination of longtime union leader Marty Walsh to be Secretary of Labor. From RadioLabour, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka weighs in, as does Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale on America's Workforce Radio, and Laborers political director Josh Slaughter on UCOMM Live.
Then we’ve got some highlights from this week’s Labor Radio Podcast Network livestream show, including American Prospect Editor Harold Meyerson and Working-Class Perspectives Associate Editor John Russo on the Trump impeachment, Nonprofit Employees Union president Kayla Blado reports on a huge organizing victory, and Nicholas Juravich, Assistant Professor of History and Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston College provides a local perspective on the Marty Walsh nomination.
If you like labor movies, you’ll not only want to check out Union Strong’s interview with the composer and producer behind Stand! -- the new labor musical that’s been described as Norma Rae meets Hamilton – but sign up for the DC Labor FilmFest’s free online screening this coming Tuesday night at 7pm Eastern Standard Time.
The focus of this week’s Labor Radio Podcast Network Member Spotlight is Steve Zeltzer, host of Work Week Radio on KPFA.
And, on Labor History in 2:00, Johnny Cash Plays Folsom Prison

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns.

Also, check out our weekly livestream show, available at on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod 

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Labor Radio Podcast Network Livestream; America's Work Force; The BCTGM Voices Project; Labor Vision; LRPN Spotlight; Labor History in 2:00

Teen Vogue labor columnist Kim Kelly joins AFL-CIO Policy Director Damon Silvers on this week’s Labor Radio Podcast livestream show for a lively discussion – from a worker perspective -- about the Trump attack on the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday. Labor folksinger/songwriter George Mann was also our guest on the show this week; be sure to stick around at the end of the podcast for a bonus track from his latest CD, "The Coronavirus Sessions." UCOMM Live host Kris LaGrange talked about his super-PAC and the recent elections on the America’s Work Force show this week, and on The BCTGM Voices Project – the brand-new podcast from the Baker’s union, Director of Organization John Price discusses hopes for the National Labor Relations Board under Joe Biden, along with recent organizing campaigns.
Nationally, construction workers account for as much as 25% of overdose fatalities and in Rhode Island, one in five of those who have overdosed worked in the construction industry. Labor Vision takes a look at how the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council is working to address this deadly issue.
And this week we start a new feature, the Labor Radio Podcast Network Member Spotlight. Network producer Evan Papp has been conducting a series of fascinating interviews with members of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and this week we meet RadioLabour's Marc Bélanger. On Labor History in 2:00, Courts Stand Against Workers. 

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns.

Also, check out our weekly livestream show, available at on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod @BCTGM @AWFUnionPodcast @LaborVisionRI ‎@RickSmithShow

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

SAG-AFTRA podcast; America's Work Force Radio; Breaktime Breakdown; Black Work Talk; Union Strong; My Labor Radio; Blue Collar Gospel Hour

For this week’s show, we’ve got an interview with actor – and strong union member -- Alan Alda, from the SAG-AFTRA podcast.
Then, Georgetown University professor and Working-Class Perspectives contributor Sherry Linkon talks with America’s Work Force Radio about how the working class has been affected by the pandemic. 
No end-of-year show would be complete without, well, an end-of-year show, so, from the Breaktime Breakdown, Jeremy, Mark, Jason and Richard get together to chat about all things 2020 at Sheet Metal Workers Local 110.
From Black Work Talk, one of the newest members of the Network, host Steven Pitts welcomes Greg Kelley, President of SEIU Health Care Illinois, who discusses how COVID has affected union members, efforts to build racial solidarity within the union and linking the work of the union with the mission of Black freedom.
This is also traditionally a time when we look to the year ahead, and on Union Strong, the New York State AFL-CIO’s Legislative Director reviews labor’s 2021 legislative agenda in that state, including protections for essential workers and support for all workers who continue to suffer as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 
One of our favorite things about the Labor Radio Podcast Network is the chance it gives us to learn about local struggles we probably wouldn’t otherwise know about. Thanks to the My Labor Radio podcast, we’ll literally go to the streets of Fort Wayne, Indiana to hear about the ongoing battle by the Fort Wayne Philharmonic musicians for respect and a contract. 
Throughout today’s show you’ll hear poems from novelist, poet and singer/songwriter A.S. Coomer, who’s brought to us by The Blue Collar Gospel Hour, a podcast hosted by union autoworker and activist Dan Denton, who’s also a poet. 

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. 
Also, check out our weekly livestream show, available on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod @sagaftra @AWFUnionPodcast

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips
 

Belabored; Your Rights At Work; OnWriting; SF Mime Troupe

On the Belabored podcast, Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen gather three of their favorite thinkers on labor and unions, Jane McAlevey, Bill Fletcher Jr., and Rebecca Dixon, for a no-holds-barred look back on 2020, a truly tumultuous year for workers.
Then, on Your Rights At Work, Kathy Newman talks about the workers who make your favorite holiday movies possible.
We stay with the workers behind the movies as OnWriting, a screenwriting podcast from the Writers Guild of America, East, talks with Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, and Peter Baynham — the co-writers of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm — about why they decided to revisit the iconic character, how intense it was to film that now-infamous Rudy Giuliani scene, and the reality of filming in very dangerous situations.  
And since this is Christmas week, we’ve got a special treat for you, the first part of A Red Carol, from the San Francisco Mime Troupe. This brand-new radio drama returns to the working-class roots of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story of greed and redemption, along with a few labor songs.  
Speaking of which, our bonus tracks this week are Rudolph the Union Reindeer and Organize Organize Organize, both sung by Ariana Eakle Blockmon, a member of IBEW Local 124. Thanks to Judy Ancel and the Heartland Labor Forum -- their latest show is The Truth about Santa's Workshop -- for sharing these, as well as The Year the Elves Went Out on Strike by Barry Rabin. 

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. 
Also, check out our new weekly livestream show, available at on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod @WGAEast @SFTroupers @dclabor

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Your Rights At Work; Organizing Work; In The Gap; Grit Northwest; Union Strong; El Desvio

On Friday, as we’re putting this week’s show together, Congress continues to flirt with yet another government shutdown as the debate drags on over stimulus funding, making the recent conversation with Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson on Your Rights At Work radio show even more relevant.

On the Organizing Work podcast, author Peter Cole talks about his new book Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly.

We’re excited to be able to finally bring you some of In The Gap, the terrific 12-episode podcast series from In These Times, featuring everyday Black women and experts alike sharing their personal experiences and insights on how the gender pay gap, pay discrimination and systemic inequality affects the lives and livelihoods of Black women in the American workforce. In The Gap is hosted and produced by award-winning veteran Black journalist Chandra Thomas Whitfield.         

On the Grit Northwest podcast Michael Burch from Carpenters Local 1503 talks about diversity outreach in the construction industry

And on Union Strong, the podcast produced by the New York State AFL-CIO, we hear from Tim Dymond, the new president of the union that represents New York State Police Investigators.

We stay in New York state as the El Desvio podcast from the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement hosts New York Attorney General Letitia James, who talks about the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate the Obama-era program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – DACA -- which shields undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.

We’ll also hear a promo from the San Francisco Mime Troupe, whose new radio drama, A Red Carol, takes a different approach to the Charles Dickens classic, and on Labor History in 2:00 we hear about how prohibition was really about tightening social control of working people.

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns.

Also, check out our new weekly livestream show, available at on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod @OrganizingWork @inthesetimesmag @GritNw @LCLAA @FlyingWithSara

Edited by Patrick Dixon and Evan Papp; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

The SAG-AFTRA podcast; The Blue Collar Gospel Hour; The Valley Labor Report; Labor History in Two; Labor Vision; CTU Speaks

This week, we start off with none other than actor Robert DeNiro, star of dozens of great movies, from Taxi Driver to Raging Bull, The Deer Hunter and, more recently, Joker and The Irishman. DeNiro appeared on The SAG-AFTRA podcast after receiving that union’s highest tribute: the SAG Life Achievement Award.

Then, from The Blue Collar Gospel Hour, a visit with poet, artist, community organizer, activist and farm worker Jonie McIntire.

We’re also really pleased to bring you a piece from The Valley Labor Report, which recently released an incredible series of in-depth interviews focused on Bolivia and why what happened there with redistribution of wealth, a coup and resistance by the labor movement, matters to us here in the U.S. 

On Labor History in 2:00 we learn about the “Cordiner Doctrine,” released at the height of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare.

Then, from Labor Vision, how two organizing drives in Rhode Island turned into victories. 

Our final segment this week is from the CTU Speaks podcast, and focuses on fighting for clerks and techs in Chicago public schools.

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. 

Also, check out our new weekly livestream show, available at on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network.

#LaborRadioPod @sagaftra @chatter_blue @LaborReporters @LaborVisionRI @CtuSpeaks @hardballpress

Edited by Evan Papp and Patrick Dixon; produced by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Black Work Talk; Working to Live in Southwest Washington; Willamette Wake Up; Labor Express Radio; Laborlines; Breaktime Breakdown; Belabored; Grit Northwest; San Francisco Mime Troupe

This week, on Black Work Talk, one of our newest Network members, host Steven Pitts welcomes Dorian Warren, President of Community Change, who discusses efforts around the country to build the collective power of black workers.

On the Working to Live in Southwest Washington podcast, Vancouver School District classified employees have been furloughed for months, and they're struggling. Barb Plymate, president of the Vancouver Association of Educational Support Professionals joins hosts Shannon and Harold to talk about the district's justification for these furloughs... and the fact that it has the money to put these people back to work!

On Willamette Wake Up, Rebecca Salinas-Oliveros talks about her leap into local politics in Oregon. She started as an activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, then ran for Monmouth City Council. She was the top vote-getter in the recent city council election despite opposition from a political action committee that supported a slate of conservative candidates.

Labor Express Radio talks with Stroger Hospital nurse Elizabeth Lalish -- a member of National Nurses United who works with COVID patients -- about the likely effects of cuts in the Cook County hospital system on Black and Brown working-class communities on the Southside of Chicago and how nurses are organizing to fight for safe workplaces and patient centered care. 

On Laborlines, organizers for the Restaurant Workers Council report on their efforts to organize restaurant workers in New York City.

The holidays are coming up soon and on the Breaktime Breakdown, Jeremy Waugh and Richard Roth talk about a new effort led by members of the SMART Local 110 Executive Board to help members in need for what will be a holiday season unlike any that have come before.

Then, on Belabored, Renewing Unions in the Age of Finance. Elections come and go, but some major problems continue to plague labor unions on both sides of the Atlantic, and many of those problems have their roots in the financialization of our economy. Yet unions are often stuck in a playbook that was written in a different period of capitalist development, and it shows in their struggles. How do unions adapt to a financialized world? Alice Martin and Annie Quick have some suggestions

And on Grit Northwest, we meet the President of the Northwest Carpenters Union and Grit writer, producer and host Joe Cadwell, who reveals the secret to a successful podcast.

We wrap up with a promo for the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s upcoming production of A Red Carol! A Working-Class Take on the Dickens' Holiday Classic. 

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. 

Also, check out the Network's new weekly livestream show, available at on Facebook and YouTube, where you’ll also find profiles of members of the Network. 

#LaborRadioPod @BlackWorkTalk @SWWACLC @GritNw @SFTroupers

Edited by Evan Papp and Patrick Dixon; produced and hosted by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips

Unify: A Young Worker's Podcast; UCOMM Live; Labor Radio on KBOO; Union City Radio; America's Workforce Radio; We Do the Work; Laborlines; En Masse

This week, on Unify, A Young Worker’s Podcast, the IBEW’s Cheryl Paron talks about diversity, inclusion and women in the trades.

Then on UCOMM LIVE, the building trades secure a deal to build offshore wind plants.

And what happens when workers at a community non-profit join a union and try to negotiate a first contract? Labor Radio on KBOO finds out during a visit with CWA organizer Coya Crespin.

On Union City Radio, a kid’s group releases a brand-new song dedicated to the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.

With entertainment venues shut down across the country, how are union musicians doing these days? American Federation of Musicians Local 4 President Leonard DiCosimo discusses how musicians are faring during the pandemic on America’s Work Force Union Podcast.

On We Do the Work, Jon Komorowski, Retired Chief Public Defender of Whatcom County, Washington, explains why public defenders are so important to the justice system.

Keri Steneck, campaign manager for recent races for both the Federal House and state senate in Idaho provides her insights into the Idaho and national political landscape on the Laborlines show.

We wrap up this week’s show with an excerpt from a recent podcast extra from the En Masse podcast, as host Liz Medina, who’s also acting director of the Vermont AFL CIO, joined other speakers – and singer Heidi Ann Wilson -- during a “Protect the Results” vigil in front of Vermont’s State House on November 4th.

PLUS: Be sure to stay tuned after the show credits for an extra-special bonus track!

Highlights from labor radio and podcast shows around the country, part of the national Labor Radio Podcast Network of shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns.

#LaborRadioPod @Unifypodcast @UCOMMBlog @AWFUnionPodcast @EnMassePodcast @dclabor

Edited by Evan Papp and Patrick Dixon; produced and hosted by Chris Garlock; social media guru: Harold Phillips