Ep 331 - Sí Se Puede

We start this week's episode with headlines from Bangladeshi textile workers, Puerto Rican teachers, Cornell faculty, Harvard grad student workers, healthcare workers at Roger Williams Medical Center, University of Illinois Health nurses, Encore Boston Harbor casino workers, Chicago parking attendants, and more. Our main stories this week first cover the massive general strike in France last Thursday and the possibilities of a united labor and youth movement. Then, we close discussing some recent pieces in Labor Notes on rank and file efforts against corruption and repression inside their unions.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Comrade Matteo was on the ground in Milan for the massive international strike against war, genocide, and rearmament, as well as for funding for public services. He tells the story of the events that led up to the October 30 strike and people's mobilization including the youth riots in Milan which provide a serious lesson in the necessity of organizing. While Matteo focuses on Milan, he also talks about how the strike and mobilization brought over a million people into the streets of Italy and far more than that across the Mediterranean region, India, and other parts of the world.  Support our show @ http://patreon.com/workstoppage and find links to follow us at http://workstoppagepod.com Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

This past Friday, millions of workers took to the streets across Europe and beyond, shuttering dozens of ports in a historic day of action bridging the demand for an arms blockade to end the genocide in Palestine with the demand to fund education and good jobs rather than endless war. In addition to our lead story, we also discuss the shocking conditions faced by workers at HelloFresh revealed by a recent lawsuit. And while childcare workers are rarely unionized, more are being forced to take job action as employers cut more and more corners. Also this week, headlines on Lyft, Microsoft, French and Spanish mass protests, Pakistan's factory workers, the AFT, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. We also celebrate the life and legacy of legendary labor leader Dolores Huerta, who passed this week at 96.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

October 30 Port Shutdown: https://30october.noharbourforgenocide.com/ It's a huge week for workers in all sorts of ways. Lula won in Brazil, the students toppled Vucic in Serbia, and this Friday workers across the world will disrupt shipping traffic in protest of genocide. Jumping into our headlines, we discuss Argentine metro workers, Senegalese public workers,  California state workers, Oregon state workers, Concord Public Schools, Chili's, Rhode Island Hospital, and Long Island home health workers. For our main stories we start by following up on the fight against union busting at Rockstar Games as we approach the release of GTA VI. We've got a major roundup of recent stories of workers organizing at Amazon and the company's dystopian deployment of AI to try and stop them. Finally we have a whirlwind tour of all the massive working class movements in various stage of uprising across Europe and beyond, as workers start taking demands from the shop floor to the streets.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

In the second episode of our series on the impact of automation on workers, we turn to one of the century's greatest texts on the topic, Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman. A former metal worker turned sociologist, Braverman brought his direct experience on the shop floor to his biting theoretical analysis of the reality that technology did not save workers labor or improve their lives, but instead degraded their jobs and their physical condition. Contrary to claims of technology developing objectively towards an inevitable optimum configuration, Braverman identified how the unceasing quest for total control of the production process by management led them to design and deploy technology in ways that were hugely detrimental to workers on the shop floor and society as a whole.  Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

United Wizards of the Coast-CWA Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/uwotcpetition/ We're back and all recovered from our various maladies and contagions, with a full sized lineup of worker news to cover! We start with a jumbo headlines section covering the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Prime Healthcare, AutoZone, Minneapolis Public Schools, the UAW, Endeavor Health Edward Hospital, Boston Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, SEIU 775, AFSCME Local 12, Mississippi land barons, Charlotte International Airport, Washington State Ferries, Corvalis Municipal Government, and Wizards of the Coast. For our deeper dives this week we start with working class uprisings in Europe, as France approaches the Cool Zone in response to years of austerity and state repression. We discuss the state of worker organizing within the Mamdani Administration by members of AFSCME District Council 37. And finally, we celebrate the historic victory of Brazilian workers finally enshrining the 40 hour work week and the two day weekend into their constitution.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

Comrade Matteo brings us another great interview from the struggle in Italy and the broader Mediterranean region with Antonio Mazzeo, freedom flotilla participant, teacher, activist, and founder of the Observatory on the militarization of schools and universities. Originally in Italian for CSA Baraonda, Matteo translated this interview and we created an English version for our listeners to learn from. With Dan as the voice of Antonio, they discuss the ways the Italian state uses military culture to affect education in the country, how the politics of Zionism is a part of that process, and how anti-war activists are fighting back. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

In the first episode of our long-discussed series on how technology impacts the working class under capitalism, we go way back to the man himself. Much of the discourse around the development of "AI" and other forms of machine learning is completely without historical context and mystifies rather than clarifying the role of technology in society. So to get us started on our long journey to discover the origins of the capitalist use of technology and its implications for the development and deployment of AI, we return to Marx. The role of machinery in production and the exploitation of workers in the capitalist system was a major area of study for Marx and we draw from the development of his concepts in the Grundrisse and how those evolved into their final form in Capital. Marx's observations about the way technology is used to intensify, not relax, the labor of the machine operator, and how the relations of production under capitalism warp the impact of technology on humanity are foundational to any attempt to see through the smokescreen of hype thrown out there by AI boosters. In future episodes we will draw from the works of Harry Barverman, David Noble, Kate Crawford, Aaron Benanav, Jason Resnikoff, Matteo Pasquinelli, and others to show that technology development is always contingent on the mode of production it occurs under, and that this has profound implications for the deployment of technology like AI today under capitalism, or in a future socialist society. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee  

We start our headlines with one of the largest bargaining units we have ever seen filing for election with 1199SEIU across NY state. Other headlines from NYU, Minneapolis Public Schools, European Dockworkers fighting for Palestine, and the American child labor industry. We start our main stories in the streets, as workers and tenants have erupted into mass protest in both France and Spain and could be poised to disrupt the EU's neoliberal consensus. Taxi drivers in NYC are facing such stark conditions that more and more are becoming homeless and dying on the job, per recent reporting in The Gothamist. Finally we close with some happy news, as years of organizing by Los Deliveristas Unidos has secured a record wage theft settlement from DoorDash.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee

AutoZone Worker Support Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nate-and-the-autozone-union Mega headlines section this week with stories from Mass General Brigham, Prime Healthcare, Henry Ford Genesys Hospital, Sam Adams Boston Brewery, AutoZone, CUPE, the AFA, Colombia's social movements, the New South Wales Teachers Federation and the San Francisco Opera. For our main stories this week, we start with some important reporting from Amie Stager at Workday Magazine on the wide dragnet of state surveillance unleashed on workers across the Minneapolis area to try and crush anti-ICE organizing. Finally, another incredible investigation from Amir Khafagy at Documented in NYC has revealed yet more fake unions, this time set up by a "former" union buster.   Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX  Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter,  John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee