Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it's Joey, producer and sometimes co host for
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. This past Wednesday
Speaker 1: was International Workers Day, or May Day as it's sometimes called,
Speaker 1: and it's a time to celebrate and commemorate working people
Speaker 1: and the labor movement around the globe. So today we're
Speaker 1: revisiting our conversation with labor historian and punk rocker Kim Kelly,
Speaker 1: author of Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor,
Speaker 1: about why from Starbucks to tech workers, organized laborer is
Speaker 1: having a moment.
Speaker 2: And I got to.
Speaker 1: Say this episode has a special place in my heart
Speaker 1: as a member of a union myself that is the
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast Union. And if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about the work that we do with the Iheartpod Union,
Speaker 1: or you just want to show support for the people
Speaker 1: that make your favorite podcasts happen, you can check us
Speaker 1: out on Instagram or Twitter at Iheartpod Union. That'll be
Speaker 1: linked in the show notes as well. All right, here's
Speaker 1: the episode.
Speaker 3: When someone will even acknowledge that you work for them,
Speaker 3: like they're certainly not going to acknowledge your humanity if
Speaker 3: they don't value enough to give you the proper legal paperwork.
Speaker 3: They do not care how your day is going. That's
Speaker 3: the problem.
Speaker 4: There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridgett
Speaker 2: and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: We're in what feels like a little bit of a
Speaker 2: renaissance when it comes to organized labor and unions. More
Speaker 2: and more workers, whether they're barista's at Starbucks or journalists,
Speaker 2: are seeing the power of unions and organizing as a collective.
Speaker 2: And even though we maybe used to have an idea
Speaker 2: that union member as being a white guy working at
Speaker 2: an auto factory or steel mill, the faith of who
Speaker 2: we understand as somebody who needs a union is really
Speaker 2: changing too. More and more media workers and office tech workers,
Speaker 2: for instance, are trying to unionize. This shift is something
Speaker 2: that labor reporter Kim Kelly is really happy to see.
Speaker 3: I'm Kim Kelly, and I'm a independent labor reporter and
Speaker 3: the author of Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of
Speaker 3: American Labor.
Speaker 2: So how did you become someone who cared about labor
Speaker 2: and telling the story of all of these different fights?
Speaker 3: So I guess the short answer is I got involved
Speaker 3: in organizing my workplace. That's kind of a direct pipeline
Speaker 3: right there, right to caring about the labor movement joining it.
Speaker 3: But some of the longer answers like, well, I'm from
Speaker 3: a union family, from a very like rural working class,
Speaker 3: kind of isolated place, and everyone who raised me was
Speaker 3: a construction worker, a steel worker, teacher, like everyone was
Speaker 3: in the union. It wasn't something that really really talked
Speaker 3: about that much, or really it was, you know, really discussed.
Speaker 3: It was just part of the job, part of life, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that is in a union. That's why we have health insurance.
Speaker 3: That's why he has to go to those meetings sometimes,
Speaker 3: that's why he's on strike and we can't go to Walmart,
Speaker 3: you know, things like that. And it wasn't really until
Speaker 3: I was at Vice, whereas the heavy metal editor and
Speaker 3: some colleagues pulled me aside or were like, hey, we
Speaker 3: want to form a union, what do you think. I'm like,
Speaker 3: hell yeah, and let me get involved in that, that
Speaker 3: I realized that there were even it was even an
Speaker 3: option like that, there were unions for people like me,
Speaker 3: someone who at that point was writing about death metal
Speaker 3: on the internet. But it turns out there was and.
Speaker 2: We joined it, Kim got more and more involved in
Speaker 2: unions to organize around her own union at the media company.
Speaker 3: Vice, and we organized like almost I think by the
Speaker 3: time I got laid off in twenty nineteen, we'd organized
Speaker 3: like five or six hundred people in the building, and
Speaker 3: we'd bark in two different contracts, like we'd gotten raised,
Speaker 3: we'd improved the workplace, we'd done a ton, we'd accomplished
Speaker 3: a lot. And I was deeply involved the whole time
Speaker 3: because being in a union had always kind of appealed
Speaker 3: to me as an idea, as something that fit into
Speaker 3: my political like my political views and my worldview, and
Speaker 3: just kind of felt nice to join that family tradition.
Speaker 3: But I didn't really start writing about it with any
Speaker 3: sort of regularity or depth until we unionized, and I
Speaker 3: was already freelancing a lot working advice because they didn't
Speaker 3: pay as shit, until we organized another big endorsement for
Speaker 3: unions in a workplace. Yeah, it was freelancing a ton,
Speaker 3: And really it just kind of happened by not by accident,
Speaker 3: but unexpectedly because I was writing a little bit of
Speaker 3: just freelance stuff about the prison industrial complex routine book,
Speaker 3: and I pitched them on a profile of Mother Jones,
Speaker 3: the labor leader. I thought, Okay, your audience is predominantly
Speaker 3: like younger women, Like, here's a cool I kind we
Speaker 3: can talk about. And my editor said, yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: cool idea, but I don't think our audience necessarily knows
Speaker 3: what a union is, so why don't you write about
Speaker 3: that first? I was like okay, And I wrote a
Speaker 3: little explainer because at that point I'd kind of learned
Speaker 3: more about the movement, about the history, from talking the
Speaker 3: organizers who work with, from reading books on my own,
Speaker 3: from just getting all fired off about union stuff as
Speaker 3: like a baby organizer. And I wrote that article and
Speaker 3: it kind of was like mini viral. People paying attention
Speaker 3: because in twenty seventeen, people weren't necessarily used to looking
Speaker 3: to teen Vogue for their like anti capitalist analysis. Yet
Speaker 3: they're like what is this? Essentially like it that helped
Speaker 3: me out as a freelancer, where I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: that went, well, what if you let me do a
Speaker 3: whole column and they're like, yeah, okay, we'll try it.
Speaker 3: And I was like four years ago and really just
Speaker 3: having that experience organizing and kind of learning on the
Speaker 3: fly and being a big nerd and loving history books
Speaker 3: kind of made me feel like I was allowed to
Speaker 3: write about labor, like I had a leg to stand on.
Speaker 3: And once I kind of gave myself that permission, I
Speaker 3: really just dove in and start writing more and writing more,
Speaker 3: talking more. People just kind of fell in love with
Speaker 3: the idea, right because I spent my whole life up
Speaker 3: till then writing about heavy metal, which is still a
Speaker 3: great love and still a huge part of my life.
Speaker 3: But I was kind of looking for something new, and
Speaker 3: the union happened to be there at exactly the right time.
Speaker 3: And once I realized I was going to more union
Speaker 3: meetings than heavy metal shows, I thought, Okay, maybe it's
Speaker 3: time to actually try and do this. And here we are.
Speaker 4: Wow. What what a trajectory. Yeah, I mean it's it's it. Really.
Speaker 2: I see a lot of through lines in your work,
Speaker 2: and I I remember the vice unionization fight, and I
Speaker 2: I Hart Radio, where my podcast is hosted recently, which
Speaker 2: is a big deal. I guess it's a good question,
Speaker 2: what do you think of this idea that I don't know.
Speaker 2: I often I think that everybody could.
Speaker 4: Benefit from a union.
Speaker 2: I think that the benefits are there for unions are
Speaker 2: for everybody, But I often hear this kind of pushback
Speaker 2: that like, oh, what does an office media worker need
Speaker 2: a union for? What do you say to things like that?
Speaker 3: Oh, it makes it so mad because it's just and
Speaker 3: it's always like stupid, like rich white guys on Twitter
Speaker 3: that just feel the need to have opinions about Oh, well, Brad,
Speaker 3: students don't need a union. Video game workers on need
Speaker 3: a union. Journalists don't need a union. You're not working
Speaker 3: in a coal mine or in a factory, Okay? Do
Speaker 3: you have a boss? You rely on someone else's decisions
Speaker 3: to pay your bills? Do you have to go to
Speaker 3: an office, do you have coworkers? Are you getting mistreated
Speaker 3: or you getting disrespected? Like are you going to a job?
Speaker 3: Do you work for someone? Then you need a union.
Speaker 3: It is ridiculous to act as though different categories of worker,
Speaker 3: whether were you're doing like the white collar blue collar
Speaker 3: sort of dichotomy or whatever other artificial division that somebody
Speaker 3: with an interest in preserving capital likes to lean on,
Speaker 3: like it's It's never been the case that only one
Speaker 3: type of worker, one demographic of worker, is allowed to
Speaker 3: have a union or is encouraged to have a union
Speaker 3: or is benefited from having a union, Like every type
Speaker 3: of worker can benefit from having a union, and that's
Speaker 3: not even necessarily. You don't have to go through the
Speaker 3: specific process of like filing for an election with n RB,
Speaker 3: doing all of the kind of bureaucratic red tape bs
Speaker 3: that a lot of workers are kind of forced to
Speaker 3: deal with. Now to form a union, you can just
Speaker 3: get to get other with your coworkers and try and
Speaker 3: make some shit happen. Like there's no one way to
Speaker 3: be a union member. There's no one way to be
Speaker 3: a union and they're all valid and important, and honestly,
Speaker 3: building collective power with your coworkers is the most effective
Speaker 3: and empowering thing that you can do, because one worker
Speaker 3: on their own can only do so much, but a
Speaker 3: bunch of us, whether it's five or fifty or five hundred,
Speaker 3: that's how you move mountains. Whether you work in an
Speaker 3: office where you work in a coal miner, you work
Speaker 3: in Amazon, or you're a gig worker, Like, someone is
Speaker 3: trying to screw you over, and the only way you
Speaker 3: can stop that is by getting together with a bunch
Speaker 3: of other people who are feeling screwed over doing something
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 4: I love how you put that.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing that I really love about talking
Speaker 2: about labor and the you know, collective organizing, and it's
Speaker 2: something I really see as a value that it's about
Speaker 2: people banning together, oftentimes against massive, powerful companies like Amazon
Speaker 2: that have like teams of lawyers and pr and all abys.
Speaker 2: But even with all that institutional power, they're not more
Speaker 2: powerful than the collective. They're not more powerful than people
Speaker 2: coming together. Is that something that you see in these
Speaker 2: union stories as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Jeff Bezos is the new g ghoul.
Speaker 3: Like we talked about that, we're in the new Gilded Age.
Speaker 3: The railroad barons, like they controlled the rails, they controlled
Speaker 3: all the capital, but the workers built those rails, and
Speaker 3: the workers shut them down a whole bunch. Then struck
Speaker 3: fear into the hearts of the capitalist class, like there's
Speaker 3: always more of us than there are of them. And
Speaker 3: I think that's something that workers sometimes forget because we
Speaker 3: are so disenfranchised and isolated and beaten down. But the
Speaker 3: people on top never forget that, And that's why they
Speaker 3: get so frightened and anxious when they see workers organizing,
Speaker 3: because they know that they're outnumbered, and that if a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of people want to make them do something,
Speaker 3: you know we've done it before and we'll do it again.
Speaker 3: Like there's the history of labor in this country is
Speaker 3: very complicated. There's a lot of wins, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of losses. There's a lot of struggle and bloodshed and
Speaker 3: beautiful things and terrible things. But every step foward that
Speaker 3: we've made as a country has come from workers, has
Speaker 3: come from regular working people down in their tools and
Speaker 3: saying all right, I've had enough of this shit. Let's
Speaker 3: do something. And that is something that has not gone away,
Speaker 3: and especially now, I think we're something we're going to
Speaker 3: keep seeing more of because it's easier for people to
Speaker 3: be connected to one another, it's easier for people to
Speaker 3: see other folks taking control. Whether you're a Starbucks customer,
Speaker 3: you buy stuff from Amazon, you go to REI, you
Speaker 3: have a friend who works as a grad student, Like,
Speaker 3: someone in your life is probably part of some kind
Speaker 3: of organizing effort, and if they're not, you can help
Speaker 3: them start, or you can start your own. Like the
Speaker 3: possibilities are endless. Let's take a click right.
Speaker 4: Ederer back.
Speaker 3: This right here, this is going to be the catalyst
Speaker 3: for the revolution. That's exactly what this is.
Speaker 4: I just went to stay.
Speaker 2: Back in April, Amazon warehouse workers on Staten Island's JFK eight,
Speaker 2: the Amazon warehouse with the most employees in the state
Speaker 2: of New York, won a historic bid to form a
Speaker 2: labor union. It's the very first Amazon facility in the
Speaker 2: United States to have a successful union election, which is huge.
Speaker 2: So we know that workers at JFK eight, the Amazon
Speaker 2: warehouse in Staten Island, they won a union election and
Speaker 2: they kind of went against some of the conventional wisdom,
Speaker 2: you know, they started their own independent organization instead of
Speaker 2: trying to sort of join and established national union. And
Speaker 2: I've read some of your writing on this and it
Speaker 2: sounds like to you it really just comes down to
Speaker 2: the workers. Can you tell us more about kind of
Speaker 2: like what you mean by this.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing, Like what Amazon labor union organizers
Speaker 3: did was incredible and inspiring and so important, and it's
Speaker 3: also not anything new, right, the idea of building a
Speaker 3: union from the ground up, of building real human bonds
Speaker 3: and connections and solidarity, forming a community to fight instead
Speaker 3: of you know, following a prescriptive playbook doing what you're
Speaker 3: supposed to do, because that's how it's done, that's how
Speaker 3: it sometimes works, like ione has to do anything like
Speaker 3: this is this is the thing. I mean, that's one
Speaker 3: of the reasons they're so successful. They kind of threw
Speaker 3: out that playbook and drew on whether or not it
Speaker 3: was intentional. They drew on these kind of historical examples
Speaker 3: of workers in their position doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: Because the workers that organized to add JFKA predominantly like
Speaker 3: younger folks, queer and transpost black and brown workers, immigrant workers,
Speaker 3: multi lingual, multi generational, the best, multiracial, multi gender, multi
Speaker 3: everything kind of coalition. And that is how workers have
Speaker 3: won throughout history. And that is not something that you
Speaker 3: maybe find in every mainstream labor history book, but that
Speaker 3: is just true. That's just how it is. I Mean,
Speaker 3: one of the parallels that I, as a labor nerd
Speaker 3: I like to draw between JFKA and history is what
Speaker 3: Dorothy Lee Bolden was able to do in the sixties
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, and she was a domestic worker from the
Speaker 3: age of nine, Like really the majority of black women
Speaker 3: and women in that city in that time that had
Speaker 3: a job, they worked in domestic service. And she realized like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're not being paid enough, our work isn't being treated
Speaker 3: properly as labor. We're being true like garbage, and you
Speaker 3: know what, like there's a lot of us. Maybe we
Speaker 3: can do something about this. She was actually lived a
Speaker 3: few doors down from doctor Martin Luther King Junior, and
Speaker 3: she was commisering with him one day and he told her, like, Dorothy,
Speaker 3: you know, you can just do something yourself, like if
Speaker 3: you want to change things, if you want to organize things,
Speaker 3: like just do it. And she did. She organized it
Speaker 3: then that from Domestic Workers Union of America, which wasn't
Speaker 3: a recognized standard labor union. It wasn't operate within that framework.
Speaker 3: It was an independent organization and at its peak the
Speaker 3: membership roles hit I think ten thousand people, so all
Speaker 3: black women domestic workers in Atlanta, and they built power,
Speaker 3: and they built political power, they educated what another, they
Speaker 3: shared resources. In order to join, all you had to
Speaker 3: show up with was a dollar and a voter registration card.
Speaker 3: Showing the intersection between different movements for justice. And it's
Speaker 3: such a cool example because she did it her way
Speaker 3: and she made a huge difference. You can see there's
Speaker 3: a direct line from George Lee Bolden's organization in the
Speaker 3: sixties to the current National Domestic Workers Alliance, which I
Speaker 3: mean in Philly. A couple of years ago they managed
Speaker 3: to pass an incredibly impactful bill that helped get healthcare
Speaker 3: for domestic workers in my city. Like, everything builds on
Speaker 3: the work that someone did before, whether it's in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty or eighteen sixty, and I'm just excited to see
Speaker 3: what's going to happen in fifty years when someone younger
Speaker 3: than me writes a book and interviews Chris Smalls and
Speaker 3: asks what inspired him? Right, Because we're all part of
Speaker 3: than We're all linked in a very long chain, and
Speaker 3: you know, one link can do something cool, but that
Speaker 3: whole long chain, that's how we get close to where
Speaker 3: we need to be.
Speaker 4: I have chills. What a description I used to.
Speaker 3: Talk to a lot of union meetings.
Speaker 2: I love us.
Speaker 3: Is historical?
Speaker 4: Is Amazon versus the people and the.
Speaker 3: People have spoken.
Speaker 2: That's Chris Small's the president and founder of the Amazon
Speaker 2: Labor Union. He started working in Amazon warehouses in twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen during COVID, when everybody myself included, was ordering a
Speaker 2: ton of stuff on Amazon. Chris started to speak out
Speaker 2: about how warehouses were putting workers at risk by failing
Speaker 2: to meet basic COVID mitigation protocols. So Chris organized a
Speaker 2: walk out in protest. He was fired that same day for,
Speaker 2: according to Amazon, failing to meet social distancing protocols. So basically,
Speaker 2: Amazon was claiming that Chris was the one who was
Speaker 2: failing to keep Amazon worker safe, not them, which is
Speaker 2: a little sketchy. So Chris organized. He started the Congress
Speaker 2: of Essential Workers, which later backed the formation of the
Speaker 2: Amazon Labor Union. Amazon suits, like former Obama administration spokesperson
Speaker 2: turned Amazon pr and policy chief Jay Carney and David Zablotski,
Speaker 2: personally smeared Chris in leaked notes. They called him not
Speaker 2: smart and not articulate. In fact, they thought Chris was
Speaker 2: so not smart that their plan, according to these reports,
Speaker 2: was to make Chris the face of the movement because
Speaker 2: certainly that would tank it. Only it backfired. Chris, that
Speaker 2: turns out, was an incredibly effective organizer and spokesperson and
Speaker 2: would go on to usher in the very first unionized
Speaker 2: Amazon warehouse in history. I mean, so you've just hit
Speaker 2: on a couple of things that I am fascinated by.
Speaker 2: One I do think we have this issue not just
Speaker 2: in labor organizing, but in organizing in general, where it's
Speaker 2: so tempting to have there be one face, like this
Speaker 2: is the person who started this whole thing, when the
Speaker 2: reality is it's often so many different stories and voices
Speaker 2: coming together, and I get the inclination to make it
Speaker 2: about one central figure that like that is such a
Speaker 2: such a powerful motivating thing just in our culture, but
Speaker 2: that sometimes it can obscure what you were just talking about,
Speaker 2: that it's a lineage, it's about a lot of people
Speaker 2: coming together and inspiring each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw it. It was interesting because Twitter is
Speaker 3: always going to Twitter, but I saw there was some
Speaker 3: criticism because people were excited about Chris Mal's who is
Speaker 3: the leader of the Amazon labor union, who was kind
Speaker 3: of the spark that started that whole movement when he
Speaker 3: was fired in twenty nineteen for protesting about COVID safety.
Speaker 3: Like you gotta hand it to the guy, even like
Speaker 3: like sometimes it is okay to lie andize someone when
Speaker 3: they have done something incredible, And I think it is
Speaker 3: important for us to have those working class heroes. You know,
Speaker 3: of course, like no one person does everything. People are flawed,
Speaker 3: people are complicated whishdn't you know? Hero worship is not
Speaker 3: something that I would recommend, but acknowledging and appreciating someone's
Speaker 3: skill and someone's importance to a movement that doesn't take
Speaker 3: away from the collective effort. That's just kind of giving
Speaker 3: somebody their flowers and they deserve them. And I think
Speaker 3: something that you know, President Small's has done in a
Speaker 3: really wonderful way is making clear like the Amazon Labor
Speaker 3: Union organizing Committee, like all of us did this. All
Speaker 3: of us are in this together, like a lot of
Speaker 3: the other organizers are public too, Derk Palmer, Angelic and
Speaker 3: Justine Matina, like it was clearly a very collective effort.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think it's okay to get excited
Speaker 3: about having one person, you know, getting a little bit
Speaker 3: more attention, because I mean, we need more heroes. We
Speaker 3: need more heroes that look like us and sound like us.
Speaker 3: And especially the fact that like a young handsome black
Speaker 3: man with gold teeth and tattoos is like the face
Speaker 3: of the labor movement in America right now. That is phenomenal,
Speaker 3: Like that is going to keep the movement moving, That
Speaker 3: is going to bring more people in. We do not
Speaker 3: need more white guys in suits, like, we got some
Speaker 3: good ones, shout out to them, But like, the white
Speaker 3: guys in suits are also a lot of the time
Speaker 3: the people that have their boots on our neck. I
Speaker 3: think it is very important to recognize who the working
Speaker 3: class is and what they look like, what we look like,
Speaker 3: and sound like a talk like to build those connections,
Speaker 3: to bring more people in and show that there's so
Speaker 3: much more room in the movement for every other cut
Speaker 3: type of person. And you know, I don't want to
Speaker 3: talk too much shit on the white guys and suits.
Speaker 3: Some of them are great, but some of them are
Speaker 3: and they've had plenty of a time to bask in
Speaker 3: their attention over the years. I think it is perfectly
Speaker 3: fine to give someone else a shot.
Speaker 2: Absolute Absolutely, every single time I see a photo or
Speaker 2: a video of Chris Small's and it's fitted in his
Speaker 2: do rag talking to an elected official, I'm like, yes.
Speaker 4: This is like, it just feels good to see like.
Speaker 2: And honestly, if I'm being honest, him being like his
Speaker 2: trajectory is what got me fired up about the Amazon fight.
Speaker 2: I will never forget the way that Amazon suits use
Speaker 2: this like very clearly racially coded language to refer to
Speaker 2: him and discredit him. He's inarticulate, he's not smart, he's
Speaker 2: not a deep thinker. And I feel like every black
Speaker 2: and brown person, every immigrant, or anybody connected this to
Speaker 2: one of those communities knew exactly what these Amazon suits
Speaker 2: were trying to do. And what's so funny is that,
Speaker 2: a they were really downplaying the multi racial workers that
Speaker 2: that keep their company running, that made that like they
Speaker 2: would be nothing without. And I think that they really
Speaker 2: kind of shot themselves in the foot because in the end,
Speaker 2: they made Chris like this lionized face of their movement
Speaker 2: because like it kind of in spite of their trying
Speaker 2: to discredit him, And boy, they couldn't have picked a
Speaker 2: more effective spokes person, right, like the wrong.
Speaker 3: One for that if they were trying to keep like
Speaker 3: they even said in some of their little leaked internal memos,
Speaker 3: like we're gonna make him the face of this. And
Speaker 3: I remember when they want he tweeted like, you know, thanks,
Speaker 3: like a call that was the worst mistake ever made.
Speaker 3: It's like it just shows this massive disconnect between the
Speaker 3: people in the c suite doing whatever the fuck is
Speaker 3: they do all day and the people actually working and
Speaker 3: living these communities and trying to build power, trying to survive,
Speaker 3: Like why wouldn't people respond to a character like Chris,
Speaker 3: Like why wouldn't people want to talk to other folks
Speaker 3: in the organizing committee that speak their language and live
Speaker 3: in their neighborhoods and take the bus with them? Like
Speaker 3: why would someone listen to some rich guy in a
Speaker 3: suit and when they could talk to someone that they're
Speaker 3: used to seeing, like out in the neighborhood, who like
Speaker 3: someone whose cousin you know? Like why It's it's like
Speaker 3: a century apart. But thinking about the way that the
Speaker 3: workers in the organizing committee Amazon were able to build
Speaker 3: power and bridge these kind of artificial divisions, it reminds
Speaker 3: you of this example. They're with me again. I'm a giant.
Speaker 3: I just wrote a whole book about it. But in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty six, the Great Sugar Strike in Hawaii. At
Speaker 3: that time and probably still but especially at that time,
Speaker 3: the sugar game plantations in the islands were owned entirely
Speaker 3: by white guys who lived in the mainland, and they
Speaker 3: were worked by native Hawaiians as well as Chinese, Korean,
Speaker 3: Puerto Rican, Filipino, Japanese immigrants. But prenominantly Asian workforce from
Speaker 3: all sorts of different places, lots of different languages, and
Speaker 3: the bosses had a very explicit policy of treating different
Speaker 3: workers differently, unequally, so that like some workers made more
Speaker 3: than others. They kept all of the workers in different
Speaker 3: segregated camps so that Chinese workers and Filipino workers, Korean
Speaker 3: workers wouldn't really see one another, wouldn't really talk to
Speaker 3: one another. And they did that because they wanted to
Speaker 3: make sure the workers weren't organized. They wanted to be
Speaker 3: able to use different groups of workers against one another,
Speaker 3: and like earlier strikes, Filipino workers were brought in too
Speaker 3: active strike breakers. When Japanese field workers went on strike,
Speaker 3: there were a lot of instances of that kind of
Speaker 3: thing happening. And when it came time to strike in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty six, the ILWU in National Longshore and Warehouse
Speaker 3: Workers Union were really cool radical union. Their history is read.
Speaker 3: There's time to strike, and they realized, Okay, we can't
Speaker 3: let them break us apart like that again. We need
Speaker 3: to pull people together, and how do we do that.
Speaker 3: They brought in translators and made sure everybody in every
Speaker 3: meeting felt heard and understood what's happening. They had different
Speaker 3: groups of workers cooked for one another and share recipes
Speaker 3: and build community that way. Same thing they did in
Speaker 3: the parking lot at Staten Island. They brought people together
Speaker 3: on a human level and showed them, you know, you're
Speaker 3: all being exploited, you're all being treated like garbage, you're
Speaker 3: all being You're all in this together, whether or not
Speaker 3: you chose to be, so why not embrace it and
Speaker 3: try to become more powerful together? And it worked and
Speaker 3: they won. They won like the first big raised in
Speaker 3: like twenty years. And that's exactly what I thought about
Speaker 3: when I heard about, you know, the barbecues and the
Speaker 3: jolof rice and all of the just the very personal,
Speaker 3: intimate kind of organizing and connecting those happening in the
Speaker 3: parking lot and then the breakroom in Amazon and JFKA. Like,
Speaker 3: when you connect with people as people and listen to
Speaker 3: them and hear them, that's when magic happens. Like it
Speaker 3: sounds so basic, but I feel like people in charge
Speaker 3: don't get that because they don't see us as people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and I think it really goes back to
Speaker 2: what you were saying, that people coming together, people uniting
Speaker 2: in the power of community and shared vision and a
Speaker 2: collective that's such a powerful force. And it's not surprising
Speaker 2: to me that the powers that be, whether it's you know,
Speaker 2: sugarcane owners or Amazon, it's like, oh, we got to
Speaker 2: keep these people divided, We got to keep them. We
Speaker 2: have to really inflame these divisions, because when they come together,
Speaker 2: there's more of them than there are of us, and
Speaker 2: they are very powerful.
Speaker 4: And so just figuring out ways to to.
Speaker 2: Really rely on those community bonds, I think is so
Speaker 2: important and valuable, and.
Speaker 3: Like unions have screwed that up over the years too.
Speaker 3: The labor movement is not the track record is not great,
Speaker 3: especially when it comes to like I mean even now
Speaker 3: right so earlier I always think about this example that
Speaker 3: makes me so mad, the American Federation of Labor, which
Speaker 3: was like an earlier organization that later got folded into
Speaker 3: They'll say, oh, that's the whole thing, But I mean, like
Speaker 3: the eighteen hundreds, eighteen eighties, when the Chinese Exclusion Act
Speaker 3: was passed, the AFL were big supporters, They're all about it,
Speaker 3: and that was obviously incredibly xenophobrig racist legislation that kept
Speaker 3: Chinese workers and other Asian workers out of the country
Speaker 3: for decades, and at that point, those labor leaders embraced
Speaker 3: that because they didn't want people to come in and
Speaker 3: take their members' jobs. And now that is a familiar
Speaker 3: refrain that we've seen throughout the centuries. Like at one
Speaker 3: point it was women, then it was black workers, Chinese
Speaker 3: and other Asian workers. It's Mexican, South American, Central American
Speaker 3: workers who are being painted with that brush. Like there's
Speaker 3: always this reactionary impulse in some corners to say that, oh,
Speaker 3: these other people are coming in and taking everything we built. Wow,
Speaker 3: fuck do you think you built in the first place?
Speaker 3: By organizing people and trying to help workers, like that
Speaker 3: kind of mentality is harmed the movement and harms so
Speaker 3: many workers over the century, Like just the thought of
Speaker 3: seeing a new group of workers coming in who are
Speaker 3: more vulnerable, who are desperate for work, who are in
Speaker 3: a marginalized position, and thinking, oh, no, they're gonna mess
Speaker 3: with our guys, our people, instead of thinking, oh, we
Speaker 3: need to organize them and bring them in so we
Speaker 3: can help them out, and like our union will be
Speaker 3: stronger as a result. The unions who have done that
Speaker 3: are still around like they are more effective than the
Speaker 3: ones that were you know, exclusionary. And I've refused to
Speaker 3: kind of get with the times and realize that all
Speaker 3: workers deserve a union, and all workers maybe deserve to
Speaker 3: join your union depending on what you do. Is like
Speaker 3: I think a good example of unions kind of and
Speaker 3: this isn't necessarily like that type of division. This is
Speaker 3: more like just workplace division. But I think about the
Speaker 3: United Autoworkers, who are obviously the storied industrial union, Like
Speaker 3: there's I touched on them in the book, and they're
Speaker 3: you know, they've been around forever. They're synonymous with like
Speaker 3: Detroit at the rust Bell and like you know, the
Speaker 3: automotive industry, and right now, out of their four hundred
Speaker 3: thousand members, a quarter of those one hundred thousand people
Speaker 3: they're grand students. They work in education, They work in
Speaker 3: colleges and universities in California and across the country. Like
Speaker 3: and that is the big shift, and that's a great
Speaker 3: Like that is how you evolve. That is how you
Speaker 3: grow and stay relevant. Like sure, an adjuct professor at
Speaker 3: you know, University California has a different experience from someone
Speaker 3: working in a plant in Flint, Michigan. But that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that they still don't need those higher wages, those
Speaker 3: better working conditions, that protection to the union contract, Like
Speaker 3: we're all in this together. And the sooner than people
Speaker 3: realize that and act and organize around that principle, like
Speaker 3: sooner we're gonna get shit.
Speaker 4: Done, the sooner we'll get free.
Speaker 3: I mean, really, it's so simple that people will fuck
Speaker 3: it up so much over here more after a.
Speaker 2: Quick break, let's get right back into it. So this
Speaker 2: is probably where I should say that I have a
Speaker 2: pretty complicated personal relationship with Amazon. If you walked into
Speaker 2: my apartment building on any given day, there's probably a
Speaker 2: few Amazon boxes shamefully stacked up in the trash, And
Speaker 2: I honestly don't want to tell you how much I
Speaker 2: order from them.
Speaker 4: Let's just say it's a lot.
Speaker 2: And I'd be willing to bet that I am not
Speaker 2: a It's just the truth that our myself, very much included,
Speaker 2: individual actions impact what life is like for workers at
Speaker 2: Amazon warehouses.
Speaker 4: So what should we do? So to that vein of.
Speaker 2: Sort of the sooner we realize we're all in this together,
Speaker 2: I have to sort of admit something something that I'm
Speaker 2: like it's one of It's probably there's probably not many
Speaker 2: things in my life that I am like more deeply
Speaker 2: personally ashamed of than my personal relationship to Amazon. I
Speaker 2: got very hooked on it during the pandemic. And what
Speaker 2: I really mean is like I was clearly sort of
Speaker 2: like relying on it to experience like a short term
Speaker 2: serotonin boost of like new shit at my door because
Speaker 2: I was depressed and said, like like most you, oh,
Speaker 2: there's a sepoura box right behind you, right behind this
Speaker 2: laptop that you can't see. So I yeah, And I
Speaker 2: think there are probably people out.
Speaker 4: There listening who can relate.
Speaker 2: You know, do you think that there is a need
Speaker 2: for all of us to sort of recalibrate around the
Speaker 2: human cost of companies like Amazon and.
Speaker 4: Sort of just like what it means.
Speaker 2: You know, I've listened to Amazon workers talk about how
Speaker 2: they're not robots, but I think it can be hard
Speaker 2: for people, especially people who might kind of have to
Speaker 2: rely on Amazon for whatever reason, like maybe they have
Speaker 2: a disability, maybe they're a new mom, and like you know,
Speaker 2: it's just like how shit gets done in their household.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I guess I wonder how can we
Speaker 2: is there a way for us to sort of meaningly
Speaker 2: recalibrate so that people to to sort of feel more
Speaker 2: attuned with the fact that, like, yeah, the reason why
Speaker 2: I was able to get a new hat in twenty
Speaker 2: four hours is because of a person who brought it
Speaker 2: here and a person who put it in a box
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: And that's hard. That's one of the great conundrums of
Speaker 3: modern existence, right, like the idea of like no es
Speaker 3: coal consumption under capitalism. I'm probably not even smart enough
Speaker 3: to discuss all the implications of that, right, And I
Speaker 3: do think that it's important to recognize that individual people
Speaker 3: should not necessarily be on the hook for the actions
Speaker 3: of massive corporations and the failed government that it's allowed
Speaker 3: that things to get to this point. I mean, I
Speaker 3: personally try to avoid Amazon, but like half the time
Speaker 3: that just means I'm trying to find someone on Walmart
Speaker 3: dot com. You know, like it's not we're kind of
Speaker 3: we're stuck in this current reality. I mean, you can
Speaker 3: do little things like instead of pushing for two day shipping,
Speaker 3: go for like the later option, you know, like if
Speaker 3: you're able, just go to the store, like if you
Speaker 3: are not, Because a lot of people, like you said,
Speaker 3: are dependent on delivery services because they're disabled, they're mun
Speaker 3: to compromise, they have other stressors on their life that
Speaker 3: means that they need to use these services. And I
Speaker 3: think that is fine, Like people need to survive and
Speaker 3: people need to thrive in the ways that they're able to.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think that ditching Amazon would be cool.
Speaker 3: But then if everyone in the nation was like, we're
Speaker 3: gonna boycott Amazon and then did it, that would be cool.
Speaker 3: That would have an impact. But the US government still
Speaker 3: pays Amazon to like use the Internet, Like there's all
Speaker 3: that their tentacles are so deep into everything we consume
Speaker 3: in every part of our existence, as like being to
Speaker 3: use technology that there's only so much individual consumers can do.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, like try to avoid it if
Speaker 3: you can. But like halftime, my mother in law sends
Speaker 3: us crap off Amazon anyway, Like there's she does not
Speaker 3: listen to me, she's to Tellian. So it's a hard question, right,
Speaker 3: Like I think even what you're talking about now, like
Speaker 3: this step of realism, Like I got this because a
Speaker 3: person brought it to me, a person pacted. That person
Speaker 3: might be in pain, that person might be having a
Speaker 3: hard time. Even just internalizing and understanding that aspect of
Speaker 3: things will probably impact your consumer habits and will probably
Speaker 3: impact the way you see, you know, petitions about workers
Speaker 3: asking for better working conditions, or the way that you
Speaker 3: support union drives. Like. I think the first step that
Speaker 3: any person can take, no matter of the situation, is
Speaker 3: to recognize the human cost of this. You know, these
Speaker 3: consumption patterns, this setup, this whole you know, capitalist healthscape,
Speaker 3: we're trapped within, like and then what you do from
Speaker 3: there is kind of up to you. But I think
Speaker 3: the putting the onus on individual people to fix all
Speaker 3: this stuff isn't really fair when we have a government
Speaker 3: and a social system and a capitalist society to blame.
Speaker 3: You know, you can if we all got together and
Speaker 3: did a boycott, that would be cool, But I don't know,
Speaker 3: It's it's a hard question, right, Like, how do you
Speaker 3: go up against a giant when you're not like because
Speaker 3: consumers there's probably way that consumers could organize against Amazon,
Speaker 3: but I don't know that will look like a boycott
Speaker 3: a strike. It's I feel like people I see people
Speaker 3: talking about, oh, we get a boycott Amazon all the
Speaker 3: time whenever news comes out of how terrible they are.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, avoid them if you can, But I
Speaker 3: think we need some kind of greater concentrated strategy if
Speaker 3: we really wanted to take them down, and then what
Speaker 3: will come after them? Would are we gonna go after
Speaker 3: Walmart and Target? Like that's cool too, but it's it's
Speaker 3: a big thorning thing. And if it comes down to it,
Speaker 3: at the very least, don't pick twenty four hours ship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's that's a good like practical if you've
Speaker 2: got to, if you've got a little bit of a
Speaker 2: problematic relationship with Amazon, like I do, at least you
Speaker 2: know you can you can make that experience if you're
Speaker 2: going to buy from them, make that experience a little
Speaker 2: less crappy for some of the workers who are doing
Speaker 2: the work to bring you your serotonin boost or the
Speaker 2: like life saving medicine that you need or what have you.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it's it comes down to remembering that there
Speaker 3: are people in those warehouses and a lot of them
Speaker 3: are in pain, and a lot of them are struggling.
Speaker 3: Some of them are going to lose their lives because
Speaker 3: the way that Amazon operates. And I mean, maybe I'm
Speaker 3: not a big electoral guy, but pressuring your elected officials
Speaker 3: to try and do something about Amazon and corporations like that,
Speaker 3: that could be an avenue for people too. I feel
Speaker 3: like there's a lot of different ways to slay a giant,
Speaker 3: or at least, you know, cut a couple pounds of
Speaker 3: flesh off of them. And hopefully one thing we'll see
Speaker 3: from the success of Amazon laboring and drive and you know,
Speaker 3: hopefully more rumblings that we'll see across the countries that
Speaker 3: people will realize what's happening and realize the role they
Speaker 3: play and just maybe reevaluate the way that they interact
Speaker 3: with that system. And you know, if they have friends
Speaker 3: at Amazon, maybe tell them about the union they union.
Speaker 3: It would be a good step too.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 2: I mean it's so interesting because I was reading the
Speaker 2: story yesterday, I think it was yesterday about how the
Speaker 2: food delivery service grub Hub had this free they were
Speaker 2: gonna do free lunch for three hours yesterday, and it
Speaker 2: basically was a shit show. All the kitchens were really
Speaker 2: backed up, and come to find out, they didn't tell
Speaker 2: any of the kitchens or the delivery drivers that this
Speaker 2: was happening, And so part of me was like, are
Speaker 2: they just so divorced from the idea of like human
Speaker 2: labor that they didn't even think that they needed to give.
Speaker 4: These people a heads up on what they were doing.
Speaker 3: It's like, I mean, they don't consider those people employees
Speaker 3: even even though they clearly work for the country, and
Speaker 3: they don't consider them like equal partners when they're dealing
Speaker 3: with these kindive restaurants. I mean, grub mom is so shady.
Speaker 3: I was just reading today, like I live supporter from
Speaker 3: like an incredible Indonesian restaurant and they're posting an Instagram
Speaker 3: like please don't order for rephub. We didn't ask to
Speaker 3: be on there. They don't have our prices right, Like
Speaker 3: we were trying to get them to take it down,
Speaker 3: like they will do that. They'll try and encroach on
Speaker 3: independent businesses like whole operations, just because they think it
Speaker 3: might get them more of a commission. Like they don't
Speaker 3: care about the people they quote unquote partner with at all,
Speaker 3: whether they're business owners and restaurant workers or those livery workers.
Speaker 3: Like it does come with them down to that idea
Speaker 3: that the people that are doing this labor are invisible
Speaker 3: to the people that are making these decisions that impact
Speaker 3: their days, like, Oh, they'll figure it out. Oh, there's
Speaker 3: plenty of drivers. Oh there's so many ways to justify
Speaker 3: treating people poorly if you don't have their welfare and
Speaker 3: their well being at the top of your mind. And
Speaker 3: that's clearly what happens with these tech companies. They don't
Speaker 3: like the fact that so many people that work for
Speaker 3: tech companies are resigned in this weird nether realm of
Speaker 3: gig work instead of just being given a W two.
Speaker 3: And clearly now as the employees they are, like when
Speaker 3: someone will even acknowledge that you work for them, Like,
Speaker 3: they're certainly not going to acknowledge your humanity if they
Speaker 3: don't value enough to give you the proper legal paperwork,
Speaker 3: they do not care how your day is going. And
Speaker 3: that is the problem.
Speaker 4: It is a problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's I it's so interesting to me how
Speaker 2: oftentimes tech company when we're talking about organized labor, it's
Speaker 2: often conversations about tech companies. Do you do you see
Speaker 2: technology and labor as linked?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not a technology guy. And
Speaker 3: there's definitely reporters who do really good work in that space,
Speaker 3: but especially folks at Motherboard shout out to Edward m.
Speaker 3: Wiso and Lauren Gurley, they're really on top of those
Speaker 3: those intersections. I'm kind of a dummy when it comes
Speaker 3: to tech stuff, but even just in terms of what
Speaker 3: you see happening, whether it's in like the gig work
Speaker 3: world or the increasing surveillance that companies are able to
Speaker 3: levy against you need organize, you know, Amazon's little band
Speaker 3: word list on their internal chat or whole big brother
Speaker 3: aspect of them being able to monitor everything you do. Like,
Speaker 3: technology and labor have always been connected, I mean going
Speaker 3: back to the Industrial Revolution, right, like that new technology
Speaker 3: that came in back in the day pulled people out
Speaker 3: of an uprooted society, pulled people into these factories and
Speaker 3: these dark satanic mills totally kind of reconceive the way
Speaker 3: people related to labor and wage labor specifically. I mean.
Speaker 3: One of the things about tech work and like gigwork.
Speaker 3: I keep harping on this gigwork gig economy thing, but
Speaker 3: I think it is so insiduous and it is such
Speaker 3: a big issue in labor right now, is that that's
Speaker 3: not necessarily a new thing either. Because when you think
Speaker 3: about gigwork, like someone who is a gig worker. You're
Speaker 3: giving little assignments and you get a little bit of
Speaker 3: money for every little piece that you do. You don't
Speaker 3: have a specific set workday or set hours. You're just
Speaker 3: kind of picking up whatever scraps come your way and
Speaker 3: trying to piece together something you can survive on. That
Speaker 3: is a very old concept, going back to the early
Speaker 3: nineteen hundreds something called piece garment workers in New York
Speaker 3: City specifically that time, the would spend all day laboring
Speaker 3: at the factory and all day I mean like twelve
Speaker 3: plus hours and poorly ventilated, hot or cold, locked door,
Speaker 3: just nightmare places. They and a lot of them were women,
Speaker 3: a lot of them were children. Well, these folks would
Speaker 3: go spend all day in the factory and then come
Speaker 3: home and they would bring home more scraps of fabric
Speaker 3: or unfinished projects and work on these pieces and they
Speaker 3: would get paid by the piece. And basically like they
Speaker 3: they're kind of the predecessors of the folks that are
Speaker 3: stuck in this predicament right now because they didn't have
Speaker 3: I mean, they had their their day job, but they
Speaker 3: were trying to make more money. So they're being paid
Speaker 3: so poorly at their day job by doing these bits
Speaker 3: and pieces, and of course they got short changed. Of
Speaker 3: course they were. You know, this isn't like in the
Speaker 3: era of candle light. So imagine someone hunched over sewing
Speaker 3: a shirt waist at one am in the morning. Poor
Speaker 3: they had to wake up at five to go to
Speaker 3: the factory. Like that is not that far removed from
Speaker 3: what today's delivery drivers and rideshare app drivers and all
Speaker 3: of the other things that are now being grouped into
Speaker 3: this sort of amorphous gigwork, remote work. Just this weird
Speaker 3: morass of garbage. It happened before, and regulations and labor
Speaker 3: laws and progress in that space kind of chipped away
Speaker 3: at that, And right now we're kind of in this
Speaker 3: weird wild West zone where tech companies can do whatever
Speaker 3: they want, which seems like maybe somebody in charge to
Speaker 3: do something about that, but half the people in charge
Speaker 3: are like friends with the tech people. So it's a
Speaker 3: little bit of a different world. But some things really
Speaker 3: haven't changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely, I definitely see that as well. So
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the book a little bit.
Speaker 3: YEA, so.
Speaker 2: Fight like Hell, the Untold Story, Untold History of American labor.
Speaker 2: You're really right about the ways that people who have
Speaker 2: been historically marginalized, like women and black folks and indigenous
Speaker 2: folks were the life blood of labor and always have been,
Speaker 2: and like our stories and our voices were always there,
Speaker 2: even though you know, I feel like the face of
Speaker 2: what we think of as someone involved in a union
Speaker 2: is like a white male. I guess my question is one,
Speaker 2: how do we make sure that we're telling a more
Speaker 2: authentic story of what the face of labor actually looks like?
Speaker 2: And are there any do you have a favorite figure
Speaker 2: or person who you want to get more shine in
Speaker 2: the history of labor?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, okay, is it the second part and the
Speaker 3: second but I think like as one of the most
Speaker 3: important things to realize I'm recognized. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: the subtitle is the Untold History, And that's not to
Speaker 3: say that folks haven't been telling these stories the whole time, right,
Speaker 3: Like the workers told them in the first place, and
Speaker 3: then contemporary journalists and chroniclers wrote them down, and then
Speaker 3: historians and academic research as archivists, they dug into the
Speaker 3: past and pulled out all these pieces and preserved them
Speaker 3: and analyzed them and you know, tuck them away somewhere safe.
Speaker 3: So then like journalists and nerds like me could come
Speaker 3: in and kind of pull together and synthesize that information
Speaker 3: and bring it out further people to see. I think
Speaker 3: so much of it comes down to people that are
Speaker 3: in a position to elevate these stories and write about labor,
Speaker 3: write about history, do it in a way that's accessible
Speaker 3: and intersectional and inclusive, Like it's not that hard, Like
Speaker 3: literally you could like any labor book you could pick up,
Speaker 3: Like there are black and brown and indigenous and queer
Speaker 3: and disabled folks and women and every other gender like
Speaker 3: in those stories too. It just depends on what you
Speaker 3: choose to focus on. And I think that is something
Speaker 3: that people can be more mindful of, and certainly not
Speaker 3: folks in the academic space who are like very specifically
Speaker 3: research specific groups or eras, like whether it's like Judy
Speaker 3: Young who wrote a book called Unbound feed of social
Speaker 3: History of San Francisco that was hugely impactful for my
Speaker 3: research into that area, or doctor Turr Hunter who wrote
Speaker 3: to Enjoy My Freedom, which is about Black women's labor
Speaker 3: post reconstruction. Like, academics have done this work, but it
Speaker 3: is not necessarily on offer to everyone, right, Like you
Speaker 3: can't necessarily walk into a library and pick up their
Speaker 3: books that you should be able to. It's there's a
Speaker 3: little bit of a gap between what's available to folks
Speaker 3: in the academic space and most available to folks that
Speaker 3: like maybe walk by Barnes and Noble on their way
Speaker 3: home from work. And it's really important to me to
Speaker 3: pull together as much as I could from that history,
Speaker 3: and you know, pull from tons and tons of research
Speaker 3: and different historians and newspapers and magazine articles and interviews
Speaker 3: and put it together in a way that made it
Speaker 3: very clear that everyone else has always been here and
Speaker 3: it's done incredible things. And I hope that people will
Speaker 3: read my book and then read the bibliography and follow
Speaker 3: those breadcrumbs and find some more of those those important writings,
Speaker 3: because this is just the beginning. This is kind of
Speaker 3: an intro to a lot of these folks. Like one
Speaker 3: of the people to your second question, one of the
Speaker 3: people that I was so excited to write about because
Speaker 3: I thought I knew so much about her. Turns out
Speaker 3: I was wrong. A woman named Lucy Parsons who and
Speaker 3: I knew about her just from my involvement like Radical Space.
Speaker 3: She's kind of like an anarchist art icon, and I
Speaker 3: had read an earlier biography of her from the seventies,
Speaker 3: I'd read her own writings. I thought I had a
Speaker 3: pretty good grip on who she was. But then this
Speaker 3: history named Jacqueline Jones put out a book a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago called A Goddess of Anarchy that was
Speaker 3: this exhaustively researched biography of Lucy Parson's life. And it
Speaker 3: turns out that the common wisdom about her and her
Speaker 3: life was pretty wrong during her lifetime, and Lucy Parsons,
Speaker 3: she was kind of a chameleon. It was kind of
Speaker 3: to her. She decided to shape shift a little bit
Speaker 3: and hide who she was in order to be more
Speaker 3: impactful in her work and more easily relatable to the
Speaker 3: white factory workers she was trying to organize, right, because
Speaker 3: she presented herself as a mixed like Spanish and indigenous
Speaker 3: maiden from Texas. That's how she said she was, and
Speaker 3: she said she was from there. She moved to Chicago
Speaker 3: with her husband, Albert Parsons in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 3: and they set up shop and started organizing in the
Speaker 3: anarchist community and the labor community. Like she was a
Speaker 3: dressmaker and she organized lady like women garment workers, and
Speaker 3: she she had like a very interesting overlap when it
Speaker 3: comes to like labor and inarchist politics, revolutionary politics, because
Speaker 3: at that time a lot of those folks were the
Speaker 3: same people like that was a very not incestuous, but
Speaker 3: a very interconnected community, like it kind of still is
Speaker 3: now right like radicals, we've always been here, We've always
Speaker 3: been getting up to mischief in the labor movement elsewhere.
Speaker 3: But so yeah, she was she and she was a
Speaker 3: co founder of the Industrial Works for the World. IWW
Speaker 3: like she she had an impact in the labor community
Speaker 3: certainly and in labor history. But Lucy Parsons was not
Speaker 3: who she said she was. She was born in Virginia
Speaker 3: on a plantation. She was a black woman who was
Speaker 3: born enslaved, who moved out to Texas following emancipation, and
Speaker 3: then she kind of built up her own mythology to
Speaker 3: protect herself and for other reasons that I don't know
Speaker 3: what went through her head. I haven't met her, but
Speaker 3: she was just this fascinating character and she intersected with
Speaker 3: so many different pieces of so many different movements. But
Speaker 3: I tried to write better in a way that showed
Speaker 3: like how important and interesting and like radical and militon
Speaker 3: she was, but also acknowledged like she was not perfect,
Speaker 3: like even outside of her own identity, and you know
Speaker 3: the way she presented herself like she did. She made
Speaker 3: some pretty gnarly decisions in her life, and you can
Speaker 3: read more about it. But it was a challenge to
Speaker 3: write about a figure that I've admired for so long
Speaker 3: and to kind of address a little bit of the
Speaker 3: ugular and messy humanity of a person like that. But
Speaker 3: I was really excited to include her because I feel
Speaker 3: like she's very well known in radical circles, but labor people,
Speaker 3: unless you're like in Chicago and have a specific interest
Speaker 3: in that point in time, you probably don't know that
Speaker 3: much about Lucy Parson, so you probably have a pretty
Speaker 3: negative view of her and the other anarchists, and hoping
Speaker 3: to kind of, I don't know, present a more balanced
Speaker 3: view of someone who I think is a really important
Speaker 3: historical figure.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating and it really does go back to recognizing
Speaker 2: humanity and sort of if you only know Lucy Persons
Speaker 2: as this you know hero figure that you miss out
Speaker 2: on all these other parts of who she was and
Speaker 2: how and what made her her and how she showed
Speaker 2: up in the world.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 2: Isn't it better to have a messy, complex, honest human
Speaker 2: person to to, you know, look to for guidance than
Speaker 2: a hero than someone who, like you know, is just
Speaker 2: isn't isn't all of those things right?
Speaker 3: Because that just makes it seem like a storybook kind
Speaker 3: of situation or a fairytale instead of a flesh and
Speaker 3: blood person, a historical thing that happened. And so many
Speaker 3: of the people in this book are complicated or they've
Speaker 3: been either people that have been kind of left out
Speaker 3: or they have been included but not in the fullness
Speaker 3: of their whole experience. Like I started out the book
Speaker 3: in one of the earlier chapters talking about the Triangle
Speaker 3: Shirwey's Factory fire, which I feel like a lot of
Speaker 3: people know about that. That's a big one. And Clara Lemlick,
Speaker 3: one of the organizers of the Garment Workers Union, that
Speaker 3: was kind of in that mediu right, like she was
Speaker 3: part of the uprosing of the twenty thousand in nineteen
Speaker 3: oh nine. She that was before the Triangle Factory fire.
Speaker 3: But they're connected because Clara Lemlich, who was often painted
Speaker 3: as this just kind of spunky girl who stood up
Speaker 3: in a meeting and said we're going to go on strike,
Speaker 3: like she was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who had been
Speaker 3: organizing for years. She had gotten her ribs broken by
Speaker 3: the cops on a picket line, like she was an organizer,
Speaker 3: she was out there, like she was not just a
Speaker 3: spontaneous romantic heroine, like she was in that struggle. And
Speaker 3: like the connection with the triangle of Shirtway factory fire
Speaker 3: is that the work that Clara Lemlix and other organizers
Speaker 3: predominantly at that point Eastern European Jewish women and Italian women,
Speaker 3: the work they had done. If the owners of that
Speaker 3: factory had signed on to the agreement that those organizers
Speaker 3: in that strike forced, like most of the other garment
Speaker 3: factors in the area in Manhattan to sign those workers
Speaker 3: probably would't have burned to death, like they were one
Speaker 3: of the only factories that didn't sign on to these
Speaker 3: more increased safety cords. So that's yeah, I'm going I
Speaker 3: guess a slightly different direction. But it just shows that
Speaker 3: like these human people that are so connected to so
Speaker 3: many other things happening, like you're in no one's just
Speaker 3: a hero, you know. Sometimes you're someone who got beat
Speaker 3: up by the cops and decided, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: keep going. I'm going to force this system to change
Speaker 3: because it's not fair.
Speaker 2: Starting with the Starbucks in Buffalo in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: Starbucks Bristas have been unionizing across the country in states
Speaker 2: like California and Utah, and a lot of this energy
Speaker 2: is being sparked by a new generation younger folks. Seventy
Speaker 2: seven percent of young adults support unions, according to a
Speaker 2: September Gallop Pole and I have to say that feels
Speaker 2: pretty darn hopeful. We're in this moment where it feels
Speaker 2: like a lot of big wins for labor. You know,
Speaker 2: the first Starbucks unizing, you know, the JFK eight. I'm
Speaker 2: seeing a lot of interesting chatter about unions on places
Speaker 2: like TikTok where younger folks hang out like gen Z,
Speaker 2: so they're really fire up about unions. Are you hopeful
Speaker 2: that we're entering this new era of union power?
Speaker 3: I am always hopeful to the point of almost being
Speaker 3: a Pollyanna about these things. And that's I think that is.
Speaker 3: It's definitely a conscious decision to be hopeful and be
Speaker 3: optimistic because the labor movement has kind of been in
Speaker 3: decline since really before I was born, and I'm thirty four,
Speaker 3: so I guess, like the entirety that I have been
Speaker 3: on this earth, the numbers of union density has been falling.
Speaker 3: You know, anti union legislation has been cutting us off
Speaker 3: at the knees. There have been all of these factors
Speaker 3: like manufacturing. Laura knows what happened there, Like, there have
Speaker 3: been all these factors kind of pulling the movement out
Speaker 3: of the movement, like kind of putting a damper on things.
Speaker 3: We'll say. And you know, facts aren't always fun. Numbers
Speaker 3: are not always fun, especially when you're looking at your density.
Speaker 3: But we are in a moment where, like you said, specifically,
Speaker 3: the younger generation is interested and fired up in paying attention.
Speaker 3: And not only are they paying attention, they're doing something.
Speaker 3: They're organizing. I mean the Starbucks workers and Amazon workers
Speaker 3: like those are younger people. Like not only are they
Speaker 3: younger people, they're queer at trands, at black and brown
Speaker 3: immigrant workers, like workers fromd these marginalized backgrounds that have
Speaker 3: always formed the backbone and the labor movement, but have
Speaker 3: not necessarily gotten their due, Like these are the workers
Speaker 3: propelling things forward, and that is important and significance. And
Speaker 3: even some of the conversation I've seen, like on TikTok
Speaker 3: and other places where maybe a traditional labor union isn't
Speaker 3: the answer for some specific groups of people, that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that then thinking about it is inconsequential, and that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean they're going to find a different way to
Speaker 3: organize and find a different way to harness their labor.
Speaker 3: Like I got an email from a person actually get
Speaker 3: able of them back about a bunch of independent sellers
Speaker 3: on Etsy who want to form an independent seller's guild,
Speaker 3: and that is that is very interesting, Like I need
Speaker 3: to do a little bit of reading to figure out
Speaker 3: what to tell them, because like that's kind of a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of small business owners coming together and they
Speaker 3: want to organize against this bigger company that they are
Speaker 3: kind of in dialogue with. Like that is not like
Speaker 3: that's tricky. It's a little complicated, but it's very interesting.
Speaker 3: Like that is not something that would have happened five
Speaker 3: years ago, or maybe even a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Like all of these new organizing wins and some of
Speaker 3: the setbacks and some of the losses, like that is
Speaker 3: all working in concert to get people excited and give
Speaker 3: people an option, because I think a lot of folks
Speaker 3: for a very long time have maybe either felt or
Speaker 3: been made to feel like the labor movement isn't for them,
Speaker 3: like unions aren't for them. Like back when I was advice,
Speaker 3: when someone asked me if I went to unionize, I
Speaker 3: was like, we can do that, like we were Williamsburg,
Speaker 3: Like there's kombucha and the fridge. Like really, like my
Speaker 3: dad's operating engineer, I can be in the same movement
Speaker 3: as him, and I could, and so can anyone else.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of ways to form a union,
Speaker 3: a lot of ways to organize with your coworkers and
Speaker 3: build power. And I think this current generation, gosh, it
Speaker 3: feels so it makes it feel so old to say that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, not older, promise, but definitely people younger than
Speaker 3: me are doing really big things. And I don't think
Speaker 3: that's gonna stop. Like I know that Amazon is Starbucks
Speaker 3: are going to pull out every stop and use every
Speaker 3: nefarious legal means and probably extra legal means they can
Speaker 3: think of to try and slow this wave down. And
Speaker 3: try to, you know, stave off union negotiations and put
Speaker 3: a stop to this. But I don't think you can
Speaker 3: put that lightning back in the bottle. And I think
Speaker 3: if those big corporations keep actively trying to bust up
Speaker 3: these unions and break down these organizers, spirits like they're
Speaker 3: gonna be consequences. You can't be a big quote unquote
Speaker 3: progressive company and be a union buster and have anyone
Speaker 3: take you seriously. Like, I think the tide has turned
Speaker 3: in a very real way. And I'm sure that there
Speaker 3: are labor storians and economists who would have a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of like, you know, like my broader perspective and numbers,
Speaker 3: and have a lot of things to say about that.
Speaker 3: But as someone who's just like studied unions a lot
Speaker 3: and talked to a lot of workers, and it's very
Speaker 3: excited about unions in general, Like, it feels like a
Speaker 3: very cool time to be alive and to be paying attention.
Speaker 3: And I am so grateful to those younger workers who
Speaker 3: are kind of pushing the movement in this direction where
Speaker 3: it's needed to go for so long.
Speaker 4: I love it. I love a hopeful ending.
Speaker 3: I'm just I believe that we will win, even if
Speaker 3: it's after I'm dead.
Speaker 2: Kim, where can people keep up with all the amazing
Speaker 2: worker up to and get the book?
Speaker 3: So you can buy the book anywhere? I mean, fuck Amazon,
Speaker 3: but if you got it, you can get it on Amazon.
Speaker 3: But I always tell people to uh if you can
Speaker 3: either order it from like bookshop or Indie bound or
Speaker 3: like an independent bookstore, or get it from the library.
Speaker 3: Like the library changed my life. I wouldn't be here
Speaker 3: without it. So if for library has it, just get
Speaker 3: it there. I don't care. I just want you to
Speaker 3: read it. And I'm aggressively online. I am on Twitter
Speaker 3: at grim Kim and on Instagram is Kim Kelly writer,
Speaker 3: and I have a Patreon thing. I think it's just
Speaker 3: Kim Kelly and yeah, I'm too old for TikTok and
Speaker 3: all that, but maybe if I figure it out you
Speaker 3: can hopefully you'll find me on there. But yeah, give
Speaker 3: me the little time my thirties. Man, I've fallen apart.
Speaker 4: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that I did not ask but you
Speaker 2: want to make sure it gets included?
Speaker 3: Mmm? No, this is incredible. But I guess the last
Speaker 3: thing I will say is that I wrote this book
Speaker 3: for workers, and for regular people to read on their
Speaker 3: breaks or on the bus, or when you get home
Speaker 3: from a long day, to pick it up and page
Speaker 3: through it and hopefully find people on the pages that
Speaker 3: ring true to you. I want people to see themselves
Speaker 3: in this book and to recognize that they are part
Speaker 3: of this incredible history and they're part of the future too,
Speaker 3: Like the labor movement has always belonged to all of us,
Speaker 3: whether or not the people powers wanted us to recognize that.
Speaker 3: And the only way we're going to get closer to
Speaker 3: me and free is by working together. You're recognizing that
Speaker 3: power and fighting like hell of tabe What's Ours.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for ways to support the show, check
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Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
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Speaker 2: for today's episode at TENG.
Speaker 4: Goody dot com.
Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 2: me bridget Tood. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative,
Speaker 2: edited by Joey Pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Speaker 2: Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada
Speaker 2: is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If
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