Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with Me
Speaker 1: your Girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Long Island Bunker
Speaker 1: as we get ready to celebrate the holiday this week, folks,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited because we decided that this week on
Speaker 1: WOKAF was really largely going to be about the labor movement,
Speaker 1: to be about workers fighting for their rights and fighting
Speaker 1: for not just a decent wage, but a thriving one.
Speaker 1: As I said in my interview earlier in the week
Speaker 1: with Francesca Ramsey, it's really important that we are thoughtful
Speaker 1: about the language that we use and the conversations and
Speaker 1: the narrative that we have because outside of the one percent, folks, sure,
Speaker 1: there are gradiations of workers and labor. We understood that
Speaker 1: very plainly during the COVID nineteen pandemic, when the privilege
Speaker 1: were able to stay inside and stay safe while the
Speaker 1: essential workers, the ones that oftentimes make the least were
Speaker 1: forced to be outside right with no protections, and recognizing
Speaker 1: that a lot of what we are seeing now spawned
Speaker 1: out of that time, a time when we were told
Speaker 1: that in order to work, you need to be inside
Speaker 1: of a cubicle eight ten hours a day, five days
Speaker 1: a week. Well, lo and behold when that work had
Speaker 1: to turn to remote work. Guess what didn't happen? The
Speaker 1: folding of a bunch of companies, right, Guess what didn't happen, right,
Speaker 1: the shareholders and CEOs not being able to make money?
Speaker 1: They did doubly time over. You know, So what we
Speaker 1: got the ability to have control over our own lives,
Speaker 1: the ability to do both and right, take care of
Speaker 1: our families, take care of ourselves. Why in fact holding
Speaker 1: down a job? And so during this time, I think
Speaker 1: that we are recognizing and in my conversation coming up
Speaker 1: next with our friend labor rights advocate and author Kim Kelly,
Speaker 1: you know, we talk about whether or not this moment
Speaker 1: that we have been in for the last year plus
Speaker 1: is a moment or is it a movement? Right? Are
Speaker 1: we going to see more industries striking to get the benefits,
Speaker 1: to get the resources that they deserve?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: We know that capitalism is a fucking lie and a scam.
Speaker 1: It is the pyramid scheme to end all pyramid schemes.
Speaker 1: But we know until it's done, we have to find
Speaker 1: a way to operate inside of it that is healthy
Speaker 1: for us. Right, that actual gives us the resources that
Speaker 1: we need to live not just a decent life, but
Speaker 1: to live a good life, one that allows us to
Speaker 1: be able to not just survive, but to be able
Speaker 1: to thrive. And so what does that look like. In
Speaker 1: this conversation with our friend Kim Kelly, we look at
Speaker 1: the scope of this year, the strikes that we've seen,
Speaker 1: from healthcare workers to actors, to writers, to auto workers
Speaker 1: and more, and discuss what we think about what we
Speaker 1: have seen and whether this is truly the beginning of
Speaker 1: a reorientation and a reimagining about how we see labor
Speaker 1: moving forward. Coming up next, my conversation with Kim Kelly Folks.
Speaker 1: I am always excited. I want to get the opportunity
Speaker 1: to welcome back to the show Kim Kelly, who is
Speaker 1: a freelance journalist, person who is the go to person
Speaker 1: about labor, about workers, the author of Fight Like Hell,
Speaker 1: The Untold History of American Labor. Whenever we talk, Caim,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I get off the get off the call,
Speaker 1: and I always feel like, Okay, we're like we're in this,
Speaker 1: like we're doing this, like you know, like we can
Speaker 1: do this. We can change how this society functions and
Speaker 1: it is going to be a bit by bit, bite
Speaker 1: by bite, you know, strike by strike type of situation.
Speaker 1: But I want to get like your sense, now that
Speaker 1: we're closing out the year where it has been historic
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways for workers across industries, how
Speaker 1: you are feeling and what of the strikes has has
Speaker 1: kind of resonated with you the most.
Speaker 2: It's been really exciting. I mean, I think everyone is
Speaker 2: pretty stoked about the UAW strike, the ensuing contract that
Speaker 2: I think the workers are voting on right now. It
Speaker 2: seems like it'll probably be a slam dunk, but you
Speaker 2: never know. It's up to them. But I just think
Speaker 2: so much of the dialogue and the enthusiasm that we've
Speaker 2: seen kick up thanks to that strike, and of course
Speaker 2: the ongoing seg after strike and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette strike,
Speaker 2: and all of these strikes are happening, the walk out
Speaker 2: of pharmacy technicians, the work that the Union of Southern
Speaker 2: Service Workers continues to do in the South. There's so
Speaker 2: much going on, and it really seems like they're like
Speaker 2: people have realized that there are ways to get involved
Speaker 2: even if they don't currently work at a unionized workplace,
Speaker 2: or they're not in an industry or a job title
Speaker 2: that's able to unionize your traditional means. Yet, like people
Speaker 2: are getting involved, and I think younger people especially, I
Speaker 2: think there's a impulsive especially like older generations to kind
Speaker 2: of wave away social media as something that met It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, the TikTok, like whatever those kids are doing,
Speaker 2: the kids are educating and radicalizeding on TikTok and on Instagram,
Speaker 2: on Twitter, well, you know.
Speaker 1: It was yeah right, uh boom.
Speaker 2: And one thing that has given me a lot of
Speaker 2: hope too is seeing the way that rank and file
Speaker 2: union members and some straight up and some unions and
Speaker 2: some union councils have been rallying around the cause of
Speaker 2: the Palestinian people Palestinian workers in a way that's caused
Speaker 2: a lot of friction in the movement that I think
Speaker 2: is it needs to be there. There's some tension there
Speaker 2: that needs to kind of be pushed because I think
Speaker 2: it's becoming clear that, you know, our elected union leadership
Speaker 2: isn't always on the same page as the people they're
Speaker 2: supposed to represent, So what do we do with that?
Speaker 2: It's kind of you know, we were talking about the
Speaker 2: upcoming elections. That's kind of that question at large, what
Speaker 2: do you do when the will of the members or
Speaker 2: the people does reflect the actions of their statements of
Speaker 2: the yes in charge. Well, like you could do what
Speaker 2: you know, and you know obviously not this current moment.
Speaker 2: It took a few years to get here. But the
Speaker 2: whole reason we have Sean Fain and this new energized
Speaker 2: militant UAW is because rank and file workers with the
Speaker 2: UAW united for I can't remember the acronym, but they
Speaker 2: wont there. There's a group basically a group of reform
Speaker 2: minded rank and file workers in the UAW pushed to
Speaker 2: get this reform slet going. He's the first democratically elected
Speaker 2: president of the uaw's history. Wow. Right, Like like as
Speaker 2: what we saw at the Teamsters with Sean O'Brien, that
Speaker 2: was because of a reform movement. The team sits for
Speaker 2: a democratic union. Like we've seen that it is possible
Speaker 2: to change leadership, to change priorities, to change political alignments.
Speaker 2: And I really think this might be one of the
Speaker 2: tipping points, Like we're going to see like a lot
Speaker 2: of rank and file union members I see in and
Speaker 2: spoken to are really pissed at the statements we're seeing
Speaker 2: from the afl COO or from their union presidents or
Speaker 2: and or are being you know, compelled to use their
Speaker 2: labor to perpetuate this slaughter. And I think there's going
Speaker 2: to be a reckoning in the next few years when
Speaker 2: it comes to who's in charge of these unions, because
Speaker 2: union leader terms don't last forever.
Speaker 1: Let me let me ask you this too, because I
Speaker 1: think that what has happened with kind of, like you said,
Speaker 1: the the re education or the education in the first
Speaker 1: place for people happening via social media, whether that is
Speaker 1: TikTok or Instagram or the like about unions. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about why unions kind of broke down in terms
Speaker 1: of favor right, public favor public, the public being supportive
Speaker 1: of unions. Unions had a big surge. We had the
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution, we had all of these factories, we have
Speaker 1: all of these deaths and horrible things that are happening.
Speaker 1: People begin to you know, to unionize right to get
Speaker 1: things like a five day work week, to get things
Speaker 1: like rid of things like child labor, to get you know,
Speaker 1: benefits and safety measures put in place so that frankly,
Speaker 1: they're able to do their jobs and not risk life
Speaker 1: and limb literally, and so this happens, and then it's
Speaker 1: as if the workers themselves turned on the very support
Speaker 1: system that was put in place in order to make
Speaker 1: sure that they would be okay. So I just want
Speaker 1: you to be able to help us understand the why
Speaker 1: that happened. And then yeah, and then the up and
Speaker 1: the up and down because now we're back in an
Speaker 1: up place where we're talking about unions in a way
Speaker 1: that frankly, I don't think that we've talked about unions
Speaker 1: and I've been in politics and policy for a while,
Speaker 1: in like fifteen twenty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been a big shift, like we are so back,
Speaker 2: but I think a lot of it goes back to
Speaker 2: what all went down in the eighties under the Reagan administration.
Speaker 2: Like you can't pin everything terrible and a world on
Speaker 2: that guy, but you can pin a lot, a lot
Speaker 2: a lot of our current society and political problems go
Speaker 2: right back to that motherfucker. So him breaking the pack
Speaker 2: code strike and really encouraging this greed is good anti labor,
Speaker 2: anti workers sentiment and showing corporations and bosses that, oh,
Speaker 2: we can get away with not working with unians. We
Speaker 2: can get away with busting strikes, we can get away
Speaker 2: with hiring sabs. It was kind of this big shift,
Speaker 2: and you add in all of the things that have
Speaker 2: happened since then, whether it's de industrialization or offshoring, and
Speaker 2: the rise of right to work laws, so called right
Speaker 2: to work laws that Republicans have pushed all over the place,
Speaker 2: the weakening of existing labor laws, the rise of corporate
Speaker 2: media that is either explicitly anti labor or kind of
Speaker 2: like you could tell they're just not interested in corporate labor.
Speaker 2: I mean, people who have studied this and are much
Speaker 2: smarter than may have really broken it down in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. But I feel like that's the vibe
Speaker 2: that we're dealing with us, the tide we've been swimming
Speaker 2: against because the labor would never went anywhere, just lost
Speaker 2: a lot of power. But or at this moment where
Speaker 2: I think the biggest change has been the availability of information,
Speaker 2: because this is something even back in twenty fifteen when
Speaker 2: I was organizing at my last workplace, our biggest hurdle
Speaker 2: wasn't that people were anti union or that they had
Speaker 2: ingested like a lot of anti union talking points, is
Speaker 2: that they didn't know what a union was, what it
Speaker 2: could do for them, or that they were even eligible
Speaker 2: to join when and once we got past that hurdle,
Speaker 2: we organized like five hundred people. Like that's how we
Speaker 2: ended up here, Like I was, was I kind of
Speaker 2: ended up here by accident?
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I think that's something that.
Speaker 2: Is really fueling this change is the fact that there
Speaker 2: is so much more access to information pro union or
Speaker 2: even just fair coverage of unions and what they do
Speaker 2: and of what workers' rights could and should look like
Speaker 2: the fact that we have labor reporters and publicate like
Speaker 2: progressive publications like in These Times and Labor Notes and
Speaker 2: even the Nation the Baffler places like that that are
Speaker 2: really pouring resources energy into covering these movements. Even main
Speaker 2: like mainstream mass corporate media has been covering the UAW
Speaker 2: strikes like they were covering Strike Tober when it was happening,
Speaker 2: like they're covering the variety of the actions that have happening.
Speaker 2: It's there's been a shift. I think it's really just
Speaker 2: people realizing, oh, we can do that, right, if we
Speaker 2: do that, things might actually happen.
Speaker 1: It happen.
Speaker 2: I think it's been this kind of realignment of people's
Speaker 2: expectations of thinking, Oh, okay, I don't have to go
Speaker 2: full you know, Johnny paycheck, take this job and shove it.
Speaker 2: I can stick around and make my job better. Huh.
Speaker 1: You know, in all honesty, that's what all of this
Speaker 1: is about, right, you know? It kind of flies in
Speaker 1: the face of the sentiment that Republicans always try and
Speaker 1: put out, which is that, honestly, the American people are lazy.
Speaker 1: They don't want to work, they just want to hand out. Right.
Speaker 1: The idea around unions is like, no, I do want
Speaker 1: to work, but I want dignity and respect and a
Speaker 1: wage where I can support myself and my family, right
Speaker 1: like like, so it's this and and look at any
Speaker 1: other I would say, industrialize greedy ask country Americans take
Speaker 1: die with vacation days. Do you know what I'm saying? Like,
Speaker 1: Americans literally go to their grave and could afford I
Speaker 1: could have could could have afforded a month months off,
Speaker 1: but didn't take their but didn't take their time off
Speaker 1: because somehow we have been we have been forced into
Speaker 1: this belief, this perverse idea that the more that we produce,
Speaker 1: the better of a human that we are right and
Speaker 1: so if you and so it's just like this, I
Speaker 1: feel like unions fly in the face of that where
Speaker 1: it's just like, no, I want to work. I just
Speaker 1: I want to be able to like not just be
Speaker 1: working to survive, like I'd actually like a life.
Speaker 2: I think that's such a huge part of it. Like
Speaker 2: we've we've been hoodwinked, we've been what that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: the harder you work, the better person you are, like that,
Speaker 2: like vintage Puritan Protestant work ethic. We've been. We've been
Speaker 2: we've internalized or been forced to internalize. And that that
Speaker 2: like very American individualistic sort of character, sort of quality
Speaker 2: that is so celebrated, you know, the Horatio Algurs, the
Speaker 2: Great Man there, all of the bullshit that makes us
Speaker 2: more isolated and more like islands into ourselves. And that
Speaker 2: is not how human beings are meant to operate. We're
Speaker 2: a collective species, communal species, like we do best when
Speaker 2: we're in groups like gudea things, you know, And that's
Speaker 2: I think that's a big crireless shift too, Like this
Speaker 2: shift from people thinking how am I going to get
Speaker 2: mine and take care of my family? To oh, how
Speaker 2: are we going to take care of everyone? At this workplace.
Speaker 2: How are we going to take care of everyone in
Speaker 2: our union? How are we going to take care of
Speaker 2: the whole working class? And I do even though he's
Speaker 2: not you know, he's not covering himself with glory right now,
Speaker 2: I do have to kind of point back to the
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders campaigns for president with that ninety nine percent idea,
Speaker 2: that post occupy the ninety nine percent, like it's us
Speaker 2: against them idea. I think for a lot of folks,
Speaker 2: especially in like I think our generation and maybe even
Speaker 2: a little younger, that was kind of one of the
Speaker 2: first political awakenings we had of like, oh, like us,
Speaker 2: we're in this protest, We're in this occupation, We're in
Speaker 2: this group versus the bad guys. Yeah. Yeah, we're not
Speaker 2: wanting what they have, We're wanting what we deserve. And
Speaker 2: I think that shift is still being felt. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of different factors. You know.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting too because I honestly, and you may
Speaker 1: laugh at this, I believe that the advent of reality
Speaker 1: TV has a lot to do with that. I think that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that this obsession with wealth and with consumption
Speaker 1: and materialism had people believe that they were just one experience,
Speaker 1: one check, one lottery ticket away from living this life.
Speaker 1: So they coveted right in this very jealous minded space.
Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden, the chasm right between
Speaker 1: my super sweet sixteen and now a Kim Kardashian being
Speaker 1: a billionaire and having her own jet, being part of
Speaker 1: being part of the machinery that built that, with our viewership,
Speaker 1: with our you know, with our desire to like peek
Speaker 1: inside of that world. And I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of we've watched this and we've seen like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: how did they get even more money than what we
Speaker 1: started out watching ten fifteen years ago? Like I'm still
Speaker 1: in the same apartment watching this show, but they but
Speaker 1: there are they own an eyelid?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: How do fuck that happen? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I feel I do, I feel like that kind
Speaker 1: of voyeurism into well, I mean, you've seen some of
Speaker 1: these real house spilee people get caught up with tax
Speaker 1: evation and all of these things, grifting off of this
Speaker 1: idea that they have more, you know, than they actually have.
Speaker 1: And so I just I'm just curious, like how you
Speaker 1: think that pop culture and our American obsession with wealth
Speaker 1: has also played a part into this big awakening where
Speaker 1: we're realizing that the ninety nine percent of us are
Speaker 1: still in the same place and this one percent has
Speaker 1: gotten like went from millionaires to billionaires in that same time.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting to think about. Like, so if you
Speaker 2: feel like before the advent of mass media, nobody really
Speaker 2: knew what the really rich people were up to or
Speaker 2: what they had, Yeah, no, it could kind of like, oh,
Speaker 2: I I wish I had a carriage or a big
Speaker 2: house or my own car, but they didn't have like
Speaker 2: shoved in their face, like look at all the nice,
Speaker 2: shiny things we have that you never will or maybe
Speaker 2: you could if you end up on the right TV show.
Speaker 2: It's very Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Like yes, yes,
Speaker 2: and then everything changes. But even in that allegory, like
Speaker 2: a bunch of people have to die for that kid
Speaker 2: to win the chocolate Factory, there's probably something to that.
Speaker 2: But right this idea of wealth being like the end all,
Speaker 2: be all goal of everyone, that's, yeah, you work hard,
Speaker 2: you make money, you go to college, you marry someone
Speaker 2: with a decent job, you get a house, like this
Speaker 2: whole American dream that we're supposed to strive for who
Speaker 2: has never been available to everybody anyway, most of us really,
Speaker 2: that was just a way to keep us in line
Speaker 2: and keep us work right, and just seeing the ostentatious
Speaker 2: just sort of gilded garbage that like the Jeff Bezosis
Speaker 2: of the world and.
Speaker 1: All the other right, Like I'm I'm on it, Like
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos started a company that was about books right
Speaker 1: then turned into just goods. And he's sitting literally on
Speaker 1: a rocket ship platform talking about thanks to the people
Speaker 1: who work at Amazon and consume Amazon products, And you're like,
Speaker 1: what what happened here? Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: So there are money anymore?
Speaker 1: Right, And so there is this thing where there have
Speaker 1: always been wealthy people. There have always been, right the
Speaker 1: quote unquote captains of industries, the Rockefellers in this, that
Speaker 1: and the other thing. But you were not brought. It
Speaker 1: was not shoved in your face. It was not made
Speaker 1: to be entertainment in the way that it is. And
Speaker 1: I think that we're kind of in a period where
Speaker 1: I wonder if it will be entertaining five if it'll
Speaker 1: be still be entertaining ten years from now, because I
Speaker 1: tell you that. I look in the comment section now
Speaker 1: of some of these some of these very ostentatious celebrities,
Speaker 1: and I see what people write and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: you were not writing that three years ago, right, like
Speaker 1: you were not coming for so and so in that
Speaker 1: way about being greedy and what are you giving back?
Speaker 1: And you know, it's extract extra like you weren't saying that.
Speaker 1: I think that we're at a very interesting period. And
Speaker 1: I'll give you this last last question because I think
Speaker 1: that we're at a very interesting period. The last time
Speaker 1: we spoke, I said, you know, is this a moment
Speaker 1: or is it a movement? And this kind of I
Speaker 1: guess toss up space that we're in is going to
Speaker 1: coincide with this next presidential election, and I'm kind of wondering,
Speaker 1: you know, do you think that after these deals are
Speaker 1: made and these strike subside, will there still be the
Speaker 1: momentum of trying to create a better life and a
Speaker 1: better society for you know, for all people, the majority
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I depending on what goes on with the next election,
Speaker 2: I don't think anything is going to get that much
Speaker 2: better for any of us, right, It's just going to
Speaker 2: get different degrees of worse in terms of what the
Speaker 2: government has to offer. So I think and I hope
Speaker 2: that people are going to continue to look to the
Speaker 2: labor movement and their unions and their you know, the
Speaker 2: ways that they're able to organize to try and make
Speaker 2: the best of a bad situation. Because we've it's become
Speaker 2: very clear on many many levels, even to people who
Speaker 2: might have been true believers four years ago, that they
Speaker 2: don't really care about us and they're not looking out
Speaker 2: for us. If they were, what have canceled student debt,
Speaker 2: would have you know, actually put a little effort into
Speaker 2: doing something about COVID, which is still killing people out here.
Speaker 2: You know, like there's a million things that they could have,
Speaker 2: should have would have done, but they didn't. And now
Speaker 2: people are saying, oh, well, the uaw they just one
Speaker 2: they're members like uh, like these huge raises like Kaiser Permanente,
Speaker 2: when those works, like they got a bunch of protections,
Speaker 2: Like I think even still are kind of the only
Speaker 2: shot we have in terms of like immediate collective action
Speaker 2: yielding immediate results. I mean, obviously, like the broader struggles
Speaker 2: for liberation, We're gonna take a little bit, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's not gonna be instantaneous. But one thing about
Speaker 2: unions I appreciate. I think that does appeal to focus,
Speaker 2: that you can you get to see the fruits of
Speaker 2: your labor like pretty quick, like once you get that contract,
Speaker 2: once you sign on the dotted line, like your next
Speaker 2: paycheck looks a little different. And that is something that yeah,
Speaker 2: only material that's really fires people up. And honestly, you
Speaker 2: know it, we the these these uh strikes, we've been seeing,
Speaker 2: the layright tap we've been seeing. I don't think it's
Speaker 2: gonna stop, because there's always more union contra tracks that
Speaker 2: are expiring. Yeah, I mean, Sean Fain came out here
Speaker 2: and said, you know, they said their next contract to expire,
Speaker 2: gave everyone a deadline, Like, I mean, what if we
Speaker 2: did a general strike. You know, that's a whole other conversation, right,
Speaker 2: but even just setting that just shows like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: not We're not done. We're not. This is hopefully just
Speaker 2: the beginning. And what happens with the election. I'm sure
Speaker 2: that's gonna be a whole it's gonna give us all adjuta.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be a whole fucking thing. Nothing good, nothing
Speaker 2: good is gonna happen. And I'm sure that the more
Speaker 2: corporatized wing of the organized labor movement is going to
Speaker 2: be all riding with Biden and all of that and
Speaker 2: try and get all their members to vote, just do
Speaker 2: all the same shit that they waste our membership money
Speaker 2: on every four years. But really, I think, I really
Speaker 2: hope people hold on to this idea that the only
Speaker 2: people we could really depend on ourselves and our neighbors,
Speaker 2: our co workers, people weren't communi with and that's how
Speaker 2: it's always been, you know. All the rest of it
Speaker 2: is just noise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred per Kim Kelly, every time that you
Speaker 1: joined wok F, I'm just I'm I'm always so pleased
Speaker 1: and grateful for your insights and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: just continue the conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me and let me
Speaker 2: go and let me swear a little.
Speaker 1: Bit because all the time these motherfuckers appreciate you. That
Speaker 1: is it for me today, dear friends on wok F.
Speaker 1: As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.