WEBVTT - The 2028 General Strike and Climate Change 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:04.920 Call Zone Media. 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:09.520 It's it could Happen here, the podcast about things falling 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:11.120 apart and how to put them back together again. 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:12.399 I'm your host vo Long. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.480 So for people who listened to yesterday's episode, which I'm 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.040 hoping is like most of you, Yeah, So yesterday it 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:24.160 was a very kind of downer episode on hurricane misinformation 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.240 and the way that these sort of people construct these 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:30.400 reality tunnels and you know, have become active participants in 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:35.320 their own sort of propagandizement. And I think we kind 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.800 of we left on a kind of note of of 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.120 what you can do for sort of individual people, right, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.680 which is the same mechanisms you usually get someone out 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.000 of a cult, which is you you stay with them, 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.440 you maintain enough personal connection that you can pull them 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:49.280 out if they ever want. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.160 To come out. But that's also not a large scale 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:53.159 solution to this problem. 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.040 And in order to talk about a large scale solution 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.360 to both our present social crisis and the ecolog logical 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.200 crisis that this social crisis is being aimed to sort 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.760 of cover up. Right now, I'm talking to Rosewater, who's 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.120 the hub coordinator for the Sunrise Movement's DC Hub and 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.440 delegate to Sunrise's Delicate Body and also a solo punk 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:14.400 organized at Rosewater. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.639 Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:18.000 me on. 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.520 Yeah, hi everybody, my name is Rosewater and yeah, longtime 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.760 fan of cool Zone Media. Y'all were my introduction to 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.520 my current democratic confederalist politics. 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:30.679 Oh that's awesome. So it feels like. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.720 A really fun, like full circle moment to have a 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:35.200 chance to be on the pod. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.360 Yeah, and I'm excited to talk to you. So specific 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.520 thing where we're talking about is in terms of there 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.280 being an actual plan for what people are doing like 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.840 past the next three weeks, like after the election. The 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.720 biggest thing that has been happening is it's just something 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.920 we've talked about a little bit on this show, is 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.240 the proposed twenty twenty eight general strike. Do you want 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.360 to talk a little bit about what that is before 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.360 we get into Sunrises involvements and yeah, the sort of 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:05.960 broader story. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:06.720 Yeah. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.000 Yeah, So I feel like most people who follow leftist 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:16.040 politics were following the UAW strike against the Big three 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.480 automaker's last fall, and people found that they found their 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.120 strike really inspiring and they had like really strong gains 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.040 that were the sort of straightforward like increase pay like 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.520 better benefits type stuff, and people were celebrating that. But 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.040 I would say the two actual most important changes were 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.960 not reported on nearly as much. One was they eroded 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.640 their labor piece clause and they made it possible to 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.679 go on strike if any of their facilities were closed, 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:51.880 which labor Piece has in my opinion, been sort of 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.360 strangling the US left for eighty years. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.200 Yeah, can you explain what that is for people? 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.359 I think we've usually were broadly talked about as no 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.440 strike clauses, But yeah, can you explain what that is? 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.560 Yeah, So, labor Piece is essentially a truce that was 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.720 established between the labor movement, capitalists, and the US government 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:17.320 where the labor movement gets generalized rights and the US 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.800 government is like a quote fair mediator between capitalists and 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:27.280 the labor movement, and capitalists get a consistent workforce and 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:33.560 peace like peace from disruptions. And this essentially was established 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.040 between the beginning of World War Two and the end 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.640 of the Red Scare, when all of the socialists and 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.120 markets and communists were expelled from the labor movement, and 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.320 it felt like a good deal to a lot of 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.400 liberals at the time, and a lot of normal rank 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.640 and file workers at the time, but on reflection, it 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:58.040 has really strangled the US labor movement. And so the 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.920 fact that the UAW eroded they're no strike clause at 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:06.080 all is a huge precedent, right. 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.400 Yeah, And this is something I mean, I mean, I 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.760 remember I don't remember if this actually got into the 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:12.520 Labor Does episode that I did, but I remember at 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.400 Labor Notes, so I was listening to people talk about this, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:19.080 and this is stuff that I think the global impact 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.960 of it has also been really underplayed. Like I mean, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:22.479 obviously there was a lot of times you paid this 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.080 in Mexico, right, because there's a lot of like, you know, 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.080 the structure of the of the auto industry is such that. 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.280 It's so obvious to me. I didn't even think about 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:31.800 that until just now. Yeah. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:33.880 So one of the things that NAFTA did is that 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.600 sort of right across the border, right, a whole sort 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.720 of range of factories that are right across the border 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.920 that operate off Mexican labor, that do some of the 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.440 auto industry stuff. And so there's always been sort of 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.680 connections between the more independent unions there and sort of 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.720 American unions. But like you know, but this is also 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.120 struck as being watched really, really heavily in China, Yeah, 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.120 which is interesting because like Chenese state unions are a 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:05.400 fucking joke, basically not real unions at all. And the 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:07.440 extent to which you know, the China's version of the 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.800 labor piece was also the deal was less like you 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.360 get rights and we get like labor piece and more 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:21.440 like we're going to just stamp out all working class organization. Yeah, completely, 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:23.719 and in a way that like was more even more 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.120 thorough than what happened here where most of it got 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.719 wiped out. I think like the breaking of the labor 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.839 piece and the demonstration that there is another way is 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:38.000 something that has reverberated massively across a lot of different 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.240 places that I don't think both the people organizing the 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.440 strike or the sort of like press coverage of it 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.040 has really gotten into sort of how wide the reverberations 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:47.599 of this have been. 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:53.440 Right. I think if it were just eroding that clause alone, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:55.679 it wouldn't be such a signal. 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.320 But yeah, definitely. The real thing. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:03.240 That caught my attention at for was immediately afterwards they 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.080 changed the end of their contract date to International Workers 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:12.120 Day twenty twenty eight and they called on every union 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.080 in the country and later every union in the world 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.080 to align with that contract and go on strike with 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.279 them on May first, twenty twenty eight, and that was 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.560 the first time, Like, correct me if I'm wrong, that 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.720 was the first time that a major labor union in 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:36.280 America has called for a planned general strike since nineteen 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:37.320 forty eight. 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:38.480 Yeah. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.160 I think that's true, and I think there being an 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:44.520 actual plan and they're being a way to do it 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.919 that's legal is a big deal because part of the 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.119 problem with this is that there's you know, unlike unlike 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:55.480 a country like France, American labor law is specifically designed 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.880 so that you don't have this happen. There's a bunch 0:06:59.920 --> 0:07:02.479 of legal mechanisms for this, but it's very very specifically 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.280 designed to make sure that people are not alledged to 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.760 solidarity strikes. People are not allowed to coordinate the entire 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.960 power of their action. Yeah, and this is a pretty 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:15.720 promising way around that. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.480 Yeah, this may be better for later in the episode. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.960 But one of the things that we're doing is where 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:29.080 in collaboration with the Institute for Social Ecology, doing a 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.760 teach in on labor peace and the history of general 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.600 strikes in the US about a week after the election 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.880 in order to orient ourselves in whatever new political contexts 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:41.480 exists there. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.360 But yeah, so yeah, I think that's a jumping off 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.920 point to get into. I think Sunriise is kind of 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.920 an unlikely organization that people would think to be getting 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.520 excited and trying to get involved in a labor struggle. 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.640 But yeah, let's talk about how Summery's got involved. And 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.360 I guess first, also, I don't know how many people 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.680 listening to this know what Sunrise is. And if you 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:06.440 do know what Sunrise is, that might also make you 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:08.200 war surprise you're getting involved in labor. 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.520 But yeah, let's about that. 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:15.520 Yeah, so Sunrise is a youth climate movement that has 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.440 been one of the main advocates for the idea of 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.280 a Green New Deal. When AOC first came into office 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.840 and she did that like sit in at Nancy Pelosi's office, 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:30.120 like that was a Sunrise action, And we historically have 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.120 been an org that sort of like tries to bridge 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.840 the divide between people who are sort of a politically 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:41.400 liberal and more radical politics, which is a hard place 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:41.720 to be. 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.800 Yeah, someone's got to do it, But we've. 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:52.680 Really focused on trying to like connect environmentalism with labor. Actually, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.959 our main slogans, the main intervention that we've succeeded at 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:02.080 has been associating the idea of environmental action with jobs, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.880 like green jobs and stuff like that. The problem with 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.640 that has been one it has been primarily rhetorical, especially 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:14.400 after Burnley's loss in twenty twenty. Yeah, and stories matter, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.640 but material conditions matter more. And the reason that we 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:26.120 didn't we weren't more materially involved in connecting labor and environmentalism, 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.320 and by that I mean like connected with the unions, 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.880 is that unions leadership was often very far to our right, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.360 you know, especially in the United States, so it didn't 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:41.360 feel like it made sense. But as a result, the 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.280 sort of Biden years have been a time where there's 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.000 been a lot of internal discussion about like who we are. 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.960 Are we a radical movement that sort of positions itself 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.960 rhetorically as more normy in order to bring in like 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.360 young people who whose parents won't let them, you know, 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.480 join a fight to end all unjust hierarchies, or like 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.280 sees the means of production, etc. Like are we a 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:17.040 radical movement that poses normy or are we a like 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.880 liberal progressive movement that sometimes asks for radical things, and 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.840 that's been a really big conflict within the ORG these 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:30.360 last few years, because the path to any climate action, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.839 the only path that a lot of people have seen, 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.000 has been electoral stuff, pushing politicians and things like that. 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.760 In a lot of ways, the Inflation Production Act was 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:46.520 a direct result of Sunrise's organizing and our work to 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.560 try and force through the Build Back Better program, but 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:55.360 it aligned us with Biden, and from the point of 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.719 view of a lot of our organizers, like even if 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:02.160 it was a victory, it didn't feel like one, and 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.400 it's certainly not nearly large enough to actually handle the 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:12.400 scale of the crisis. And so essentially the more radical 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:17.120 wing of the movement has been winning that fight over 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.559 the last year two fights, a strong word, has been 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.480 winning that debate over the last year or two, and 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:30.040 specifically this last summer when the American Federation of Teachers 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.360 joined the general strike, which almost no one has heard about, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:39.040 but the AFT and their one point seven million members 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.559 have already decided that they're going to try and join 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:43.960 the twenty twenty eight general strike. 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:45.800 So it's not just the UAW anymore. 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:47.839 Yeah, But unfortunately we need to take an ad break 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:49.520 and we come back. You're going to get to that 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.720 because that I think will be looked back as one 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.000 of the pivotal moments of this whole thing that everyone 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:55.840 kind of just missed when it happened. 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.600 I completely agree, it's going to be amazing. Yeah, okay, 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:13.600 as unfortunately, and then we'll do it by Gold. We're back. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:15.840 I don't fight Gold. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.199 At some point I'm going to write the dope by 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:19.360 Gold episode. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:20.680 Do you think this is a joke. 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.520 There is a dope by Gold app I it's big 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.800 worked on in the in the Meal laboratory that the 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.440 goldscamera add thing. Okay, back back back to the presence 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.000 or I guess back to the future. I don't know time. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.040 Time is falling apart here. But let's talk about the AFT. 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.760 The American Federation of Teachers, right, and I don't know 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.719 what they've announced in terms. 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:44.680 Of this, right. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.360 So, the American Federation of Teachers, sort of led by 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.440 the Chicago Teachers Union, the Baltimore Teachers Union, and to 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.760 a smaller extent, the DC Teachers Union, managed to get 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.320 through a resolution at their convention that when you read 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:02.800 the title, it's very boring. 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.960 It's like on aligning with the UAW. 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.360 But when you actually click on the document and you 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.560 read it, it is like class struggle fire. Like reading 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.679 it from beginning to end, I felt exhilaration, Like I 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:19.880 felt like a fire explode in my heart. 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:21.000 It was so amazing. 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.240 And I heard about this the same weekend that we 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:31.400 were actually having a climate disaster training in DC. Right, 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.680 we had about one hundred leaders from across our movement, 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.040 about half of our staff there. And at the beginning, 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.120 people were really excited for climate disaster actions responding to 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.960 moments like this. Actually, but when we talked about victory, 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.480 when we talked about and we're going to have like 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.560 mass mobilization against the climate crisis where the whole of 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.520 our society like pitches in to do this, the federal 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.840 government like does a World War two style mobilization against 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.920 this destruction, and stuff like that, you could tell that 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.679 people didn't see a path. You could tell. 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:09.880 Yeah. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:15.040 And so like this news dropping that the teachers were 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:20.000 joining a general strike, we're joining mass disruption in some 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.840 meaningful way. It hit us like a bomb. It was 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.560 the perfect moment for it to hit us, because it 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.680 was like, yeah, if the auto workers are going on strike, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.920 and the academic workers are going on strike and the 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.120 teachers are going on strike, then why can't the students 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.680 go on strike? And not only why can't they, but like, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.960 the students must go on strike. And that was sort 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:49.240 of the moment that really got our movement from yes, 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.760 we would like to figure out some sort of different 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.800 way to get to the mass disruption needed in order 0:14:55.920 --> 0:15:01.560 to win serious action on the climate crisis to like, oh, 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.520 there's a path. Yeah, like we see, we see a path. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.680 It's it's core memory, like if you know, like inside out, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.440 like core memory formed that weekend. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.600 It was it was beautiful. Yeah, And I think, what's 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:15.000 you know? 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:16.920 I mean, there's a couple of things that are important here, right, 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.240 but I think it's being underplayed exactly how important it 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:26.080 is to have teachers unions being into this because the 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.680 thing about teachers unions is that they're an extremely important 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:35.640 lever on labor movement because the way the capitalist society 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.280 is structured, right, is such that most childcare is just 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.960 sort of like all of that labor is basically has 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.960 been pushed on the teachers, right. And the moment that 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.080 childcare collapses, right, a bunch of people suddenly also who 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.720 are not normally on strike suddenly are not able to 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:53.280 do their drags because they have they have to find 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.920 some way to take care of their kids. And so 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.160 this is this is sort of a massive leverage point 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.240 and in the same way that like sort of dock 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.080 worker strikes, or I mean not in the same way, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.480 but like in a sense that a strike by these 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.600 people can shut down way way more labor than just 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.840 theirs directly, right, this is something that's very important. 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.360 Yeah, yeah, I never really thought about that. 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.960 I've thought about them in the context of like their 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.280 sort of community pillars, so like when teachers go on strike, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.320 they often bring way more community support. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.560 With them than other types of workers. 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.280 But yeah, you're totally right, like outside of like the 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.280 community going with them. Also, that is the primary form 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.360 of childcare that exists in this country. 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.720 Yeah, and there's something that like teachers organizers, like she's 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.680 just you, organizers are very big onsot emphasizing because they 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:47.320 have an enormous amount of social power and it's kind of, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.080 to a large extent, hasn't been tapped for for the 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.840 kinds of sort of mass political action that we're seeing here. 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.160 Like it's one of those things It's one of those 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.960 sort of leverage points that's always existed, but there hasn't 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.560 really been the kind of like political will or momentum 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:09.440 more sort of organizing capacity to fully mobilize it. And yeah, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.240 so I guess I want to move from Peter talking 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.760 about Sunrise's involvement in the strike, because I think this 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.560 part is really interesting both in terms of there being 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.919 like both of the times of strike support and student strikes. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:22.919 You can you talk, I guess about the sort of 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.800 politics of student strikes and how you see this fitting 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.000 into the broader thing that's happening. 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:32.000 Yeah. Yeah, so the climate movement sort of had the 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:37.760 height of its power in twenty nineteen. I would say, 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:44.919 when you had Fridays for Future and like Gretitenberg, climate strikes. 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.040 All across Europe and America. But I would use the 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:52.840 word strike in quotes because sometimes you had full walkouts, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.880 sometimes you had like those sorts of huge things, but 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:01.120 most of the time it was students asking permission from 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:05.520 authority figures to participate in a rally and things like that, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.119 Whereas in a class struggle context, like a strike is 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.959 people going to the authority figure and saying this is 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.800 not occurring because we're not going to be here, you know, 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.840 Like this has been a critique that's existed inside of 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.639 Sunrise like from that period for years now, which was 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.679 one of the reasons why we haven't focused on those 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.960 sort of tactics as much. But with this sort of moment, 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.160 especially if we can bring the teachers along, right, being 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:42.880 able to have students see their authority figures doing this 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.040 sort of thing, especially in more conservative areas, while also. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.240 Teaching them how to do it, because in. 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.040 Really meaningful ways, schools are. 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:55.280 Practice work yep. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:01.040 Like they were directly modeled after factories in the eighteen hundreds, 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:05.080 so schools are modeled after work. So if schools are 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:11.560 practice work, then student strikes can be practice labor organizing, Yeah, 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.040 I mean, and turning schools from sort of laboratories for 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.600 the reproduction of the class system into laboratories for learning 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:20.320 class struggle. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.520 It's something that's very very important, both in the immediate 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.040 term and in the longer term. Yeah, we've talked a 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.560 bit about this on other episodes, but like there hasn't 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.879 been the kind of like generational passed down of organizing 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.959 skills that we've seen in sort of previous generations and 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:40.960 the way honestly, we've talked this, we talk about the 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.199 center sort of EUAW staff union episode, right that the 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.880 way that a lot of these unions are running their 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:50.119 staff systems also aren't designed to build up like continuous 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.600 momentum for people who learn how to organizing and keep 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.080 doing it. And this is a way because it restart 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.520 that treadmill to create a generation of organizers both in 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.479 this and for the future. 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:02.960 Yes, exactly. 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.960 And I have had many critiques of my organization, many 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.280 critiques of my movement, but the thing that has always 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:15.400 made me want to like stick around has been seeing 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:20.080 the young organizers who like find themselves here. Like the 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.320 primary person who does our press stuff in the movement 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:26.800 is turning eighteen in like three days. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.760 Wow, they're one of the best organizers. I know. It's 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.280 it's wow, it's inspiring. 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.879 But it's something that we I want our movement to 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.679 do at scale as opposed to like having something like 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:42.680 that every once in a while, Like you said, the 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.720 idea of creating an entire generation, and I'd love to 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.960 talk about a sort of thought process and plan around that. 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.040 After the ad break, woo. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.720 Here's some ads when we come back will do things 0:20:55.760 --> 0:21:10.520 that aren't ads question mark ooh we are back, Say 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:11.640 what better add transitions? 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:17.920 They should raise my salary, Davin back. Awesome. 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.439 So one of the things that I think is really 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:25.720 in terms of a like for us, a stable niche 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.880 in the movement ecology, is to be sort of a 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:33.159 feeder for radical labor in a sort of way, like 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.199 because one of the things is even if you are 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.040 radical and you go into the labor movement, oftentimes you 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:44.080 are going to be taught practices that rely. 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.160 On labor piece in meaningful ways. 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.760 Yeah, practices that are going to be going to be 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.600 really disrupted if labor law weren't a thing and stuff 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.639 like that, and it's something that holds back our ability 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.240 to create a strongly organized working class. 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.760 But in the context of schools, right, there is no 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.040 labor law. There is no labor piece in a high school. 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:13.159 Right, So as a place to practice the sort of 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.920 radical class struggle organizing that we're talking about, it's sort 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:22.520 of the perfect place because it's a simplified version of 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:27.119 the workplace of like adult reality. There are obviously many 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:31.800 other like blockages, like students and like young people. Miners 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:36.359 have far far less power and far fewer rights than 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.880 you do once you become an adult, and their family 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.120 has far more power over them. There are huge barriers. 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:48.160 But in terms of like grounding people in class struggle 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:52.399 labor organizing tactics, I'm thinking of things that you can 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.719 learn about in Jane mclavy's book No Shortcuts and stuff 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:01.960 like that. They can learn how to use structure. 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:02.600 Tests and. 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.399 Use hard organizing conversations in order to build their power 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:12.480 in a specific context and things like that, and whether 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.679 or not they actually managed the strike. Right at the 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.280 end of it, you have an eighteen year old entering 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:23.080 the workforce who is a skilled, trained class struggle organizer 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.560 who has gained their politics completely outside of the context 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:28.200 of labor peace. 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:30.720 Yeah, and I think that that's one of the important 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:32.520 aspects of this. And I think that the second one 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:35.200