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