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Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/an-essential-workers-history-of-the-pandemic
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic devastated the working class from the start. Those deemed "essential workers" in the service, medical, transportation, agriculture, and other sectors were hit particularly hard. While the sacrifices of workers were paid lip service in the early days of the pandemic, the rhetoric rapidly shifted towards denunciations of a "labor shortage" as worker resistance mounted with time. As the capitalist class continues to espouse a dominant narrative of the pandemic that insists that the worst is over and workers ought to accept diminished real wages and deteriorating conditions, the need for a counterhistory of COVID-19 becomes increasingly urgent. At a joint book event hosted by Red Emma's in Baltimore, sociologist Jamie K. McCallum and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez sat down to discuss the effects of the pandemic on the working class as told through their respective books, Essential and The Work of Living.
Post-production: Jules Taylor
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Read the transcript and shownotes for this podcast: https://therealnews.com/youre-going-to-see-more-books-get-banned-floridas-war-on-public-schools
Things are getting very dark in Florida, and educators at all levels have found themselves on the frontlines of a reactionary political crusade led by Republican governor Ron DeSantis. "As the new semester began," Florida-based journalist Michael Sainato recently reported, "teachers throughout Florida were faced with new state laws strictly limiting curricula—prompting schools to remove droves of books from their classrooms and libraries for fear of being in violation of the draconian but opaque new laws. An already-chilling reality gripping the third most populous state is getting even chillier in the wake of controversial legislation such as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the Stop Woke Act, which both went into effect in July 2022." What is it like teaching in DeSantis's Florida today? For those who haven't already fled the state or left the profession altogether, what do these sweeping, draconian policy changes translate to on the day-to-day level for educators, and how can we stand in solidarity with them? In this episode, we talk with Philip Belcastro and Brennen Pickett, two public high school English teachers and union members in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the hosts of the PCTA FYRE podcast.
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Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/israels-protest-movement-cant-succeed-without-embracing-palestinian-liberation
As Israelis march en masse against Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial coup, many around the world are questioning why these protests did not materialize in defense of Palestinian land and life. For a special Passover installment of the "Not in Our Name" series, Rabbi Arik Ascherman joins The Marc Steiner Show to talk about the current protest movement in Israel and why democracy there cannot be attained without Palestinian liberation.
Rabbi Arik Ascherman is a Reform rabbi and executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Torat Tzedek-Torah of Justice. He is a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize and the Rabbi David J. Forman Memorial Committee's Human Rights Award.
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Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/ugandas-draconian-new-anti-lgbtq-law-includes-life-in-prison-and-the-death-penalty
A new law in Uganda broadly criminalizing the LGBTI* community has captured global attention. The law includes provisions against "Aggravated Homosexuality" that criminalize the sexual activity of HIV+ people with life in prison or even the death penalty. Other loosely defined activities such as "abetting homosexuality" and "conspiracy to engage in homosexuality" are also criminalized. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with renowned Ugandan LGBTI activist Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera to discuss the origins of Uganda's recent turn towards politicized homophobia and transphobia, as well as the consequences of the new law.
*LGBTI stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex—this is the preferred acronym used in Uganda.
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera is a founder of the LGBTI movement in Uganda, and the founder of Freedom & Roam Uganda, a prominent human rights organization that addresses discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people. Nabagasera opened Uganda's first gay bar and organized the country's first pride parade. She's also the first LGBTI rights activist to be awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, and additionally received the Right Livelihood Award for his activism in 2015. She currently resides in Massachusetts.
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Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/university-of-michigan-seeks-court-injunction-to-stop-grad-student-strike
Editor's Note (4/3/23): In the first half of the episode, Alvarez mistakenly refers to the previous GEO strike as having occurred in the fall of 2022, but it took place in fall of 2020. Stark and Alvarez make the correction in the second half of the conversation.
Graduate student-workers at the University of Michigan are on strike for the second time in three years, officially hitting the picket line this week. Speaking to The Michigan Daily, Amir Fleischmann, chair of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) Contracts Committee, said, "Grad workers are very frustrated. They’re struggling to pay rent. They’re struggling to afford childcare. They lack access to gender-affirming care. And I think we’re saying enough is enough. The University needs to give us a fair contract now.” On top of that, the University of Michigan administration is once again seeking to weaponize the courts to end the strike, filing an Unfair Labor Practice Charge against the union, claiming that the strike violates the university's existing contract with the union. In this urgent mini-cast, we talk with Alejo Stark, a grad worker and rank-and-file member of GEO, to get an update on the strike, the response from the administration, and what listeners can do to show support for GEO and its members.Disclaimer: Max is a former GEO member and earned his PhDs from the University of Michigan.
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At colleges and universities across the country, a heated battle is playing out right now over workers' right to organize and have a say over how the institutions they keep afloat with their labor are run. From graduate student-worker unionization efforts and strikes at Temple University, the University of California, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern University, Northeastern University, the University of Chicago, and Indiana University, to faculty strikes (and near-strikes) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, The New School, Howard University, etc., to workers across the higher ed sector striking in the UK, the academic labor movement is one of the most explosive sites of labor struggle right now. Meanwhile, the administrative class is working overtime to not only slow down this movement, but to squash it altogether. As we speak, full-time and adjunct faculty at Rutgers University are prepared to strike for the first time in school history after months and months of bad-faith bargaining and union-busting from the university administration; at the same time, the Duke University administration has not only refused to acknowledge its graduate student-workers' right to unionize, but it has vowed to go to the National Labor Relations Board in the hopes of stripping that right from graduates at all private universities. In this panel episode, we talk with worker-organizers from Duke and Rutgers about the struggles taking place at their institutions and across higher ed. Panelists include: Matt Thomas, a PhD student in the English Department at Duke University and co-chair of the Duke Graduate Student Union; Kristina Mensik, a PhD student in the Political Science Department at Duke University and a member of the Duke Graduate Student Union; Bryan Sacks, an adjunct professor of Religion and Philosophy at Rutgers and vice president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC-AAUP-AFT); Todd Wolfson, associate professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers and general vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT.
Additional links/info below...
For the past five years, Tevita Uhatafe of TWU Local 567 has dedicated himself to advancing the labor movement. Known affectionately as "Mic Guy," Uhatafe has traveled from coast to coast to rally in solidarity with striking workers in multiple states. Uhatafe entered the union movement as an outsider without family connections, but has nevertheless risen as a rank-and-file leader. He is now the Vice President of the Texas AFL-CIO.
Vince Quiles, lead organizer of Home Depot Workers United, sits down with Tefita Uhatafe for an organizer-to-organizer conversation on their respective stories, the barriers impeding deeper solidarity in the labor movement, and why unions so desperately need rank-and-file leadership today.
Read the transcript here: https://therealnews.com/tevita-uhatafe-explains-how-rank-and-file-labor-organizers-can-transform-unions
Post-Production: Adam Coley
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In the midst of the largest strike wave in the US in a century, corporate media is more focused on amplifying the bigotry and fearmongering of right-wing politicians and their base than on covering working class movements. What is the role of media in upholding the status quo, and how can it be used to service people's movements instead of profits? This question lies at the heart of a long-ranging discussion between TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis is director of the Kairos Center, as well as a founder and coordinator of the Poverty Initiative. She is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, and author of Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor. She is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a biblical scholar in New Testament and Christian origins.
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A decade ago, the so-called "Pink Tide" of leftist governments in Latin America seemed to be heading towards a tragic end. However, events in the past few years have raised questions about whether a new Pink Tide has emerged. The defeat of the coup government in Bolivia, the election of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, the rise of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, the historic election of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and now the return of Lula in Brazil suggests a new age may be dawning in the region. Yet for all the successes, there have also been setbacks—the coup against Pedro Castillo in Peru last fall, and the failure of the Gabriel Boric government to pass a new constitution stand out as the sharpest examples. In the first of a four-part series of special collaboration episodes between NACLA and The Marc Steiner Show, we turn to a panel of regional experts to discuss the context and prospects of the 'New Pink Tide' to steer the region towards a more prosperous and just future. This episode is co-hosted with Dr. Hilary Goodfriend.
Hilary Goodfriend is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Latino and Latin American Studies Research Center at the University of California, Riverside. She is a contributing editor for Jacobin and Jacobin América Latina. She is also on the editorial board of NACLA.
Thea Riofrancos is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and a member of the Climate + Community Project. She is the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador from Duke University Press.
Sabrina Fernández is a postdoctoral fellow at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, a member of the Foundation’s International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies, and a Visiting Researcher at the Free University of Berlin.
René Rojas, a professor at Binghamton University’s College of Community and Public Affairs and a member of the editorial board of the left journal Catalyst.
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The dramatic fall of Silicon Valley Bank in the span of a single week has sent reverberations throughout the financial system and growing fears of bank failures. SVB over-invested in mortgage loans and treasury bonds to deal with a glut of capital brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, assuming these assets were secure as long as interest rates stayed low. In the past year, interest rates began to rise, making the assets SVB purchased worse less than what they bought them for. A bank failure could have been avoided, had a panic not spread among tech investors fueled by the likes of Peter Thiel. While almost none of the money at risk of loss belonged to workers, the $124 billion bailout package swiftly delivered by the federal government comes directly from our pockets. What's more, if past boom-and-bust cycles are any sign, Silicon Valley as a whole will only grow richer and more powerful from this crisis—and in the process drive economic changes that will harm workers further. Author Malcolm Harris joins TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez for a special look at the Silicon Valley Bank collapse through the lens of Big Tech's long anti-labor history.
Malcolm Harris is an American journalist and contributing editor of The New Inquiry. His newest book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World examines the rise of Silicon Valley.
Post-Production: Jules Taylor
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