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Hundreds of workers at the Frito-Lay manufacturing and distribution plant in Topeka, Kansas, have been on strike since July 5. Workers at Frito-Lay have endured years of disrespect, and many at the plant have seen their wages stagnate and fall behind other employers in the area. On top of that, workers have been caught in a horrible cycle that was greatly exacerbated by COVID 19: While more people stayed home during the pandemic and ate a lot more chips, the incredibly high turnover at Frito-Lay means that folks who stayed on have been forced to work longer hours, with some pulling 12-hour shifts seven days a week for weeks on end. In this urgent episode, we talk with Cheri Renfro, who has worked at the Frito-Lay plant in Topeka for 9 years and is currently on strike.
Additional links/info below...
Topeka Frito-Lay Union Members Appreciation Page
785 Utility Relief Fund - Support for BCTGM Local 218 Members
Call Frito-Lay tell them to negotiate with workers in Topeka and find real workable solutions to problems in the workplace
Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes, "'We Want to See Our Families': Frito-Lay Workers Strike Over 84-Hour Weeks, Meager Raises"
More Perfect Union, "Frito-Lay workers in Kansas are being forced to work 12-hour days, 7 days a week, in a dangerous factory. Their stories are shocking"
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song"
Steve Combs, "Work"
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The nation's endless war on mind-altering substances has many casualties, some who refuse to be forgotten. That's why Catherine Freeman is coming forward after 47 years to describe how her family was set up by a drug informant. In this episode of PAR, we listen to her story about how the intersection of law enforcement and politics tore her family apart, and why the truth must finally be told.
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Amid power outages, food shortages, and continued fears over COVID-19, amplified by 60 years of economic strangulation by a US blockade, thousands of protestors in Cuba have taken to the streets to demand answers and action from their government. Mainstream media outlets in the US have jumped at the chance to paint these protests as singularly focused on repudiating the communist revolution, using them as a pretext for greater imperialist intervention, but the reality on the ground is much more complex. Author and historian Andrés Pertierra joins us to examine the deeper historical and political contexts surrounding the protests and to discuss how viewers outside of Cuba can navigate the media frenzy. Pertierra is a historian of Cuba and US-Cuban relations in the 19th and 20th centuries; he received his bachelor's degree from the University of Havana and is currently a PhD student in Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. #Cuba #CubaProtests #SOSCuba
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Sonia Kumar, senior attorney at the ACLU of Maryland, explains the movement to restore the parole option to people sentenced for serious crimes in childhood. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation:
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Back in May, the remains of 215 children were discovered on the grounds of a former residential (boarding) school in Canada that was used to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children—soon after, over 750 unmarked graves were discovered at another residential school. Given the historical brutality of such residential schools in their treatment of Indigenous children, it is widely suspected that similar gravesites exist at residential schools across the U.S. and Canada. Investigating these atrocities will require a significant commitment from the US and Canadian governments, and atoning for the (continued) evils wrought upon Indigenous people will take an even more significant commitment from all of us. In our first segment for this week’s episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc talks about all this and more with Mary Annette Pember, an award-winning journalist and photographer whose work appears regularly in Indian Country Today and other outlets like In These Times. Pember, a member of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe, recently authored an article for the Goodman Institute for Investigative Journalism on how the Catholic Church stole $30 million from Native families, and another article in The Atlantic exposing the horror of Indigenous children being stolen from their homes and put in boarding schools. to take the Indian out of them.
In our second segment, we bring you the latest installment of our ongoing series “Not in Our Name,” which highlights the diverse voices of Jewish activists, artists, intellectuals, and others who are speaking out against the Israeli occupation. In this installment, Marc and his guests, Professor Mira Sucharov and Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton, raise difficult questions regarding the different personal and political meanings of Zionism. Mira Sucharov is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and the author of The International Self: Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace; Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton is a world-renowned opera singer and currently serves the Jewish congregation of Or Haneshamah in Ottawa.
Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday on TRNN.
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When faced with unlawful intimidation and interrogation from management at Trader Joe's, Alex P. and his coworkers stood together and stood up for their rights in the workplace, eventually securing a crucial victory with the National Labor Relations Board. In this deep and wide-ranging conversation, we talk with Alex about his life and work—and so much more. We talk about growing up with strict immigrant parents, graduating from college into a global recession, and the imprints our past jobs leave on us. We talk about the winding road that led Alex to his current job at Trader Joe's, and we discuss the events at Alex's store that pushed him to file a complaint with the NLRB and secure a settlement from the company.
Additional links/info below...
National Labor Relations Board, "Your Rights"
A message from Trader Joe's crew members: "Trader Joe’s crew members are organizing to make changes to the way the company does things from the local to national level right now. If you want to connect with us reach out here and you’ll be contacted by other workers fighting to make change and can get paired with experienced organizers to train and support you: Join other Trader Joe's Workers Taking Action!"
Alex Press, Jacobin, "Trader Joe’s Is Once Again Accused of Violating Workers’ Rights"
Brittany Shammas & Hannah Knowles, The Washington Post, "A Trader Joe’s Employee Called for Stronger Coronavirus Measures. The Company Fired Him"
Mary Pilon, Bloomberg Law, "Trader Joe’s Employees Say Virus Response Was Haphazard, Chaotic"
Michael Sainato, The Guardian, "Trader Joe’s and Other US Firms Suppress Unionization Efforts During Pandemic"
Kim Kelly, The Baffler, "Food Fight"
Erica Mildner, Jacobin, "Trader Joe’s Put Workers Like Me at Serious Risk During the Pandemic"
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song"
Poly Action, "Black Smoke Cloud"
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ACLU legal expert Sonia Kumar says the ruling slows but does not stop the movement toward more just sentencing for juveniles. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation:
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Union miners at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood, Alabama, have now been on strike for four long months, facing economic hardship, social stigma, and even physical assault on the picket line. But the miners have not been alone—it takes a village to win a strike. While the powerful executives and managers of the Wall Street hedge funds that power Warrior
Met continue to hope that the strike will fizzle out, an even more powerful network of spouses, families, retirees, and community members with the UMWA Auxiliary have been doing everything they can to hold the line. In the latest installment of "Battleground Brookwood," labor journalist and TRNN contributor Kim Kelly travels to West Blocton, a small town near the Warrior Met mines, to talk with five women from the UMWA Auxiliary about the joys and struggles of being married to a coal miner, and about their tireless efforts to organize strike support and carry on the fighting spirit of coal mining families before them.
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In a brazen effort to make political hay out of the right-wing culture wars, Republican Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis has signed a slew of bills into law that, among other things, target transgender student athletes, further criminalize protests, limit voting rights, and surveil the political leanings of college professors, staff, and students. In our first segment for this week’s episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc talks with Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani about the cynical machinations behind the right’s legislative onslaught in Florida and the real-world harm these new bills will do. Eskamani is a member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing the 47th district in Orange County.
In our second segment, we talk to Current Affairs Amusements and Managing Editor Lyta Gold about her recent piece in the Current Affairs magazine, “Nation of Bones,” which explores the cultural tools we have (and the kind of artistic outlets we need) to confront the traumatic experience of COVID-19 and mass death.
Tune in for new episodes of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday on TRNN.
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We cover a lot of important worker struggles on this show, but it's important to cover worker victories as well—and workers in South Dakota just landed a huge victory. After suffering one of the worst COVID workplace outbreaks in the country last year, leading to four deaths and over 1,200 infections, workers at the Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls refused to back down on demands for better pay and to retain a 15-minute break during the second half of their shifts. When negotiations with Smithfield stalled, UFCW Local 304A members voted overwhelmingly (98%) to authorize a strike, and the company backed down. On this extended mini-cast, we welcome back president of the South Dakota Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Kooper Caraway, to discuss this important victory and what lessons the labor movement should take away from it.
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