Solidarity Radio: Recent Episodes
Solidarity
In this episode we are joined by Gabriella a rank and file Teamster, UPS worker, and Teamsters for a Democratic Union steering committee member. In this episode we discuss rank and file union organizing, the challenges and opportunities the upcoming Teamsters election presents, and Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
Joining us this week is Andy -- a rank and file Teamster, public transit worker, member of the Tempest Magazine collective, and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) member -- and Hank -- a rank and file Teamster, worker at UPS, and TDU member. In this episode we discuss rank and file union organizing, the challenges and opportunities the upcoming Teamsters election presents, and Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
Listen to the workshop of activists and organizers from across the country strategizing, sharing experiences, evaluating tactics, and making connections with others passionate about increasing the power of tenants and making decent housing a right. Transcript forthcoming! Learn more about the participating organizations: KC Tenants: KC Tenants fights for safe, accessible and affordable housing for […]
Joining us from Seattle are Jade and Megan, two members of Seattle DSA. Jade is also a member of the national Afrosocialist Socialist of Color Caucus (AfroSoc Caucus) and is also a co-chair of Seattle DSA’s Anti-Racist Co-Conspirators Caucus (ARC). Megan is co-chair of SDSA Council district 3, co-chair of the Seattle AfroSoc caucus. We talk about reparations, class reductionism, restorative justice, and the necessity of open and frank conversation.
This week we are joined by Luis of the Mexican socialist party the Partido Revolucionario de las y los Trabajadores. We talk about what the PRT is, the current political situation in Mexico, the Fourth International, and the meaning of "Trotskyism" in the 21st century.
This week we are joined by Jetzel, Magda, and Mak who are all leaders in KC Tenants. We talk about how they use a diversity of tactics, the importance of organizing at the speed of trust, why socialists should organize tenants, and some pro tips for those of us who are new to tenant organizing.
This week we are joined by Jhon a member of the National Bank Employees Union in Colombia and an organizer involved with the latest round of protests in Colombia. We talk about the neoliberal agenda that has sparked this series of protests, the state’s response, the role of narco trafficking paramilitaries, and the power of a united and democratic working class movement.
A presentation and roundtable discussion on class struggle and union organizing at Amazon warehouses with Alessandro Delfanti (https://delfanti.org/), Amazonians United (https://www.amazoniansunited.org/) workers and organizers Ira and Fathia, Paul Gray, Jessica Ireland, and Tanner Mirrlees. Introduction w/ Tanner Mirrlees Amazon, capitalism and work w/ Alessandro Delfanti Roundtable discussion w/ Paul Gray, Jessica Ireland, Alessandro Delfanti, and […]
Skip to the interview segment of the show. As this is written, the Biden Administration is holding great outdoor July 4th events and encouraging everybody to get together to celebrate the liberation, from British oppression back then and from the Covid virus today. That despite the fact the Covid Delta variant is ravaging Asia, has […]
This week we are joined by Natalia Chaves from the Brazilian socialist organization Subverta to talk about Bancada Feminista do PSOL the socialist feminist collective candidacy as well as democratizing electoral campaigns, ensuring accountability to social movements, trans inclusion and queer representation in the socialist feminist movement, and ecosocialism. Find out more about Subverta on […]
In the last five years we have seen a significant increase in socialists elected to office, and this has inspired many more candidates to run. But these opportunities also raise a number of questions about electoral strategy. How do we develop candidates? How do we support them and keep them accountable once in office? How […]
This week we are joined by Vini Almeida who is a member of the Brazilian socialist organization Comuna. We talk about the challenges socialists face when working to build a democratic and multi-tendency socialist organization, electoral politics, supporters of the new right, and the political effects of the pandemic. Throughout we draw connections between the […]
Bill Resnick and Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for President in the last election, discuss the Biden administration’s proposed American Jobs Plan. Announced with great fanfare at a cost of $2 trillion plus, the annual outlay would actually represent less than one-third of the U.S. military budget and is designed to fund the wish list […]
In this episode, we spoke with Labor For Palestine organizers Suzanne Adely who is the Co-Director for the Food Chain Workers Alliance and President-Elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and Michael Letwin who is a public defender in New York City and former President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW 2325. In this conversation, […]
Our interview with Mike is an extended discussion of the geography of neoliberal capitalism: the devastation being wreaked by the twin crises of the pandemic and economy; the utter inadequacy of the state’s response to address these crises for working people; the origins of the pandemic and emerging new strains of the virus; big pharma […]
Professor Rabab Abdulhadi gave this presentation on the situation in Palestine and the growth of the global solidarity movement to a webinar on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 sponsored by the Detroit branch of Solidarity, Jewish Voice for Peace – Detroit, U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) – Detroit and Palestinian Youth Movement – Detroit. Dr. Abdulhadi […]
On April 30th we hosted a webinar discussing how acts of solidarity, workers’ self-organization, and mutual aid can be building blocks of social power and pre-figure the human relationships of a democratic socialist society. In our discussion among panelists and questions from those attending we sought to answer: How do we connect organizing mutual aid […]
Let’s start with the origins of this pandemic. Where did Covid-19 come from? For the past few decades now, there’s been an uptick in these emerging diseases, which are products of capitalism’s disruption of the relationship between humans and earth’s ecosystems. There have always been transfers of diseases from animals to humans and probably back […]
Audio from a recording between Stephen and Matt Each year the International Institute of Research and Education in Amsterdam, the education arm of the Fourth International, conducts an annual event entitled the Ecosocialist School. Although eco-socialism is a prominent theme, the school can be described more accurately as an intense boot camp for Marxist education. […]
Audio from Boston Socialist Day School 2019. This panel covers a wide range of topics touching on health justice. The panelists represent perspectives of both those who receive healthcare and healthcare workers. Myranda Pierce from the Right Care Alliance gives an account of her struggles to receive adequate care as someone living with type I […]
Labor Notes: Workers' Struggles 2017 (photos: James Leder; Susan Ruggles (CC BY 2.0) bit.ly/DiaSinInmigrantes; SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana; Dan DiMaggio) At the Boston DSA/Solidarity Socialist Day School in September, the centrality of the working class to the fight for socialism was the topic of the second panel of the day. [Listen to it HERE]
Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin magazine was first up; he stressed that only the working class has the social power to seriously challenge capitalism both inside and outside the workplace. Next, Solidarity member John Fitzgerald, a public school teacher and activist in the Massachusetts Teachers Association and Educators for a Democratic Union, discussed the rank and file strategy as a way to end the isolation of socialists and socialist organizations from the day to day struggles of the organized sectors of the working class. This approach is key to reviving socialist consciousness in the working class and building a revolutionary socialist workers' movement in the U.S.
Karin Baker, also a Massachusetts teacher and member of Solidarity and DSA, talked about "what the rank and file strategy is like when you're doing it," including a successful statewide campaign to replace a top-down, service oriented bureaucratic union leadership with reformers who were willing to fight back and who went on to organize against and defeat an anti-union ballot initiative. Laura Gabby, a member of the Carpenters Union in NYC, joined the DSA, along with other progressive members of her local, and campaigned to defend the union hiring hall and challenge unsafe working conditions.
Listening to them brought me to reflect on my own experience as a longtime activist in the NewsGuild; I shared some of that in the Q&A section of the workshop...