It Could Happen Here Weekly 132

Let's say you're newly radicalized. Maybe you are participant in the occupations and now the school year is over, or you got expelled and you're wondering what the next steps are. This won't be an it's all in one guide to how to become an activist, but it's sort of a sketch of one. It's also not quite a complete Summer twenty twenty four guide to Protests, but there's some of that in here too. It's a Magpie's guide to getting

started in activism. I want to start with my own biases upfront because it's going to inform everything that I have to say about all of this. I'm an anarchist. It's also been decades since I've broke into the movement. I've been doing this stuff since two thousand and two, when I dropped out of college to join the ultra

globalization movement. So I have biases towards things like dropping out of college because it worked for me, and I have You know, a lot of my experience isn't recent, at least my direct experience personally, but I've been watching people come into the movement for a very long time. I also have biases against authoritarian organizing and electoral organizing, and biases towards direct action and autonomy as models for

radical social change. I believe this is how you build a freer and better world by practicing freedom along the way. But you can adapt this to suit your own interests. That's not to say I have any interest in guiding people towards specific paths, specific actions, specific issues, and movements exactly the opposite. This is my attempt to kind of give a the big picture view of how one might get involved right now. I don't know if you knew this, Gaar, the world's kind of in trouble.

each other. I want you to think about This isn't necessarily you gare, although you could if you want, sure, why not?

you're going to start off strong. Those things can change, they will change over time, but getting a sense of those ahead of time is a good way to figure out which door you want to go in, and then also to avoid some of the dangers that lie on the other side of any given door. What do you care about? What movements and projects speak loudest to you?

A ton of causes are interconnected, of course, right the fight for Palestinian liberation is not at its core separate project than the fight against policing in the United States, for example, the rise of a global police state is everyone's problem, and so is the US and Zionist imperial project. Causes are interconnected, but you can rarely start by trying to fix everything. Usually got to pick somewhere to start working. You don't climb a mountain by just willing yourself to

the top. You climb it by picking a place and then starting to climb it. Maybe you're concerned about the police state or surveillance, or the erosion of rights or Palestinian liberation, or fighting for prisoners in the US to still have access to books, or for LGBT rights, or for migrants at the border, or for the protection of the remaining national ecosystems and stopping the expansion of fossil

fuel infrastructure. Maybe you're concerned about something hyper local, like the destruction of a local park or the sweeping of homeless encampments. Maybe it's something a bit broader and more abstract, like you want to get involved in explaining the need for police abolition, but there's something, there's some that you want to change. As a place to start, the second question is what do you want to do. There's multiple questions embedded in this. There's how far are you willing

to go? We'll talk more of that later, more immediately, what is your skill set or what skill sets do you wish you had? Like a lot of times I'll just be like, oh, hey, what are you good at? And now I'll go do that. But sometimes like what you're good at isn't what you want to be doing. And it's also totally okay to be like, well, what do I want to be good at, Like what do I want to be trying to focus on what do you have to offer the revolution or what do you

wish you had to offer. Are you in med school or have other first aid or medical experience, Maybe you want to plug in with your local street medics. Are you studying law? Movement lawyers need paralegal help, and there are groups that use volunteers to get people out of jail or through difficult court cases. If graphic design is your passion, this is me referencing a meme from a

million years ago and totally winning people over. Every group that exists needs help with their flyers or Instagram slideshows.

day on Twitter. A lot of activist groups can't find someone to run their social media, or they have people who run it very badly. Sometimes being an extrovert is a superpower. Building strong movements means building strong communities, and every meeting and party needs someone willing to introduce themselves to the new people and help them figure out where to go. The best activist meetings I've ever been to have like someone who's there to sit next to new

people and explain what's going on. Also, if you can plan a party, you can plan a benefit show to raise money for bail funds. There's kind of this like like whenever I talk about this, like oh, everyone has their place, and people are like, why don't I'm a fucking bookkeeper, and I'm like, oh my god, we need you, or like, you know, all kinds of different skill sets that people like don't think apply actually do project manager. Yeah, we're we're not all instinctively good at that, you know.

And so the quickest way to sum this part of it up is you think about what's wrong, and you think about what you're good at, and then you get together with other people and apply what you're good at to stopping what's wrong. That is the like one sentence version of how to start getting involved in making the world better. But the last part of it that I I want the question of it beforehand is risk analysis. It is very easy to get swept up in the moment and go beyond your comfort zone in terms of

risk in a lot of different environments. The more you have sorted out ahead of time about what kinds of actions you're comfortable with strategically, morally, and personally, the easier it is to stick to your decisions when things get hard. For example, you might tell yourself I will risk arrest, but I will not get arrested on purpose because I have a massage license I don't want to lose. Or I have kids at home, or I'm undocumented, or I don't like the idea of jail. Whatever your reason is,

there's plenty of reasons to make that decision. You might be willing to risk arrest, like be in a hectic riot, but you're not willing to lock your neck to a bulldozer. So when you go to the planning meeting for the lock your neck to a bulldozer action and you're trying to figure out who wants to lock their neck to the bulldozer. You've already made up your mind, and you're less likely to kind of pressure your self into volunteering.

I'm just using this as an example, like what kind of Earth first style thing? If you know what your risk models are, you can make better decisions. Maybe you're fine with a spirited march, but as soon as windows start getting broken, you're like, you know, I want to leave.

That's gonna not be my scene. You know, I'm not mad that the people did it, but it's not what I am willing to get arrested in response to it's also important to know your risk levels, which kind of course shift because there are predators in the ranks of direct action activists. I don't know if you knew this, gre there's a shadowy, unaccountable group that tries to get people to break laws. They're called the FEDS. They're called

the FBI. They have a history going back decades and then trapping people by coming up with bomb plots or ur some plots or whatever. And we're not going to go into this in depth in this episode, but if you want to do more research, people should look up. They should read about co intel pro it's an acronym, or read about the case of Eric McDavid, or read about how the FBI set up Muslim Americans in the

wake of nine to eleven. But another thing you should go into all this knowing is that that doesn't mean that everyone who wants to do those kinds of actions is working with the FEDS.

It is really worth understanding the ways in which federal oppression works, and how federal oppression works often by the fear of federal oppression and getting people to spread paranoia. And so as a general rule, the way that I've always heard it talked about is that it's like you never want to be like, hey, I think that guy's a fed. Instead you're like, hey, guy, that kind of behavior is disruptive and leads towards bad things, you know, Like yeah.

has happened before through just like actual, like in person conversations. And I found that to be much more useful than just like going down like a Google rabbit hole, because that can just kind of lead to I think slightly even slightly more like paranoid thinking or just it just becomes like less applicable than like, Hey, you have like a friend of a friend who's like done this for a while, and you just ask, hey, like what if

what do you know about this sort of thing? Now you're right, what are your experiences of kind of of facing like repression in the past. The true chances are some of them will probably know people who've either turned out to be like informants, has started informing, or we're bad actors from the from the get go, like it's it does, it does happen. And there's even been case it's not even just stuff from ten fifteen years ago.

There's a lot of that stuff post twenty twenty. Some really some stuff in h in Chicago, some stuff in Colorado Springs have gotten decent news coverage. I think you can also you can look to articles specifically of the Colorado Springs infiltration that that that the FBI was running around twenty twenty. I think that's a really useful case study for a more recent version as opposed to like the green scare stuff from at this point like twenty years ago.

not true for everything like healthcare. Well, you're gonna get shit answers no.

to get started. How there's two basic ways, and they're not really a dichotomy, but you can plug into something that exists and you can start something of your own, and both are valid and both have advantages and disadvantages. There are structures and movements that are already in place that are desperate for your help. There's a catch. Many, not all, but many of the more reasonable groups are challenging to break into. Very few groups have a truly

open door policy, and those that do honestly sometimes or suspect. Yeah, some of those people are just trying to use you. They're trying to suck you into a political political cult or use your energy and burn you out for some vaguely progressive politician or activist cause. So either way, you're going to need to exercise some common sense and do

some reading and research about what you're getting into. The best publicly accessible groups and movements are the ones that are organized from the bottom up, because the participants themselves have a say in what's happening. There is less ability to be sucked into a cult and used. That's not to say it's impossible, and there are such things as decentralized cults that don't do any you.

to examples of it being the case. Movements that maintain everyone's autonomy instead, I think are what are interesting, and they often do it by not being a group at all, just a movement. The uprisings of twenty twenty, I think are a brilliant example of this. There's not the group that organized, no, but.

friender too. Just like just go to things. And if you go to enough things and people see you, you can chat with people, you can start learning more about kind of what the different mechanisms in each different city, each each even't seen how how they operate. It's it's it's it's kind of silly just to be like, no, you just like have to like show up. But like that is kind of a lot of how it works.

You'll maybe hear about a Instagram account that posts flyers for semi weekly like picnics organized by some of these same people, and then you can go to events like that and learn to like socialize. And it really just does require a degree of just showing up. And you shouldn't go by yourself. You should if you you should ideally have a friend or two that you that is

that they would be okay going with you. But then you'll you'll find people to connect with and you'll kind of maybe find a different group of people that you want to start hanging out with more. And I think in general that's kind of how the best case scenario works, as opposed to like joining like a big above ground organization which is just going to use your body as a tool to get arrested as or just treat you as disposable or in other cases just be actually kind of like abuse of.

But overall, that is the best practice. But if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't have friends I can go do this stuff with, there are more risks involved, and you're also kind of stuck. You're going to go to a lot of things where no one will talk to you, yeah, you know, and you can't necessarily expect that people talk to you immediately or like, and you're going to have to be a little bit more self motivated.

because it also has like security risks. But yeah, I mean it's it's going to require a little bit of uncomfortable social interactions, which for yeah, for someone like you or me who did go to a lot of these things just by ourselves, you know, it just it just kind of takes more time.

And also, like one of the main pieces of advice that we we have is be brave, right, and we talk about that in terms of like street actions, but like, yeah, okay, also social anxiety exactly exactly, because how much of so social anxiety will become like an inhibiting factor similar to like the state not saying these things are equal, but they can both like inhibit you from doing things, and it's both you can you can kind of approach it via similar means of trying to like overcome this thing

that is limiting your autonomy. Yeah, no, totally. So to go back to if you're joining an existing group, some groups maintain everyone's autonomy by being struck horizontally. Some groups that exist as a structure will do it by being structured horizontally. If you found yourself for go ahead, claim

to be structured horizontally as well. No, it's true, but like like if you join a local Earth First chapter, you're going to find there's absolutely informal hierarchies that exist within these things, and they're like worth being aware of. But the decision about who's going to lock their neck to the bulldozer is going to involve everyone who might lock their neck to the bulldozer.

enough I found myself in the film collective. I spent a year or two bouncing around from demonstration to demonstration, coordinating with all the radical videographers to collect everyone's footage and edit together news videos about what had happened, while we collectively fostered a culture of like respectful riot videography.

isn't on it, but that like didn't matter to me. Sure, And then everyone the local news media got really mad because I didn't include the stuff that could have been used in people's court cases, like the time that people attack cops on the bridge, because I was like, nope, that's too recent. We don't know what's happening there anyway, And getting into certain types of groups is kind of like applying for a shitty job. A job that'll take you without reference is going to treat you like shit.

But jobs that are worth having require you to somehow have already been doing the job before you got hired, and once people know who you are, it's easier to find folks who work with And I think gear Suggestions is like the main way you go about that is you don't necessarily show up to organize. You just show up to participate. You show up to talks, you show up to radical bookstores and public events and zine fairs

and protests and whatever interests you you know. And I would say that if you're going to actions and you're new, remember to be both brave and cautious. If you tend towards recklessness and being so wept into things, maybe make sure you take less of a frontline's role until you get your legs underneath you. But it really is okay to be brave. I think we're asked by the times we live in to be brave, and sometimes we're gonna

have to step outside of our comfort zone. We should just always look to make sure it's us encouraging us to step outside of our comfort zone instead of political actors whatever political ideology they call themselves.

jail support form before going to things. That will also be useful in case you do end up getting arrested, so people can actually find you in the system and help you get out of get out. Just another quick tip, I suppose.

The clinic escorting group, it's like, we don't fucking know who you are, like, and I'm like, yeah, that's fair, give me, yeah, no, absolutely. I live in a place is not where abortion is not particularly popular with the right wing, and so I submitted my name and social media accounts to the to the abortion clinic escorting place, and then we'll go to a training at some point soon for folks living in southern California or willing to

go there. For example, there are groups that do border solidarity working with refugees to make sure they're fed in house. If you listen to this podcast, you've heard James talking about this, and this is the first episode you've listened to, in which case, go back and listen to James talking about border solidarity work. If you want to show up and distribute food and water, track border patrol activity, build shelters,

do first DAID, all of that. Feel like you're part of something because you are and are like saving people's lives directly, that's something you can likely get involved with, but it's not something you just show up at. There are a few groups doing that work, any of whom you can reach out to and express interest. There's border Kindness, there's Borderlands Relief Collective and Al Ultra Lado, and there's

other groups like this in different areas. But these are the examples where I asked James being like, Hey, how do I explain the following concept? In general, you want to look for groups. If you're looking for groups, you want to look for groups that are grassroots and non authoritarian. You want to watch out for electoral campaigns, and you want to watch out for nonprofits. This is not to say that the people doing these things are necessarily bad.

There are local political campaigns that matter, and there are nonprofits that do good work. Some of the best political work I ever did was two years out a nonprofit, honestly, but I got I was with one of the good ones. And structurally those systems, even the good ones, are set up to take advantage of people's energy and then like kind of profit off of it, right, and to accomplish goals that are often tangential to or even counter to the goals that they claim. For example, both politicians and

nonprofits live off of donations. These donations are easy for them to get when those groups are seen as necessary, so a nonprofit has a financial interest in not winning. Some nonprofits manage to maintain their focus and make themselves work to make themselves obsolete, but frankly those are the minority. You also want to look out for groups that are front groups for thor tearing. Groups attached to communist political parties you mentioned earlier, like the PSL the Party for

Socialism and Liberation. Generally speaking, these groups will go to protests and run events, primarily as a way to recruit people into a hierarchical structure. These groups are often trying to control broader movements that they're involved in. They'll tell people how they can and can't protest, and they're trying to essentially own movements that were built by others. So those are things to be careful around. You can also just not worry about any of that stuff and start

something yourself. It is not the easy mode to get into the movement by starting your own projects. We're going to talk about afinity groups later. Actually it was the thing that you kind of started to bring up. But it is very rewarding to start your own projects. It's like freelancing instead of looking for a job. There's no gatekeepers to cross, and the only person who's trying to take advantage of you is you. If you want to never not be working another day in your life, you

can freelance or start your own political project. It'll be what you think about every hour you're alive. In essence, the idea here is to say, okay, what's wrong and what are we willing to do about it, and then get together with your friends and start doing something about it. This can look like anything.

do anything. And that's one of the things that people. Our society is designed to tell us that we can't just do anything we want. There's obviously things that if we do, we'll get in trouble eventually.

can unionize your workplace. You probably should, but you might want to do that in the context of an existing union like the Industrial Workers of the World or whatever union makes the most sense where the writer's field of America, Yeah exactly. If you have a podcast, but how the world's falling apart?

existing bail fund rather than start another. But also sometimes it is better to start another, like it's harder for the police tarrade, for example, which didn't used to be an issue when you start bail funds, but is now an issue, which is worth pointing out that like there's no true safety, you know, like when we talk about risk analysis, like running a bail fund is entirely legal and is the kind of thing that often is done by the people who care about a movement and are

like not frontlines people.

But in like how police display the power of the state, Like out in the open world, it really doesn't matter if you're holding a sign or you're holding a hammer when you're getting tackled from behind by a big man with a gun.

avoid if you're starting your own thing. Any group that involves money will at some point have someone from that group steal the money.

gonna pay that back. I don't think anyone needs it right now. I just need it for rent.

feel like doing safe with actions with. Whatever the scale of actions, you get together with your friends.

getting along with sometimes. You know, Yeah, it might function better if you know you don't all hate each other, ah, have some affinity. Yeah, yes, you know, but perhaps you have a shared affinity within the group.

These are the people who will be in direct You'll be in direct communication with during the protest, so you can coordinate your actions together.

not better off going to protest alone. And then the final thing kind of tying together the existing groups versus whatever else existing protests movements EBB and flow protests are contagious, especially when they're rowdy and they show that they take themselves seriously enough to not just go along with whatever professional protest managers tell them to do, and take them seriously enough to resist the police and authorities. It's more or less impossible to know which protests like sparks will

catch a bigger fire. It is good and useful to cast sparks and see what catches, or to notice when something is starting to spread and to help it spread.

two political conventions happening this year. The Republican National Convention been from July fifteenth to eighteenth, twenty twenty four in Milwaukee, and then in August nineteenth to twenty second in Chicago is the Democratic National Convention. They're basically always protests at these conventions to me, and I'm a little bit out of touch with it. There's going to be more this year, Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. There certainly will, I think, especially

at the DNC. I don't have much to say on this at this point besides read up on the previous ones that have happened. You can go all the way back to sixty eight if you want to read about Chicago and the DNC, but also like the RNC protests from the Iraq War era, I think would be verly useful to look at if you want to go back to like two thousand and eight and see how those protests were. I would just recommend reading up on it. I don't really have much else to say on those in the moment.

as well as you wanted to. Maybe you're protested, and but I think there's a lot of lessons to learn from what happened the past month, and they will become applicable, possibly this summer, possibly two years from now, who knows. Like it's hard to say, but yeah, it's Whenever you get that first hint of tear gas, you kind of become a different person in my opinion, So congratulations to

everyone who did that. Hopefully didn't get arrested, and if you did, hopefully you have a jail support crew that is helping you out.

the co Intel pro stuff. For example, I run a podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff on this very network, cool Zone Media, and you can listen to it every Monday and Wednesday. I just finished a very long, but I swear entertaining series of episodes about the Russian

Revolution in the Civil War. I've did an episode about the Burglars for Peace who exposed co Intel pro by robbing an FBI office in the middle of the night in the early seventies, and all kinds of other stories, So you can listen to that, or if you want to know more about the end of the world. I help run a podcast called Live Like the World Is Dying, comes out every Friday, and that one is Prepper Butt Community. Yep, there were go And I have a book coming out.

It comes out of September. It's called The Sapling Cage and it's going to be kickstarted in June, and if you go to Kickstarter you can sign up for announcements about that. And it is the best book I've ever written, so you all should read it. Very excited to see that that does it for us, that it could happen here. We will probably see you out there.

These are all things that anarchists have looked into discussed, and so it's to wrestle with.

related to education. Okay, Yeah, So basically in my research on education, I stumbled upon this article called anarchists of an Education and early Republican Cuba from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen twenty five. And also I found some other works on anarchist Cuba in general and his all thanks to the scholarship of Kubin Shaffer. And I mean, for some time now, I've been meaning to dig deeper into the history of anarchism in Cuba. Dare I say, I think it's been forgotten, and so I took a dive

into it. I first started with Stephen J. Hersh and Lucian van der Wald's work in anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and post colonial world. And in my research I also founder work of Sam Dorkoff and Frank Finandez, both of whom were apparently highly influential in the scholarship, the historical research and the present understanding of Cuban anarchism.

It's thanks to their research that we know what we know, bringing all those different things together, all those different sources together. So here we go, Akivamos, Let's discuss the history of Cuban anarchism, and our story begins in the early nineteenth century. You know, the sun on colonial Cuba, casting a long and heavy shadow across the vibe and streets of Havana. The gentle salty breezes carried I'm trying a new thing. I see a facial ext friend. I'm trying I like

Can I like it? I'm trying to said the same, you know, feel those salty breezes carrying the scent of tobacco and coffee and sugar cane. But let's not get too romantic. You know, this was a plantation society where African slaves remained in chains and toiled in the hot sun while many of their contemporaries gained their freedom and plantition known as navigated the web of politics and power.

Cuba was among the last countries to abolish slavery, and the Cuban aristocracy, being uniquely loyal to the Spanish crown, was primarily responsible for the persistence to that institution. You know, they were dedicated to Spain long after much of Latin America had won their independence, and despite the aristocrat's loyalty, there were still whispers of liberation and revolution in corners

of the city. In eighteen fifty seven, just nearly two decades after the French track called pered Joseph Prudin declared himself an anarchists and a mutualist. The first Proonian Mutualist Society would be founded in Cuba, marking the early beginnings of the organized labor movement on the island. A decade later, in eighteen sixty five, lecturers or readings places where political

ideas we read in cigar factories. They became very widespread considering the predominance of the tobacco industry, and in the same year, the first strike threat would occur at a tobacco works in Havana, leading to successful negotiations for increased wages. In eighteen sixty six, Havana based artisans would establish the first evening school for workers, lay in the foundation for

worker based Education. Between eighteen sixty eight and eighteen seventy eight, conflict would erupt into violence as the sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Sespides and his followers proclaimed independence, beginning the first of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain.

The first, a horizon led by wealthy planters, would be known as the Ten Years' War, and it would be followed by a second uprising, the Little War, from eighteen seventy nineteighteen eighty, and meanwhile, the Cubas anarchist movement would look to establish another worker's school and a newspaper. These efforts were led by cigar makers Enrique roy De Saint Martin and Enrique Messonier. In Havana, greg San Martin founded

this Center of Instruction and Recreation. Its purpose was to defend worker organizations and distribute anarchal collectivist literature from Spain. The doors of the center opened to all Cubans, regardless of their social position, political leanings, or color differences. Gregson Martin also took the position of editor at the newspaper El Obrero, co opting it from the Democratic Republicans and

turned it into an explicitly anarchist newspaper. The anarchists and tobacco industry were pioneering the emergent labour struggle, bolstered by the transport of anarchist periodicals from Spain to Cuba and the transmission of ideas by Spanish immigrant workers. The first regional centers, clinics, secular schools, mutual aid associations and Free Association of tobacco workers, typographers, carpenters, day laborers and artisans

were emerging thanks to the influence of Prudon's ideas. While some in the labor movement were appreciate reformism and collaboration with capitalist interests, the anarchists stood firm in their rejection of submission to the feat of capital. In eighteen eighty five, the Junta Central de r Tisnos was founded to unite Cuba's workers in federations. In the same year, in the RecA Massoniir launched the Circulo de Trabajadores or Workers Circle,

which was focused on educational and cultural activities. The Worker's Circle became the largest labor organization in Cuba in the late eighteen eighties. It hosted a secular school for five hundred poor students to challenge Cuba's public and religious schools. It held rally for groups of workers, and it led anti nationalist and anti racist education efforts. Anarchists will also

challenge in discrimination in labor and immigration policies. By eighteen eighty six, Spain finally outlawed slavery, and the Cuban anarchists would attempt to welcome Afro Cubans into the labor organizations,

with mixed success. And we'll get to that soon. In eighteen eighty seven, Roixamartin launched Al Productor, a weekly newspaper that will become a must read for the work in people of Cuba, and to coordinate it to publication and the efforts of the various workers groups, workers founded the

Alianza Oprera or Workers' Alliance. With the founder of the Alliance and the sponsorship of another organization, La Ferracion de Tabadores de Cuba or FDC or Federation of Cuban Workers, the first Congresso Obrero de Cuba would be held in Havana. Majority of the members of the FDC were tobacco workers, but members of other trades also participated, like tailors and drivers and bakers and baro makers and dock workers. So

that's a lot of organizations in quick succession. So to summarize, we have the center of instruction recreation, the newspapers El Peructor and Obrero, the Junta Centrale de Artisanos or Central Union of Artisans, El Sercuilo de Travajadores or Workers Circle, the Alianza Obrera or Workers Alliance, and Laferracion de Travajadores de Cuba or FDC, which held the first Congresso Obrero or Workers Congress in Cuba. All these organized efforts would

spark another strike. Remember the first threat, which did not lead to a strike, took place in eighteen sixty five, but this time it was different. In July eighteen eighty eight, the tobacco workers call a strike at the Henry Clay tobacco factory in Havana. The Workers Circle met and agreed to begin collecting donations to support the workers out in the streets, and sent delegates to Key West in Florida

to solicit aid from the tobacco workers there. The Worker's Circle was very much involved in a lot of these things because they actually had a large headquarters that coordinated the offices of many workers associations. In addition to the school that I mentioned they founded, they had their fingers and a lot of the associations and solidarity efforts that had taken place. By eighteen eighty nine, they founded yet another school, teaching over one hundred men at night and

eight hundred children during the day. Elegance the establishment of new schools across the island, And also in eighteen eighty nine, those same tobacco workers in Key West called their own general strike due to poor working conditions, low wages, and stock living conditions. And guess what they stood in solidarity with the Cuban workers, and the Cuban workers stood in

solidarity with them. The Workers Alliance also connected with workers organizations in Florida and fosters solidarity between workers in Florida and Cuba. In addition to Key West, strikes would also break out in Tampa and Ybor City. Despite some violence and the expulsion of the strike leaders, the strike in Florida ended in early eighteen ninety with a triumph for Florida's tobacco workers as the owners acceded to the demands

for a pay increase. On May first International Workers Day, over three thousand workers marched through Havana, and in this time the workers Circle was continuously expanding. But within this year also came tragedy, as in August Enrique Roig San Martin died at the age of forty six, and the last of the three conflicts against Spain would be the Cuban War of Independence, which raged from eighteen ninety five

to eighteen ninety eight. Anarchists in Cuba, New York, and Spain debated support for Cuba's independent struggle but despite concerns, most anarchists did support independence, seeing it as an anti colonial fight against Spanish imperialism and an opportunity to transform the island along anarchist principles. Figures like Jose Garcia, Rafael Serra, and Adrian del Valle promoted anarchist internationalism while also seek

in Cuban national liberation. The final three months that conflict escalated with US involvement becoming known as the Spanish American War, and following Spain's defeat, the US briefly occupied Cuba with the promise of greater autonomy in the future. Of course, we all know how that promised to endow with repeated

interventions Kim Crowen anarchist opposition. The US occupiers overhauled the Cuban education system and introduced a new model influenced by American principles, emphasizing liberal arts, manual instruction, and civic education to republicanize the children of Cuba and promote democracy. In spite of some reforms, the Cuban education system still suffered corruption,

inadequate and infrastructure, and overcrowded classrooms. In eighteen ninety nine, just a year after independence, the Workers Alliance organized a mason's strike which extended into the construction trade and also led to several arrests and the overall repression of the anarchists. This is a persistent theme, of course.

it only lasted a couple of years. Notably, it loudly opposed the US's plans for ANIX and Cuba and the introduction of the plat Amendment to the Cuban Constitution, which would provide pretense for US intervention in the future. The plat Amendment was really that point in the Cuban constitution that would justify us infusion and involvement for years to come. Here's a little easter egg, a little fun fact. It

will come you. In fact, you could call him a run income you for the anarchist worldwide, a familiar face because he showed up in Havana in this year, and he also showed up in Egypt during their anarchist struggle for those who remember that episode, any ideas.

Cubans aspired to build a more egalitarian nation. The Cuban anarchists continued to struggle even as they were becoming disillusioned by the continued prioritization of individual profits of a society, wellbon the oppression of labor and the terrible educational systems.

They had their first truly general strike in nineteen oh two, known as the Apprentice Strike, but it was suppressed and failed, and with its failure, leading figures in the Lega Heeneral de Trebadores like Messonniea and Rivero Yirverro, retired from the labour struggle. A year later, in nineteen oh three, anarchists organized in the sugar industry, which was met with a violent response from the owners, including the murder of two

prominent anarchist figures, Casanias and Buntero. The year before the US recognition of Cuban independence in nineteen oh one, just across the pond in Spain, Francisco Ferrer had found that his first modern school. Ferrer is an icon in the sphere of anarchist education for his pioneer and efforts as anarchists and Cuba condemn in public schools for their condition pedagogy,

patriotic indoctrination, and lack of critical thinking. They were inspired by they alternative education rooted in rationalism and free inquiry that was introduced by Ferrer.

and in other places in Spain. I mean, the Cuban Anarchists had already been organized in education before, as their program had always sought to raise consciousness and prepare for social revolution. But Ferrer offered that extra dose of inspiration.

In nineteen oh six, the CEES School was established in Regular, embracing the advanced pedagogical perspective methods of these Spanish Anarchists schools. And that very same year, nineteen oh six, the US intervened in Cuba again. You know, they can't even let decade go by of independence before they say, nap were stepping in, you know. So of course, in response, strikes breakout in Havana, Siego de a Vila and Santiago de Cuba anyway, so that's going on, and anarchists are also

organized and speaking tours. In nineteen oh eight, anarchists formed the group at Ucaciondale Porvenir or Education of the Future in Regular which sought to established modern schools across the island. The LGA Heneral de Trabahadories also got involved in the group's efforts. Unfortunately, internal conflicts and financial difficulties undermined the initial wave of anarchist schools in this time. Meanwhile, private

school options, particularly of the religious variety, were proliferated across Cuba. Eventually, in nineteen oh nine, Ferrero was arrested and executed by Spanish authorities, which actually triggered a protest in Cuba and also triggered resistance elsewhere in the world. That would simultaneously seek to advocate his ideas further and of course, was to honor his memory. Turning out went to the nineteen tens.

It was a very eventful period. Let's just say, you know, the Mexican Revolution was a current which inspired Cubas workers and peasants. The Mexican Revolution was a current and that inspired Cuba's workers and peasants there was actually, just as there was cross pollination between Spanish anarchists and Cuban anarchists, there was cross pollination between Cuban anarchists and Mexican anarchists,

you know, anarchists. Ricardo Flores Magon, a Titanic figure in Mexican revolution, actually had a stand in a relationship with the Cuban paper Tierra, as the paper was critical of the Mexican dictator of the time, Portfyrio DS. So while the guns of the revolutionary Imiliano Zapata were firing in Mexico, tobacco workers, teamsters and bakers were striking in Cuba. In nineteen twelve, a congress was formed in Crusius with the aim to create an island wide labor federation. But another

significant event occurred in nineteen twelve. You see, all this time, Afrocubans will play in significant roles in the island's labor movements, particularly through strikes such as the eighteen ninety nine Mason strike and the sugar workers' struggles. Despite this, they were dealing with a lot of political and cultural persecution and faced high literacy rates, job discrimination, and disenfranchisement due to

literacy and property requirements. For voting. Naturally, Afrocubans wanted to fight against this, so they formed their own political party, the Independent Party of Color or PIC, and the government quickly outlawed it, which triggered several violent attacks on PIC supporter meetings throughout nineteen twelve. It was essentially a race riot, and it killed as many as six thousand Afrocubans and resulted in another nine hundred thrown in jail and charged

with rebellion. This time, the anarchist response was weaker than it could have been. Writers like Adrian del Vallier and Eugenio Leante presented pressed the importance of education and the good upbringing of children to root out the racist attitudes that led to the massacre. Writers like Adrian de la Vallei and Eugenio Leante pressed the importance of education and the importance of a good upbringing of children to root

out the racial attitudes. The racist attitudes that led to the massacre, as those attitudes are still present a mere

generation after ablition. The anarchists were, as would be consisted of the principles critical of the PIC's political approach of bourgeois elections, but they did admire Africuman culture and recognize their contributions to workers liberation movements, but as far as I can tell, they didn't do much else beyond education to combat racist attitudes, likely feeling powerless to prevent the violence in nineteen twelve due to their own repression by

the state. And of course, it isn't a binary of Africubans and anarchists, as there were Africubans in the anarchist movement, including problem figures like Raphael Sarah who remained active into the nineteen forties, the printer Pablo Guira, and Margarito Iglesias, who is the black anarchist leader of the Manufacturers Union in nineteen twenties. Still, despite this overlap, the anarchists still couldn't shake their perception as white and foreigners, which.

But I do think that while the heart is in the right place with education to roots out racist attitudes, you know, consciousness raising is one thing which you really do have to, you know, put yourself on the line when it comes to defending marginalized groups, especially if you're coming from opposition of relative privilege, being white, to be in Spanish, in you know, recently post colonial Cuba, barely even post colonial Cuba, you know.

and the closure of anarchist organizations. There were crackdowns against the radical activities from nineteen fourteen on and the suspension of the Tierra publication and the deportation of many anarchists. Because in spite of the oppression, the anarchists movement began to recover by nineteen seventeen with the Centro Oberero or Worker's Center being established in Havana lead into resurgence of

anarchist education and organized activity. Between nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen four general strikes a breakout in Havana and the US sent a flotilla in response to the disorder. The government suspended constitutional guarantees, deported even more anarchists, and closed the Centrol Obrero. Around this time, you also had the anaqual Naturists, which I really don't know where to fit into all of this, so I'll just put them here to give you from the repression.

If you know anything about history, you know what significant event takes place in Russia in nineteen seventeen. The Russian Revolution would reverberate across the landscape of workers struggles for decades to come. In the next episode, we'll see how the Bolsheviks rise would shape the anarchist movement in Cuba leading up to the Rise of Castro, as well as how anarchists have endured since then until then. And it could happen here. And this is Andrewism. I'll pout to

all the people peace, Welcome to could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage of futuree Channel Antraism. I'm again joined by Garrison. Say hello again, Hello again.

audience by surprise too. You know the fact that from the very first Prunian and Mutualist Society in eighteen fifty seven, to the rise of the anarchist organizations, the strike activities that the schools, to even the anequ niaturists, all of this was going on from the mid nineteenth century all the way into the early twentieth century, even in the height of repression in the nineteen tenths, and the cycle of US intervention as well.

Lucien van der Walt, Sam Dolgov and Frank Fernandez. So in nineteen twenty the anarchists formed a Congress to advocate a series of immediate and transitory economic measures to resolve the high cost of living brought about by the decrease in sugar prices, because you remember, Cuba's economy was dependent on sugar and tobacco and coffee. They also formed the Archist sutter is the confederaci Nacional de Tobajo or a national confederation of workers. Following the Bolshevik victory in Russia.

It took a minute for the world to find out what happened to all the anarchists in Russia. I mean, it was the nineteen twenties. They didn't have Twitter. But in the meantime, the anarchists sent a fraternal salute to the brothers who in Russia have established the USSR. Which is interesting.

Yet their attitude of jubilation towards the success of the Bolsheviks would of course change very shortly, but the anarchists in Cuba still had some hope in unity, though despite some debate amongst themselves about aligning with the Marxists in Cuba see At the time, the anarchost syndicalist movement was leading the formation of labor organizations and federations with figures like Alfredo Lopez and Antonio Pinichet, and while they were

largely in favor of cross sectarian alliances and collaboration in the promotion of alternative education projects, and after the Congress of nineteen twenty Cuba's workers pressed their demands with renewed force in solidarity all together, leading to bombings and Havana and another general strike on medi Figures like Penichet and Salinas were jailed and a bomb was set off in

the Teatro Nacional in protest. So Initially condemned to death, Penichet and Salinas were eventually pardoned and released at the beginning of nineteen twenty one, with the fall of Garcio Mencalists government. This is when Fedrozias's moderate government came into power, and this is when the Anarchos Syndicolas Feracion Oprera de la Habana or FOH or Workers Cleation of Havana was founded.

The Workers Federation of Havana inaugurated its rational School and library in nineteen twenty two, aiming to counter public and private education emphasis on religion and patriotism. In nineteen twenty five, the second Congresso Nacional Oprero is celebrated in San Fuegos and the Confederacio Nacabrera the Cuba or National Confederation of Human Workers or SCENOC, is founded by anachosyndicalists in Kama Way.

The SCENOC was a big tent organization, so although it was initially led by anachosyndicalists, there were reformists and Marxist elements in there as well, and you'll see the results of big tent organization very soon. Also nineteen twenty five, the Partido Communista Kubano or PCC was founded in Havana, and in nineteen twenty five there was a strike among railway and sugar workers which would provoke government repression and the nineteen twenty five Gerardo Machado would be elected to

the office of presidency. Now pay attention to the PCC because they become relevant again later on.

refusing to cooperate with the government. They founded militant groups such as Espartaco and Losildarios and later the Federation the Federacion de Groupos Anarchistas de Cuba or FGC. They engaged in street fighting against the government and also in several failed assassination attempts against Machado. I don't know what it is with Cuban leaders, but they seem to have trouble

getting assassinated. So while the anarchists and I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, presumably some Marxists were engaged in such resistance and I say presumably because I didn't they were into focus of my research. But from what I could see was the anarchists who

were engaged in such resistance. Anyway, that's tangential. The operatives of the Popular Socialist Party or PSP chose to make compromises with the various dictatorial governments in order to be allowed control of the labor unions as well as some other pooks.

into the hands of the PCC. You see, with the continuous deportation, exile and murder of anarchists by the Machado government, the Marxists and the SCENOC, who had been taken orders from the PCC the whole time, were told, Okay, now it's your chance, take advantage of the situation. The anarchists

out of the way, let's take over the SCENOC. So in nineteen thirty three, another transportation strike breaks out in Havana, which leads to another general strike and further violence, and the PCC used their control over the SCENOC to make a deal with Mature Shado and the general strike, even though they were not the ones that started in the first.

be like, no, we actually have to keep fighting. This actually doesn't this sort of this this this sort of like attempts at calling like victory or trying to end things actually is not what you claim it to be, and we have to keep going. And it's is something that always falls back on like some of the more anarchist aligned contingents in popular struggles.

it seems. Unfortunately, until we speak more prominently of the mistakes of the past, more honestly of the mistakes of the past, instead of this sort of whitewashed oh the glorious revolutionary movements of the past. Oh, you know, like wow, so cool. Until we start to like engage honest without history and like the mistakes and whatnot, these kind of things are just going to continue to happen, you know.

And that's why I also appreciate, you know, the sort of honesty that anarchists have, where they'll be willing to call I mean not not all you know, especially new anarchists tend to be more defensive, but and I appreciate the willness to call out like what the CNT did in Spain that was wrong, or what the Black Arm in Ukraine did that was wrong.

But you don't have this the need to be like you have to defend every single thing that X person did because it's like, I know it, it gets it gets very weird when you have these like nineteen year old communists who are like, no, Stalin's good actually, which is a whole other topic, but but yeah, even in like smaller scale things, just the resistance to having to to adhere to the party line on a lot of a lot of these topics when you just don't have a party so it allows you to be way more

open in your consideration of what has worked, what hasn't worked.

through Machado a lot of stings. Huh, very interesting. Yeah, So that coup, along with the nineteen thirty three revolution, it was part of resulting from the opposition of the human people to President MacHall those attempts to keep himself in power with flames further fanned by the widespread misery caused by the economic collapse of nineteen twenty nine. Anarchists were, of course participants in the strikes and the revolutionary actions

during this time. Military forces and student activists were also very much involved. So Carlos Manuel de Sispires i Quesada came to lead a provisional government which led to the installation of a new government led by a five man coalition known as the Pentarchy of nineteen twenty three. But after only five days, the Pentarchy gave way to the presidency of Ramon Grau San Martin, whose term became known

as the one hundred Days Government for obvious reasons. It really only lasted about one hundred days because it decided to defy the US and remove the Platinum nment from the Cuban constitution, and it also introduced the eight hour workday and tried to intervene in the American owned electrical

and telephone utility companies. But before you sell that government as a champion of the work in people, it also contributed to the suppression of the Cuban anarchist movement, which had a significant foreign born labor base, with the introduction of the fifty percent law, which forced owners to reserve at least half their jobs for Cubans. That law prompted many of the Spanish anarchists, remember they were a very

prominent part of the anarchist movement in Cuba. That prompted them to return to Spain, where as you may know, a civil war would kick off rather soon, so the leader of the revolt against one hundred Days Government was Sergeant Fulgencio Battista, who became the head of the armed Forces and began a long period of influence on Cuban politics.

The summer of nineteen thirty three obviously marked the end of the cooperative relationship between Cuban anarchists and communists, you know, because of the whole PCC sicond matalist dogs and the anarchists and all that.

told the PCC, yeah, don't call a general strike. After the PCs he tried to call a general strike, the PCC was like, Okay, we won't call a general strike, and then the PCC adopted Moscow's popular front line and basically aligned themselves with Batista. And what's interesting is, you see, but what Bosistera desperately needed to secure his legitimacy was an electoral base. Basically, he needed a large group of people to say we back his leadership.

And the one of the historians I was telling you about, Fernando Fernandez, he wrote that the PCC actually offered Batista a deal, put in all of the machinery of Cuban and international communism at his service, and it promised to deliver votes in the coming elections, which Batista badly needed. In exchange, the PCC was to be given the recently government created Confederaci Tahadoris to Cuba, the CTC, the Cuban Confederation of Workers, and the CTC was basically meant to

be the largest, most centralized Levo organization in Cuba. One they would combine all of the existing factions.

The ALC held a congress attended by one hundred and fifty five delegates in nineteen forty eight, and in that congress it discussed the creation of a libertarian society in Cuba, and they established the Solidary Dad Gastronomica, which was a

publication meant to serve as their official organ. Carlos Prio Socaras assumed the QAN presidency in nineteen forty eight following the presidency of Ramon Grau San Martin, because he actually got another chance to be president after one hundred day's government, and then you had a few filler presidents after that, and then you had Batista's run as president. But anyway, so Prio becomes president and the anarchists try and fail

to create a new labor confederation. The Confederaci in general the Tagories was CGT and it was meant to be independent of the CTC. Unfortunately, thanks to reformist elements, the Stalinists and the government, it suffered under an extensive propaganda campaign against the initiative in both the Cuban communications media

and then the officially approved unions. But despite everything, the anarchists were enduring on the grassroots level, and they were anarchist militants scattered everywhere and anarchist propagandists in every provincial capital.

By the way, it is interesting that the Stalinists would gleefully purge the anarchists to appease their own phase for power earlier in the decade, considering that they themselves would be expelled from their posts in the CTC by the government Under US pressure, PreO declared the PSP illegal, motivating the Stylists to eye themselves yet again with their old body,

old pal Fulgencio Batista. In nineteen fifty, the ALC would hold another congress, a meant to reorganize the Cuban union movements against its control by bureaucrats, politicians, cults, and religionists. The Congress repudiated the CTC and dedicated itself to maintain the CGT's struggle in spite of President Prio's repression. In nineteen fifty two, Batista took power in a coup, and the LC joined other revolutionary groups in armed resistance to

the dictatorship in the cities and the countryside. Despite facing imprisonment, torture, and kidnapping, they challenged Batista's rule through propaganda, distribution, Klandestine activity,

and coordinated sabotage efforts. They even worked with groups like the Directorial Revoluse Scenario, the Federation of University Students, and elements within castorerst Group, the M twenty sixth G the Antony sixth J. By the way, despite taking credit for everything, had little to no involvement in many of the uprisings that took place in this period. They tried at one point to call a general strike, but it was badly organized and uncoordinated with other revolutionary groups, so you know,

of course it failed. Meanwhile, the ALC's meeting hole not only distributed information and coordinated sabotage efforts, but even taught some of Castro's fighters how to shoot firearms.

Any hope anarchists had for social change following nineteen fifty nine would be crushed by the increase in centralization, bureaucraticization of the government, further purges of anarchists from the CTC, which, by the way, they renamed the CTC R as in CTC Revolutionary, and they also militarized. And they also militarized it.

You know, if they forced a bunch of the workers to create militias, and you know, with Castro's public alignment with Marxism Leninism, the suppression the revolutionary tribunals and the exile of anarchists and other dissidents. In January nineteen sixty, the ALC held an assembly and expressed support for the Cuban Revolution while rejecting dictatorship everywhere. By the end of the year, stud published the final issue of their publication,

So darry Dad Gatunomica. The LC fell under government pressure, and unlike previous Cuban governments, Castro's regime was extra blood thirsty with the working class and peasant dissenters. That same year, the Grupo the Sindecalistas Libertarios is suited document criticizing the Cuban government's direction. Fearing the increase in totalitarianism, they had to change their name to avoid reprisals. As a pecc's organ, OI responded to the group O the Snekalistas Libertarios document

with insults and accusations. That same year, the movie Miento Deaccion Syndical began circulating a bulletin critical of the PCC and Castro. They too would be suppressed. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in nineteen sixty one, Castro's government intensified its suppression of opposition, including anarchists. The anarchist movement also bore a terrible betrayal as Manuel Guiona Susa, a prominent anarchist, betrayed his comrades by endorsing the cashier regime

and denouncing the anarchists who opposed it. Some anarists would end up in prison somewhat fled to Florida, where they would unfortunately be grouped to the Batista supporters who would also fled to Florida at that time, and an international solidarity effort emerged with donations from various anarchist groups worldwide

to aid the Cuban anarchists escape. The anarchists that fled to Cure formed the Movimiento Libertario Cubano in Exilio the mcl or Cuban anarchist movement in exile, and continued to advocate for anarchist principles to publications like Guangara Libertaria. The New York based Libertarian League, led by figures like Sam Dogoff, provided critical support to these exiles. But what really sucks the Cuban anarchists had to struggle to garner support from

their fellow anarchists around the world. Thanks to the propaganda efforts to the Castro regime. The Cuman anarchists was made as CIA agents, which is umi recoll still a favorite tactic of campus authoritarians.

in support for Cuban anarchists. But despite the efforts of Abelardo I Glasias to present the Cuban anarchists viewpoint, many anarchist groups in Europe and Latin Americas still aligned with casteurism view and criticism of the regime as opposition to the broader socialist revolution. But despite the skepticism of their payers and the refusal of some anarchist publications to even hear them out. The Cuban anarchists continued the activism in exile.

They published works to denounce in the Castier regime and sought to clarify their position within the global anarchist movement. Back in Cuba, the remaining anarchists dwindled in size, as most had either left or rotten in prison. In the seventies and beyond, the Cuban anarchists faced isolation and defamation. They still accused this day of being in service of reaction.

It's only with Sam Dolkov's book The Cuban Revolution Critical Perspective in nineteen seventy six that attitudes began to shift reade into a gradual reassessment of the MLCE within the anarchist community. In nineteen seventy nine, the MLSE renewed ties with the Anarchist Confederacio National Debajo, SASH Association International Rosador

the CNTIT during to congress in Madrid. Subsequent publications and articles further clarified the mlce's position and cashtroism, marking the end of a long and damaging chapter of derision against them. In nineteen eighty, Guangara Libertaria emerged as a new platform for Cuban anarchists in exile. Initially cautious in its advocacy due to the hostile political climate in Miami, Guangara gradually became more explicitly anarchist and critical of both Castros regime

and the reactionary exile community. It played a significant role in challenging Procastro narratives and fostering international solidarity among anarchists. As of recently as in the twenty first century, the Taire Libertario Alfreedro Lopez or Alfero Lopez Libertarian Workshop has published a few pieces on anarchism in the Cuban context.

They even took part in the creation of the Central American and Caribbean Anarchist Federation, And before anyone asks, I haven't found a way to get in contact with them yet. The recent decentralized protests in Cuba sparked a deluge of conflicting narratives from various sources. We're on one side, Cuban authorities and leftist supporters defended the regime, blaming the economic crisis and health challenges on the US blockade, while treating

Cuban critics with one broad reactionary brush. On the other, hand, we had the right wing media criticizing the lack of freedoms under the communist government. While amidst this, anarchists sought a deeper understanding, seeking neither alignment with the US nor the Cuban government, but seeking understanding of the needs of the people frustrated by the poser pandemic and the failures

of the government. The condition that Cuba is in now obviously is due to the impact of the US's blockade, which should be lifted immediately, but it shouldn't be missed that the government uses the blockade to divert attention from other matters where it does deserve significant critique. Emergency measures were eventually implemented appease the protesters, but it remains to be seen what the outcome of that frustration of the

people will be in the long term. As Francisco Finandez wrote in Cuban Anarchism, The History of a Movement, hopefully there are those in this generation who will take up the legacy of their forebearers so that the roots of anarchism that are now buried in the fertile Cuban soil will once again spring to life. Anyway, this has been the forgotten history of anarchism in Cuba. This has been it could happen here, and this has been Andrew's age. All power to all the people. Peace.

on that campus in the past month or so. But yeah, I guess what I wanted to I guess the place I wanted to start was sort of Okay, so you, Chicago is a campus that has a lot of union organizing happening on it in a bunch of across a bunch of different kind of they're mostly university unions, but a lot of different all different kinds of workers and the university have unions. How did that sort of impact the way this campaign started.

so many of us are in the community. We all know a lot of people who are organizers, a lot of people in the grad student union, and having them to talk to and kind of like bounce ideas off of and commiserate all of that has been really great.

And I don't know, it's it's it's a that was my experience back doing Actually god I was, I was on the GS. You pick it line, like, how God that was? That was half decade ago. Jesus Christ. Sorry, this is trying to geto the MIA thinks about our time that you should which it shouldn't.

biggest supporters, but at the same time their actions do not very well line up with those ideals.

There's the fact that like our our second location down the street fifty seventh Street Books, which has like our kids sections and like a bunch of other less academic stuff like that's very heavily trafficked as well. And the communities understanding of us as a like worker owned not not for profit, which is a very confusing term because

it's not a nonprofit, it's a not for profit. That that disconnect between what the community needs and wants in its bookstores and what the management has decided our bookstores mean to the community is it's felt.

was being given to customers, which is we're working on it. You're all of these things that you're saying are so valid, and we'll address them at a later date.

So that was just a very a very frustrating, like completely empty answer.

January meeting. But when I rejoined the co op in August, I think within the first week that I was there, one of my kokers came up to me while I was at the register and like in the standard getting to know you kind of speech, was like, how do you feel about labor organizing? And I was like, very in favor. Why do you ask?

to them. Please stop. Simply do not do this.

months or so. And it's like, Okay, how quickly can we scope folks out, How quickly can we like do like a one on one and talk to them about how they feel about labor organizing. How can we get a sense of like what their main concerns are with the job and what they want from unionizing.

own terms. And we had another coworker who knew that she was kind of reaching the end of when she could you know, stay at the bookstore and was just very committed to like getting some momentum going in her last handful of months here and created, like you oside the group chat and was just very quit like all right, everyone were in the group chat like this message if you agree with the following statement, and then it was like, you know, the statements about like how much you care

about the job, and then statements about like how much you agree that like a union would improve things, and just about everybody agreed a union would be a huge improvement. And that was I mean, that was also a really incredible resource because like before someone just created the group chat. We're in this really awkward phase of like three or four different groups of people trying to get a ball

rolling and very like cautiously approaching folks. I had approached one or two people and been like that same exact question, like how do you feel about unions? And then there was someone else who was going around asking the exact same question. And you know, I was also at rege one day when she came up and asked ask me that, and I was like, Jesus, do I not have enough patches on my jacket? This is a question I need to fix something.

This was like well before yeah, well before we had signed with an or decided who we wanted to ununize with, and we still just threw that direct action got so much done.

berievement leave for was broadened. It was like previously a grid of like nine types of relation, and then it got just fully expanded to like include chosen family and just whoever you know you felt the need to claim berievement leave for as well as just how many days,

which was tremendous. I mean, it was like a week after the change you know, got actually implemented into our leave system, that I found out a relative was dying, And because we had gotten that expansion, I didn't have to choose between driving my grandmother to be by her bedside, be by this other relative's bedside, or going to the funeral. I was able to take time off for both of those, which you know, meant everything to me, meant everything to my grandma.

in the meantime.

The you and I put together kind of a graphic sort of comparing like the pros and cons of two very different options, right like a big international union or I mean IWW obviously international, it's right in there in the name, but obviously a smaller, much more autonomous union.

And I wanted to go IWW. I did my absolute best to not let that bias inform the pros and cons lists and whatnot, and we, you know, we sat around in this room here and just chatted it out, talked about our preferences, what mattered to all of us, and you know, what we decided was that, amongst other things, one of like the really big sort of organizing principles of this has been increasing our own agency and autonomy in the workplace, and the IWW's model just felt like

it would give us the most control over our own campaign. And so that's that's how we ended up voting to become an IWW. You know lead, then campaign, and now finally shop branch.

very well for us as well. I think, especially considering things like the turnover and how we wanted to make sure that you know, if we argue to contract, if we bargain for a contract now, that it would be difficult to know, you know, even a year or two down the line, if those points and those things that we bargained for would be what.

that we were like talking to each other. So I think that they had a plan, And they also know the character of our community, which is very theoretically leftist, and so they knew that they really didn't have another option because like we were at critical mass, and they would look really bad in the eyes of everyone.

just very accommodating to all of that. We haven't been getting any pushback like how the store how or when the store announces to the you know, mailing list and the community social media following and so on, so you know there's that.

it when we've brought it up in the past. And I think that once they realized that we're not just unionizing for fun, things might change pretty quickly.

if for other folks who are working in a small space, in a retail space and thinking about unionizing, I mean, it's hard work, but it's deeply rewarding work, and if you put the time and dedication into it, it is absolutely possible to organize your workplace, especially if you're somewhere with twenty thirty co workers where you can get everyone into a group chat, where you can get everyone together

in you know, someone's basement, someone's living room. You know, we're really at an incredible moment in labor as a movement, and just if you're thinking about organizing your workplace, Start talking to your coworkers, start talking to your friends. It's doable. It's hard, but there's power in a union and we can win.

Union doubleheader. We have two Union episodes in a row. And part of why we're doing this is that we've we've been covering a lot of very sort of very fast drives, very low to the ground drives in small shops recently, and today we are going to be covering a shop that is not like that. It is very large, it is quite geographically diverse, and it has been organizing for a very long time. And that union is the

iHeart Podcast Union. And with me to talk about this is Tracy Wilson from Suffie Missing History Class and Nomes Griffin, who is a producer on many staggeringly too many shows. And yeah, they are both on the bargaining committee of the Aheart Podcast Union. So yeah, Tracy Nomes, welcome to the show.

I mean, there's people everywhere like there are there are there are people who are where, there's one union member in the entire city, so you know, can we And it's also been going on for a very very long time, so I wanted to sort of ask, can you talk about how this whole process started and kind of how long it's been going on.

And the question that Lauren had to ask me was some of us are talking about unionizing. How would you feel about that? And I said, Okay, I need to check my agreement that I already have with iHeart because a lot of us that I have individual agreements with the company. I have worked in the job that I have now in some capacity for almost nineteen years, so I've been here forever and I already had this. I was like, I need to find out does this agreement

prohibit me from doing this? It did not, and so I said, all right, if I'm eligible to be in the union, I'm on board. If I'm not eligible to be in the union, you have my full support. And that was in like November of twenty twenty, which is eons ago at this point.

not actually local to one of these offices. I'm not local to an office. I live north of Boston, we have like three unit members and the entire Commonwealth the message. So this is like a really long process of getting everybody on board and getting everybody to commit to saying they wanted to be in the union, and then eventually to sign union cards after all of that, that took

more than a year. We informed management of our intent to unionize in December of twenty twenty one, and they recognized us about six weeks later, in February of twenty twenty two. That took longer than we would have wanted. There was some back and forth about exactly what roles would be included in the union, and then also the winter holidays happened in the middle of that, which, like those weeks don't exist for business purposes in a lot

of ways. We still got to do podcasts for them, but nobody's at work, and so, you know, we were recognized without having to go through an election with the NLRB, which was great, but it did sort of feel like it took a little bit to finally get the recognition. And then we started bargaining in May, so a couple of months after that, and that was two years ago that we started bargaining.

ever gets started. There's the failures where they lose they lose an election, or they don't have enough people to sign cards. And then the third place that they fail is contract, is the first contract. And so this is you know, a situation that I guess is not unexpected, but is also negotiating a contract for two years just is not very fun.

company had voluntarily recognized US. I thought it was a really good sign that WGAE had successfully negotiated other contracts and that we were sort of drawing from a lot of that. Contract language is our starting point, and I feel like when you have all of the unionized podcast shops having similar language to me, that language is now becoming industry standard. So I expected less of a fight over a lot of that than what we actually got.

And then also management hired an attorney that has negotiated a lot of other contracts with WGA. Was just all stuff that I thought was seemed favorable. And then when we actually got into the bargaining process, it has gone on for so long and there have been so many things that it has felt like we're just going around in circles at the table.

So we'll spend some time as a committee going through those proposals and basing our decisions off of like, this is where we have an intention of landing, this is where management is right now, this is what in our conversations with the other unit members we've figured out is most important to people, So we'll.

present about the salary minimums. We might have another committee member present on severance and things like that, so well sort out who is going to say what, and we'll also plan out any other sort of editorializing that we're going to do across the table, like this is why we're making a move here, because it's important to our unit. For this reason, we've also planned out actions that we're going to do across the table and having unit members read testimonials about certain contract items.

hear the proposals. There may be some sessions that are more important than others, so we'll invite the whole unit to hear those proposals, and we will over those two days sort of go back and forth, presenting across the table what our proposals are and the counter propose and with the idea of like getting closer to a contract that is fair and like Tracy said earlier, industry standard.

by myself. I don't have somebody near me to when like management leaves the room personally react with we got to go around the circle in the whoever's in the room and on the screen to sort of say our reactions. But like it's it's lonely sometimes to do it from afar. I do definitely have to practice keeping my expression neutral because sometimes what we are hearing is not neutral expression territory.

And I also really was not totally prepared to hear management justify their positions on things like I will feel strongly that the correct and most ethical thing to do is a particular thing, and then management will explain their position on something and I'll sort of be like, that's that's not the decision I would like you to be making at all. And I'm a little upset that I just heard you say that just now.

bargaining sessions have happened in Atlanta. We have also have them in New york Er or le but so I have been in person for most of the sitting down across for management and like waiting a few hours after when they said they would be ready to present their proposals, and it is like tense and frustrating to sit in that, and to Tracy's point, like, it is nice that we have the rest of the committee with us to or whoever's in Atlanta with us to sort of share in

that together. But the energy does get really tense at times, especially in those situations where we've presented, hey, we would like, however many days of bereavement leave so we can grieve our family members, and then management comes back with an offer that's.

somebody do that for them. And we had testimonials that were all over the map in terms of things that we were still in the process of bargaining, So we had diversity testimonials, we had testimonials about parental leave, all

of this stuff. And one of the things that wound up being just enormously frustrating was that it felt like we went through all that and we presented so many things about why this matters so much to all of us, and the next round of counter proposals that we got were like the same negligible movements as from before we had all read all of the testimonials. And that was not my favorite day of bargaining by far.

theme of these negotiations is the extent to which management is below industry standard. So yeah, I guess we could start with sort of wages there because of one of the places where they're very much below standard.

and everywhere else. Most of our unit is not in New York or LA. A big chunk of the unit is in Atlanta specifically, and the cost of living in Atlanta is just not that much lower than New York or LA. At this point. We've also been way apart on annual increases. Originally management was proposing not to have annual increases in the contract at all, and they've moved past that, but the current proposals are still way way less than the rate of inflation.

All of that, we have a lot of shows that are really well respected in you know, whatever subject matter they are discussing, whatever broadly speaking genre of podcasts, and so it sucks to then look at pay scales that just don't line up with that in terms of like the minimum of what the company will commit to offering people.

And if if you're getting, if you're not getting this is something I think that's important for everyone to understand, is that if you're not getting so for inflation right now is about three point four percent, If you're not getting a three point four percent pay increase this year. That means you you you are taking a pay cut every single year, right, And the fact that you know this is this is what my management's proposal is, you take a pay cut every single year and you're supposed

to be fine with this is incredibly frustrating. And I don't I don't think it's it's it's it's not really understood in in terms of you're literally taking a pay cut very much. It's just talked of like it's it's, it's, it's it's something that's talked about. Is just like another benefit. But like, no, we're trying not to take a pay cut.

in the network. Like I'm doing okay, right, but a lot of my colleagues who work on shows that don't have as much power, don't have as big of an audience, like, don't have as much much of an ad budget of people who have been with the company less time, people who are like earlier on in their careers, especially like I've watched these folks go through the last four years with no increase in their pay, and like, I can see people struggling now financially in a way that they

weren't struggling financially in twenty nineteen because their pay has not changed at all, but the how much it costs to exist in the world is so much more expensive.

You can have a situation where I don't know, you have one boss who's racist, one boss who's transphobic, and you know, you and everyone like you's careers are just gone. And without that kind of protection, you know, it's it's incredibly it's incredibly dangerous for like, for marginalized people to you know, I mean even just like to be able to speak up about things that are happening to you. Right, like, yes,

like tech technically speaking, retaliation is illegal. However, come up see the entire history of labor in America and tell me whether it tell me, explain to me whether or not it act, it still actually happens, especially when you can just fire someone for some other reason or again, in this case, you can fire them for no reason.

their will on you. And that's you know, an incredibly fundamental basic part of what a union is is the democratization of the workplace.

always people who are like, it's retail. If you don't like it, get a better job, or they're saying something like ARII has always voted one of the greatest employers, Like you should just be thankful for what you have, And I'm like, the thing is, though, an employer has so much more power than an individual employee. Your employer has a whole HR structure and lawyers and way more

money than any individual person working for them. And that's why employees have the right to come together collectively to just balance that out a little bit. Like a union is still going to have a power differential between themselves and the company. We have a whole lot more equity and a whole lot more access to that power together than as one individual person going to their manager asking nicely to have a couple extra days off because their parent died or whatever.