Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with Me your Girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Long Island Bunker as we get ready to celebrate the holiday this week, folks, I'm very excited because we decided that this week on WOKAF was really largely going to be about the labor movement, to be about workers fighting for their rights and fighting for not just a decent wage, but a thriving one.
As I said in my interview earlier in the week with Francesca Ramsey, it's really important that we are thoughtful about the language that we use and the conversations and the narrative that we have because outside of the one percent, folks, sure,
there are gradiations of workers and labor. We understood that very plainly during the COVID nineteen pandemic, when the privilege were able to stay inside and stay safe while the essential workers, the ones that oftentimes make the least were forced to be outside right with no protections, and recognizing that a lot of what we are seeing now spawned out of that time, a time when we were told that in order to work, you need to be inside of a cubicle eight ten hours a day, five days
a week. Well, lo and behold when that work had to turn to remote work. Guess what didn't happen? The folding of a bunch of companies, right, Guess what didn't happen, right, the shareholders and CEOs not being able to make money? They did doubly time over. You know, So what we got the ability to have control over our own lives, the ability to do both and right, take care of our families, take care of ourselves. Why in fact holding
down a job? And so during this time, I think that we are recognizing and in my conversation coming up next with our friend labor rights advocate and author Kim Kelly, you know, we talk about whether or not this moment that we have been in for the last year plus is a moment or is it a movement? Right? Are we going to see more industries striking to get the benefits, to get the resources that they deserve?
Right?
We know that capitalism is a fucking lie and a scam. It is the pyramid scheme to end all pyramid schemes. But we know until it's done, we have to find a way to operate inside of it that is healthy for us. Right, that actual gives us the resources that we need to live not just a decent life, but to live a good life, one that allows us to be able to not just survive, but to be able
to thrive. And so what does that look like. In this conversation with our friend Kim Kelly, we look at the scope of this year, the strikes that we've seen, from healthcare workers to actors, to writers, to auto workers and more, and discuss what we think about what we have seen and whether this is truly the beginning of a reorientation and a reimagining about how we see labor moving forward. Coming up next, my conversation with Kim Kelly Folks.
I am always excited. I want to get the opportunity to welcome back to the show Kim Kelly, who is a freelance journalist, person who is the go to person about labor, about workers, the author of Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor. Whenever we talk, Caim, I'll tell you, I get off the get off the call, and I always feel like, Okay, we're like we're in this, like we're doing this, like you know, like we can
do this. We can change how this society functions and it is going to be a bit by bit, bite by bite, you know, strike by strike type of situation. But I want to get like your sense, now that we're closing out the year where it has been historic in a lot of ways for workers across industries, how you are feeling and what of the strikes has has kind of resonated with you the most.
It's been really exciting. I mean, I think everyone is pretty stoked about the UAW strike, the ensuing contract that I think the workers are voting on right now. It seems like it'll probably be a slam dunk, but you
never know. It's up to them. But I just think so much of the dialogue and the enthusiasm that we've seen kick up thanks to that strike, and of course the ongoing seg after strike and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette strike, and all of these strikes are happening, the walk out of pharmacy technicians, the work that the Union of Southern
Service Workers continues to do in the South. There's so much going on, and it really seems like they're like people have realized that there are ways to get involved even if they don't currently work at a unionized workplace, or they're not in an industry or a job title
that's able to unionize your traditional means. Yet, like people are getting involved, and I think younger people especially, I think there's a impulsive especially like older generations to kind of wave away social media as something that met It's like, you know, oh, the TikTok, like whatever those kids are doing, the kids are educating and radicalizeding on TikTok and on Instagram, on Twitter, well, you know.
It was yeah right, uh boom.
And one thing that has given me a lot of hope too is seeing the way that rank and file union members and some straight up and some unions and some union councils have been rallying around the cause of the Palestinian people Palestinian workers in a way that's caused a lot of friction in the movement that I think
is it needs to be there. There's some tension there that needs to kind of be pushed because I think it's becoming clear that, you know, our elected union leadership isn't always on the same page as the people they're supposed to represent, So what do we do with that? It's kind of you know, we were talking about the upcoming elections. That's kind of that question at large, what do you do when the will of the members or the people does reflect the actions of their statements of
the yes in charge. Well, like you could do what you know, and you know obviously not this current moment. It took a few years to get here. But the whole reason we have Sean Fain and this new energized militant UAW is because rank and file workers with the UAW united for I can't remember the acronym, but they wont there. There's a group basically a group of reform minded rank and file workers in the UAW pushed to get this reform slet going. He's the first democratically elected
president of the uaw's history. Wow. Right, Like like as what we saw at the Teamsters with Sean O'Brien, that was because of a reform movement. The team sits for a democratic union. Like we've seen that it is possible to change leadership, to change priorities, to change political alignments.
And I really think this might be one of the tipping points, Like we're going to see like a lot of rank and file union members I see in and spoken to are really pissed at the statements we're seeing from the afl COO or from their union presidents or and or are being you know, compelled to use their labor to perpetuate this slaughter. And I think there's going to be a reckoning in the next few years when it comes to who's in charge of these unions, because union leader terms don't last forever.
Let me let me ask you this too, because I think that what has happened with kind of, like you said, the the re education or the education in the first place for people happening via social media, whether that is TikTok or Instagram or the like about unions. Talk to us about why unions kind of broke down in terms of favor right, public favor public, the public being supportive
of unions. Unions had a big surge. We had the Industrial Revolution, we had all of these factories, we have all of these deaths and horrible things that are happening.
People begin to you know, to unionize right to get things like a five day work week, to get things like rid of things like child labor, to get you know, benefits and safety measures put in place so that frankly, they're able to do their jobs and not risk life and limb literally, and so this happens, and then it's as if the workers themselves turned on the very support system that was put in place in order to make
sure that they would be okay. So I just want you to be able to help us understand the why that happened. And then yeah, and then the up and the up and down because now we're back in an up place where we're talking about unions in a way that frankly, I don't think that we've talked about unions and I've been in politics and policy for a while, in like fifteen twenty years.
Yeah, there's been a big shift, like we are so back, but I think a lot of it goes back to what all went down in the eighties under the Reagan administration. Like you can't pin everything terrible and a world on that guy, but you can pin a lot, a lot a lot of our current society and political problems go right back to that motherfucker. So him breaking the pack code strike and really encouraging this greed is good anti labor, anti workers sentiment and showing corporations and bosses that, oh,
we can get away with not working with unians. We can get away with busting strikes, we can get away
with hiring sabs. It was kind of this big shift, and you add in all of the things that have happened since then, whether it's de industrialization or offshoring, and the rise of right to work laws, so called right to work laws that Republicans have pushed all over the place, the weakening of existing labor laws, the rise of corporate media that is either explicitly anti labor or kind of like you could tell they're just not interested in corporate labor.
I mean, people who have studied this and are much smarter than may have really broken it down in a lot of ways. But I feel like that's the vibe that we're dealing with us, the tide we've been swimming against because the labor would never went anywhere, just lost
a lot of power. But or at this moment where I think the biggest change has been the availability of information, because this is something even back in twenty fifteen when I was organizing at my last workplace, our biggest hurdle wasn't that people were anti union or that they had ingested like a lot of anti union talking points, is that they didn't know what a union was, what it could do for them, or that they were even eligible to join when and once we got past that hurdle,
we organized like five hundred people. Like that's how we ended up here, Like I was, was I kind of ended up here by accident?
Yeah, But I think that's something that.
Is really fueling this change is the fact that there is so much more access to information pro union or even just fair coverage of unions and what they do and of what workers' rights could and should look like the fact that we have labor reporters and publicate like progressive publications like in These Times and Labor Notes and even the Nation the Baffler places like that that are
really pouring resources energy into covering these movements. Even main like mainstream mass corporate media has been covering the UAW strikes like they were covering Strike Tober when it was happening, like they're covering the variety of the actions that have happening. It's there's been a shift. I think it's really just people realizing, oh, we can do that, right, if we do that, things might actually happen.
It happen.
I think it's been this kind of realignment of people's expectations of thinking, Oh, okay, I don't have to go full you know, Johnny paycheck, take this job and shove it. I can stick around and make my job better. Huh.
You know, in all honesty, that's what all of this is about, right, you know? It kind of flies in the face of the sentiment that Republicans always try and put out, which is that, honestly, the American people are lazy. They don't want to work, they just want to hand out. Right.
The idea around unions is like, no, I do want to work, but I want dignity and respect and a wage where I can support myself and my family, right like like, so it's this and and look at any other I would say, industrialize greedy ask country Americans take
die with vacation days. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, Americans literally go to their grave and could afford I could have could could have afforded a month months off, but didn't take their but didn't take their time off because somehow we have been we have been forced into this belief, this perverse idea that the more that we produce, the better of a human that we are right and so if you and so it's just like this, I feel like unions fly in the face of that where
it's just like, no, I want to work. I just I want to be able to like not just be working to survive, like I'd actually like a life.
I think that's such a huge part of it. Like we've we've been hoodwinked, we've been what that. Yeah, yeah, the harder you work, the better person you are, like that, like vintage Puritan Protestant work ethic. We've been. We've been we've internalized or been forced to internalize. And that that like very American individualistic sort of character, sort of quality that is so celebrated, you know, the Horatio Algurs, the Great Man there, all of the bullshit that makes us
more isolated and more like islands into ourselves. And that is not how human beings are meant to operate. We're a collective species, communal species, like we do best when we're in groups like gudea things, you know, And that's I think that's a big crireless shift too, Like this shift from people thinking how am I going to get mine and take care of my family? To oh, how are we going to take care of everyone? At this workplace. How are we going to take care of everyone in
our union? How are we going to take care of the whole working class? And I do even though he's not you know, he's not covering himself with glory right now, I do have to kind of point back to the Bernie Sanders campaigns for president with that ninety nine percent idea, that post occupy the ninety nine percent, like it's us
against them idea. I think for a lot of folks, especially in like I think our generation and maybe even a little younger, that was kind of one of the first political awakenings we had of like, oh, like us, we're in this protest, We're in this occupation, We're in this group versus the bad guys. Yeah. Yeah, we're not wanting what they have, We're wanting what we deserve. And I think that shift is still being felt. You know, it's a lot of different factors. You know.
It's so interesting too because I honestly, and you may laugh at this, I believe that the advent of reality TV has a lot to do with that. I think that, Yeah, I think that this obsession with wealth and with consumption and materialism had people believe that they were just one experience, one check, one lottery ticket away from living this life. So they coveted right in this very jealous minded space.
But then all of a sudden, the chasm right between my super sweet sixteen and now a Kim Kardashian being a billionaire and having her own jet, being part of being part of the machinery that built that, with our viewership, with our you know, with our desire to like peek inside of that world. And I think that a lot of we've watched this and we've seen like, wait a minute, how did they get even more money than what we
started out watching ten fifteen years ago? Like I'm still in the same apartment watching this show, but they but there are they own an eyelid?
Now?
How do fuck that happen? You know what I'm saying. So I feel I do, I feel like that kind of voyeurism into well, I mean, you've seen some of these real house spilee people get caught up with tax evation and all of these things, grifting off of this idea that they have more, you know, than they actually have.
And so I just I'm just curious, like how you think that pop culture and our American obsession with wealth has also played a part into this big awakening where we're realizing that the ninety nine percent of us are still in the same place and this one percent has gotten like went from millionaires to billionaires in that same time.
That's so interesting to think about. Like, so if you feel like before the advent of mass media, nobody really knew what the really rich people were up to or what they had, Yeah, no, it could kind of like, oh, I I wish I had a carriage or a big house or my own car, but they didn't have like shoved in their face, like look at all the nice, shiny things we have that you never will or maybe you could if you end up on the right TV show. It's very Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Like yes, yes,
and then everything changes. But even in that allegory, like a bunch of people have to die for that kid to win the chocolate Factory, there's probably something to that.
But right this idea of wealth being like the end all, be all goal of everyone, that's, yeah, you work hard, you make money, you go to college, you marry someone with a decent job, you get a house, like this whole American dream that we're supposed to strive for who has never been available to everybody anyway, most of us really, that was just a way to keep us in line and keep us work right, and just seeing the ostentatious just sort of gilded garbage that like the Jeff Bezosis of the world and.
All the other right, Like I'm I'm on it, Like Jeff Bezos started a company that was about books right then turned into just goods. And he's sitting literally on a rocket ship platform talking about thanks to the people who work at Amazon and consume Amazon products, And you're like, what what happened here? Do you know what I'm saying?
So there are money anymore?
Right, And so there is this thing where there have always been wealthy people. There have always been, right the quote unquote captains of industries, the Rockefellers in this, that and the other thing. But you were not brought. It was not shoved in your face. It was not made to be entertainment in the way that it is. And I think that we're kind of in a period where I wonder if it will be entertaining five if it'll be still be entertaining ten years from now, because I
tell you that. I look in the comment section now of some of these some of these very ostentatious celebrities, and I see what people write and I'm like, oh, you were not writing that three years ago, right, like you were not coming for so and so in that way about being greedy and what are you giving back? And you know, it's extract extra like you weren't saying that. I think that we're at a very interesting period. And I'll give you this last last question because I think
that we're at a very interesting period. The last time we spoke, I said, you know, is this a moment or is it a movement? And this kind of I guess toss up space that we're in is going to coincide with this next presidential election, and I'm kind of wondering, you know, do you think that after these deals are made and these strike subside, will there still be the momentum of trying to create a better life and a better society for you know, for all people, the majority of us.
Honestly, I depending on what goes on with the next election, I don't think anything is going to get that much better for any of us, right, It's just going to get different degrees of worse in terms of what the government has to offer. So I think and I hope that people are going to continue to look to the labor movement and their unions and their you know, the ways that they're able to organize to try and make
the best of a bad situation. Because we've it's become very clear on many many levels, even to people who might have been true believers four years ago, that they don't really care about us and they're not looking out for us. If they were, what have canceled student debt, would have you know, actually put a little effort into doing something about COVID, which is still killing people out here. You know, like there's a million things that they could have,
should have would have done, but they didn't. And now people are saying, oh, well, the uaw they just one they're members like uh, like these huge raises like Kaiser Permanente, when those works, like they got a bunch of protections, Like I think even still are kind of the only shot we have in terms of like immediate collective action yielding immediate results. I mean, obviously, like the broader struggles for liberation, We're gonna take a little bit, you know,
it's it's not gonna be instantaneous. But one thing about unions I appreciate. I think that does appeal to focus, that you can you get to see the fruits of your labor like pretty quick, like once you get that contract, once you sign on the dotted line, like your next paycheck looks a little different. And that is something that yeah, only material that's really fires people up. And honestly, you know it, we the these these uh strikes, we've been seeing,
the layright tap we've been seeing. I don't think it's gonna stop, because there's always more union contra tracks that are expiring. Yeah, I mean, Sean Fain came out here and said, you know, they said their next contract to expire, gave everyone a deadline, Like, I mean, what if we did a general strike. You know, that's a whole other conversation, right, but even just setting that just shows like, oh, we're not We're not done. We're not. This is hopefully just
the beginning. And what happens with the election. I'm sure that's gonna be a whole it's gonna give us all adjuta. It's gonna be a whole fucking thing. Nothing good, nothing good is gonna happen. And I'm sure that the more corporatized wing of the organized labor movement is going to be all riding with Biden and all of that and try and get all their members to vote, just do all the same shit that they waste our membership money
on every four years. But really, I think, I really hope people hold on to this idea that the only people we could really depend on ourselves and our neighbors, our co workers, people weren't communi with and that's how it's always been, you know. All the rest of it is just noise.
Yeah, one hundred per Kim Kelly, every time that you joined wok F, I'm just I'm I'm always so pleased and grateful for your insights and I can't wait to just continue the conversation.
Thank you so much for having me and let me go and let me swear a little.
Bit because all the time these motherfuckers appreciate you. That is it for me today, dear friends on wok F. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.