Ep. 5 Comrades Read Together, No Shortcuts! w/ Andrea, Sarah, & Michael

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We've finished No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power by Jane McAlevey! Each chapter has been discussed at length in our series Comrades Read Together, and three veteran labor organizers join us for this final conversation.

Michael Marchmann, staff organizer for GTFF 3544, Sarah Pishioneri, staff organizer for CGE 6069, and Andrea Haverkamp, president of CGE 6069, chat with Laborwave Radio about the difference between "pretend power" and "real power."

Our conversation circles largely around the question of, what Marx famously described, "class in itself" vs. "class for itself." How do we, as leftist organizers, connect disparate movement agents during times of crisis to move from having history enacted upon the working class to the working class enacting history? With the looming pandemic providing pathways towards multiple futures, what are the necessary steps and vision we need to push toward the future we wish to make?

All this and more in our final episode of Comrades Read Together: No Shortcuts!

Music from In The Red Records: Ty Segall- Class War

Class Power on Zero Hours w/ The Angry Workers

We spoke with members of the Angry Workers, a political collective, about the insights from their recent PM Press title, "Class Power on Zero Hours."

The Angry Workers spent the last six years working in a London backyard mostly among food and manufacturing workers, and they've chronicled their experiences as well as their efforts to organize alongside these workers in an expansive book. We speak about these experiences as well as the lessons learned on the ground, and the need to develop revolutionary forms of organization internationally.

You can contact the Angry Workers at angryworkersworld@gmail.com or on their Twitter @angryworkers or Facebook @angryworkersworld www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1164

Music on this episode is provided thanks to In The Red Records! Ty Segall & Mikal Cronin- Drop Dead Baby intheredrecords.com/collections/the…se-shark-attack

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A Look at the GEO Strike in Michigan Fighting the University's Reopening Plan

We spoke with Amir Fleischmann of the Graduate Employee Organization, a union at the University of Michigan, about their latest strike leveraged to fight the university's reckless reopening plans amid a pandemic.

Amir provides a play-by-play of the strike, the events leading up to it and the larger context in which it occurred, and how their union was able to raise expectations and demonstrate the organic links between worker justice and social justice.

We discuss the demands of the strike, including demands to disarm and defund campus police, and take a look at the strike's mechanics and how workers were able to make their presence felt even during measures of social distancing as well as the power they were able to build among their own membership and in coalition with campus and community organizations.

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Music by:

Damaged Bug- Transmute