Edd takes us through the history of the tactic of workplace occupations, and we discuss their re-emergence in Britain and Ireland in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash. We're very lucky to be joined by Jaymie Rigby, one of the workers who occupied the Vestas wind turbine blades factory on the Isle of Wight in 2009. As we face a new wave of job losses, can we rediscover these tactics? Some selected additional reading: “How sit-down strikes built unions in the USA” https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/04/07/how-sit-strikes-built-unions-usa Genora Johnson remembers the Flint sit-down strike http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/dollflint.html “With Babies and Banners”, documentary film on the Flint strike, focusing particularly on the role of women activists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa75V-tdBko France 1968: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-05-21/france-1968-when-ten-million-workers-took-capitalism-throat https://libcom.org/library/general-strike-france-1968-factory-factory-account Workers' Liberty's pamphlet on the Vestas occupation https://www.workersliberty.org/files/2020-11/vestas.pdf “Lessons of the Thomas Cook occupation” https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/08/29/thomas-cook-lessons-dublin-occupation An account of the Visteon occupations from a broadly libertarian/anarchist perspective https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/today-in-london-radical-history-visteon-workers-occupy-their-factory-enfield-2009/ Articles on the occupied workplace movement in Argentina: https://libcom.org/library/occupying-resisting-producing-argentine-workers-take-over-abandoned-factories-andres-gau https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/10/occupy-buenos-aires-argentina-workers-cooperative-movement https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2017-07-26/factory-without-bosses (interview with a worker from the Zanon “FaSinPat”, “factory without bosses”)

Labour Days: a labour movement podcast

Ep 28 – Workplace Occupations and Sit-Down Strikes

What role has organised labour played in anti-racist and civil rights struggles, past and present? We look at recent actions by workers and unions as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the historic role of black workers' organisers and socialists in the US civil rights struggle. We also discuss the unfortunate presence in the US labour movement of “unions” representing the police, and what might be done to challenge that. This episode also features an excerpt of an interview with Robert Cuffy, a Guyanese socialist currently based in New York, where he's a public sector working and trade union activists. Robert is a member of the Socialist Workers Alliance of Guyana and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Relevant/featured links for our segments are: Edd: A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today, Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates (2013) https://monthlyreview.org/product/a_freedom_budget_for_all_americans/ 'At The River I Stand' (film about the Memphis sanitation workers' strike) https://www.kanopy.com/product/river-i-stand Ellie: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/13/876640607/calls-for-reform-put-minneapolis-police-union-leader-in-hot-seat?t=1598950697168&t=1598964381985 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/police-unions-american-labor-movement-protest?fbclid=IwAR26ge7rjkROHYLmBbbIjnuGOW8WqOb_X-GWplVWfjjKkfpjGJm_ALoGG_E https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-supremacists-militias-infiltrate-us-police-report?fbclid=IwAR3gx0KakrQ6ZHq3hr-oGC4GHjmpanlEJej5IGxmXpQAWKa7vHmi-ZB3tUA https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/the-bad-kind-of-unionism/ https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2016/12/contract-chicago-police-union-161205084413414.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/minneapolis-police-union-bob-kroll-us Daniel: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bv8zaw/minneapolis-bus-drivers-refuse-to-transport-george-floyd-protesters-to-jail https://labornotes.org/blogs/2020/06/west-coast-dockers-stop-work-honor-george-floyd https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/george-floyd-ilwu-work-stoppage-antiracism https://apnews.com/d33b36c415f5dde25f64e49ccc35ac43 https://j20strikeforblacklives.org The full interview with Robert Cuffy isn't up yet, but there's a transcript of an extended excerpt here: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2020-08-12/black-youths-were-able-bring-along-rest

Ep 27: Strikes for Black Lives, with guest Robert Cuffy

This episode features an interview with two comrades from the Angry Workers, a revolutionary collective whose members have been involved in workplace and community organising activity in the supermarket, food, and logistics sector in west London. Their new book, 'Class Power on Zero Hours', is available to buy now from PM Press: https://pmpress.org.uk/product/class-power-on-zero-hours/ The Angry Workers are online at https://angryworkersworld.wordpress.com/ Anyone interested in the issue of class struggle in the logistics sector should also listen to our interview with Kim Moody, about his book 'On New Terrain': https://soundcloud.com/labour-days/episode-10-on-new-terrain-an-interview-with-kim-moody However you're struggling through the pandemic... keep struggling. Solidarity! You might find these websites useful resources for class struggle in the pandemic: Safe & Equal campaign - safeandequal.org Coronavirus Workforce Support Group - facebook.com/groups/coronasupportgroupforworkers Hazards Magazine - hazards.org Nurses United - facebook.com/nursesuniteduk Zero Hours Justice - zerohoursjustice.org Blacklist Support Group - facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG Care Workers vs Covid - unisonnw.org/care_workers_vs_covid_19

Ep 26: 'Class Power on Zero Hours': an interview with the Angry Workers

In a break from pandemic-related content, our hosts each pick a little-known, unusual, or otherwise distinctive strike from history, and briefly tell its story. Daniel spoke about the artisan tomb builders’ strike from ancient Egypt in 1157 BCE; Ellie chose the strike of Haudenosaunee (“Iroquois”) women in the 1600s, which was a strike of domestic and reproductive labour; and Edd talked about the “Skylab controversy”, a strike of three Nasa astronauts in 1973, the first strike in space. The main sources they used for research are linked below. Solidarity, stay safe, and take care. References: Daniel: https://libcom.org/history/records-of-the-strike-in-egypt-under-ramses-iii https://dianabuja.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/food-strikes-in-ancient-egypt-the-turin-strike-papyrus-etc/ http://edithorial.blogspot.com/2018/02/classics-and-strike-action-ancient-and.html?m=1 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/steep-commute-gave-ancient-egyptian-workers-osteoarthritis https://www.ancient.eu/article/1089/the-first-labor-strike-in-history/ Ellie: http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2008/05/iroquois-women.html https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/iroquois-women-gain-power-veto-wars-1600s https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/clan-system/ Edd: https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-that-day-three-nasa-astronauts-20151228-column.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_controversy

Ep 25: Three Strikes And Out

A special episode produced in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, looking at how bosses are attempting to exploit the crisis, and what workers are doing to resist it. In such a fast moving situation, a lot of the situations we discuss had changed more or less as soon as the episode was recorded, so some of the stuff in this episode will now be out of date. There are also lots of other ongoing and developing workers’ struggles which we didn’t mention, with new ones springing up all the time. We’re trying to boost as many of those as we can on our Twitter, so follow us at @Labour_Days. You can read more about some of the struggles Edd mentions in his section here: https://www.labornotes.org/2020/03/dispatch-italy-class-struggle-time-coronavirus https://www.labornotes.org/2020/03/rank-and-file-auto-workers-demand-national-shutdown-union-officials-partner-companies-keep The Raymond Challinor essay we review in our section about the Blitz is online here: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2019-04-11/class-war-blitz-raymond-challinor

Ep 24: Coronavirus Pandemic - No Class Peace in the Crisis

In our last episode of 2019, we speak to Caty and Chris, two activists involved in TUC Yorkshire and the Humber's "Summer Patrols" project. We discuss the aims of the project, and the broad horizon of organising young workers and reviving the labour movement. This episode was recorded in early November, before election fever really set in, so there isn't much election chat in this one. The list of disputes Edd mentions in the outro is also now somewhat out of date. You can read more about the Summer Patrols project here: https://www.tuc.org.uk/campaigns/2019-tuc-summer-patrol-young-workers. You can also follow TUC Yorkshire and the Humber on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tucyorkshumber We'll be back in 2020 with more class-struggle/industrial unionist/rank-and-file goodness.

Ep 23: Discussing Yorkshire & Humber TUC's "Summer Patrols"

In this episode, Edd speaks to Stacey Clare, author of the forthcoming book ‘The Ethical Stripper’, about her experiences as a stripper and sex workers’ rights activist with campaigns and unions such as the GMB’s sex workers’ branch, the East London Strippers Collective, and United Voices of the World. Edd and Ellie then discuss the issues posed by the interview. Daniel was absent for this episode, hence a distinct lack of Local 574 references. Check back in next month for more of those. You can check out some of the organisations mentioned, and others doing great work around sex work decriminalisation and workers’ rights, here: http://twitter.com/ethicalstripper http://twitter.com/unitedstripper http://twitter.com/xtalkproject http://twitter.com/sexworkhive http://twitter.com/ukdecrimnow Stacey’s book is available to preorder here: https://unbound.com/books/the-ethical-stripper/

Ep 22: Sex workers organising

This mini episode consists of a talk our co-host Daniel gave at the Southampton Transformed event on 8 June. He spoke on a panel entitled “how can the labour movement organise in a way that includes everyone?”, alongside Sofia from Brighton Acorn, Si Cotton from Unite, and Callum Cant from Notes from Below. Daniel’s talk discusses the meaning of a rank-and-file approach to union organising, picking up themes discussed in our recent episode on this topic. Southampton Transformed was a local event co-sponsored by The World Transformed, a festival of political education launched by Momentum. For more info, see @twtsouthampton on Twitter.

Ep 21: Rank-and-file trade unionism (Live from Southampton Transformed)

This month we discuss the 1941 Disney animators' strike before looking at workers' organisation in the contemporary video games industry. Our guests were Jamie Woodcock (@Jamie_Woodcock on Twitter) of Notes from Below (https://notesfrombelow.org/), whose new book 'Marx At The Arcade' looks at games workers' struggles, and Marijam Didžgalvytė (@marijamdid on Twitter), games worker, writer, and activist, who hosts the online show 'Left Left Up', and is involved in Games Workers, an internarional games workers’ platform. Check out Marijam's website here (https://www.marijamdid.com), and buy Jamie's book direct from the publishers (https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1319-marx-at-the-arcade) Information about the Organising at Work game “jam” Jamie mentions, co-hosted by Games Workers UK and Notes from Below, is online here: https://www.gwu-uk.org/2019/05/10/workers-game-jam/ Special thanks this time to our resident researcher Holly Smith for the presentation about the Disney animators' strike. Holly used the following sources in her research and recommends them as further reading: Kinney, Jack., 1988. 'Walt Disney and other assorted characters' Harmony Books: New York. Ostman, R.E., 1996. 'Disney and its conservative critics: Images versus realities'. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 24(2), pp.82-89. Peri, D., 2008. 'Working with Walt: interviews with Disney artists'. Univ. Press of Mississippi. Sito, Tom., 2006. 'Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson'. University Press of Kentucky. Smoodin, E.L. ed., 1994. 'Disney discourse: Producing the magic kingdom'. Psychology Press. Wasko, Janet., 2013. 'Understanding Disney: The manufacture of fantasy'. John Wiley & Sons. You can also check out a PBS-produced film about the strike on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjX7S35mn0), and some of the excellent strike art we mention in the episode can be seen here: https://animationguild.org/about-the-guild/disney-strike-1941. We'd also recommend this Jacobin article by Mark Bergfeld and Kenneth Bergfeld, about the strike: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/11/disney-animators-strike-union-busting Finally, thanks to our correspondent JP for writing in to tell us our episode on Farrell Dobbs and the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters' strike had inspired him and his comrades to run a reading group around Dobbs's 'Teamster Rebellion', which prompted them to organise flying pickets for a strike they were involved in, and produce a strike bulletin. The bulletin continues in digital format here, as a publication of the East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA): https://eastbaymajority.com. All the usual copyright disclaimers about our theme music apply. Subscribe, leave us a review, etc. etc.

Ep 20: Animators and Games Workers

In the midst of the First World War, engineering workers in Sheffield built a shopfloor organisation that confronted the bosses, the state, and the conservatism of their own union leaders. We discuss how and why. For the background to this episode, check out Edd’s pamphlet, available to buy here: https://spokesmanbookshop.com/epages/36621f87-f6e8-411d-b941-d46fe29be74c.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/36621f87-f6e8-411d-b941-d46fe29be74c/Products/Mustill1&Locale=en_GB Also, JT Murphy’s ‘The Workers' Committee: An Outline of its Principles and Structure’ is pretty seminal: https://www.marxists.org/archive/murphy-jt/1917/xx/workers_committee.htm We apologise for the sound quality of this episode, which was recorded without our producer Liam’s oversight and was therefore always likely to be an aural disaster.

Ep 19: The Sheffield Workers' Committee 1914-1920

Trade union activists, particularly those on the left, will almost certainly be familiar with the terms “bureaucracy” and “rank and file”. But what do they mean? In this episode, with Ellie sadly absent, Edd gives us a historical sketch of the development of trade union officialdom, and talks about some Marxist approaches to understanding it. Daniel worries that he might himself have become a bureaucrat. Finally, we talk to Rhian Keyse, an activist in the University and College Union, about the embryonic rank-and-file revolt in that union around the 2018 strikes against pension cuts. The new rank-and-file initiatives she refers to, UCU Rank-and-File and the Branch Solidarity Network, are online here: https://twitter.com/ucu_rankfile Hmmm https://ucubranchsolidaritynetwork.wordpress.com/ In the course of the episode, various historical organisations/episodes are mentioned fleetingly, so here’s some suggested further reading: The Local Associations National Action Campaign, an attempt to form a rank-and-file network in the National Union of Teachers, which has since evolved into the Educational Solidarity Network in the National Education Union: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2012/06/06/rank-and-file-teachers-organise https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2012/06/13/rank-and-file-teachers-conference-forum-and-voice The National Minority Movement, a rank-and-file movement in British trade unions in the 1920s, led by Communist Party members: https://www.marxists.org/archive/higgins/1970/11/minmvmt.htm Teamsters for a Democratic Union: http://www.tdu.org/who_we_are John Moloney, a rank-and-file candidate for PCS Assistant General Secretary, standing on a platform including a commitment to only take an average workers’ wage, and on the policy that all full time officials should be elected: https://pcsindependentleft.com/2019/01/27/pcs-ags-election-john-moloney-speaks/

Ep 18: Rank-and-filism 101: What's "the bureaucracy"? What's "the rank and file"?

In our first seasonal special, we tell the inspiring story of the Union of Christmas Island Workers (UCIW), a trade union on the Australian territory of Christmas Island, so named by an East India Company explorer who arrived there on Christmas Day, 1643. The UCIW’s story is one of inspiring working-class internationalism against racism, and we feel it contains a lot of important messages for many issues facing us today. Thanks to our researcher Holly for researching and writing this episode. Here’s some references and suggested further reading from Holly: Les Waters – The Union of Christmas Island Workers Michelle Dimasi – Australia’s Asylum Seeker Policy and Christmas Island (unpublished thesis) Michelle Dimasi, Linda Briskman – ‘Let Them Land: Christmas Islander Responses to Tampa’ in the Journal of Refugee Studies 2010 https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/asia/16australia.html?src=mv https://www.fwc.gov.au/registered-organisations/find-registered-organisations/union-christmas-island-workers-uciw https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/102b3c9e-8516-3033-bed9-0bbd3e24646b https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/no-paradise-on-christmas-island/news-story/bb7a12834c50ace7db3013ef11709acf?nk=38ab75f97053c7d4a07ed82d1ad30e22-1542471036 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/asylum-seekers-on-christmas-island-stitch-lips-together-in-hunger-strike-20140602-39cvi.html However you’re celebrating, have a very merry Christmas, and we’ll see you in 2019.

Ep 17: The Christmas (Island) Episode

In excerpts from panels at The World Transformed and the Ella Baker School of Transformative organising, we bring you Colin Waugh talking about the history of Ruskin College and the Plebs' League; Ian Manborde talking about contemporary trade union education; and a bit from Daniel on education programmes in the the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in the early 20th century, mainly cribbed from Daniel Katz's 2011 book 'All Together Different'. There's also a brief appearance from Rida Vaquas of Clarion magazine. Liam McNulty also makes a rare appearance on the other side of his desk to make a very insightful comment about Daniel De Leon (who we're all quite big fans of), so watch out for that. Background reading for this episode is Colin Waugh's pamphlet on the Plebs' League, which is online here: http://www.ifyoucan.org.uk/PSE/Home_files/PSE%20Plebs%20pamphlet.pdf.

Ep 16: Education in the labour movement

Returning to our secret North London bunker-studio following last month’s live cast, we turn our attention to the recent walkouts of teachers and other school workers in Republican-voting states in the USA such as Kentucky, West Virginia, and elsewhere. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to talk to Lois Weiner, an American socialist and trade union activist and author of the book ‘The Future of Our Schools: Teacher Unions and Social Justice’ (2012, Haymarket), a member of the editorial board of the socialist journal New Politics who’s been extensively involved in rank-and-file teacher organising. The interview in the episode is abridged, but there’s a fuller transcript online here: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-07-15/how-teacher-walkouts-can-revive-us-labour-movement. You can also read more by Lois on the topic here: http://newpol.org/node/2088 Also mentioned in the episode was the New Economics Foundation’s “Winning At Work” conference, which Daniel was involved in co-organising, which you can read more about here: https://neweconomics.org/2018/08/winning-at-work Ellie also gave us a report on ongoing prison labour strikes in America, which you can read more about here: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17664048/national-prison-strike-2018 Special thanks to Holly Smith for her invaluable background research for this episode.

Ep 15: The red-state walkouts: an interview with Lois Weiner

This is our very first live podcast, recorded at Ideas for Freedom, a weekend of socialist debate and discussion hosted by Workers’ Liberty, on 23 June. We were joined by Tom Kelly, a striking workers from the East Dulwich Picturehouse cinema, to discuss “a new New Unionism?”, looking at whether burgeoning low-paid workers’ struggles can lead to a revival and recomposition of the labour movement in the same way that the “New Unionism” of the 1880s did. Ellie was on compering/chairing duties, Edd gave us the historical lowdown, and Daniel asked Tom the questions. Thanks to Tom for joining us and thanks to everyone who attended the recording, particularly those who contributed to the discussion. Follow @EDPHLivingWage on Twitter for more on Tom and his colleagues’ dispute.

Ep 14: Labour Days live: A new New Unionism?

A podcast about trade union issues and labour his…

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Labour Days: a labour movement podcast

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