Episode 14 of Fragile Juggernaut is the first of our trio of regional episodes. It dials into New York City, the seat of the country’s largest manufacturing base, but one composed of a vast constellation of small and diverse shops; and also host to the nation’s largest port, transport system, white collar and cultural complex, and more.
With the eminent historian Joshua Freeman, Gabe and Ben talk about worker organizing outside the CIO cast–public transit workers, teachers, laundry workers and domestics–as well as what made New York City, a non-fordist city in the age of Ford, so exemplary compared to other parts of the country.
The episode features James Baldwin and Truman Capote; Irish dance halls and cruising on the piers; burial societies, Tammany Hall, and clandestine organizations; the origins of bodegas and how the mob got rackets into organized labor; the trade union origins of “Strange Fruit”; Ella Baker and Esther Cooper Jackson; the IRA and Broadway musicals; how transit workers built their union campaigning against big squeegees; the hybrid combinations of craft and industrial unionism; and the limits to workplace organization in a city defined by tremendous ethnic, religious, and neighborhood segmentation.
Featured music: “I Ain’t Got Nobody” by Count Basie; “It's Better With A Union Man” by Pins and Needles Orchestra; “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday; “The Boys of the Lough” by Michael Coleman; “Talking Sailor” by Woody Guthrie; “One Big Union for Two” by the Pins and Needles Orchestra; “New York Town” by Woody Guthrie.
Archival audio credits: Esther Cooper Jackson discusses domestic work research; Mike Quill debates Rep. Fred Hartley on ABC news; longshoreman and sailor Stan Weir describes conservatizing effects of the racket on the docks.
Fragile Juggernaut is a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the rank and file insurgency that produced it. Support Fragile Juggernaut on Patreon and receive our exclusive bimonthly newsletter, full of additional insights, reading recommendations, and archival materials we’ve amassed along the way.
Buy Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 20% Off: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/991-organized-labor-and-the-black-worker-1619-1981
What does it *feel like* to build worker power? Season two of Haymarket Originals is bringing you inside one of the most dynamic and inspiring organizing drives in the labor movement today. Heat The Ground Up is an oral history of Starbucks Workers United, voiced by the baristas who built it.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. Together, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up. In this first episode, we’re joined by a handful of labor experts who will walk us through the significance of this story and some of the challenges workers were up against, setting the stage for the larger narrative.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Class Struggle Unionism, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. Together, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up. In this second episode, we’ll dive into the issues that fueled organizing and the salting operation that gave workers at Elmwood in Buffalo a path to unionization.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Unite and Win. Subscribe and listen to the Unite and Win companion podcast here.
Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, baristas take the union public in Buffalo, NY and we get an inside look at management’s anti-union campaign. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Set the Earth on Fire, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, baristas in Buffalo, NY weather the final blows of management’s anti-union campaign and prepare for an election. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, we get an inside look at the first Starbucks Workers United vote count and see the union take off across the country. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Class War, USA, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.