Belabored Podcast #115: Organizing for Power, with Jane McAlevey

• October 28, 2016
• Posted in Interviews

From Dissent: “In recent years we’ve seen many, many ideas and gimmicks and tricks put forward, each pledging to “save the labor movement.” Our guest this week, longtime organizer and sociologist Jane McAlevey, says that there are no tricks to it; in her new book, titled No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, out now from Oxford University Press, she studies winning labor and social movement campaigns, and argues that organizing—real, base-building organizing—is the only way to build real power for working people.” Read More

ISO New Zealand Reviews Raising Expectations

• May 17, 2016
• Posted in Book Reviews, Labor Movement, Organizing, Raising Expectations

End of the day, this book is a bloody good read. Don’t be surprised if you open it after dinner and find yourself up til 3am, flipping the pages as fast as you can to find out what happens to a slimy gun smuggler turned professional union buster as exhausted shift nurses develop the courage to tell him where he can shove his intimidation tactics and blackmail. Read More

Having the Hard Conversations

• October 28, 2015
• Posted in Interviews

While in Montreal for the aforementioned national organizing conference, I agreed to do a radio interview with a Canadian researcher and blogger, Michael Rozworski. He blogs at Political Eh-conomy. Michael published the podcast of our interview, and, was then asked to transcribe it into an article for the magazine Jacobin, who then ran it as an interview in early October. Read More

Behind the News with Doug Henwood

• August 31, 2015
• Posted in Interviews

Doug Henwood and I sat down and spent an hour discussing my new Politics & Society article (September 2015 issue). The interview is an overview of the past twenty years of what’s called ‘New Labor’s’ ascent to the leadership of the US labor movement. As Henwood points out, the article is locked behind an expensive firewall. Read More

News with Sharmini Peries

• March 10, 2015
• Posted in Interviews

I like the team at the Real News Network, pity they can’t replace Fox News! This interview is about Scott Walker’s decision to flip Wisconsin to a right-to-work (for less) state. The interview was conducted just before the actual decision, but it was all but done. I trace the connection between Jim Crow and racism and right-to-work (for less) laws. Read More