Dept of Labor Betrays Its History Thru Anti-Immigration / Kim Kelly

This Is Hell!

News

4.9 • 937 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2026

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kim Kelly, author of, "Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor," (Atria Books) host of "Unite and Win: A Guide to Workplace Organizing" podcast at workerorganizing.org, speaks with This Is Hell! to discuss her writing at The Baffler, "A Piece of Work: The Department of Labor’s anti-immigrant turn betrays its history." Kim Kelly is a labor reporter for In These Times magazine and has been a regular labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018. Her writing on labor, class, politics, disability, and culture has appeared in The Nation, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Baffler, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and many others. Kelly has also worked as a video correspondent for More Perfect Union, The Real News Network, and Means TV. Previously, she was the heavy metal editor at Noisey, Vice’s music vertical, and helped organize the Vice union. A third-generation union member, she served three terms as an elected councilperson for the Writers Guild of America, East Council. Her first book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, was published in 2022, and the young readers edition, Fight to Win! Heroes of American Labor, was published by Simon & Schuster Kids in 2025. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Hell.
0:04.3	This is hell.
0:07.7	We were warned repeatedly and for a very long time that what is happening right now would in fact happen.
0:13.9	The repeated rise throughout the history of the United States of the far right white, white supremacist, Christian, nationalists, fascists.
0:20.7	That happens over and over again.
0:22.0	Nazis should have been a huge red flag that what is happening not only would happen,
0:26.5	but will happen again and again and again.
0:29.1	No current events are not an anomaly.
0:33.7	This history has played out before, and unless something is done,
0:36.8	we will never stop it until it destroys whatever is left of our humanity or something like that. I don't know.
0:42.2	Here to help us understand what is happening throughout the federal government and should be headlines, but apparently is not independent.
0:49.7	Labor journalist and organizer and podcaster Kim Kelly is author of Fight Like Hell,
0:55.3	The Untold History of American Labor, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and Esquire.
1:01.8	She also has a podcast, again, Unite and Win, a Guide to Workplace Organizing,
1:07.3	which you can find out more about at workerorganizing.org.
1:14.6	Kim, let's just start right there with you. Well first of all, welcome to this as hell. Hi, hello, how's it going? It's going pretty well. Why should people especially in this time,
1:22.6	why should they be listening to Unite and Win? What can they learn from Unite and Win that will help us organize in this time against the violence
1:34.3	that we are seeing on the streets of the United States?
1:36.3	Because it's a practical and easily digestible and I hope, fun to listen to to guide from people who have actually done it,
1:46.8	who have organized their workplaces, who have gone through these difficult contract fights
1:52.5	or these long strikes or these other, just all the stuff, I'm trying not to curse,
1:58.8	I can't remember if I can or not. All the stuff.
	...

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