Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Striketober

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🗓️ 19 October 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

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Summary

Suzi talked to Crystal Hopkins, President of IATSE Local 871, just hours before a tentative agreement was reached late Saturday afternoon — ahead of the October 18 strike deadline. The contract still has to be ratified by union members and that remains a question mark. Crystal Hopkins describes the conditions and demands that are at the center of the negotiations: long working hours, low wages, and not being fairly compensated for the success of streaming service content they contribute to. IATSE workers have recounted stories like falling asleep while driving, working 17-hour days, and being unable to take time off. Listen in as we cover the issues at stake.

Alex Press, Jacobin writer and labor podcaster, has been tracking the current strike wave that some are calling "Striketober." Ten thousand John Deere UAW workers are on strike for the first time since 1986. Two thousand nurses are on strike at a Catholic Health hospital in New York, 1400 workers at Kellogg’s cereal plants across the country, eleven hundred coal miners at Warrior Met in Alabama, and four hundred twenty United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members at Heaven Hill Distillery in Kentucky. Sixty thousand workers at IATSE may strike on October 18; Instacart workers have an Oct 18 work action; 24,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente are poised to walk out, and there are organizing drives at Amazon, and now Starbucks. So how do we characterize and explain this militancy? Alex’s latest article, "US Workers Are in a Militant Mood," looks at these strikes and campaigns now underway and we get her take on the big picture for labor.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman. On today's program, we addressed the strike wave,
0:18.1	some are calling it strike tober. And in particular, the looming Iatzi strike. We recorded
0:24.4	this interview hours before a tentative agreement was reached for Iatzi West Coast film and TV
0:29.6	workers just ahead of the October 18th strike deadline when 60,000 crew members and behind
0:36.8	the scenes workers were to walk off the job. Listen in, we cover the issues at stake.
0:42.0	The members unsustainable in-human work schedules, long hours with inadequate breaks and not enough
0:48.2	pay. Conditions worsened with the switch to streaming and the pandemic lockdown provided a
0:54.4	short window of rest and restored family relations that normal conditions don't permit.
1:00.1	We get the story from Crystal Hopkins, president of Iatzi Local 871. We then look at the bigger
1:07.3	picture of growing militancy and the October strike wave with Jacobin staff writer and labor
1:13.1	podcaster Alex Press, who's tracked many of the strikes and campaigns now underway and whose latest
1:19.7	article is called US Workers are in a militant mood. All this when our program returns in just a moment.
1:41.2	This is Jacobin Radio, time Suzy Weisman. The interview that you're going to hear was recorded
1:47.4	with Iatzi Local 871 president Crystal Hopkins just hours before a tentative agreement was reached
1:54.9	late Saturday afternoon ahead of the October 18th strike deadline. The contract still has to be
2:01.2	ratified by union members. Crystal Hopkins brings us the story of working conditions and demands
2:07.6	that are at the center of the negotiations, long working hours, low wages and not being fairly
2:13.6	compensated for the success of streaming service content they contribute to with the atzi workers
2:19.6	recounting stories like falling asleep while driving, working 17 hour days and being unable to take
2:25.8	time off. We get the story from Crystal Hopkins. Very pleased to have Crystal Hopkins with us. She's
2:31.8	the president of Iatzi Local 871 and she's also an art department coordinator and I've invited
2:41.6	Crystal to join us today because we're in the final countdown toward the strike if the
	...

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