WCL14: Live from the Working Class Literature Festival
Working Class History
Working Class History
5.0 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Taking place on 4-6 April 2025, the opending day of the festival marked the 1367th day since the 400+ workforce at the GKN car parts factory in Florence was first made redundant. They subsequently seized the factory and remain in control of it to this day, despite receiving their third – and now final – redundancy notice in the days leading up to this year’s festival.Recorded on-site at the occupied GKN factory on the outskirts of Florence, this episode features the voices of various writers, researchers, organisers, and activists that we spoke to while at the festival. These conversations took place against a frenzy of activity, both for the festival but also the GKN struggle itself.
Acknowledgements
- Thanks to all our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando Lopez Ojeda, Nick Williams and Old Norm
- Our theme tune for these episodes is ‘Occupiamola’ (or ‘Let’s Occupy It’) as sung on a GKN workers’ demonstration in 2024. Many thanks to Reel News London for letting us use their recording. Watch the documentary it’s taken from here
- This episode was edited by Jesse French
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Over the first weekend of April 2025, over 7,000 people attended the third annual |
| 0:06.0 | working class literature festival, held at a former Carparts factory on the outskirts of Florence. |
| 0:12.0 | The opening day of the festival was the 1,367th day since the workers first seized the plant |
| 0:19.0 | in opposition to the company's attempt to shut it down. |
| 0:22.6 | In the days before the festival was due to begin, workers received their third and now final redundancy notice. |
| 0:29.6 | Yet despite this news, the festival remained both a buoyant and militant occasion, as the workers push ahead with their plans to reopen their factory as a worker |
| 0:38.8 | cooperative building ecological goods., both working class history and before we start a quick note to say that we're only able to continue making these podcasts |
| 1:13.4 | both working class history and working class literature because of the support of our listeners |
| 1:18.0 | on patreon if you like what we do and want to help us with our work join us on patreon.com |
| 1:23.8 | slash working class history where you can get benefits like early access to episodes exclusive bonus content |
| 1:29.9 | discounted books merch and more for instance patron supporters got early access to this episode without ads |
| 1:36.8 | and they also get exclusive access to our two patron only podcast series radical reads and fireside chat |
| 1:43.8 | link in the show notes. |
| 1:46.5 | You might remember that back in February we put out two episodes about the working class |
| 1:50.7 | literature festival in Florence. For the past three years, this festival was taken place at the |
| 1:55.9 | former GKN Car Parts Factory that in 2021 was taken over by its former employees after they were made redundant |
| 2:03.6 | and has been under their control since. To get a fuller understanding of how the festival got started |
| 2:09.1 | and the GKN struggle itself, we recommend you go back and listen to those episodes first. |
| 2:14.5 | But as part of making those episodes, the author and festival organiser, Alberto Brunetti, |
| 2:19.7 | who we interviewed for those episodes, suggested that I attend this year's event. I should note that |
| 2:25.6 | unlike normal episodes, the interviews used here were recorded on site at the festival itself, |
| 2:30.7 | so apologies in advance for the quality of some of the audio, which can vary quite a bit. |
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