Black Work Talk
52 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 months ago - ★★★★★ - 39 ratingsBlack Work Talk is a show that elevates the voices of Black labor, workers, leaders, activists, and intellectuals in discussions on the connections between race, labor, capitalism and culture in the struggle for progressive governing power.
On season three of Black Work Talk, new hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers explore the impact of 2023’s strike wave in conversations with rank and file workers from unions that have fought or are still fighting for better, more equitable contracts in 2023; including the UAW, Teamsters, Writers Guild of America and more. Where did the energy for this wave of labor movements come from, what does it mean for black workers, and where does it go from here? They also open the conversation by calling in the 90% of American workers who have yet to organize in their workplace with an ongoing accessible and educational series on the process of organizing and filing to start a union from scratch.
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Episodes
Looking Forward and Back After a Historic Year of Labor Strikes and Wins, with Carlos Jimenez
January 17, 2024 14:00 - 46 minutes - 106 MBThroughout this season of Black Work Talk, we've explored how black workers have shown up in many of the big labor wins that happened in 2023. This season finale brings the full picture into perspective as Carlos Jimenez, head of the special projects division of the AFL-CIO, joins host Jamala Rogers to analyze the longer history of labor organizing and movements that got us to this moment; as well as how organized black workers have shown up throughout that history. The conversation delves i...
Kaiser Workers' Unsung Win, with Rashad Pritchett and Theresa Myles
January 10, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour - 92.4 MBRashaad Pritchett and Theresa Mtles of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) join hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers for this episode of Black Work Talk. They delve into the challenges faced by Black healthcare support workers, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rashaad and Theresa recount their experiences of being on the frontlines during the pandemic, tackling fears amongst Black workers as they struggled to perform their duties without proper PPE or safe staffing,...
Preparing for a General Strike, with Cecily Myart-Cruz
December 20, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour - 66 MBIn this episode, United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz joins Bianca and Jamala to discuss the challenges she has faced as the first woman of color to head this powerhouse union, and a leader who took over during the COVID-19 pandemic. When she advocated for educators and students in 2020, she faced immediate backlash. The interview explores how she found the resolve to continue to stand up for LA's teachers, students, and their families amidst such hostility. Cecily's expe...
Electoral Focus of the Working Class in 2024 and Beyond
December 13, 2023 10:00 - 48 minutes - 44.6 MBBWT co-hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers take time this episode to explore a few of the crises and challenges shaking the world and the Left in this moment. The recent demands by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and a few other national unions for a ceasefire in Gaza suggest an opening for a worker-led movement for peace. Bianca and Jamala discuss that possibility as well as how the Left is positioned for the upcoming 2024 elections. Opinions on national electoral work vary among those...
Solidarity in the South. Solidarity in Palestine. Solidarity Everywhere. With Shafeah M'Balia
December 06, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour - 71.2 MBFifty-six percent of people in the US who self-identify as Black call the South home. Today's guest, Shafeah M'Balia, explains why and how we need to focus organizing strategies on Black workers in southern states. Shafeah is a lifelong activist and organizer with Black Workers for Justice and Muslims for Social Change. In this episode Shafeah talks with host Jamala Rogers to help listeners understand why they need to move through lingering, harmful stereotypes of the South and understand t...
Where the Writers Guild of America Goes Next to Support Marginalized Workers, with Angela Harvey and Tawal Panyacosit Jr.
December 01, 2023 14:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MBAfter the second-longest strike in Hollywood history, members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) voted to ratify a new contract in October 2023. Their 146-day walkout brought wins on some of the most pressing issues they were fighting for. These included new standards governing the use of AI for producing content and the distribution of residuals in the age of streaming. Joining host Bianca Cunningham to discuss the strike, the contract, and these shifts in the entertainment industry are...
The Case for a Black Workers' Bill of Rights with Tanya Wallace Gobern
November 22, 2023 14:00 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBThere is a lot of momentum in the organized labor movement right now and the National Black Worker Center is an organization which ensures black workers are strongly advocated for as we move through these moments. NBWC is a Black worker power building and worker’s rights advocacy organization that leads with militant joyfulness and Black movement culture. There are several local Black Worker Centers across the country serving the needs of workers and addressing the struggles that naturally a...
Teamsters' Hard Fight For a Fair UPS Contract, with Chris Williamson and Richard Hooker Jr.
November 15, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour - 82.2 MBAround 340,000 members of the Teamsters Union who work for UPS came within days of walking off the job in July 2023 in what would have been the one of the largest strikes in US history. In August, they voted 86.3% in favor of ratification of a new five-year contract with the company. The contract provides provisions like a $21 per hour minimum wage for new part-time hires, increased wages for full-time UPS workers with an average top rate of $49 per hour, and safety provisions such as in-cab...
Passing the Torch - Welcome to Season Three
November 08, 2023 10:00 - 43 minutes - 40 MBBlack Work Talk’s third season explores where the energy for this current wave of labor activism comes from, how it impacts Black workers, and a fresh vision for what’s next. Listeners will hear conversations with rank and file workers from unions including the UAW, Teamsters, and the Writers Guild of America. New hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers offer educational tools and compelling strategies for the 90% of American workers who have yet to organize — and have an opportunity to se...
Episode 19: Bill Fletcher
January 25, 2023 14:00 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts speaks with Bill Fletcher, long-time racial justice and labor activist. This is the last episode of this iteration of Black Work Talk, and we discuss many of the themes running through the two seasons of the podcast, including: Black worker organizing within a union context. The limitations of the just fights for greater representation. Neoliberalism and the challenges facing Black mayors. The complexities of fighting rightwing author...
Episode 18: Carroll Fife
December 14, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 56 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host Lauren Jacobs talk with Carroll Fife. Carroll Fife is a Councilmember at the City of Oakland. Carroll was formerly director of the Oakland chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). Given Carroll’s previous position with ACCE, we started the episode discussing what it meant to bring a Movement perspective to an elected position. We continued to discuss the distinction between the power that Carrol...
Episode 17: PowerSwitch Action
October 12, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 57.3 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Lauren Jacobs, talk with Kyra Greene and Branden Snyder. Kyra is Executive Director of the Center on Policy Initiatives, and is based in San Diego. Branden is Executive Director of Detroit Action. The Center on Policy Initiatives and Detroit Action are affiliates of PowerSwitch Action, a network of local organizations dedicated to building a multiracial feminist democracy and economies in cities and regions around the county. ...
Episode 16: Linda Burnham
September 22, 2022 14:00 - 56 minutes - 130 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, Steven Pitts launches the power-building mini-series with his co-host, Lauren Jacobs. Steven and Lauren talk with Linda Burnham – long-time social justice organizer, writer, and theoretician. Linda is co-editor of a phenomenal book entitled: Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections – a collection of essays and interviews about the on-the-ground efforts that mobilized voters in 2020 across the United States. Linda has a...
Episode 15: Stacy Davis Gates
September 07, 2022 09:00 - 1 hour - 63.2 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Sheri Davis, talk with Stacy Davis Gates, President of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Stacy was one of the founding members of the caucus that formed in 2008 to revitalize the union and fight for a quality education for the youth of Chicago. After 2 years of organizing, caucus leaders won elective offices in the union and began to forge stronger ties with parent groups and other community organizations to battl...
Episode 14: Labor Notes Conference Panel Part 2
August 03, 2022 14:00 - 51 minutes - 41.2 MBThis episode of Black Work Talk is the second of two covering the discussion held at the Labor Notes conference on June 17, 2022 titled “Black Labor Struggles Over Time: An Intergenerational Panel.” The panel moderators were Toussaint Losier of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Bianca Cunningham of the Action Center on Race and the Economy. Panelists included Jerome Scott, a long time organizer in the struggle for Black freedom and worker rights; Susan DeCarava of the NewsGuild of...
Episode 13: Labor Notes Conference Panel Part 1
July 20, 2022 14:00 - 57 minutes - 52.7 MBThis episode of Black Work Talk is the first of two covering the discussion held at the Labor Notes conference on June 17, 2022 titled “Black Labor Struggles Over Time: An Intergenerational Panel.” The panel moderators were Toussaint Losier of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Bianca Cunningham of the Action Center on Race and the Economy. Panelists included Jerome Scott, a long time organizer in the struggle for Black freedom and worker rights; Susan DeCarava of the NewsGuild of...
Episode 12: Erica Iheme
July 07, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 68.9 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Sheri Davis, talk with Erica Iheme, the Deputy Director for Jobs to Move America, an organization dedicated to ensuring that government uses the power of public funds to create a just, clean, and worker-centered economy. The conversation focuses on Erica’s critique of traditional organizing models and the need to shift to organizing practices that sustain organizers and facilitate a stronger relationship with communities. To...
Episode 11: Danielle Phillips-Cunningham
May 18, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 62.1 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Sheri Davis, talk with Danielle Phillips-Cunningham, Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Texas Woman’s University. Danielle has been at the forefront of recent scholarship highlighting the efforts of Black working-class women to control their lives. Her book, “Putting Their Hands on Race: Irish Immigrant and Southern Black Domestic Workers,” builds upon the work of Tera W. Hunter ("To ’Joy My Freedom: Southern...
Episode 10: Beverly Guy-Sheftall
April 21, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 73.8 MBThis episode launches Black Work Talk’s mini-series on Black feminism. Steven Pitts’ co-host for this mini-series is Sheri Davis, Associate Director, Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) at Rutgers University. We talk with Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Professor of Women's Studies and English at Spelman College. Beverly has been at the center of most developments of Black feminist thought since the mid-1970s and her anthology, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist T...
Episode 9: Mariame Kaba
April 07, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 170 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier, talk with Mariame Kaba. Mariame is one of this country’s leading abolitionist thinkers and practitioners. She has founded several projects organizing around abolitionist principles including Project NIA. Many of her writings on abolition are collected in a recent book, “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us”. We talk about Mariame’s definition of abolition and what might account for the increased interest in abolition. ...
Episode 8: NTanya Lee
March 24, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier talk with NTanya Lee, National Secretary of LeftRoots, a national organization of social movement organizers and activists. We began by reviewing the landscape of the Black Left today and continued by discussing the distinctions between the Black Left and Black Lives Matter activism. We later talked about the need for a liberatory strategy so as to better support current activists and better achieve gains tha...
Episode 8: N'Tanya Lee
March 24, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier talk with N’Tanya Lee, National Secretary of LeftRoots, a national organization of social movement organizers and activists. We began by reviewing the landscape of the Black Left today and continued by discussing the distinctions between the Black Left and Black Lives Matter activism. We later talked about the need for a liberatory strategy so as to better support current activists and better achieve gains tha...
Episode 7: Bianca Cunningham
March 07, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 63.4 MBIn this episode of Black Work Talk, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier, talk with Bianca Cunningham, Campaign Director at the Action Center on Race and the Economy and a co-founder of the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus of DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. The three of us began the episode by exploring different dimensions of the war in Ukraine. We continued with Bianca elaborating on why she thought socialism was the way to best address the issue of stru...
Episode 6: Lester Spence
February 23, 2022 14:00 - 59 minutes - 82.2 MBIn this sixth episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, Steven Pitts and his co-host, Toussaint Losier, talk with Lester Spence, Professor of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University. We began the episode by defining the Black Left and power. We spoke about the changes in Black politics because of the advent of neoliberalism. We also had a long conversation about policing and we used that issue as a way to explore the complicated issues of power-building, the value of cross-class Bla...
Episode Five: Toussaint Losier
February 15, 2022 14:00 - 30 minutes - 42 MBIn this fifth episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, Steven Pitts talks with Toussaint Losier, his co-host for the second mini-series of Black Work Talk on the Black Left. Toussaint is professor in the African American Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During this episode, we previewed the mini-series by presenting our definitions of the Black Left; discussing the importance of organizations and institutions to expanding the power and influence of the Black Left...
Episode 5: Toussaint Losier
February 15, 2022 14:00 - 30 minutes - 42 MBIn this fifth episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, Steven Pitts talks with Toussaint Losier, his co-host for the second mini-series of Black Work Talk on the Black Left. Toussaint is professor in the African American Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During this episode, we previewed the mini-series by presenting our definitions of the Black Left; discussing the importance of organizations and institutions to expanding the power and influence of the Black Lef...
Episode 4: Will Jones
February 08, 2022 14:00 - 54 minutes - 75.1 MBIn this fourth episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with Will Jones. Will is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. His particular emphasis is understanding the relationship between race and class in the United States during the 20th Century. His 2013 book, “The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights,” examined the role of Black labor leaders in the 1963 March on Washington and was the basis ...
Episode 3: Bert Bayou
January 25, 2022 14:00 - 39 minutes - 54.8 MBIn this third episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with Bert Bayou. Bert is DC Chapter Director of African Communities Together (ACT) and Vice President of UNITE HERE Local 23. ACT is an organization of African immigrants with chapters in Washington DC and New York. ACT provides services and organizes for power. Local 23 represents airport workers in 10 cities across the United States. We talked about Bert’s work in both organizations and it...
Episode 2: April Verrett
January 12, 2022 14:00 - 53 minutes - 74 MBIn this second episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with April Verrett. April is president of SEIU 2015, a union of 400,000 long-term caregivers in California. April talked about the importance of Democracy Schools the union operated to engage members in basic political governance activities at the local level. These schools were an important campaign that activates members regardless of their political identifications. One key outcome of th...
Season 2 Premiere: Rob Baril
November 17, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 139 MBIn this first episode of Black Work Talk’s Season Two, co-hosts Steven Pitts and Bill Fletcher talk with Rob Baril. Rob is the president of SEIU 1199NE, a union of health care workers in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Rob talked about how members of SEIU 1199NE have been fighting state officials in Connecticut for better working conditions during the pandemic. He indicated this fight not only won concrete victories but also strengthened the union for future battles. In addition, the various...
Season 2: Trailer
November 10, 2021 14:00 - 8 minutes - 19.6 MBIn preparation for the Season Two of Black Work Talk, podcast host Steven Pitts got together with the four co-hosts of the new season: Bill Fletcher; Lauren Jacobs; Sheri Davis; and Toussaint Losier. In this trailer, they discussed the challenges facing the Left in 2022. Season Two launches Wednesday, November 17.
Season 2: Preview
October 27, 2021 12:00 - 11 minutes - 27.1 MBSeason Two of Black Work Talk will launch on November 17. In this Preview Episode, host Steven Pitts reviews Season One highlighting the reality that Black workers are impacted by race and class and debates within the movement over the primacy of one over the other are not just fruitless, but counter-productive. His review concludes by discuss the need for more power on the part of the Left in order to reduce the probability of an Insurrection 2.0 and maximize the probability of achieving t...
Episode 18: Bill Fletcher
July 14, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 182 MBIn this eighteenth episode of Black Work Talk, we end Season One as we began it with Bill Fletcher, long-time racial justice and labor activist. We reviewed the events over the past 8 months: the insurrection; the determined GOP efforts to promote the Big Lie about the election and insist the adherence to the Big Lie would be a litmus test for GOP elected officials; and the effort of the Biden Administration to govern in this context of the recovery from COVID and the recession; the heighte...
Episode 17: Dawn Gearhart
June 30, 2021 14:00 - 52 minutes - 120 MBIn this seventeenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest today is Dawn Gearhart. Dawn is the Director of Gig Economy Organizing for the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Dawn is leading efforts to organize workers who utilize an app to connect with potential clients desiring domestic work services. Prior to joining NDWA, Dawn organized taxi drivers and gig workers in Seattle. NDWA have just entered into an agreement with the Handy Company to launch a pilot program to improve the qualit...
Episode 16: Michael Dawson
June 16, 2021 14:00 - 48 minutes - 111 MBIn this sixteenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest is Michael Dawson. Michael is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he has written extensively about the intertwined nature of Black politics and Left politics. Currently, he co-leads the Race and Capitalism Project that seeks to understand how the racial and capitalist systems of domination interact. And all of this work is grounded in his years of labor and community activism. We had a wide-ranging co...
Episode 15: Lauren Jacobs
June 02, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 141 MBIn this fifteenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest is Lauren Jacobs. Lauren is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Working Families – a national network of regional power-building organizations. Lauren and I have been friends for over 15 years…I remember when she was a union organizer in Boston. I have always loved the way Lauren combines things: race and class…theory and practice. That nuanced and rooted way of engaging the world is key at building real power to transform ...
Episode 14: Sheri Davis
May 19, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 146 MBIn this fourteenth episode of Black Work Talk, today’s Sheri Davis. Sheri is the Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) at Rutgers University and the Senior Program Director – WILL Empower at CIWO. The purpose of WILL Empower is to develop the next generation of women in the labor movement - unions and worker centers. Sheri fuses her desire to promote deep worker organizing with her Black feminist sensibility. Sheri also sees the need to move beyond a...
Episode 13: Maurice Mitchell
May 05, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 140 MBIn this thirteenth episode of Black Work Talk, Today’s guest is Maurice Mitchell. Maurice is the National Director of the Working Families Party. Since its inception, the Working Families Party has done a good job of navigating the complicated waters of combining Left political perspectives with building bases among working class people and maintaining effectiveness in the electoral arena. Maurice became national director about two years and we had a wide-ranging conversation on a variety...
Episode 12: Barbara Ransby
April 21, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 140 MBIn this twelfth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Barbara Ransby, professor of history at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Barbara has written extensively on the Black Freedom Movement on topics ranging from Ella Baker and Eslanda Robeson to the current Black Lives Matter movement. Our conversation took place soon after the release of the videos of the Chicago police’s killing of 13-year old Adam Toledo and we began our talk examining the battle for justice in the fa...
Episode 11: Robin D.G. Kelley
April 07, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 216 MBThis eleventh episode of Black Work Talk was a joint effort with Dissent Magazine’s podcast, Belabored. Belabored’s co-hosts, Michelle Chen and Sarah Jaffe, and Black Work Talk’s host, Steven Pitts were joined by historian Robin D.G. Kelley. Robin’s book, Hammer and Hoe, details the organizing work in the Birmingham metropolitan area during the 1930s where key Black workers were Communist and worked with the Communist Party to improve the living conditions in Jim Crow Alabama. Because of ...
Episode 10: Maurice BP-Weeks
March 24, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 142 MBIn this tenth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Maurice BP-Weeks, co-founder of the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE). ACRE sits at the nexus of the struggles for racial and economic justice. As such, they provide campaign assistance to local organizations and engage in national campaigns against corporate elites. Equally important, ACRE shapes the national narrative around role of the corporate elites in the exploitation of communities of color. Last year, ...
Episode 9: Jesse Hagopian
March 10, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 142 MBIn this ninth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Jesse Hagopian, an Ethnic Studies teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. The public schools in the United States have been near Ground Zero during this confluence of COVID, the recession, and the fight for racial justice and because of this, education has become a flashpoint for political struggle. Jesse has been active trying to ensure that any school re-opening takes places on a timeline and fulfills key...
Episode 8: Michelle Crentsil
February 24, 2021 12:00 - 44 minutes - 60.4 MBIn this eighth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Michelle Crentsil, political director for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). The members of NYSNA have been through hell this past year dealing with the extreme conditions caused by COVID and federal government ineptitude. We talked about these struggles and the reality that the pandemic has forged greater solidarity among nurses and led them to advocate for structural changes in the health care system based on...
Episode 7: Erica Smiley
February 10, 2021 12:00 - 44 minutes - 61.3 MBIn this seventh episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Erica Smiley, Executive Director of Jobs with Justice. Smiley has been with Jobs with Justice for over 15 years. Prior to joining the organization, she worked at a number of unions and community-based organizations. During the episode, we spoke about a variety of topics including the need to go beyond the red state/blue state view of today’s politics and gain a better appreciation of the nuances within all of the states. ...
Episode 6: Bill Lucy
January 27, 2021 12:00 - 57 minutes - 79.5 MBIn this sixth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes William A. Lucy. Bill retired in 2010 after over 50 years in the leadership of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Union (AFSCME). Bill talked about his beginnings in the labor movement organizing government workers in Contra Costa County (CA). He later represented the national staff of AFSCME during the campaign of the Memphis sanitation workers and Bill discussed some of those lessons. As a co-founder ...
Episode 5: April Sims
January 13, 2021 12:00 - 53 minutes - 73.5 MBIn the fifth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes April Sims, Secretary-Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council. April told us a bit about her background, in particular, how the experiences of her mother led April to understand the importance of unions to working people’s lives. She also talked about the work of the State Labor Council in developing and rolling out an anti-racism training for unions and their members. (April mentioned a document that resulted fro...
Episode 4: Greg Kelley
December 23, 2020 12:00 - 40 minutes - 55.7 MBIn the fourth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Greg Kelley, President of SEIU Health Care Illinois. Greg gave us a sense of how he got into labor organizing. We moved to get a sense of how COVID has impacted union members and their resolve to use the power of their union to protect their quality of life on the job. Greg relayed stories of how efforts to build racial solidarity within the union going back to the murder of Michael Brown in 2014 bore fruits this year as...
Episode 3: Tanya Wallace Gobern
December 09, 2020 12:00 - 1 hour - 85.9 MBIn this third episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Tanya Wallace Gobern, Executive Director of the National Black Worker Center. Tanya spoke of how growing up in Chicago shaped her passion for social justice and worker organizing. She continued to share lessons from her years of organizing Black workers especially to need to build a “joyous militancy”. We talked about the recent work of the National Black Worker Center and concluded with a discussion of Tanya’s vision for B...
Episode 2: Dorian Warren
November 25, 2020 12:00 - 52 minutes - 72.1 MBIn this second episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Dorian Warren, President of Community Change. Dorian talks about the organizational weakness of the Democratic Party and the subsequent growth of grass-roots groups at the local and state level to fill this void. We also talk about the need for a Third Reconstruction and the nature of democracy and freedom during this Third Reconstruction from the perspective of Black workers.
Episode 1: Bill Fletcher
November 11, 2020 15:00 - 52 minutes - 71.9 MBIn this first episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Bill Fletcher, long-time racial justice and labor activist. Bill talks about key takeaways from the 2020 Election and steps needed to build a progressive governing majority. Also, we discuss why it is important to build Black worker power and how to go about doing this.