Working People
Society & Culture
About
Working People: A podcast by, for, and about the working class today (now in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network).Working People is a podcast about working-class lives in 21st-century America. In every episode, you'll hear interviews with workers from around the country, from all walks of life. We'll talk about their life stories, their jobs, politics, and families, their joys and hopes and frustrations. Overall, Working People aims to share and celebrate the diverse stories of working-class people, to remind ourselves that our stories matter, and to build a sense of shared struggle and solidarity between workers around the country.
Episodes
- Over 4,000 UAW members on strike at Harvard University
Over 4,000 graduate student workers represented by the HGSU-UAW Local 5118 went on strike at Harvard University on April 21st. The strike addresses issues such as cost of living, harassment, discrimination, support for non-citizen students…
- Meet the new Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bosses, same as the old bosses
Union members and former employees of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette discuss the paper's recent purchase by the Venetoulis Institute, the significant staff cuts affecting former strikers, and the implications for journalism in Pittsburgh. Pan…
- Alec Baldwin backs union drive at Starbucks
The documentary Baristas vs. Billionaires explores the recent resurgence of the US labor movement through the lens of the Starbucks unionization effort. The episode features interviews with the film's director, Mark Mori, and producer, Ale…
- May 1: A Nationwide 'Economic Blackout' Against Billionaires and Authoritarianism
Inspired by a previous strike, a coalition of labor unions, democratic organizations, and community groups are organizing a nationwide economic blackout on May 1st, International Workers Day. The protest aims to oppose government policies…
- 'The rain was black': A plant explosion set off a toxic bomb in this Louisiana town
The Working People episode discusses the 2025 explosion and fire at the Smitty's Supply plant in Roseland, Louisiana. Residents Arlene Bankston and Allie Ponvelle share their experiences with negative health symptoms and toxic contaminatio…
- Baltimore security guards strike for respect, healthcare, and a union
Nearly a year after workers voted to authorize a strike, non-union city and commercially contracted security officers in Baltimore, MD, will walk off the job on April 9 in an Unfair Labor Practice strike against their employer, Abacus Corp…
- US postal workers side with communities over collaboration with ICE: "Don't be a snitch"
While facing decades-long political efforts to throttle and privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS), and while US Postmaster General David Steiner ominously warns that the USPS will "run out of money" within a year, postal worker…
- Immigrant workers launch largest US meatpacking strike in 40 years
3,800 workers and Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 members at the massive JBS beef processing plant in Greeley, CO walked off the job on an unfair labor practice strike on March 16. This is the first strike ever at the Greeley pl…
- Fourth-generation fisherwoman Diane Wilson goes on hunger strike against Dow Chemical
Diane Wilson is a fourth-generation fisherwoman and a lifelong resident of Seadrift, Texas. Wilson has become a global folk hero over the course of her epic, decades-long journey from shrimp boat captain and mother of five to social and ec…
- "ICE got me": The urgent fight to free Ludovic Mbock
38-year-old regional video gaming champion Ludovic Mbock, who came to the US legally from Cameroon, was snatched by ICE while applying for his yearly work permit—as he's done for 20 years. He has since been detained for three weeks and mov…
- Sean O'Brien sold workers and unions out to Trump—these Teamsters are running to oust him
As general president of the union, Sean O'Brien has operated with a "Teamsters vs. Everybody" mentality, especially when it comes to dealing with President Trump and embracing the MAGA right. But now, 14 months into the second Trump admini…
- Tech workers protest Microsoft's ties to ICE terror and Israel's war crimes
In just six months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than tripled the amount of data stored on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, The Guardian reports, "at the same time that its arsenal of surveillance technology ballooned."…
- They won their strike fair and square. Now their rich bosses are closing up shop.
On Nov. 24, 2025, in a major and hardwon victory, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members finally returned to work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after more than three years on strike. Then, on Jan. 7, 2026, workers were notified that Block…
- NO DEAL: Nurses at NY-Presbyterian overwhelmingly vote to stay on strike
The longest-running nurses strike in New York City history has come to an end—for some. Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, however, overwhelmingly voted this week to reject a tentative agreement and to stay on strike until their dema…
- Massive strike at Kaiser Permanente enters third week
An estimated 31,000 health care workers in California and Hawaii walked off the job on Jan. 26 in their ongoing battle with healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente to address workers' demands for safe staffing, more manageable workloads, and a…
- America's toxic future looks like East Palestine, OH, today
Feb. 3, 2026 marked the three-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, OH—one of the worst industrial disasters in US history. Over the last three years, residents have been exploit…
- "A hero": Nurses, federal workers honor Alex Pretti
Hundreds of union nurses, federal workers, and local residents gathered outside the Veterans Affairs central office building in Washington, DC, on Jan. 28, to hold a vigil for Alex Pretti and all who have been killed by ICE. The vigil was…
- Largest nurses union calls to abolish ICE after Alex Pretti killing
On Friday, Jan. 23, around 50,000 people in Minneapolis, MN, engaged in a historic mass strike and day of protest to demand an end to ICE terror and President Trump's federal siege of Minnesota. Then, on Saturday, Jan. 24, an ICE agent sho…
- "Shut everything down": Minnesota calls for mass strike on Jan. 23
The state of Minnesota is under siege by our own federal government, and residents—immigrant and US-born alike—are living in fear. With the deployment of over 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota in recent weeks, this is the Trump administrat…
- The longest-running strike in the US is over—and the workers won
On Monday, Nov. 24, after more than 1,100 days on strike, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members were cheered on by supporters at a rally in downtown Pittsburgh before returning to work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Even though strikers…
- What does it mean to be a union member in these dark times?
Making ends meet in today's economy is difficult enough, but with so many societal crises affecting working people's lives on and off the shop floor—from mass layoffs to untenable costs of living, from an authoritarian federal government t…
- 'We're done': Starbucks workers launch indefinite national strike
Four years after the first Starbucks store in the US unionized in 2021, workers across the country are still facing rampant union busting and still fighting for a first contract with the coffee giant. That is why a supermajority of unioniz…
- Campus life is unrecognizable in the Trump era: 'There's so many cops everywhere'
Life on college campuses has changed dramatically in the last 10 months. While institutions of higher education continue to reel from the Trump administration's top-down attacks and scramble to adjust, workers on campus say that their univ…
- Life after genocide: A Gazan's message to the world about the ceasefire
In September, before the current ceasefire deal was announced, we spoke with two Palestinians in Gaza—Mohamed Abu Tawila (a former English teacher) and his nephew Abdul Rahman (a would-be college student)—about surviving 700 days of genoci…
- Workers replaced by AI have a dire warning for the world
In this special crossover edition of Working People and The Marc Steiner Show , hosts Maximillian Alvarez and Marc Steiner examine how the "artificial intelligence" (AI) boom is shaping the economy and the impact it is already having—and w…
- This government shutdown is not like the others: Furloughed federal workers explain
The federal government shutdown is now in its fourth week. Over 700,000 federal employees have been furloughed, with nearly as many continuing to work without pay, yet there are still no signs that an end to the shutdown is near. "Unlike p…
- Will Texas State University fire a tenured professor based on a Nazi apologist's doctored video?
"In Texas, a socialist professor is now in the fight of his life against MAGA's New McCarthyism," scholar and author Bill V. Mullen writes in Jacobin . "Tom Alter, a labor historian and tenured professor of history at Texas State Universit…
- Microsoft cancels Israeli spy unit access after tech worker revolt
In a stunning and massive development, tech giant Microsoft has announced that it is terminating parts of the Israeli military's access to proprietary technology that it was using to conduct mass surveillance and targeting of Palestinians…
- Federal whistleblowers illegally fired after exposing 'chaos' at Trump's HUD
Last week, The Real News Network published a bombshell interview with two federal whistleblowers working in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Max spoke with Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan, two attorneys in HUD's Office…
- Federal whistleblowers expose how Trump's HUD is abandoning vulnerable Americans
Federal whistleblowers are going public with an emergency message from within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). According to their formal complaint, under President Trump's administration, "HUD leadership has already v…
- The biggest labor story in the US right now is happening at Microsoft
Current and former tech workers with the No Azure for Apartheid coalition continue to disrupt business as usual at Microsoft's global headquarters in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide, and in protest of Microsoft's contracts w…
- 'Microsoft is an active partner in the genocide!': Inside the tech worker revolt for Palestine
Tech workers at the heart of Microsoft are waging one of the most significant and under-covered labor battles in the US right now. For the last two weeks, members of the No Azure for Apartheid coalition, including current and former tech w…
- 'We want life": Palestinians in Gaza describe their daily struggle to survive
Right now, Israel's military is invading and obliterating what remains of Gaza City. After 700 days of genocidal bombing, shooting, forced starvation, and the systematic destruction of schools, hospitals, farms, refugee camps, roads, house…
- Unions face extinction under Trump. What the hell is labor doing to fight back? (w/ David Huerta & Everett Kelley)
Every single one of us who considers ourselves part of the labor movement has some real deep, serious, and urgent soul searching to do this Labor Day. After already falling to historically low levels of union density, public and private-se…
- Railroad workers explain why Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific mega-merger will be a 'disaster'
Railroad workers are sounding the alarm about the potentially catastrophic consequences of the proposed mega-merger of two of the nation's Class 1 freight rail companies. "Union Pacific said it would buy smaller rival Norfolk Southern in a…
- These 'neighbors from the hood' saw ICE terrorizing their community—and banded together to fight back
After seeing friends and neighbors in their community of Pasadena, CA, being terrorized, assaulted, and abducted by masked federal agents, Daniela Navin and Jeannette De la Riva joined together with other neighbors in their area to form Gr…
- Corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant 'sacrifice zone'
The Real News Network is honored to be one of the 2025 recipients of the prestigious Izzy Award for our on-the-ground documentary report, " Trainwreck in 'Trump Country': Partisan politics hasn't helped East Palestine, OH ." "While corpora…
- What good is a union in Hell?
On Sunday, July 20, 2025, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez delivered the keynote speech at the national convention of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW), UAW Local 2320. "I am here t…
- How union organizing can change your life and the world w/Jaz Brisack | Working People
After getting a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, Jaz Brisack became a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helped organize the first unionized Starbucks in the US in December of 2021. In their new…
- "These cuts are death sentences": Trump's "Big, Disastrous Betrayal Bill"
Dozens of peaceful protesters, including disabled people in wheelchairs, were arrested last Wednesday in Washington, DC, while protesting President Trump's massive spending and tax bill, which will dramatically slash taxes, restructure the…
- What's really happening in Los Angeles vs. what you're hearing online
In Los Angeles, CA, armed, masked agents of the state are snatching and disappearing immigrants off the street, peaceful protestors and journalists are being attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets, National Guard troops and active-duty…
- Trump plans massive military parade while cutting veteran jobs, benefits, & healthcare
On June 6, thousands of veterans, union members, VA hospital nurses, elected officials, and more gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. at the "Unite for Veterans, Unite for America rally" to protest the Trump administration's at…
- Trump cuts leave VA hospital nurses and veteran patients in a crisis
Already burdened by years of funding cuts and understaffing, registered nurses who work at Veterans Health Administration (VA) facilities across the country are facing a crisis as the impact of the Trump administration's cuts to the federa…
- An update on the longest ongoing strike in the US: 'Some things don't change at the Post-Gazette'
In the latest episode of Working People , we go back to the picket line to get a critical update on the longest ongoing strike in the United States. In October 2022, over 100 workers represented by five labor unions—including production, d…
- "It is our moral imperative": Oregon students hunger strike for Gaza
At this very moment, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who have managed to survive Israel's scorched-earth siege and bombing are being deliberately starved to death as a result of Israel's 11-week blockade preventing food and aid from enterin…
- 'Like being tortured': Texas residents living next to bitcoin mine are getting sick and being ignored
While state officials and legislators have positioned Texas to be "the bitcoin mining capital of the world," in small towns like Granbury, working-class residents living next to giant, loud, environmentally destructive data centers are the…
- FBI agents raid homes of pro-Palestine students at University of Michigan
The Trump administration continues to escalate its authoritarian assault on higher education, free speech, and political dissent—and university administrators and state government officials are willingly aiding that assault. On the morning…
- A bitcoin mine in Texas is "killing us slowly," local residents say
I would like to see Texas become the center of the universe for bitcoin and crypto," US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in 2021. In 2024, Republican Governor Greg Abbott said Texas "wears the crown as the bitcoin mining capital of the worl…
- 'A tremendous chilling effect': Columbia students describe dystopian reality on campus amid Trump attacks
One year ago, Columbia University became ground zero for the student-led Gaza solidarity encampment movement that spread to campuses across the country and around the world. Now, Columbia has become ground zero for the Trump administration…
- 'People are hiding in their apartments': Inside Trump's assault on universities
International students are being abducted and disappeared by ICE in broad daylight. Life-saving research projects across the academy are being halted or thrown into disarray by seismic cuts to federal grants. Dozens of universities are und…