When Workers Tell Their Own Stories

This week on The Labor Heritage Power Hour, we explore what happens when workers recognize their power—and use it to imagine something better.

We begin with a conversation about the post-pandemic union upsurge. Labor organizer and researcher Eric Dirnbach talks with Dave Kamper, author of Who’s Got the Power: Hope for Troubled Times, about graduate student organizing, teachers’ strikes, the UAW’s stand-up strike, and the return of solidarity as a force for change. Drawing on history and recent victories, Kamper reflects on why moments of crisis can also be moments of possibility.

Then we head to Italy with a report from the Working Class History podcast, taking us to the 2025 Working Class Literature Festival at the occupied former GKN factory outside Florence. There, workers are fighting not only to save their jobs, but to transform their workplace into a cooperative—while creating space for writers, artists, and organizers to tell their own stories.

PLUS: The 1916 Youngstown Massacre and Carsie Blanton’s “Little Flame”.

From union halls to occupied factories, from organizing drives to poetry and song, this episode reminds us that labor history isn’t just something we remember—it’s something we’re still making.

Broadcast on January 8, 2026; hosted by Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant; produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella & Kahlia Chapman.
The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and syndicated on Pacifica’s Audioport.

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