The soul of the labor movement is the fight for democracy in and outside of the workplace—and, from the shop floor to the ballot box, organizers, volunteers, and rank-and-file workers with UNITE HERE are putting everything they have into that fight. Even in the midst of a deadly pandemic that hit the service and hospitality industries especially hard, union members with UNITE HERE hit the pavement in record numbers ahead of the 2020 general elections. As Harold Meyerson notes in The American Prospect, UNITE HERE members canvassed "more precincts than any other organization on the Democratic side of the ledger that year. Talking to well over a million voters in Vegas, Reno, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, they played a key role in Joe Biden’s victory and in the Democrats winning control of the Senate. This year," ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, "they have even more members knocking on doors than they did two years ago." As working people face an increasingly unbearable cost-of-living crisis, as the right continues to attack abortion rights (and voting rights, and workers' rights, and LGBTQ people, and teachers, etc.), as basic human needs like healthcare, housing, and clean water are put farther out of reach for the poor and working classes, as more people give up on a political system they feel gave up on them a long time ago, the fight for a better society must come from the grassroots. In this special panel, recorded a week before the 2022 midterm elections, we talk with three UNITE HERE members—Maggie Acosta (Arizona), Bryan Villarreal-Vasquez (Nevada), and Sheila Silver (Pennsylvania)—about their tireless canvassing efforts in battleground states, what they're hearing from voters, and what the struggle for democracy means to them and their union.
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Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
A Veteran Longshoreman's View of the Baltimore Bridge Disaster (w/ John Blom & Marc Steiner)
"South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone" (w/ David Jones, Angela Smothers, Carlos Sanchez, & Tiffany Thompson)
Vina Colley
Working People Deserve Bread and Roses—and Musicals (w/ Gene Bruskin)
Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers Conference in East Palestine
From Baltimore to East Palestine, This Is Unacceptable (w/ The Valley Labor Report & Maximillian Alvarez)
Labor, Community, & Environmental Organizations Are Mobilizing to Get East Palestine Healthcare (w/ Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers)
Brett Cross, Uzi's Dad
**'The Upsurge' is Dead. Long Live 'The Upsurge'! (w/ Teddy Ostrow)**
Why Do Railroad Workers Keep Dying on the Job? (w/ Nick Wurst, Matt Weaver, Mark Burrows, & Ross Grooters)
"Shut It Down!": On the Ground at Johns Hopkins Grad Union's Practice Picket
Baltimore's Co-Ops Show There's Another Way to Work (at the Baltimore Museum of Industry)
Homegrown Sandwich Shop Workers Hit 100 Days on Strike (w/ Sydney Lankford & Perry)
East Palestine—1 Year After the Derailment
After Waging the Largest Healthcare Worker Strike in US History, Kaiser Workers Win Big (w/ Meg Niemi & Audrey Cardenas)
Brazil's Radical Plan to Fight Slave-Like Working Conditions (w/ Marcos, John, & Vitor Filgueiras)
Chris & Jessica Albright
"This Is McCarthyism All Over Again": Suppressing Unions' Free Speech Rights over Gaza (w/ Allie Goodman, Michael Letwin, & Dany Greene)
Stuck in Legal Limbo while Fighting to Hold Amazon Accountable (w/ Matt Littrell)
A Three-Minute Message from Gaza (w/ Mohamed el Saife)
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