LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net.

USA: Interview with Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, President of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation AFL-CIO

Tomorrow (23 January) will see trade unionists and other citizens of Minneapolis shutting the city down in protest at the actions of Donald Trump's ICE thugs.  People won't go to work, they won't shop, their kids won't go to school.  Chelsie will be in the thick of it and in this short interview we talked about what's happening in Minneapolis, the role of the unions and her thoughts on how people elsewhere in the world might show their solidarity.  It's an inspiring story and deserves a large listenership -- please share this widely!Check out the website of the Minneapolis labor unions here.Support the show

Global: Interview with Pamela Morinière - International Federation of Journalists

In this short interview, we talked with Pamela, who is the IFJ's head of communications, about the IFJ's recent report on the number of journalists killed around the world in 2025 (128 that we know about). We discussed why this number keeps going up, the role of ongoing wars, the problem of impunity, what the IFJ and its affiliated unions are doing and what ordinary people around the world can do. Here are some useful links:IFJ safety fundIFJ UN Convention Q and AIFJ web siteSupport the show

60 seconds on ... Christmas shopping

With the run-up to Christmas, retail workers are preparing to face a tsunami of abuse and even violence.  Unions representing shop workers in dozens of countries where Christmas is celebrated are campaigning to protect workers from over-stressed shoppers.Here's our take on Christmas shopping - and a very merry and kind Christmas from all of us at LabourStart!Support the show

60 seconds on ... Lee Cheuk-yan, jailed leader of Hong Kong's trade union movement

"60 seconds on ..." is a new podcast series hosted by LabourStart and aims to provide the international trade union movement with bite-size nuggets of information about important campaigns and news.  In today's episode, we focus on Lee Cheuk-yan, the jailed leader of the Hong Kong Trade Union Confederation, whose trial starts next month.  To learn more about the International Trade Union Confederation's campaign in solidarity with Lee, click here.Support the show

USA: Professor Yiran Zhang on care work

Professor Yiran Zhang is a prominent emerging voice in the field of labor and employment law, focusing on how care work is governed at the complicated intersection of informal labor markets, the welfare state, and the household. At Cornell’s ILR School, where she is also an Associate Faculty Member at Cornell Law School, she examines the rapidly shifting terrain of U.S. care-subsidy programs and what these changes mean for workers, families, and the law.Her scholarship, which spans top journals including Boston University Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, and Stanford Law & Policy Review, explores fundamental questions about gender, caregiving, and the very boundaries of what society counts as “work.”In this interview, Professor Zhang discusses her current research, the rise of paid family caregiving, and the new forms of worker organizing emerging in home-care labor. She closes with powerful reflections on why care workers, often overlooked, are central to the future of the labor movement.The interview was conducted by Joanne Lee, a LabourStart intern.Support the show