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We’ve talked about the importance of unions being organized and run in a “rank-and-file” manner a million times on the show, but we hadn’t really had a good opportunity to sit down and layout exactly what that means. On this episode, we discuss what exactly rank-and-file unionism is, what it is not, and why it’s so vital if we want to build effective organizations that will fight for the working class. We go through counter examples of Consumer Co-ops, ESOPs, and the methodology used for many bureaucratically run unions here in the US, Business Unionism. We finish off by discussing a short guide to rank-and-file organizing used by communists during the Depression, Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry by William Z Foster, and how that methodology is still relevant today. On part two of this series, we will discuss several examples of rank and file unionism in practice in more detail.
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Ep 156 - The People’s War Against AI
Overtime Episode 35 PREVIEW - Cybernetics and Labor - Pt 1
Ep 155 - Maybor Day
UNLOCKED - Why Rank and File? - Pt 1
Ep 154 - Gotta Go Fast!
Overtime Episode 34 Preview - The General Strike in US History Pt 2
Ep 153 - Safe Jobs Require Strong Unions
Overtime Episode 33 PREVIEW - The General Strike in US History Pt 1
Ep 152 - Pay Your Workers!
Overtime Episode 32 PREVIEW - Tales From the Thaw: The CIO and the USSR
Ep 151 - Missing the GDR
UNLOCKED Overtime - Unions and The Mob: Reputation vs Reality Pt 1
Ep 150 - Have You Heard The Good News?
PREVIEW: Interview with Temple University Graduate Students’ Association
Ep 149 - Formez Vos Bataillons
Shop Floor Discussion 7 PREVIEW - Off The Rails
Ep 148 - The Billionaire Machine
Movie Time 6 PREVIEW - A Bug’s Life and Chicken Run
Ep 147 - Death to Imperialism
Unions in Vietnam w/ Luna Oi!
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