Upstream

With strikes in a wide variety of private sectors popping up all across the country — Kelloggs, Kaiser Permanente, coal miners in Alabama, John Deere, The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), Taxi Drivers on hunger strike in NY, and more — the United States might be on the verge of a strike wave, and we’ve brought on the perfect guest to explain exactly what’s going on. Alex Press is a staff writer at Jacobin Magazine, host of the Primer podcast, and author most recently of the Jacobin articles, “US Workers Are in a Militant Mood” and “Halyna Hutchins’s Death on the Set of Rust Was “Not a Freak Accident.” The Conversation will bring you up to date on all of the labor activity currently underway, but will also zoom out to explore the state of the labor movement more broadly, taking a deep dive on how the pandemic has transformed the movement, unpacking what’s really behind the so-called “labor shortage,” and getting to the root of why workers are starting to stand up to bosses in a way