"South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone" (w/ David Jones, Angela Smothers, Carlos Sanchez, & Tiffany Thompson)
Release Date: 05/09/2024
Catholic nurses at Ascension call on Bishops to help with contract fight (w/ Gideon Eziama & Lisa Watson)
Working People
On November 12, unionized nurses at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore held a rally in front of the Marriott Hotel downtown, where the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was holding a meeting. St. Agnes nurses rallied with supporters from around the city, and they were even joined by fellow Ascension nurses who traveled from Wichita, Kansas, and Austin, Texas. According to a press release from National Nurses Organizing Committee / National Nurses United (NNOC-NNU), the purpose of the rally was to “highlight how Ascension has failed to follow to both serve and...
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“Let’s unite!”: Poisoned residents of America’s sacrifice zones are banding together (w/ Hilary Flint, Melanie Meade, Elise Keaton Wade, & Angela Shaneyfelt)
Working People
Sacrifice zones are areas where people have been left to live in conditions that threaten life itself, from toxic industrial pollution to the deadly, intensifying effects of man-made climate change. In a more just and less cruel society, the very concept of a “sacrifice zone” wouldn’t exist. And yet, in America, after decades of deregulation and public disinvestment, more working-class communities are becoming sacrifice zones, and more of us are being set up for sacrifice at the altars of corporate greed and government abandonment. America’s sacrifice zones are no longer extreme...
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How will railroad workers vote after Biden and Congress blocked their strike? (w/ Hugh Sawyer, Mark Burrows, & Ron Kaminkow)
Working People
Two years ago, the US was on the cusp of seeing its first national rail strike in decades. Then, President Joe Biden, at the urging of the rail companies, and with the help of both parties in Congress, preemptively blocked railroad workers from striking in December of 2022. Workers were forced to accept a contract that did not address the vast majority of issues that have been putting them, our communities, and our supply chain at hazard. How has this all shaped railroad workers’ attitudes and approaches to the upcoming elections? In this urgent panel discussion, we pose this question...
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SpoOoOoky Special 2024: The Movie that Traumatized Us All
Working People
Last year, we summoned all the Alvarez siblings from the ether to record our annual Halloween episode. Sadly, we were not able to record a new Halloween episode in 2024, but to celebrate the holiday and give listeners a break from all the heavy news, we are publicly releasing last year's spooky special. Jesse, Zak, Max, and MacKenna break down THE defining horror movie of our childhood, the movie that scarred us all: John Carpenter's The Thing. From the whole Alvarez family, we're wishing everyone out there a Happy Halloween! Permanent links below... Working...
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Workers take on Kaiser Again, Strike for a Fair Contract in SoCal
Working People
On Monday, Oct 21, 2400 behavior health workers at Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California locations walked off the job in their ongoing struggle for a fair contract. Over the summer, negotiations between the health system and the bargaining committee, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), failed to close the gap between their proposals, opening the door for a strike. The workers are now well into their second week on strike. The healthcare giant refuses to bargain seriously with the workers, offering paltry raises instead of agreeing to the workers’ demands for...
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After two years of striking, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers aren’t ready to give up
Working People
We’re coming up on a pretty mind-blowing anniversary in the news labor world–Two years ago, in October 2022, after the newspaper unilaterally cut off insurance benefits to production workers and newsroom workers filed ULPs for bad-faith bargaining, the workers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette walked off the job on strike. The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh has been in negotiations for a contract with Post Gazette management for SEVEN years - since 2017 - and have battled bad faith bargaining, illegal and unilaterally imposed changes to working conditions, and loss of vacation...
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Look for the Helpers: Organizing Relief Aid in Asheville, NC, After "Apocalyptic" Hurricane Helene (w/ Byron Ballard & Lori Freshwater)
Working People
Over the past two weeks, people around the country have watched in horror as our neighbors and fellow workers have been battered by the successive disasters of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. “After making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26 and tearing through the Gulf Coast of Florida,” Adeel Hassan and Isabelle Taft write in The New York Times, “Helene plowed north through Georgia and walloped the Blue Ridge Mountains, washing out roads, causing landslides and knocking out power and cell service for millions of people. Across western North Carolina, towns...
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Cornell's Crackdown on Palestine Solidarity Protests Could Force Grad Student-Worker to Leave US (w/ Jawuanna McAllister & Jenna Marvin)
Working People
The student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into flashpoints of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it, and the right to speak out against it. This year, college and university campuses have become laboratories of repression where different administrative efforts to silence Palestine solidarity and antiwar demonstrators are being deployed. And that is playing out right now at Cornell University. As Aaron Fernando writes at The Nation, “Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, has taken...
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Microsoft AI Data Center Comes for Drought-Battered Mexican Town’s Water (w/ Diana Baptista)
Working People
As the climate crisis intensifies, billions of poor and working people around the world are suffering from lack of regular (or any) access to clean water, but the dawn of “AI” is about to make the problem much worse. In their recent report for Context, “Forget jobs—AI is coming for your water,” Diana Baptista and Fintan McDonnell write, “Artificial intelligence lives on power and water, fed to it in vast quantities by data centres around the world. And those centres are increasingly located in the global south.” In Colón, a municipality in Central Mexico that is home to...
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Alec Plant
Working People
Two years ago, workers from several different Trader Joe’s grocery stores joined the wave of unionization efforts spreading across the country. Workers in Hadley, Massachusetts, made history in 2022 by not only becoming the first Trader Joe’s store to vote to unionize but also by opting to form an independent union, Trader Joe’s United (TJU). However, like with Starbucks, Amazon, Medieval Times, and other companies where workers have been exercising their right to organize in recent years, rampant union busting has been part of the Trader Joe’s story from the beginning. What’s worse,...
info_outline“South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone,” Michael Middleton and Dr. Sacoby Wilson wrote in a guest commentary published in Maryland Matters this February. “The six communities that make up South Baltimore—Cherry Hill, Westport, Mt. Winans, Lakeland, Brooklyn, and Curtis Bay—rank in the top 3% of the state for environmental burden using a Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) screening tool. Curtis Bay, the highest in the state, is Maryland’s poster child for environmental injustice. Industrial areas near Curtis Bay house oil tanks, a wastewater treatment plant, chemical plants, landfills, the country’s largest medical waste incinerator, and more. Heavy diesel trucks frequent residential streets. The Wagner’s Point and Fairfield communities that were once Curtis Bay’s neighbors to the east are gone. Those residents accepted buyouts to leave between the 1980s and 2011 after a series of chemical spills and accidents.” In this episode, we continue our “Sacrificed” series by focusing on communities in South Baltimore and a story that quite literally hits close to home, less than half an hour from where Max lives. We speak with a panel of residents of South Baltimore about how they have seen their communities change over the years, what it feels like to be “sacrificed” by industry and their government, how they and their neighbors are fighting for change, fighting for justice, and what others in Baltimore and beyond can do to help. Panelists include: David Jones, who has lived in Curtis Bay for over 35 years; Angela Smothers, a lifelong resident of Mt. Winans; Carlos Sanchez, a youth leader born and raised in Lakeland; and Tiffany Thompson, who was born and raised in Cherry Hill and has lived in Curtis Bay for the past three years.
Additional links/info below…
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Coal-Free Curtis Bay Facebook page
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Nicole Fabricant, University of California Press, Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore
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Nicole Fabricant, The Real News Network, “Opinion | CSX explosion in Curtis Bay should alarm Baltimore City and accelerate real change”
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Michael Middleton & Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Maryland Matters, “Commentary: Maryland deserves a better environmental justice bill”
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Chloe Ahmann, Baltimore Sun, “Curtis Bay residents deserve a coal-free future”
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Christine Condon & Dillon Mullan, Baltimore Sun, “Curtis Bay residents ask state to shut down South Baltimore CSX facility after study documents toll of coal dust”
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Aman Azhar, InsideClimate News, “On a ‘Toxic Tour’ of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, Visiting Academics and Activists See a Hidden Part of the City”
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Christian Olaniran, Adam Thompson, Caroline Foreback, CBS News, “Residents meet after air quality study reveals presence of coal dust in Curtis Bay”
Permanent links below...
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Working People Patreon page
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Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
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Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
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The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music...
- Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song