‘People are hiding in their apartments’: Inside Trump’s assault on universities
Release Date: 04/12/2025
These ‘neighbors from the hood’ saw ICE terrorizing their community—and banded together to fight back
Working People
After seeing friends and neighbors in their community of Pasadena, CA, being terrorized, assaulted, and abducted by masked federal agents, Daniela Navin and Jeannette De la Riva joined together with other neighbors in their area to form Grupo Auto Defensa and fight back. From chasing ICE cars out of town with bullhorns to setting up security brigades so terrified residents can walk outside and go to the grocery store, from providing know-your-rights information to reclaiming public space, protecting each other, and rebelliously refusing to live in fear, the members of Grupo Auto Defensa are...
info_outline
Corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant ‘sacrifice zone’
Working People
The Real News Network is honored to be for our on-the-ground documentary report, “.” “While corporate media covered the catastrophe in East Palestine, Ohio, with aerial views of ruined train cars and plumes of smoke likening the horrific crash to a disaster film,” The Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) states in their award announcement, “Steve Mellon of the and Maximillian Alvarez of were on the ground telling the stories of people in the communities devastated by the deadly toxins released into their neighborhoods long after major media outlets...
info_outline
What good is a union in Hell?
Working People
On Sunday, July 20, 2025, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez delivered the keynote speech at the national convention of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW), UAW Local 2320. “I am here to report back to you from the front lines of struggle, without hesitation or hyperbole, that we are at risk of losing everything,” Alvarez told the crowd of union members. “And so I am here not to extol the virtues of your union or the value of unions in general, but to ask you bluntly: What good is a union in Hell? How much can an organization of the...
info_outline
How union organizing can change your life and the world w/Jaz Brisack | Working People
Working People
After getting a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, Jaz Brisack became a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helped organize the first unionized Starbucks in the US in December of 2021. In their new book, Get on the Job and Organize, Brisack details the hardwon lessons they and their coworkers have learned from building one of the most significant and paradigm-shifting worker organizing campaigns in modern history. In this extended episode of Working People, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian speaks with Brisack about their book, the facts and...
info_outline
"These cuts are death sentences": Trump's "Big, Disastrous Betrayal Bill"
Working People
Dozens of peaceful protesters, including disabled people in wheelchairs, were arrested last Wednesday in Washington, DC, while protesting President Trump’s massive spending and tax bill, which will dramatically slash taxes, restructure the student loan and debt system, and make devastating cuts to vital, popular programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). With Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to advance Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, which will now go back to the House of...
info_outline
What’s really happening in Los Angeles vs. what you’re hearing online
Working People
In Los Angeles, CA, armed, masked agents of the state are snatching and disappearing immigrants off the street, peaceful protestors and journalists are being attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets, National Guard troops and active-duty Marines have been deployed to police and intimidate American citizens. Fear and uncertainty have gripped America’s second largest city as a barrage of misinformation obscures the reality on the ground; nevertheless, Angelinos continue to defy the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities and authoritarian crackdown on civil rights. In this...
info_outline
Trump plans massive military parade while cutting veteran jobs, benefits, & healthcare
Working People
On June 6, thousands of veterans, union members, VA hospital nurses, elected officials, and more gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. at the “Unite for Veterans, Unite for America rally” to protest the Trump administration’s attacks on veteran jobs, benefits, and healthcare. In this on-the-ground edition of Working People, we report from Friday’s rally and speak with veterans and VA nurses about how Trump’s policies are affecting them now and how to fix the longstanding issues with the VA. Speakers: Peter Pocock, Vietnam War veteran (Navy) and retired union organizer...
info_outline
Trump cuts leave VA hospital nurses and veteran patients in a crisis
Working People
Already burdened by years of funding cuts and understaffing, registered nurses who work at Veterans Health Administration (VA) facilities across the country are facing a crisis as the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce take effect. In this episode of Working People, Maximillian Alvarez speaks with VA nurses and union representatives for National Nurses United about how these cuts, coupled with Trump’s attempt to strip over one million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, are hurting VA workers, the quality of care they’ve been...
info_outline
An update on the longest ongoing strike in the US: ‘Some things don’t change at the Post-Gazette’
Working People
In the latest episode of Working People, we go back to the picket line to get a critical update on the longest ongoing strike in the United States. In October 2022, over 100 workers represented by five labor unions—including production, distribution, advertising, and accounts receivable staff—walked off the job on an unfair labor practice strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PPG). The strike began after the newspaper’s management, Block Communications, which is owned by the Block family, cut off health insurance for employees on Oct. 1 of that year. After more than 2.5 years...
info_outline
“It is our moral imperative”: Oregon students hunger strike for Gaza
Working People
At this very moment, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who have managed to survive Israel’s scorched-earth siege and bombing are being deliberately starved to death as a result of Israel’s 11-week blockade preventing food and aid from entering Gaza. As Jem Bartholemew writes at The Guardian, “The UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, told the BBC [Tuesday] morning that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza in 48 hours if aid did not reach them in time. Five aid trucks entered Gaza on Monday but Fletcher described this as a “drop in the ocean” and totally inadequate for the...
info_outlineInternational students are being abducted and disappeared by ICE in broad daylight. Life-saving research projects across the academy are being halted or thrown into disarray by seismic cuts to federal grants. Dozens of universities are under federal investigation for their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, their allowance of trans athletes to compete in college sports, and their tolerance of constitutionally protected Palestine solidarity protests. In today’s urgent episode of Working People, we get a harrowing, on-the-ground view of the Trump administration’s all-out assault on institutions of higher education and the people who live, learn, and work there. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Todd Wolfson, President of the American Association of University Professors, Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University, and co-director of the Media, Inequality and Change Center; and Chenjerai Kumanyika, Assistant Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, AAUP Council Member, and Peabody-award winning host of Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD.
Additional links/info:
- April 17: Day of Action to Defend Higher Ed website
- American Association of University Professors (AAUP) website
- Federal Unionists Network website
- AAUP letter to college and university legal offices: “Institutions Should Not Provide Student and Faculty Info To Enable Deportations”
- Alan Blinder, The New York Times, “Trump Has Targeted These Universities. Why?”
- Oliver Laughland, The Guardian, “‘Detention Alley’: inside the Ice centres in the US south where foreign students and undocumented migrants languish”
- Alice Speri, The Guardian, “‘A huge cudgel’: alarm as Trump’s war on universities could target accreditors”
- Joy Connolly, Chronicle Review, “Colleges must stand together to resist Trump”
- Collin Binkley, Associated Press, “More than 50 universities face federal investigations as part of Trump’s anti-DEI campaign”
- Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘Kill these cuts before they kill us’: Federally funded researchers warn DOGE cuts will be fatal”
Permanent links below…
- Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
- Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music…
- Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor