Working People

Working People

Working People: A podcast by, for, and about the working class today (now in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network). Working People is a podcast about working-class lives in 21st-century America. In every episode, you'll hear interviews with workers from around the country, from all walks of life. We'll talk about their life stories, their jobs, politics, and families, their joys and hopes and frustrations. Overall, Working People aims to share and celebrate the diverse stories of working-class people, to remind ourselves that our stories matter, and to build a sense of shared struggle and solidarity between workers around the country.

Episodes

September 2, 2026 56 mins
The 20th-century days of vinyl records, tape decks, CDs, Tower Records, and MTV have given way to our 21st-century age of MP3s and music streaming, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok, and Ticketmaster. While certain people and certain companies in the music industry are making more money than ever, working musicians are finding it increasingly impossible to pay the bills and make a living from their art. In this episode of Worki...
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After a deadly "derecho" storm and flash floods slammed the midwest in early August, downing trees and power lines, tens of thousands of residents in and around Gary, Indiana have been surviving without power for 12 days and counting. According to the Associated Press, "Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said 68,000 customers were still without power as of Thursday morning, the majority of them in Lake County beside the Illin...
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In her 2001 masterwork Nickel and Dimed, the late Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover to report on the daily realities working people in America face trying to get by on minimum-wage. After working as a housekeeper, a nursing aide, a home cleaner, a server, and more, Ehrenreich wrote that "The first thing I discovered is that no job, no matter how lowly, is truly 'unskilled.'" It is difficult to overstate the impact that Ehrenr...
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Frontline healthcare workers and the patients they serve are facing a major crisis at the University of Vermont Health network—the state's leading healthcare provider. "In June, UVM Health eliminated over 140 positions across its network, a third of which were union positions," Matt More reports at The Rake Vermont. "The cuts, which the hospital estimated will save $9.5 million, comes as the network faces a $300 million ...
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For the last five months, oil giant British Petroleum (BP) has locked 800 workers out of their jobs at a crude oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The facility, located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, is BP's last unionized oil refinery in the United States. BP says it is pursuing "modernized job structures, training, and upskilling," but workers and their union—United Steelworkers Local 7-1—say that the ...
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In 2022, the United States nearly experienced its first national railroad strike in decades, until then-President Joe Biden, along with Democrats and Republicans in Congress, stepped in to block a strike before it could begin. Rail labor unions were forced to accept contracts that did not substantively address long-brewing crises in the freight rail industry that have had disastrous consequences for frontline workers, tracksid...
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When workers at the historic Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper hit the picket line in October of 2022, they had no idea that they would be on strike for over three years—or that the strike would end with new owners taking over the paper and most strikers losing their jobs. But now, a new chapter is being written in their epic story. This week, workers and community supporters launched the Pittsburgh Progress, "a cooperat...
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In so-called "red states" and "blue states" around the US, from rural areas to urban centers, the explosion of new data center projects is impacting residents in poor, working-class, and middle-class communities alike. In this episode of Working People, we speak with a diverse panel of residents fighting new and proposed data center projects in Texas and Maryland about what it means for you and your community when one of these...
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10 years before the catastrophic train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, one of the deadliest rail disasters in North American history took place in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

On July 6, 2013, an unattended freight train that had been parked on the tracks overnight began to roll downhill and gather alarming speed as it careened towards the city center of Lac-Mégantic. The train,...
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From the explosion of AI data centers to the increasing number of toxic spills, explosions, and industrial disasters happening across the country, corporations and the government are turning the USA into one giant "sacrifice zone." In "red" states and "blue" states, in rural areas and urban areas, poor and working people are suffering the toxic effects of a crisis that has resulted from decades of deregulation, corporate-captu...
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At the 39th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit, Michigan, union delegates debated and affirmed the aggressive direction the UAW has taken under current President Shawn Fain, supporting pushes to increase shop-floor militancy, support new organizing efforts, and take stronger stances on the political crises working people face today. Among the major developments to come out of the UAW Constitu...
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On June 10, early in the morning, FBI agents raided the homes of individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism at the University of Michigan. As Yarden Katz and Stephen M. Ward report at Mondoweiss, "with help from local and state police departments, including the University of Michigan Police, the raids unfolded simultaneously in Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin…The case is now known as the Michigan Ei...

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The world as we know it is facing unprecedented crises today that are all converging at once, from "end-times fascism" and full-blown oligarchy to "artificial intelligence," endless wars, and genocide. The formal institutions of American democracy and organized labor have shown that they cannot stop the ruling-class onslaught on working people's lives, livelihoods, and futures, so it's up to rank-and-file workers everywhere to...
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June 8, 2026 54 mins
At a live event hosted at Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Baltimore, Maryland, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez got to sit down for a deep and wide-ranging conversation with Chris Smalls, co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Alvarez and Smalls discuss Smalls' new book, When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class; they recount the incredible story of t...
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Nearly a year after workers voted to authorize a strike, non-union city and commercially contracted security officers in Baltimore, MD, walked off the job on April 9 on an Unfair Labor Practice strike against their employers, Abacus Corporation, Metropolitan Protective Services, and Urban Development Solutions. Now, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) say that workers have been retaliated against by ...
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Since the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump and his acolytes, rightwing media, and coal industry barons and lobbyists have obsessively painted the picture of Trump as a friend to coal miners and the so-called "undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal." But as labor journalist Kim Kelly reports at In These Times, "the simpering ​'Trump digs coal' image the administration seeks to project is vastly at odds with the act...
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After 14 months of fruitless contract negotiations with the Harvard University administration, over 4,000 workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) walked off the job on an indefinite strike on April 21. According to the union, "Graduate student workers will suspend teaching and research labor until Harvard's bargaining team takes substantive action in addressing the union's key issues: p...
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After members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh won their strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in late 2025, which had lasted for over 3 years, they were notified in January that the paper's wealthy owners, the Block family and Block Communications Inc., were shutting down operations. Then, in a stunning turn of events, the Post-Gazette was purchased in April by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which also own...
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After decades of decline, the organized labor movement in the US has seen a resurgence in rank-and-file militancy over the last decade, with increased strike actions and union drives in industries across the economy. And in the story of this recent revival of labor in America, the movement led by predominantly young baristas to unionize coffee giant Starbucks has played a pivotal role. The new documentary Baristas vs. Billiona...
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Inspired by January's mass strike against ICE terror in Minnesota, a vast coalition of labor unions, democratic organizations, and community groups are organizing a nationwide economic blackout on Friday, May 1, International Workers Day. "May Day Strong events are being planned across the US," Michael Sainato reports at The Guardian, "with organizers calling for 'no school, no work, no shopping,' in protest of government poli...
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