How Workers Will Win the Class War

Think the recent wave of Starbucks and Amazon unionizing signals a tidal shift in worker power? A new wave of labor movement activity to take down corporations?

Our guests have some news for you. 

While unions have long been considered the best way to build worker power, what’s really happening on the ground right now as the workforce increasingly moves towards a gig economy? And what does this mean for your future? Yes, you.

Whether you’re an office worker on a salary, or a delivery driver on an app, we’re in a new era of labor organizing. 

Hear from Italo Medelius, an “Amazonian” and union organizer at an Amazon warehouse in North Carolina; Brian Dolber, researcher and organizer, who reveals the ways you can organize people who have the same job, but not the same workspace; and Ligia Guallpa, director of the Workers Justice Project in Brooklyn, who shares more than we know about the costs of convenience behind an app like Grub Hub.

You’ll also hear about a controversial, but bold idea, from Les Leopold, that might just be the thing that actually turns the tide for workers.

Italo Medelius: Amazon CAUSE

Brian Dolber: Rideshare Drivers United and co-editor of The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence

Ligia Guallpa: The Workers Justice Project

Les Leopold: The Labor Institute and author of the popular substack (and book by the same title) Wall Street’s War on Workers

Have questions about the gig economy? Check out the Gig Economy Data Hub, a project of the Workers Lab in collaboration with the SNF Agora Institute at John Hopkins University.