This week, two labour historians talk about their new books on Canadian and US workers’ movements in the 20th century, books which offer important and practical lessons for unions today.

First up, I speak with Barry Eidlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University, about his just-published book, Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada. The book seeks to explain the divergence between the Canadian and US labour movements since the 1960s and we discuss everything from the recent Janus decision to how the US labour law regime obscures the fundamental power imbalances in the workplace to how Canadian unions still need internal revival despite their (somewhat) better position.

Next, I talk with Christo Aivalis, Postdoctoral Fellow in History at the University of Toronto, about his book, The Constant Liberal: Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Organized Labour and the Canadian Social Democratic Left. The title speaks for itself but the relationship between Trudeau and labour foreshadows how neoliberalism would be implemented in Canada in later decades and holds lessons for how labour should orient politically as well as fight Trudeau the younger today.

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Last Thursday was a dark day in Ontario as the Conservative Party led by businessman-bully-bullshitter Doug Ford won a majority in the provincial election. Two guests assess the factors behind the Ford’s win and the chances for building an effective opposition to the coming right-wing agenda for Canada’s most populous province.

First up, Doug Nesbitt, PhD student in history at Queen’s presently competing his dissertation on the Days of Action during the last Conservative government in Ontario under Mike Harris. He is also an editor at rankandfile.ca as well as an organizer with the Fight for 15 and Fairness in Kingston, where he lives. He analyzes this 2018 election drawing on links with the Harris years in the 90s, the opposition then and its lessons.

He leaves off exactly where my conversation my second guest, Deena Ladd, begins. Deena is the director of the Worker’s Action Centre in Toronto and one of the main organizers behind Ontario’s wildly successful Fight for $15 and Fairness. She discusses how Doug Ford’s win came about and what this tells us about the strategies that can challenge his government from below.

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This episode is dedicated to the recent, inspiring and victorious teachers’ strike in West Virginia. West Virginia teachers went out on strike in late February over low pay and continued attacks on the health insurance plan they share with all other state workers. They stayed out despite an initial deal signed by the Governor and their leadership and ultimately won a 5% raise not just for themselves but for all public employees in West Virginia as well as promised reforms to their insurance plan, known as the PEIA. I spoke with two teacher leaders from West Virginia and an expert on teacher unionism to get some perspective on how this strike came about, how it won and what others can learn from its example.

My first guest is Emily Comer, a high school Spanish teacher in South Charleston, West Virginia; she is a rank-and-file activist in her local of the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers and co-author of this excellent piece on the strike. I next speak with Lois Weiner, professor in the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education at New Jersey City University and a specialist in urban teacher education and teacher unionism. Her research actively supports teachers who want to transform their unions; she wrote this piece on the strike that I reference in my interview. My final guest is Brandon Wolford, local president of the WVEA in Mingo Country. The WVEA is the West Virginia Education Association and alongside the AFT it is one of the two big teachers’ unions in West Virginia; Mingo County has a storied place in labour history as an epicentre in the Mine Wars and mining struggles throughout the 20th century.

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…And we’re back to regularly-scheduled programming. Apologies for the podcasting hiatus to (now really faithful) listeners; I hope to be back to regular episodes once again. I’m restarting the show this week with two great guests. First up, I speak with Angella MacEwen about the on-going NAFTA re-negotiations and whether Trudeau’s much-vaunted “progressive free trade” holds water. Angella has been a guest on the show before and is an economist at the Canadian Labour Congress. Speaking of the Labour Congress, my second guest, David Bush, looks at the turmoil that led up and has resulted from Unifor leaving Canada’s house of labour. Dave is an editor at Rankandfile.ca; he writes frequently and incisively on the Canadian labour movement.

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On this episode, three guests provide some perspective on the politics and the economics of the Fight for $15. First, I speak with Jonathan Rosenblum, campaign director at the first Fight for $15 at SeaTac Airport, just outside Seattle, Washington. Workers there won an immediate raise to $15 via a municipal ordinance in 2015. Jon is also an author and has recently published Beyond 15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement. Next, I move closer to home and talk to Sheila Block, economist at the Ontario office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Sheila lays out the context for the $15 and Fairness campaign in Ontario, one of changing work and a weaker labour movement. Rounding out the show, economics writer and researcher Nathan Tankus returns to the podcast to discuss the economic arguments in favour of raising the minimum wage. We go beyond the narrow issue of  minimum wages to broader challenges to “textbook economics.”

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Looking to the UK, it definitely feels like a series of those weeks where decades happen. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour narrowly lost but really won the election, its vote share up by the most since 1945. Corbyn himself looks more like the Prime-Minister-in-waiting than leader-of-the-opposition; “Jeremy Corbyn is Prime Minister” is now a popular dig at mainstream pundits on Twitter. This week’s two great guests explain it all: how and why Corbyn won, why his economic program was so important and where Labour goes from here.

First I speak with Beth Foster-Ogg, a prominent activist with Momentum, the group created to support Corbyn’s first leadership bid and now a major force both within and outside the Labour Party. Beth is currently the membership coordinator and spoke with me about Momentum’s role in the election campaign, and where it is headed next. My second guest is Nick Srnicek. Nick is the author of Platform Capitalism and Inventing the Future, a stellar and influential book co-written with Alex Williams, one he spoke about on this podcast last year. He is a Lecturer in the International Politics Department at the City University London and one of number of intellectuals who have supported the rise of Corbynism.

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On today’s show, two sociologists talk about aspects of neoliberal restructuring. First, Nicole Aschoff, sociologist, author of The New Prophets of Capital and until very recently managing editor of Jacobin magazine speaks with me about the auto industry, Trump and why globalization shouldn’t be solely blamed for the destruction of good jobs even while it is nevertheless in crisis. Next, Mike McCarthy, assistant professor of sociology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, discusses his recent book Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal about how the pensions system has been transformed in ways that leave workers more vulnerable.

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The resource price bust is already a few years old but it’s still hitting parts of Canada hard. Two guests talk about the impact of the downturn on fiscal policy in the Canadian prairies and what this augers for the bigger question of a transformation of the economy away from fossil fuels. First I speak with Charles Smith, associate professor of political science at the University of Saskatchewan. He is the co-author, with Andrew Stevens, of a great analysis of the Saskatchewan budget, titled “Building the “Saskatchewan Advantage” : Saskatchewan’s 2017 Austerity Budget” over at the Socialist Project Bullet. Next, I speak with Ian Hussey, research manager at the Parkland Institute, a social democratic thinktank in Alberta. He contrasts the Alberta NDP’s more stimulative approach to public finance; however, there remain many questions about the scale of the shift and the need for real climate action.

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For International Women’s Day, two interviews on women’s protests and strikes, in the USA and in Poland.

My first guest is Barbara Smith. Barbara is an icon of the US women’s movement, particularly it’s Black radical wing. She helped establish Black women’s studies as a discipline, was a founding member of the Combahee River Collective in the 1970s, helped establish Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and went on to run and win an insurgent campaign against the Democrats for a seat on Albany city council. She is presently on the National Planning Committee of the International Women’s Strike USA, which is bringing a much-needed radicalism to this year’s International Women’s Day in the US.

My second guest is Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska. Joanna is completing her PhD in psychology in Krakow and is a leading member of Razem, the new left-wing party in Poland that narrowly missed out on parliamentary representation in the 2015 elections that brought the reactionary PiS (or Law and Justice) party to power. She was among the organizers of last October’s women’s strike in Poland that brought a reinvigorated women’s movement out onto the streets and stopped a tightening of Poland’s already-barbaric anti-abortion law.

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It seems the public sector is under attack from all directions these days. Despite historically low public financing costs, despite proven efficiency and innovation, the public sector gets a bad rap in the public eye—something all manner of politicians from hardened right-wingers to cosmpolitan neoliberals take advantage of, letting markets further seep into the very functioning of health, education and other basic services.

I have two guests today to talk about the threats to public services and how to combat them. First, Chris Parsons, Coordinator of the Nova Scotia Health Coalition, talks to me the problems with public-private partnerships (P3s), and takes us on a tour of bungled P3 schools in Nova Scotia. Second, Adrienne Silnicki, National Coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition, discusses the state of public healthcare in Canada, both the threats from the private sector and the ways to fight for a better public system.

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With only two days left until Donald Trump’s inauguration, today’s two guests look at the turn to the right that’s already well under way across parts of the global South.

First, I speak with the historian, journalist and author Vijay Prashad about the nationalist Narendra Modi’s economic agenda in India. Vijay’s books include The Darker Nations A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. He teaches history in the northeastern US.

My second guest is Sabrina Fernandez, who discusses the permanent austerity being implemented in Brazil by the draconian Temer government. Sabrian is an activist on the radical left in Brazil and she recently completed a PhD in sociology focusing on the left in Brazilian politics from Carleton University. She spoke with me from Brasilia.

I finished each interview by asking what lessons the lefts of their countries hold for those of us battling an empowered right in the North.

As always, remember to subscribe using the links below the player to get new episodes as they appear (you can also donate to help keep the show going).