Working People
Working People (in partnership with In These Times and The Real News Network) is a podcast about working-class lives in the 21st century. In every episode, you’ll hear interviews with workers from all walks of life. We talk about their life stories, their jobs, politics, and families, their joys and hopes, their dreams and struggles. 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 world.
The Real News Network proudly partnered with Working People during Season Four of the show and will be posting all new episodes here on the TRNN website. To listen to the back catalog of Working People episodes, listen and subscribe on your podcast player of choice using the buttons below.
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Latest Episode
Is the Great Depression a glimpse of our future?
A new history of poor and working people’s struggles to survive the dark 1930s, facing economic devastation and rising global fascism, can teach us a lot about the moment we’re in today.
Recent episodes
What a can of tuna can teach us about international workers’ solidarity
Fishers in Southeast Asia are combatting horrendous abuses at sea—and they’re doing it by organizing transnationally with fellow workers.
‘Ascension Hospital…is making a mockery of the Church doctrine’: Baltimore Catholic nurses picket Bishops for fair contract
“We are here to show solidarity with St. Agnes [nurses] and let the Bishops know that the Ascension Hospital chain is making a mockery of the Church doctrine in Baltimore. I have witnessed firsthand how Ascension focuses on profits over patient care.”
“Let’s unite!”: Poisoned residents of America’s sacrifice zones are banding together
We speak with residents from four different sacrifice zones in the US about how the situations they’re facing in their own communities, and their struggles for justice and accountability, are interconnected.
How will railroad workers vote after Biden and Congress blocked their strike?
“I don’t think the screwing that we got in 2022 [is playing] any factor today,” one locomotive engineer tells us. “I can’t imagine any worker voting for Donald Trump.”
Kaiser workers’ strike enters second week in Southern California
As healthcare providers, Kaiser workers want better patient care in addition to better pay and a fair contract, but management is stonewalling them.
Two years into a strike, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers aren’t ready to give up
Seven years into their contract fight, Post-Gazette workers have faced every union busting tactic in the book.
‘Towns are gone’: In Helene-devastated Asheville, NC, volunteers battle misinformation and ‘apocalyptic’ wreckage
Two weeks after Hurricane Helene, mutual aid organizers say the devastation is incalculable and parts of Western North Carolina resemble a war zone. “It looks like the suburbs of Beirut, just fewer buildings.”
Cornell is about to deport a student over Palestine activism
PhD candidate Momodou Taal is facing expulsion and the termination of his visa for his role in the Cornell University student encampment for Gaza.
AI data centers are draining water from this drought-stricken Mexican town
The city of Colón in Queretaro state is now home to three massive data centers run by Google, Microsoft, and Amazon—and the companies are refusing to disclose how much local water they use.
Workers at ‘progressive’ Trader Joe’s face rampant union busting two years after first store unionized
Like Starbucks and Amazon, the ‘progressive’ grocery chain Trader Joe’s has experienced a wave of unionization efforts in the COVID era—and has fought to crush them at every turn.
When work inspires art: Labor poet George Fish
The literary world often seems to stand apart from the working class, but poets like Fish are keeping the tradition of working class art alive.
Union leaders explain why they’re demanding an end to US aid to Israel
In a letter to President Biden, seven major labor unions called for an end to US military aid to Israel, linking the genocide in Gaza to the flow of arms and funding from Washington.
Thousands of Keck-USC healthcare workers fight for fair contract
Caught between the soaring cost of living and managers hell-bent on freezing wages, health care workers are using their collective power to fight back.
Celebrating 300 episodes of ‘Working People’
Nearly six years since the start of ‘Working People,’ the program has covered the lives, jobs, and dreams of workers across industries from Brazil to Slovenia. What’s next?
Why is America’s largest union locking out its staff over a contract dispute?
The National Education Association, which represents over 3 million workers, is cracking down on its own staff organizing for better wages and treatment.
From East Palestine to Pike County: Ohio’s ‘sacrifice zone’ communities gather in Toledo
Activists will connect the Norfolk-Southern trail derailment catastrophe to the Toledo water crisis and more at a conference on Aug. 3 hosted by the Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers coalition.
Labor militancy can’t be stopped: Palestine and Labor Notes 2024
At Labor Notes 2024, the labor movement showed it won’t abandon militancy, Palestine, or each other—as some cops who tried to arrest pro-Palestine protesters learned.
We asked 8 different Teamsters what they thought of Sean O’Brien’s speech—their responses may surprise you
Sean O’Brien’s speech at the RNC in support of Trump has left many in the union feeling that the Teamsters President doesn’t represent them.
Baltimore nurses at largest Catholic health network in US fight on for first contract
“We held the rally… to show [management] that we’re not afraid, that we’re not going to be intimidated, and that we’re not going to back down until we win a good contract for our patients and for ourselves”
In Brazil, the climate crisis is already turning working people into climate refugees
Catastrophic flooding in the state of Rio Grande do Sul has working people searching for solutions, and accountability from local officials.
My childhood in Cuba under the US blockade
Despite growing up during some of the worst economic conditions in Cuba’s recent history, Liz Oliva Fernández enjoyed a freedom in her childhood common to the people of Cuba, yet rarely portrayed in media.
‘CSX has got to go!’ Industrially polluted South Baltimore residents want rail giant out of their community
Working-class residents of Curtis Bay and other South Baltimore communities marched to the CSX rail terminal on June 10 to “evict” the rail giant that has been polluting their homes with toxic coal dust for years.
Baltimore’s billion-dollar disaster through the eyes of a longshoreman
We speak with John Blom, a veteran longshoreman who worked in the Port of Baltimore for over 30 years, about the Key Bridge collapse and the conditions that led to this catastrophe.
South Baltimore residents on the toxic reality of living in a ‘sacrifice zone’
Cherry Hill, Westport, Mt. Winans, Lakeland, Brooklyn, and Curtis Bay lead Maryland in pollution levels as measured by the Department of the Environment.
Before East Palestine, there was Portsmouth
Vina Colley was hired as an electrician at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in 1980, where her employers knowingly exposed her, her coworkers, and her community to radioactive material. She has been fighting for justice, accountability, and compensation ever since.
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