Ep 15: The red-state walkouts: an interview with Lois Weiner

Labour Days: a labour movement podcast

Returning to our secret North London bunker-studio following last month’s live cast, we turn our attention to the recent walkouts of teachers and other school workers in Republican-voting states in the USA such as Kentucky, West Virginia, and elsewhere. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to talk to Lois Weiner, an American socialist and trade union activist and author of the book ‘The Future of Our Schools: Teacher Unions and Social Justice’ (2012, Haymarket), a member of the editorial board of the socialist journal New Politics who’s been extensively involved in rank-and-file teacher organising. The interview in the episode is abridged, but there’s a fuller transcript online here: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-07-15/how-teacher-walkouts-can-revive-us-labour-movement. You can also read more by Lois on the topic here: http://newpol.org/node/2088 Also mentioned in the episode was the New Economics Foundation’s “Winning At Work” conference, which Daniel was involved in co-organising, which you can read more about here: https://neweconomics.org/2018/08/winning-at-work Ellie also gave us a report on ongoing prison labour strikes in America, which you can read more about here: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17664048/national-prison-strike-2018 Special thanks to Holly Smith for her invaluable background research for this episode.