Unions Archives - Public Seminar

Activism

Children of 2008

A guide to the changing landscape of the labor movement

March 12, 2026 • by Dave Kamper

Solidarity, we’ve always thought, is more difficult at a distance. The great, mythic union victories of the 1930s, like the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936–37, when the United Auto Workers beat General Motors and opened the door to organizing the auto industry, were won by workers who lived and worked ...

Interviews

Fresh Hope for Labor

A conversation with labor historian Dave Kamper on the growing strength of American unions, as recounted in his new book, Who’s Got the Power?

March 12, 2026 • by Shea Dean and Dave Kamper

In his new book Who’s Got the Power? The Resurgence of American Unions (The New Press, 2025), labor writer and organizer Dave Kamper delivers a bit of good news in a dark time. “Much of the last half century has, for the labor movement, sucked beyond the telling,” he writes. ...

Activism

If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

A conversation on Abolish Rent

March 21, 2025 • by Gabriela Rendón, Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis

How do we remake our cities for the people who actually live in them? Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two cofounders of the largest tenants' union in the country, propose an answer in their new book, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis (Haymarket, 2024). In November 2024, the authors and ...

If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

Activism

Rent Is the Crisis

Framing it as a “housing crisis” ignores that from the perspective of its winners, the system works just fine

March 21, 2025 • by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis

Every first of the month, we hand over a share of our wages to meet our human need for housing. Our rents rise faster than our incomes, and inequality grows. Every first of the month, more tenants go without food, medication, and basic necessities to pay this tribute. More people ...

Podcast

Violence and Class Solidarity: How Employers Organized to Fight Unions in the Nineteenth Century, an Interview with Chad Pearson

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 15

November 3, 2022 • by Pete Sinnott and Luke Mergner

In this episode, Pete interviews Chad Pearson about his new book, Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). They talk about the use of violence to discipline workforces, labor battles in the long nineteenth century, the need to study the ...

Violence and Class Solidarity: How Employers Organized to Fight Unions in the Nineteenth Century, an Interview with Chad Pearson

Podcast

Why We Need Unions: A Conversation with Eve Livingston

Unproductive Labor, Episode 13

April 1, 2022 • by Luke Mergner and Pete Sinnott

Unproductive Labor · Why We Need Unions: A Conversation with Eve Livingston Eve Livingston is a Scotland-based freelance journalist specializing in social affairs, inequalities, and industrial relations. She has worked for The Guardian, The Independent, VICE, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism among many others and has appeared on TV and ...

Podcast

Company Unions and Why Voters Don’t Care about Policy: An Interview with Matt Bruenig

Unproductive Labor Podcast, Episode 14

February 11, 2022 • by Luke Mergner and Pete Sinnott

The patreon page for 3Ps is here: https://www.patreon.com/peoplespolicyproject Unproductive Labor · Company Unions and Why Voters Don’t Care about Policy: An Interview with Matt Bruenig You can find Matt’s article on the Teamwork Bill here: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2022/02/07/whats-the-point-of-the-rubio-company-union-bill/ Teamwork Bill: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/2/rubio-banks-introduce-pro-worker-labor-reform-bill Marco Rubio in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/help-working-class-voters-us-must-value-work/578032/

Company Unions and Why Voters Don’t Care about Policy: An Interview with Matt Bruenig

Capitalism

A World Beyond Capitalism

As workers contemplate the post-pandemic world, they know one thing: they need the big changes that mutual aid organizing has already imagined

October 27, 2021 • by Molly Ragan

It has been such a long time since American workers have pressured employers in such large numbers that some are calling this month “Striketober.” More than 10,000 John Deere United Automobile Workers (UAW) are on strike across the country after rejecting a tentative agreement that failed to adequately increase wages, ...

Economy

Can Cooperatives Build Worker Power?

Give platform co-ops a seat at the policy table

March 11, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz, Doug O'Brien and Jason Spicer

If the American movement supporting Democratic Socialism gets traction, centrist Democrats are likely to push for cooperatives as a way to temper the severity of American capitalism. To that end, efforts like The Clean Slate for Worker Power project would do well to consider the potential of platform cooperatives ...

History

A Monument to Dis-Union

The West Virginia Coal Miner statue ignores race, class, and history

July 16, 2020 • by Steven Stoll

During our present twilight of the statues, when citizens across the country force the removal of effigies that represent racism and colonialism, Jackson is an obvious target for removal. Yet I’ve been thinking of another statue just a few yards away from Jackson: The West Virginia Coal Miner, a monument ...

Labor

Why the Pandemic Paves the Way for Labor Reform

COVID-19 is a natural disaster, but the plight of American workers is man-made.

May 21, 2020 • by Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs

Every worker in America has been affected by the coronavirus. Since the stay-at-home orders went into place, more than 30 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits. Millions more, deemed “essential” workers, are taking life-threatening risks by simply continuing to do their jobs. Others are sudden telecommuters, putting in three hours a day extra on ...