Correspondent for more perfect union, the Real News Network and tv. Previously, she was a heavy metal editor. Advice and was a Founding Member of the vice union fight like hell the untold story of america is her first book, who. Accident maximillian alvarez, the editor in chief of the Real News Network in baltimore, the author of the work of living, the host of working people, a podcast, the lives of jobs, dreams and struggles. The working class today. Prior to joining the real news, he was an associate editor at the chronicle Higher Education and graduated with a dual ph. D. In history and comparative literature from the university michigan. His work has been featured in a range of outlets, including the nation, in these boston review, truthout and baffler and i also we lost panelist to the vagaries of covid. I read her book as i did the Angela Garbes cant be with. She is the author of essential change mothering as social change and as the primary caregiver for three daughters who are all now grown. I read this book really resonated with me for a whole bunch of reasons, but i, i made all these doubts, but i do think this is so important because taken as three. This is an essential trilogy. I had nothing to do with suggesting it, but it occurred to me it was i was looking for heres that word intersection now, adding that this had a really profound effect. I mean, reading these in quick succession because we had the sphere, the personal sphere, the thing we operate in our families, then we have the direct conversation. Were in a subway, were crossing people where we work. Were trying to make our lives. And then we have something that i dont think since howard zinn, weve had, which is an update about the working experience of American People that traces the of capital with a through line right through from slavery to covid not bad for three books so i dont know who suggested it together but it works me and i suggest someone adopted as a college course. So were to listen to them talk. And so one of the challenges for me to get out of their way, but also try to facilitate this, we have 50 minutes, which is like insane is kind of like if you listen to my whats on 55 Minute Program and by every monday 7 a. M. Except tomorrow, you will know that its a real challenge. Want to make sure we have at least 20 minutes to hear from you because we owe you that because were here and youre. And so this is also helping each other be motivate because the odds look pretty grim, right . Quite frankly, im running around the country trying to find where hazard pay is being paid. I find one county that does it and i try to make it a National Story because the powers that be capital really wants to move on. And so we have to turn to the visionaries like we have here today whove been keeping track of it, meticulous sleep. So there is an accountability. One thing you might realize is that on the Positive Side of the ledger, 47 Million People left their jobless last year. That is a movement if you and you can see from space and it is four times the size of the American Labor movement. On a good day is 12 Million People organized. The aflcio and whats happened is that because capital. Us and through the government and corporations theres been a profound anthropic logical realignment of our souls in real time about the value work, the value of family and that we as dr. Barber told at princeton, we all have 6 minutes. How we apportion is increasingly our and we want to talk about how we can organize and learn from the. So i want to start with you, kim. Were looking what you how do you think covid has changed this moment in terms of working people . Well, okay. So can guys hear me . Okay, i have a little mouse voice despite looking like this. So i got like i got to try, but i mean, thats a good question. Feel like thats a gift craft question, max but i will do my best just talking about like youre saying in the past year or couple of years, weve seen so many people leave their jobs and thats significant. But weve also seen so many people decide to stay and change jobs and make their workplaces better and kind of buckle down and be like, okay, kind of like, well, you like im going to make this better because i deserve better. And weve seen this wave of organizing happen kind of i think a lot of it comes from those days of the pandemic when we had this brief discourse of the essential worker essential work for a very brief moment, the folks who have always done essential and always made their society run, whether or not, theyre recognized often completely unrecognized and left invisible. People paid attention, said, oh, we really do need you. Lets lets give you a round of applause. Lets, you know, do some pots and pans. New york, you guys are really into that for a minute. You know, lets i live in philly, so its like, okay, you guys are fun. And there is that hazard pay. Theres a little hero pay. I think my partner was working in a Grocery Store and then on a farm, got hero pay for a little while and then all of that stopped. All of that went and everyone still had to keep to work. And i think that really shifted the way that people saw the value only of their labor but of their lives. You know, like why would you risk your life to go work at starbucks or at cvs or in your job as a hospital janitor. Youre not even being appreciated. Youre being sent into the jaws of the lion while. This Global Pandemic is devastating predominantly people, predominantly black and brown, working. Its the math just doesnt math. And i think weve seen i mean, we out of that, we you know the strike tober moment, we saw these massive very public strikes and we saw people paying attention to these strikes in, a way that, as a labor reporter, was of thrilling. So its like, oh, wait, theyre like theyre paying attention to weve been saying for all these years. Cool. Like weve seen it weve seen things change a lot in terms of Media Coverage and in terms of the types of workers who become involved, the movement and the wins and that have been made. Whether were talking about starbucks or amazon or something like. Home depot and philly vogue. Well, yeah, i do that right to me, but thats significant because if you think about like years ago like this, that has shifted, particularly with people where theyre really willing overthrow the conventional wisdom and the system is having a hard time keeping up with it really is kind of and its going i see a response in the Federal Reserve well get your back to work. Yeah crack the whip and there is when you hear about that thats what we do. Right. Like this is a technique. Yeah. I mean, well, i tricked them letting me do that, but. But so far, so good. Thats no other story. But honestly i would love to hear from max how he feels about this same question. If i can do that, because hes sort of like, this is, his sweet spot. So yeah, you can make you a shout out to angela. Really sorry. She couldnt be here. But thank you so much for braving the elements and coming out to hear us gab um, yeah. I want to, i guess sort of zoom out a bit more because before we even get to covid 19, it bears reminding where we were before that right the situation in that working people in this country have been toiling under for many, many years is what kim and i cover on a week to, week basis. And i think its important to remember that covid definitely accelerated a lot of these. But those trends have deep roots. All right. Let us not forget that, essentially since the 1980s, working people been more productive in this country than they ever been. They have been working longer they have been working harder while. Unionization has been plummeting while wages have largely stagnating. And while corporate profits have been booming, endless, including during the pandemic right. So so working people are working longer, harder, more, and they are seeing less. And of the fruits of that labor, that is the situation that we been in in this country for decades. That is the situation we were careening towards when we heard about covid. I think a lot of us, when we that oh , this isnt going away, this is coming here. We all had this kind of impending sense of dread for what we were in for because we knew how underpaid detected people were. We knew, how much the social safety net had rorted and deliberately dismantled by politicians, both sides of the aisle. Right. And so people were into this storm with. No life rafts, no life jackets. All we had was each other right. And i want to really emphasize that that things as bad as they got could have been a lot worse but as always like kim said it was people working people who the world up who kept us from falling completely into the abyss. And that is the moment that the great Molly Crabapple on the cover of my book, she i dreamed of having molly design the cover of the book. I didnt think shed be able to do it, but legend that she is she did and she immortalized that moment of people being pots and pans in. New york in the early days of the pandemic. I think there was a real recognition from all of us that while the bosses and corporate politicians, the rich, ran off to their second or third homes, it was us who delivered food. It was us who checked in on our neighbors. It was Health Care Workers who braved the elements, even though they did not get the proper protection that they needed it was people working at delivering our packages was gig workers who also not being given the proper ppe, making sure that people didnt starve right. It was it was working people who really showed their mettle during all of this. And i think that as kim said, when covid forced capitalism to finally admit that it needs us because for my entire lifetime, this has been working to us that we are expendable, that we are replaceable. Anyone whos worked a single low wage job knows that feels like ten years ago i was a temp worker at a warehouse in southern california. And every day, no matter how long had worked there, no matter good. Our record was every day the temps who made up around 80 of the workforce there were forced to line up dripping in sweat after working 12, 13, 14 hour days on the hard concrete floor, the managers walked by and, pointed to the people they wanted to come back the next day, every day that served as a reminder that you are replaceable, that the people standing the gate every morning, you know they can fill your spot if you dont up if you mess up one time, if you raise your voice one time, youre out of here. That is the situation that we were in going into the pandemic. And i think when that essential word floated out in the discourse working people latched on to that as they as well they should have right and i think as time wore on and this is why i did the book because, i realized how quickly we were starting to forget essential working people were and how much deserved better right just started to accept the un acceptable in a matter of months and i wanted to document that first year of covid through the voices of the working People Living through it so that we completely forget what working people had showed us, what the system had showed us, and what it showed us was that this whole economic understands labor as essential, but not treat our lives as essential. Right . I guess the that said, i am concerned that that moment of power is dissipating and looking the for instance, as speak. Now there is no registry of the people that died as a result of the pandemic. There is no actual quantification of it. The unions are struggling mightily, actually take account to hold capital account and the cdc is slow walking a study theyre supposed do that gives us a sense whats happened. But i guess im always struck whenever. I read, im writing about stories in york city, how were talking about the times city and state of places. My work has appeared where they dont reference to how many Civil Servants before there was a vaccine and its close to 400. And so thats all kind of out of the narrative and thats why its so important that youve documented it exactly in that period of time. But im wondering, the reality is all that being true, a democratic congress, a democratic president couldnt. Ways raise the minimum wage off of 725 and then cruelly lowered in an expanded tax credit for a couple of months and then pulled it out. So i just wonder like how do you process that and then if you could also im your coverage of the warrior call struggle if you could just bring us up to date on that just that that can go on in this country supposedly theyre essential work and at the same time it seems like the momentum is kind of going back other way. Well, in terms of the government not being helpful im an im an anarchist who have a lot of thoughts about that. But i will probably spare most of you, most them, i would say. Im not surprised. Get away with it. I dont think theres ever any use in being surprised when the powers be decide that we are worth investing in because we know what they want, invest in their selves and theyve done that well very, very, very handsomely over. The past couple them, you know, centuries. But im glad you mentioned warrior matt because i think im not sure how many folks know about the currently running strike in america. Its in rural alabama in tuscaloosa, where over a thousand coal miners were members of the United Mine Workers of america, umw have been on strike since april first of last year. So 18 months and counting which is a very long time to be on. And theyve been out on unfair labor practices strike basically. Theyve been trying to get a decent contract out of this company that they that they work for and theres theres a lot of back story but like the cliff notes version is a Company Named jim alter resources to own this mine for years and years they had decent relationship with the workers decent Union Contract as good as youre going to get for that specific context. And then they went under and room at coal this wall street back to Venture Capital fair and entity came in and they bought up the mine and they rehired most of the people that were laid off but they told them hey you know we were just a poor wall street backed billion company. We need a little time to get our feet. So. And you want those, right . Because its either this or walmart because you live in brookwood, alabama. So how about you just take this pay cut . We take away your personal data. We institute this draconian strike system and well just in five years, well get you back. You need to be well, negotiate a nice new contract for you. And youre like, well, okay and five years later, they the language in the contract they were offered was basically identical. And theyre like well, hang on, thats not fair. And they went out they voted down a potential contract that wasnt good enough. And they went on strike. And theyve been out ever since. And one of the aspects of this strike that keeps me coming down is ive been covering it very closely since the jump really was is the people and the women ive gotten really close to who run the womens auxiliary and have created this out of nothing, this incredible mutual aid network, the strike pantry, they feed hundreds of striking every week with donated they collect hygiene items and, baby items, because theyre strike babies. There are children who have never known other life than being on this strike. Its incredible. And there are a lot of historical precedents for like as much as coal mining is coded as this very hyper masculine whatever kind of job like women have always been there. And im sure other genders have been there too. We just dont know as much about them. But women have always been there and, theyve kept it going and thats whats happening in in in this war room. Might strike right now. And its honestly at a point where i think its going necessitate federal intervention because its just is this david and goliath fight and those folks those workers not going to give up. They are dug in and so are the bosses who have said on record before that have the money to pay them more they could get them anything they want but they dont want they want to starve them out, which sounds if youve ever seen harley county usa, you know about the mine wars. Theres a real long history of bosses trying to starve out coal miners, and it never goes very well for either side. So this is a strike. This meant a lot to me because i started i started covering it while i was supposed be writing this book. So whenever i tired of doing homework, i would fly alabama and see what was going on in the strike. So thats kind of my my come here, though. Ive covered stories where they show up in front of. Yeah. Theyll come in a nice connection and i, id see out there and it is a moment sarah nelson came. Oh sarah was always there. Yes. And for us to have like a local connection. Yeah. Because blackrocks headquarters is just in midtown. Theyve come up a couple of times and, you know, shot emily. Hello. Well, what do you do . Hello . We would like some acknowledgment and like you to step back in the book about. The challenge they have from a marketing standpoint that were in this kind of fuel thats theres some great passages in here that talk about that. Could you kind of talk about that . Yeah, its complicated. Like unless youre a person who follows labor or the connection to the area or follows me on twitter, you probably dont know that much about this strike because it hasnt gotten a ton of attention. The New York Times showed up a year end and talked to like one guy, theyre like, cool, were done. The real news has sent me down a couple of times and given me a platform to talk to them and do mini documentaries and really just dig into the story. But its been hard to sell it as a journalist because to is the most fascinating story in the world. This multiracial, multi gender group of Blue Collar Workers in the deep south, outside the civil rights capital of alabama, who are on to make things better for themselves and their coworkers going up against wall street capital. Theyre a politically diverse and ideologically diverse group, but they mined coal and thats complicated people because the world on fire is that and its a little hard to find the kind of sympathy for that group of workers that its a easier talking about teachers or health care or the kind of labor perform is en