Belabored Podcast #57: Organizing the South, with Ben Speight

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here or on Stitcher here. Check out the full Belabored archive here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis. In the wake of the defeat of UAW in Chattanooga, the spread of anti-worker “Right to Work” laws and the warped Tea-Party politics of Red State America, you might wonder whether the labor movement has a future in the South. Well, this week, we ask a Southerner. Ben Speight is a veteran organizer with Teamsters 728 in Georgia and has been on the front lines of a number of successful campaigns, scoring major victories with unionization drives in traditionally non-union sectors, grassroots advocacy for low-wage workers, and coalition-building with myriad civil rights and progressive groups. He talks to us about the oft-overlooked potential of Southern workers to seed new alliances between labor and community. Our news round-up looks at the White House’s new executive order on LGBT discrimination and transgender equality at work, why workers should have a say in who runs the company, the anti-privatization showdown between the post office and the Office Superstore, and Subway Sandwich workers savoring a union victory. Plus, recommended reading on auto-parts workers getting sick in Alabama and World Cup migrant laborers dying in Qatar. News White House Says No Religious Exemptions Will Be Included In Administration’s New Anti-Discrimination Order (ThinkProgress) Michelle: Hobby Lobby Is Now Discriminating Against a Transgender Employee (The Nation) The case for employees to pick their CEO (Fortune) Postal union workers to protest at Staples in Loop (Chicago Tribune) Michelle: National Teachers’ Union Expected To Join Staples Boycott (Huffington Post) Why Your Local Postal Workers Hate Staples (The Motley Fool) Workers At a Subway Sandwich Shop Vote To Unionize (Huffington Post) Conversation with Ben Speight Teamsters Local 728 Coca Cola captive audience meeting recording Another Teamster organizing victory in Georgia! Sarah: Port Trucking Companies Steal More Than $1 Billion in Wages From Drivers Sarah: Forever Temp? Michelle: Temp Nation: How Corporations Are Evading Accountability, at Workers’ Expense Sarah: New Georgia Bill Includes $10,000 Fine, Felony for “Conspiracy” for Picketing, Protest Sarah: 6 Ways to Juice Up the Labor Movement Sarah: Sharecropping on Wheels Argh, I Wish I’d Written That! Michelle: Priyanka Motaparthy, ‘It’s Like Jail Here’: Watching the World Cup finals in the labor camps of Qatar (Foreign Policy) Sarah: Seth Freed Wessler, What’s Making These Selma , Alabama Auto Parts Workers So Sick? (NBC News) The post Belabored Podcast #57: Organizing the South, with Ben Speight appeared first on Dissent Magazine.