Working People25 Okt 2023

Sherry Cothren (w/ Jeremiah Cothren)

Over the past month, United Auto Workers have continued to ramp up their strike at the Big 3 auto companies, calling workers at more plants to hit the picket line. As Keith Brower Brown recently reported at Labor Notes, "Every Friday for the past four weeks, Big 3 CEOs have waited fearfully for UAW President Shawn Fain to announce which plants will strike next. But without warning on Wednesday [October 11], the union threw a haymaker: within 10 minutes the UAW would be shutting down the vast Kentucky Truck Plant. This plant, on 500 acres outside Louisville, is one of Ford's most profitable—cranking out full-size SUVs and the Superduty line of commercial trucks… These 8,700 strikers join the 25,000 already walking the lines at assembly plants and parts distribution centers across the country in the union's escalating Stand-Up Strike." While we are waiting every day for more updates on the UAW strike as it unfolds in real time, it's important to remember that the issues within the auto industry—and the economy writ large—that led this historic moment of struggle have been brewing for decades. In this episode, we talk with Sherry Cothren, who worked for 30 years at Ford Motor Company and retired just before her plant in Toledo, Ohio, closed in 2007. We also speak with Sherry's son, Jeremiah, an architect turned visual journalist and producer whose primary focus captures vivid histories of human rights, social justice and migration.

Additional links/info below…

United Auto Workers website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) Facebook page, Twitter page, and Instagram
Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes, "Auto Workers Escalate: Surprise Strike at Massive Kentucky Ford Truck Plant"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "'We're All Workers': Striking UAW and SAG-AFTRA Members Won't Be Pitted Against Each Other"
Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh, The Upsurge / The Real News Network, "With Concessions Already Won, the UAW Strike Escalates"

Permanent links below...

Working People Patreon page
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(398)

Layoffs, long waits, obscene prices: Vermont healthcare workers and patients face historic crisis

Frontline healthcare workers and the patients they serve are facing a major crisis at the University of Vermont Health network—the state's leading healthcare provider. "In June, UVM Health eliminated ...

13 Aug 27min

Oil giant BP locks out workers at its last unionized refinery in US

For the last five months, oil giant British Petroleum (BP) has locked 800 workers out of their jobs at a crude oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The facility, located on the southwestern shore of Lake...

10 Aug 50min

Railroad jobs have "gotten worse" since Biden and Congress blocked workers from striking

In 2022, the United States nearly experienced its first national railroad strike in decades, until then-President Joe Biden, along with Democrats and Republicans in Congress, stepped in to block a str...

5 Aug 1h

Corporate profiteers destroyed journalism. Worker-owned media can save it.

When workers at the historic Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper hit the picket line in October of 2022, they had no idea that they would be on strike for over three years—or that the strike would end w...

30 Juli 36min

Data centers are not a "red state" or "blue state" problem; they're a working-class problem

In so-called "red states" and "blue states" around the US, from rural areas to urban centers, the explosion of new data center projects is impacting residents in poor, working-class, and middle-class ...

15 Juli 1h 15min

Train crashes destroyed their towns. Will yours be next?

10 years before the catastrophic train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, one of the deadliest rail disasters in North American history took place in the Canadian town of Lac-Mé...

6 Juli 1h 12min

Toxic Avengers: America's poisoned and abandoned communities must stand together or die

From the explosion of AI data centers to the increasing number of toxic spills, explosions, and industrial disasters happening across the country, corporations and the government are turning the USA i...

1 Juli 1h 8min

UAW becomes first major union to divest from Israel

At the 39th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit, Michigan, union delegates debated and affirmed the aggressive direction the UAW has taken under current President Sha...

26 Juni 1h 4min