Workers' Inquiry

This episode is a mash up of different recordings and interviews done at the rank-and-file conference, Labor Notes, earlier this summer. The central interview is a half hour discussion with Isaac Nelson, a teaching assistant from Minnesota, about the resistance to Operation Metro Surge.

Also featuring:
Ellen David Freedman, author of Keep Going: A guide to organising when it's hard
Josh McPhee, coauthor of Strike While The Needle is Hot: A discography of workers' revolt
For more about Labor Notes, check out their website: https://labornotes.org/

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Direct action gets the goods. In this episode we discuss Matthew's experience of working and organising as a teaching assistant, including how they waged a campaign of on-the-job action to resist work intensification and management surveillance.
This episode was recorded on the fly, so please enjoy the background ambience of a pub garden in South London. We'll be back to the usual studio setup soon.
Read Matthew's article, A Lesson in Class Struggle: Working in a South London School
The Whitehall Worker (civil service bulletin)
The Handover (St George's Hospital bulletin)
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New from the NFB vault: guest editors Rehana Zaman, Jenny Warren and Allan Struthers join Dante to discuss issue 24 on class struggle in arts and culture. This interview was recorded in late 2025.

Read the whole issue here
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The podcast returns with an election special on workers' inquiry, fascism, and poultry farms.

Lotte's book: An Economy of Starlings
The Future In Our Past - out now on Verso
Interview about the book with Sam Kelly on Red Medicine

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How do you build a militant rank and file movement of thousands of young workers in a sector everyone says is impossible to organise? Nick Troy joins us to talk strikes, hospitality, service work, and the experiences of the Unite Hospitality branch in Glasgow.
Read the full interview here: https://notesfrombelow.org/article/afters-building-hospitality-workers-movement-glasg

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