The Upsurge Teddy Ostrow

Originally published on June 29, 2023.

Happy Pride Month! In this bonus episode, we're sharing the efforts that LGBTQ+ Teamsters are engaging in to fight for liberation at UPS, other Teamsters employers, the union itself, and beyond.

We spoke with Andrew Rivas, a UPS package car driver and political coordinator of Teamsters Local 533 in Reno, Nevada. He is also on the board of the relatively new Teamsters LGBTQ+ caucus. Andrew told us about the initiative, what it's like to face and fight against discrimination in the workplace, and specifically what the LGBTQ+ Caucus is demanding in the UPS contract negotiations.

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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow

Edited by Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh

Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh, in partnership with In These Times & The Real News

Music by Casey Gallagher

Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar

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Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.

Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.

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Show Notes


Teamsters LGBTQ+ Caucus website.
Marc Steiner, "The Anti-LGBTQ Backlash Can't Crush 50 Years of Pride," The Real News, June 27, 2023.
Kim Kelly, "How LGBTQ Activists Transformed the Labor Movment," Teen Vogue, June 7, 2019.
Ann Balay, Semi Queer: Stories Gay, Trans and Black Truckers (UNC Press: 2020).

Originally published on June 15, 2023.

The 1.2-million-member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) is one of the largest and most powerful private sector unions in the country. Unfortunately, it has embodied some of the worst elements of business unionism over the decades. But a reform movement is burgeoning to change that.

We've covered the role of Teamsters for a Democratic Union in bringing militancy and democracy to the Teamsters union. Now, the independent organization Essential Workers for Democracy is looking to play that role in the UFCW. We spoke with Enrique Romero Jr., the group's organizing director and a rank-and-file grocery worker at Fred Meyer in Bellingham, Washington.

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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow

Edited by Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh

Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh, in partnership with In These Times & The Real News

Music by Casey Gallagher

Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar

**

Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.

Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.

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Show Notes


Chris Bohner, "UFCW Convention Starts: Assets Up, Membership Down, Reformers in Motion," Labor Notes, April 24, 2023.
Jonah Furman, "UFCW Reformers Look to 2023," Labor Notes, November 2, 2022.
Hamilton Nolan, "At UFCW, a Reform Movement Rises," In These Times, May 2, 2023.
Paula Pecorella, "Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger is a Looming Disaster," More Perfect Union, February 1, 2023.
Essential Workers for Democracy website.
Reach out to Enrique at enrique@ew4d.org.

Originally published on May 8, 2023.

Hollywood television and movie writers are on strike! In this bonus episode of The Upsurge, Teddy and Ruby will take you to the picket lines in Manhattan. Hear from a number of writers – including Ruby's dad! – why they laid down their pens.

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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow

Edited by Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh

Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh, in partnership with In These Times & The Real News

Music by Casey Gallagher

Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar

**

Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.

Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.

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Show Notes


Jon Queally, "'No Other Choice': TV & Film Writers Strike to Fight Hollywood Greed," The Real News Network, May 2, 2023.
Jon Queally, "'The Companies Have Broken This Business': Hollywood Writers Begin Strike," In These Times, May 2, 2023.
Alex Press, "TV Writers Say They're Striking to Stop the Destruction of Their Profession," Jacobin, May 3, 2023.

Originally published on April 13, 2023.

Matt Cavagrotti is a part-time UPSer out of Teamsters Local 519 in Knoxville, Tennessee. But unlike most of his part-time union siblings, he heads to the airport for work.

Matt is one of more than 15,000 "air workers" at UPS, who are responsible for sorting, preloading and unloading the millions of packages aboard the over 2,000 daily flights to 700+ airports around the world. Air workers are integral to UPS's revenues, and yet they're among the most exploited in the entire company workforce – and have been since the late 1980s.

This is because their conditions are governed under the egregious concessions of Article 40 in the national collective bargaining agreement at UPS – a "stain" on the contract. Alongside other air workers, Matt is organizing to reform Article 40 and break a lesser known division in the Teamster ranks.

In this bonus episode of The Upsurge, Matt unpacks the history and impacts of Article 40 in the national UPS contract, and why air workers deserve solidarity just like any other UPSer.

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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow

Edited by Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh

Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh

Music by Casey Gallagher

Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar

**

Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.

Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.

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Show Notes


FixArticle40.com
Reach Matt at admin@fixarticle40.com and figure out how to get involved.
Joe Allen, The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS (Haymarket Books, 2020).
The Upsurge, Episode 3: Inside Part-Time America.

Originally published on March 30, 2023

On Dan Arlin's second day back as a package car delivery driver at UPS, after a three-year stint driving tractor-trailer trucks, he was fired – without explanation – and walked off company property. The 23-year veteran of UPS is a pro at his job. He knew he had done nothing wrong, but the company didn't like one thing: his union activism.

Harassment and retaliation is a way of life at UPS. After he was fired in March 2022, Arlin was committed to getting his job back. And indeed, fighting tooth and nail for eleven months, Arlin was finally reinstated on Valentines day this year.

In this bonus episode of The Upsurge, we dug into Arlin's remarkable story, which is one of both pain and perseverance, struggle and solidarity.

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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow

Edited by Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh

Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh

Music by Casey Gallagher

Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar

**

Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.

Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.

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Show Notes


Teddy Ostrow, "Is UPS Retaliating Against Union Activists?" The Nation, September 27, 2022.
The "Bi-Weekly Grievance" Show, YouTube channel.
Roswell Hub's interviews with Dan Arlin: Part One and Part Two.

The Big Three have fallen like a house of cards.

The UAW's historic Stand Up strike has come to an end – for now, at least. After forty-four days on the picket line, the Auto Workers have reached tentative agreements with each of the Big Three automakers. GM was the last domino to fall on October 30, just days after Ford and then Stellantis acquiesced to their own tentative deals.

50,000 strikers have returned to work, and all 146,000 Big Three union members are now voting on the contracts. While it's up to the workers to decide whether the deals are adequate, one thing is already clear: the UAW has turned the tide on decades of concessionary bargaining.

For this episode, we invited Barry Eidlin back on the show to unpack the gains and wider implications of the UAW's tentative agreements. Barry Eidlin is an associate professor of sociology at McGill University, who studies class, labor, politics and social movements. He is the author of Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

We explore why the agreements may represent a shift toward a "new kind of unionism," how the UAW's prospects for organizing the rest of the auto industry may have changed, and what listeners should be following in the rest of the labor movement.

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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow

Edited by Teddy Ostrow

Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh, in partnership with In These Times & The Real News

Music by Casey Gallagher

Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar

**

Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.

Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.

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Read Barry Eidlin's article on the Belvidere plant in Jacobin.