What the SVB Failure Teaches us About Investment Banking
The Silicon Valley Bank collapse brings with it memories of the wider 2008 economic crisis. Jeet Heer and John Nichols from The Nation join us to discuss the 2018 bank deregulations that set the stage for this moment and the risky investment strategy at the bank itself. They argue that bailout and FDIC’s role in the collapse could set the stage for a dangerous economic future. Like this program? Please show us the love. Click...
Upstream: Worker Cooperatives
On today’s show we learn about worker cooperatives: what are they and can they offer an alternative to the dominant capitalist mindset? Our partner podcast Upstream brings us to a bike and skate shop in Richmond, CA that’s providing a much-needed service to its community, while also empowering its own workers. A version of this story was originally aired in 2018. Image Credit: Artwork by Phil Wrigglesworth Like this...
Viva Brother Nagi from Kerning Cultures
Nagi Daifallah was a young farm worker from Yemen who moved to California in the early 1970s when he was just 20 years old. He went on to become one of the organizers of the infamous 1973 grape strike in California, led by Cesar Chavez. But one night in 1973, after a day of striking he was beaten to death by a local county sheriff outside a restaurant in Lamont, California. Although the sheriff who killed him never faced justice,...
Hunger Strike! How Immigrant Taxi Drivers Took on City Hall
When Augustine Tang’s father passed away, Augustine decided to inherit his taxi medallion – the license that had allowed his father to drive a yellow taxi cab in New York City for decades. But the medallion came with a $530,000 debt trap and years of struggling to escape it. So Tang joined a push by the local taxi drivers’ union, to campaign for debt relief. And eventually, city resistance to worker demands culminated in a...
Re:Work Soul Force, Part 1
On Dec. 11, 2021, the UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building was officially named the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center, in honor of a civil and worker rights icon who has been teaching at UCLA for the last 2 decades. In this episode of Re:Work, 93-year-old Rev. Lawson shares stories from his youth, and how he came to discover soul force and the path of nonviolence. This episode contains material from Rev....
70 Million: An Effort to Hold Prosecutors Accountable
Making Contact · 70 Million: An Effort to Hold Prosecutors Accountable Prosecutors hold immense power in the criminal justice system. They decide who to charge with what crime, when to offer deals, what sentences to recommend, and much more. Aside from legal statutes, ethical and constitutional rules govern what prosecutors can and cannot do. But a system that incentivizes bringing criminal cases to trial—and winning them—can...
