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Beneath The Surface
Sunday, October 1, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:12
Guests:
Alex OKeefe, Howard Rodman
Topic
146 days of WGA Writers Strike yields big win
Barry Eidlin talks to WGA leader-activists Alex O’Keefe, organizer & award-winning writer for "The Bear," and Howard A. Rodman, writer & past President of the WGA. On September 24, after 146 days on strike, the WGA and the AMPTP announced a tentative agreement for the contract covering 11,500 film & TV screenwriters across the country. The WGA Negotiating Committee West and East voted unanimously to recommend the agreement, and on September 27, the strike was suspended. The strike is not over -- WGA members still have to discuss the tentative agreement and vote on whether or not to ratify it by October 9. What do writers think of this deal after five months on strike? And what are the broader implications of the deal for writers and other workers in Hollywood and beyond? Based on what’s in the tentative agreement, the writers have won big. But beyond the contract language, writers have won something greater: a new sense of solidarity and the power they have as workers. That could be crucial as the class struggle continues in Hollywood and beyond: film and TV actors are still on strike, video game actors recently authorized a strike, and Teamsters and IATSE workers will be negotiating their contracts next year. Writers and other Hollywood workers have been joining the rallies and picket lines of other workers like UPS Teamsters, Big 3 auto workers, hotel workers, and more. It looks like the Hot Labour Summer may be transitioning into a Fiery Labour Fall.
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Beneath The Surface
Sunday, September 24, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:12
Guest:
Nelson Lichtenstein
Topic
UAW strike spreads
The first-ever simultaneous strike at Detroit's Big Three automakers — General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis — began September 14 with 13,000 workers walking out of three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. Instead of striking all plants at once, select workers ‘stand up’ and walk out on strike, a tactic keeps companies guessing which other locals will be next. On September 22, The stand up strike got bigger, with workers at 38 GM and Stellantis locations joining the walkout. The pressure tactics are working: Ford has made significant concessions at the bargaining table.
We are replaying the interview done from September 17 with Nelson Lichtenstein, who looked at this strike in the context of the history of the UAW, the leading role the UAW played in the 1937 sit-down strikes that exemplified the power of the labor movement. There is broad support for striking workers, and auto workers are joining writers, actors, hotel workers, and others in this season of hot strikes. Are these strikes opening a new period, igniting a newly energized working class, with the UAW again in a leading role? We replay that interview now, with questions just as relevant today as they were a week ago.
51
Beneath The Surface
Sunday, September 17, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:12
Guest:
Nelson Lichtenstein
Topic
UAW on strike
Nelson Lichtenstein on the historic, first-ever simultaneous strike against the Big Three automakers that began September 14. 13,000 workers walked out of three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, involving about 10% of Big Three UAW members. Instead of striking all plants at once, the UAW is using a novel tactic they’re calling the “Stand-Up” strike with workers at select locals standing up and walking out on strike. Shawn Fain, the new militant leader of the UAW says this tactic keeps companies guessing which other locals will be next. Nelson Lichtenstein looks at this strike in the context of the history of the UAW, the leading role the UAW played in the 1937 sit-down strikes that exemplified the power of the labor movement – and says auto workers have in many ways been the canaries in the coal mine for the US working class writ large. There is broad support for striking workers, and auto workers are joining writers, actors, hotel workers, baristas, and others in this season of hot strikes. Are these strikes opening a new period, igniting a newly energized working class, with the UAW again in a leading role?
44
Beneath The Surface
Sunday, September 10, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:11
Guest:
Marc Cooper
Topics
Pinochet’s Legacy 50 years on in Chile
Journalist Marc Cooper joins us for Part Two of our commemoration of the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile, in a wide ranging conversation about "The Other 9/11, A Ghost Story," the latest entry to Marc’s multipart Dig on "Chile, Utopia Postponed," featuring articles, photo essays, interviews and discussions. Marc returned to Chile for a month this year to probe what has and has not changed in 50 years, and to understand why the new leftist millennial government of Gabriel Boric is having such a hard time. Chilean society is once again deeply polarized, with up to 40% of the population saying the coup was a good thing. Was Allende’s Popular Unity government from 1970-1973 a stab at Utopia that has been postponed, or was the trauma inflicted by the Pinochet years so deep as to cancel future attempts at a more just and profoundly democratic social order?
https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/chiles-utopia-postponed/
37
Beneath The Surface
Sunday, September 3, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:12
Guest:
Oscar Mendoza
Topics
50th Anniversary of Pinochet’s Coup
September 11, 2023, marks 50 years since the 1973 coup d’état in Chile that overthrew its Popular Unity government, brought a bloody end to the Chilean road to socialism, and ended the life of President Salvador Allende. Pinochet inaugurated a wave of violence, death and repression that shocked the world – and sparked an enormous international solidarity movement as many thousands of Chileans were forced to leave their country, their families, and their dreams of a democratic, egalitarian future.

We talk to Oscar Mendoza, whose life was upended on that day nearly 50 years ago, when in his words, his carefree days of youth came to an abrupt halt, followed by detention, torture and imprisonment. Two years later, in May 1975, Oscar was expelled from Chile and exiled to Scotland as a political refugee, where I greeted him along with other members of the Chile Solidarity movement in Glasgow.

We get Oscar’s overview of the Chilean revolutionary process from 1970-1973, one that posited a peaceful transition to socialism with vino tinto (red wine) and empanadas, using the ballot box and constitutional means to achieve the profound economic, social, and political transformations working people demanded, making its own blueprint based on the country’s history and political traditions. Oscar asks himself two questions and we take them up too: What are we commemorating 50 years later, and does Allende’s dream of a fairer and better Chile live on today? We’ll continue next week with Marc Cooper, looking at the legacy of Pinochet’s dictatorship and the impediments it poses for the leftist government of Gabriel Boric today.
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Beneath The Surface
Sunday, August 27, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:12
23
Beneath The Surface
Sunday, August 20, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:11
16
Beneath The Surface
Sunday, August 13, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:12
9
Beneath The Surface
Sunday, August 6, 2023 10:00 am 1:00:11
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