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If you’re holding bad meetings, caving to management, and trying to do everything yourself, congrats—you’re already well on your way to fumbling your shot!    On the other hand, if you want to actually advance a positive vision for your union that energizes members, you can ground your next union election campaign in tried and true organizing principles.    Also check out:  How to Lose Your Next Election, A Step-By-Step Guide, by Dan Campbell

They lure people into their campaigns, grow phone trees, and machete a path out of fear. It turns out some of our archetypal evil heroines—Amy Dunne of Gone Girl, sisters Sally and Gillian Owens of Practical Magic, and Merricat Blackwood of We Have Always Lived in the Castle—have some positively devilish organizing tactics (disclaimer: not all of which we endorse!) up their dark, trumpet sleeves. Also check out: 1. All Horror Movies Are About Organizing, Actually: The Labor Notes Podcast  Hallowepisode 2. Steward's Corner: A Path Out of Fear 3. Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It's Hard

Tyson workers at a meatpacking plant in Joslin, Illinois, arrived at work one day in mid-August to discover that it was suddenly closed and that 2,500 of them would be out of jobs.  These workers—members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1546—are now rallying to demand that the plant reopen, or that they at least be given six months of severance pay rather than the two the company has offered.  Caitlyn Clark of Essential Workers for Democracy reported on the plant closure for Labor Notes, and joins this episode.  A representative for UFCW Local 1546 did not respond to emailed requests for comment.  Relevant reading:  2,500 Tyson Workers Laid Off, Plant Shutters Overnight The First Major Meatpacking Strike in 40 Years Extends into Third Week Learn more about the movement to revitalize the UFCW in our podcast episode from June 2025: “Grocery Workers at the UFCW are Organizing for a Fighting Union.” The incoming new CEO of Tyson just purchased $1 million in Tyson stock, almost immediately after an announcement of low projected earnings due to the beef sector. (Read more here)

After five weeks on the picket line, 80 public transit workers in Jackson, Mississippi, members of ATU Local 1208, have won a 5 percent wage increase; beat back a plan for “microtransit,” a private on-call service that would have brought in drivers without a commercial driver’s license at a lower-tier wage; and stopped cuts to Saturday service.    Labor Notes Organizer Paul Prescod joins the pod.   Check out Paul’s coverage of the strike on labornotes.org   Jackson Transit Workers Win Strike, Save Saturday Service Mississippi Transit Workers Strike for Better Protections and Service

The Labor Notes Podcast is taking a Summer Friday. We’ll be back next week!

The Trump Administration has been surveilling and investigating unions including the Communications Workers (CWA) and Service Employees (SEIU), as part of its targeting of groups resisting immigration raids in Minnesota, according to a report this month in the New York Times. But union members and representatives have since told Labor Notes that they are undeterred. “We are proud of our work and will never apologize or back down because of these dirty tricks and intimidation,” said CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson. Read the story by Luis Feliz Leon: Federal Spies Hunt Minnesota Unions in Search of Conspiracy, But Find Solidarity. Also check out our episode back in February about the uprising in Minnesota, featuring Luis and Diana Varenik: “How Workers Pulled Off a Mass Strike in Minnesota.”

This fall, 200,000 members of the Letter Carriers will get the chance to vote (perhaps fittingly, by mail ballot) for new leadership.  For many postal workers fed up with low pay, forced overtime, dangerous heat, and robberies—conditions they see their opaque, undemocratic leadership failing to address—the upcoming election is a focal point for recent reform currents brewing in the union.   They’ll be voting on 10 officers, three trustees, and 15 regional business agents. Labor Notes Editor Al Bradbury joins the episode.  Also check out:  Letter Carriers Set to Deliver Change in Upcoming Union Election by Alexandra Bradbury, July 29, 2026 On the Labor Notes Pod, in April 2025: Facing Privatization And DOGE Attacks, Postal Workers Are Fighting Back Labor Notes Online Workshop: What to Do When Your Union Breaks Your Heart, Tuesday, August 18  Labor Notes Online Workshop: Running for Union Office, Tuesday, September 15  New Labor Notes Book: Running for Local Union Office

You want more members to share the work of your contract action team? Win more grievances? Commit to wearing Hawaiian shirts together to the Jaws screening? You know what we're about to suggest: Think like an organizer. It's a common Labor Notes refrain to many organizing conundrums—but what does it mean? A problem-solving approach that engages and involves more people? More direct asks of our fellow union members?  Union movie club? Labor Notes Organizer Joe DeManuelle-Hall joins the pod. And don't miss our upcoming online Stewards' Workshop on this topic: Thinking Like an Organizer! Monday, August 10, 8 p.m. Eastern. SIGN UP HERE!

For over four decades now, workers have seen their steady, reliable pension payouts replaced by more uncertain returns from 401(k) plans—where employees’ payments are invested in retirement accounts that are vulnerable to the stock market. But just this month, power workers in Pennsylvania did something that worked—workers at PECO, the electric company for the Philadelphia region and Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility, won defined-benefit pensions for 600 newer hires who had been offered 401(k)s, and they won full medical coverage in retirement, Mindy Isser reported for Labor Notes.  Pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann talk about Mindy’s piece on how they did it.

More than 2,000 stadium workers in Los Angeles scored a goal that VAR can’t take away: they overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike and built a credible threat to walk off the job during World Cup matches scheduled at the SoFi stadium—and they won the right to strike over ICE.  Their campaign, and others like it this summer—including in Philadelphia where workers at the Sheraton and Warwick hotels won contracts that will raise wages to $30 an hour by 2028—show how workers are strategically assessing their leverage and notching concrete wins. Read the story by Labor Notes Organizers Paul Prescod and Natascha Elena Uhlmann. Paul and UNITE HERE Local 274 member Kathleen Householder from Philadelphia join the episode.

Gig workers are often sold the lie that their job is flexible, customizable, and lets them be their own boss. But that hides the reality that they don’t control a lot of their own basic working conditions, including the rates they’re paid or even if they can continue working with the app, if they’re arbitrarily deactivated.  In May, hundreds of app workers across Mexico held a two-hour work stoppage to escalate their demands and to fight for a collective agreement with app giants like Uber, DiDi, and Rappi (two Uber Eats-style delivery platforms), reported Natascha Elena Uhlmann.  Joining Natascha and Danielle this week is Luis Fernando Mora Reyes, an app worker from Mexico City and the secretary of training and culture for the National App Workers Union (la Union Nacional de Trabajadores por Aplicación or UNTA).  Read Natascha’s story in English: Mexico's Gig Workers Fight Efforts to Hollow Out Their Employee Status Win Lee el artículo de noticias de Natascha en español: Los trabajadores por aplicación luchan por hacer valer sus derechos bajo la reforma laboral

Have you ever been so stumped by an organizing challenge that you wished you could just beam out a help signal to others who’ve dealt with the same thing? Enter special guests Tera Arnold and Dakota Massman, who fielded several organizing questions along with pod co-hosts Danielle Smith and Natascha Elena Uhlmann at our first ever live episode of the Labor Notes Podcast, which took place last month at the 2026 Conference in Chicago.  Tera and Dakota, of Teamsters Local 135, were two of the casino dealers at the Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino who walked out last year on a rare and courageous strike for union recognition.  Send us more organizing questions in writing or on a voice note to [email protected], and we’ll try to answer them on the pod!

You might be in a battle of wits with a great white shark on a New England beach and needing a bigger boat. Or maybe you're getting into property fights with your goth relatives (or imposters) in the Addams Family. Perhaps you're just a toy, a child's plaything, but developing power analysis in the Toy Story franchise. Wherever your big screen adventures are playing out, we at the Labor Notes Podcast think you're probably applying a labor lesson from our bestseller, Secrets of a Successful Organizer, or our new book, Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It's Hard. Tune into this week's episode for why our favorite summer blockbusters are really about organizing.  Links to resources we mention in this episode:  Stewards’ Corner: Workplace Safety Is Not a Game (Labor Notes Podcast, October 2025) Four Union Strategies to Fight on A.I. (Article on labornotes.org | Labor Notes Podcast, May 2026)  Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It's Hard: Order your copy | See Inside: Introduction: How to use this book; Chapter 1: Cultivate Respect

You guys loved our episode about having bad meetings so much that we’re actually bringing it back. Revisit this old Labor Notes pod banger and evergreen organizing question: “What if Unions Meetings Were Actually Good?”

It feels like we just saw about 4,700 of you a week ago in Chicago, so we're taking some space this week to give you a chance to miss us a little. (i.e. We're catching up on sleep after the 2026 Labor Notes Conference, and will be back to our programming next week!)     In the meantime, watch the conference livestream:   Friday, June 12 Main Session: WATCH HERE  Saturday, June 13 The Soul in the Machine: Resisting A.I. Pressure on the Character and Quality of Our Jobs: WATCH HERE  Opening Up Bargaining: WATCH HERE  Sunday, June 14 Main Session: WATCH HERE  See you next week, solidarity y'all!