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- [00:00]
Yamaneika Saunders
This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.
- [00:04]
Chelsea Handler
This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamaneika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.
- [00:14]
Yamaneika Saunders
Do you know I just found out who Sydney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to youo're the Problem with yamaneika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [00:37]
Chelsea Handler
Media.
- [00:41]
Mia Wong
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about firing your boss and keeping them fired and then making there not be bosses. That was an extremely long and slightly cumbersome intro from your host, Mia Wong. But with me today to talk about how to do such a thing is Raisa Freiheit, Tabby, and Daniel from the iww, who are part of a tour, talking about just that. So all three of you, welcome to the show.
- [01:10]
Raisa Freiheit
Thank you.
- [01:11]
Tabby
Thank you for having us.
- [01:14]
Raisa Freiheit
Yeah.
- [01:14]
Tabby
I'm so excited.
- [01:16]
Mia Wong
Me as well.
- [01:17]
Tabby
I mean, I'm excited for every time I do something like this because I am very much an attention whore. I feel as though as an actress, I kind of have to be.
- [01:29]
Mia Wong
I mean. Yeah, that. That is kind of, you know, you. You do. You are, I guess, like. Yeah. Trying to. I don't know. Oh, my God, how do I do a better transition?
- [01:38]
Tabby
I don't know. You'd have to ask my doctor.
- [01:44]
Mia Wong
Okay, never mind. We're leaving in the part about how to do a better transition, and we're leaving it. You'd have to ask my doctor. I like this. This is great. Speaking of a union that has a unbelievable number of trans people in it these days. Yeah. So we have on the show talked a little bit about the industrial workers of the world. We have had some IWW unions on the show. But, yeah, today we're also going to be talking about sort of the history of the union and something cool that the union is doing. So I guess to start off, can you three give a kind of brief introduction to, like, you know, like the one sentence, like, what is this thing? And then what is this tour that you're doing?
- [02:28]
Raisa Freiheit
Yeah. So this tour is a decentralized tour. There's not, like, a small number of, like, experts, so to speak, who are touring the country and giving a speech or talking about things. It's more like each individual IWW branch That is participating, is planning and organizing its own event. But we're coordinating on a national level and trying to promote this very broadly to the public. Because the IWW hasn't done a very like public event, especially a national one like this, in quite some time. And so we feel like the moment is calling for something like this.
- [03:04]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And so I guess we can now ask, okay, like, what. What actually is the IWW and how do we explain to people that it is in fact called the Industrial Workers of the World, not the International Workers of the World, and also that it is not just a union of people who work in heavy industry?
- [03:21]
Daniel
Well, we're the Industrial Workers of the World because we organize industrially. We want to organize all the workers in each industry and not by their trade.
- [03:31]
Mia Wong
Yeah, exactly.
- [03:32]
Tabby
So an example I always use, you know, since I am in so much student debt, what happens when you're getting your master's and your doctorate is, say there's a school, a university. Instead of what traditional unions do, which is, you know, you have the teachers union and then like the janitors union and, you know, the TA's union and all these separate unions, like cafeteria worker union, et cetera, you just have one big union. That's one of the things, the code. You just have one union across all of these things. So everyone from the teachers to the TAs to the janitors to everyone in between is in the same union in the same bargaining unit.
- [04:20]
Daniel
And we don't just stop at one industry. The goal of the IWW is to organize all industries industrially. Capital is organized this way, and workers really ought to do the same.
- [04:33]
Tabby
Exactly. We have everyone from sex workers to actresses to carpenters to, especially back in the day, a lot of miners. You know, everyone you can think of. As long as you don't have hiring or firing power and aren't a copper, active duty military, you can join the iww.
- [04:54]
Mia Wong
Yeah, and that's something that I think. I think we've gotten to on this show a little bit, which is that, like, I mean, obviously it depends a lot on where you are, but, like, a lot of the organizing the IWW does is with service workers and service workers in shops that every other union looks at and goes, well, you're not worth organizing because we can't get enough money or members out of it. And that's something I. I don't know, I think is really valuable in this moment where, yeah, like, unbelievable numbers of people are doing service work. That's like, what. That's what the economy is built on. If you're committed from the start to organizing, like all sectors and all workers and all industries, you don'. End up in a place where you just write off, you know, like, entire sectors of the economy that are, a lot of times the people who most desperately need to organize.
- [05:40]
Raisa Freiheit
Yeah. And that's like, exactly why the IWW was born in the first place, was because the trade unions back in the 1900s were ignoring all of the unskilled workers, so to speak, like the miners and like the dock workers. But the IWW, all the way back 1905 was saying what it's still saying today is that all workers need a union. And I'm a bartender, I'm a server. I've been one since I was 16 years old. My whole working life and my experience as just a working class person has drawn me to the iww, its philosophy. Yeah. Because no other union really cares about us, but the IWW is there. And like you said, like, that's what most workers in this country, or not most, but a large chunk of workers in this country are service workers. It makes up like a third of the economy.
- [06:28]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [06:28]
Daniel
And moreover, the industrial workers of the world teach us the tools to make change in our workplace. Right. Other unions are something of a service model. Right. They themselves become a service for their clients, who are the workers. But what the IWW teaches is that it's on us. Right. We need to make the change in our workplace. We have to analyze the conditions, really understand the imbalance of power that the bosses have over us as wage workers and change them. And that means talking to our colleagues, learning, analyzing, and then taking action, direct action, to make the changes that we want. Because only us, we are the ones who know what's best for our workplace, what's best for our industry. Right. And we're in a position to make that change when we organize horizontally in that way.
- [07:19]
Tabby
Yeah. The thing that I really love about the IWW is, is that it's a very good teacher in many ways. You know, so many people, you know, aren't fortunate to have the incredible amount of education that I have in, you know, really being able to study the material conditions of capitalism, of really kind of getting at the center of, you know, how change is made. And I find that with the IWW and the way we organize, no classroom in the world can teach you, as well as your own experience that the way to revolution is not electing some politician. The way to the revolution isn't Handing your power to some union bureaucrat. The way to the revolution, to socialism, to communism, to industrial democracy, to the abolition of the wage system is direct action, is doing it yourself is shop floor organizing. And when workers realize that they have power over their own lives and and destinies at work, they realize that they have power over all of society. Once we come together and decide upon something, there is no employer who can stop us.
- [08:37]
Chelsea Handler
If the world were like a Sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time, and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a Sleep number store or go to sleep number.com sleep number to a good life sleep. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.
- [09:16]
Yamaneika Saunders
If you come over here to play games, I' ma check you, okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'mma play you.
- [09:26]
Chelsea Handler
Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the Problem With Yamaneika.
- [09:33]
Yamaneika Saunders
Do you know I just found out who Sydney Sweeney was.
- [09:36]
Chelsea Handler
New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network.
- [09:42]
Yamaneika Saunders
If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men do better or do less so I don't have to do so much.
- [09:49]
Chelsea Handler
So join Yamaneika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem?
- [09:54]
Yamaneika Saunders
I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to youo're the Problem with yamaneika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [10:12]
Mia Wong
You know, Big Bill Hayw, who's a very, very famous old IWW member, has this line where he goes, I've never read Capital, but I have its scars on my back.
- [10:24]
Tabby
Many memes have been made of that.
- [10:26]
Mia Wong
Yeah, and it's. It's something that, I don't know, like, something I do appreciate kind of about, like, my experience with the union has been that, like, it's a place where, you know, the theoretical stuff that you're doing right Is stuff that's drawn from just the immediacy of, like, okay, we have to get a bunch of people to show up to a meeting so that, you know, we can do this union. We have to like, talk to people and we have to like, get people organized to be able to do direct actions. We have to be able to like, get people to show up in this place and like, do all of the sort of like, you know, the, just the, like the, the nitty gritty technical work of like fighting a class struggle. But it's this place where like, yeah, you actually get theory that's drawn from action and is sort of unified with it because you just, you, you have to do it right? Like, you have to get everyone to do the thing constantly and there's no one else who can do it for you. There's just you and your fellow workers and it's, yeah, it's you and your fellow workers and you're fighting against the boss and it, it rocks.
- [11:25]
Daniel
And then once you feel it, you're hooked. Yeah, right. Once you really get to experience that, that sort of camaraderie, that closeness you actually get with your coworkers when you know your comrades and struggle, you're working together towards something that's way bigger than any department, right. Or institution or anything. It's a matter of creating the world that we want for ourselves. The world that like, we, we are entitled as workers, as a creator of all this wealth and all of these great things that, that humans are capable of. Like, that's, that's what the wobblies are, are all about.
- [11:58]
Raisa Freiheit
In my humble opinion, this kind of is bringing up for me like one of the most remarkable things about the IWW historically. Like in its heyday, it had nearly a half percent of all workers in this country within its ranks. And like, the wobbly philosophy, like, spread like wildfire across the country. And it was just spread by regular rank file workers who were empowered and believed in something. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's sad to say that like today a lot of workers don't even know what the IWW is, what it means, like, what it's. And so like, that is part of the reason why we're doing the Fire Boss tour is to like actually become a phenomenon again and to have people recognize us and like, know the wobbly way of organizing, you know?
- [12:45]
Tabby
Yeah, I, I cannot tell you the amount of times, you know, I've, I've been talking with, you know, other union organizers and they said, wait, the IWW still exists?
- [12:56]
Mia Wong
Yeah, it's a thing that happens a
- [12:57]
Tabby
lot, or even worse, they don't know about it. At all. And again, as a historian of our union and a somewhat longtime member, I've been a member since 2019. It really pisses me off. Pissed me off to the degree that last year for our 120th anniversary, I produced and performed in a waiversary livestream. We had people from four different countries and multiple different branches just call into the show, shout out to caveat. In New York City, they hosted us. And that kind of just really feeds into why we're doing fire your boss. Because I know all of us want the IWW to be like, known and you know, not just as a union that the US government killed, which by the way, they failed to do, but as a vibrant force that is an alternative to not only, you know, wage slavery, but unions as a service. And, you know, not unions as you and your co workers and your comrades.
- [14:04]
Mia Wong
Yeah, and that, that's something I think comes up a lot in organizing, which is like a lot of the history of what the union is and not just sort of the history of like, I guess what you would call like the heyday in the 1900s and like, you know, through that's like the 1920s, but like the modern history of the union has just been suppressed or disappeared. I think people now are kind of getting an understanding that like, there was a Starbucks union before the current Starbucks union that like, organized. I think people tend to think of it as like, it was like some shops in New York and it's like, no, no, it wasn't. It was all over the country. There was a whole bunch of shit that they did. There were enormous numbers of workers involved. And it's a thing that like, it's both from. From a historical perspective, but also from the perspective of like, just generationally we tend to lose like movement knowledge as, as each generation comes down because a lot of the stuff just isn't passed on.
- [15:05]
Tabby
No one knows the International anymore.
- [15:07]
Daniel
Lame.
- [15:08]
Tabby
No one knows anymore.
- [15:12]
Mia Wong
Yeah, but it's not, it's not even just that. It's like there's stuff that like happened in our lifetime that like people you probably have met were involved with that like, is just gone. Like the example I always talk about on this show and I'm going to keep talking about until every single person in the left knows about. It was the Oaxaca uprising where like, yeah, like also, like wobblies, like went to this and were in it, but it's like, yeah, like people in Mexico, like, took a major North American city and held it longer than the Paris Commune did. And this was in 2006. Like, I guess maybe there are some of you now, horrifyingly, who weren't alive for that. But like.
- [15:48]
Tabby
Nice way to make me feel old.
- [15:50]
Mia Wong
I know it's a nightmare. The history and possibility of struggle, I think like just gets lost in ways where people suddenly don't realize that like. Yeah, no, like in, in, in your lifetimes, people formed giant assemblies and took control of like a major North American city and held it for months. Like that's, that's a, that's a thing that we all live through.
- [16:11]
Daniel
It's a long memory. Right. I mean, it's a powerful weapon that we have when we actually remember these things, when we really learn from them. And we realize that's ourselves, that is our history, that is a people's history. Right. We are learning somebody else's history. We're living right in the world of the ruling class. Right. And we just need to realize that we're in the position to change it. We're the ones who do it, who make the history and really create the world we want in the shell in all of this like, you know, fuckery that's going on around the world. Famous.
- [16:44]
Mia Wong
While I'm talking about Mexico, to talk about a very different part of Mexico, I do want to mention like, maybe my, I don't know if it's my favorite, like one of the pieces of wobbly, like history that I really like, that I think never gets talked about is the fact that in a similar way that like what happens today, there's, there's a lot of connections between workers in like workers in California, workers in Mexico, and there's a bunch of people moving back and forth across the border. There's workers moving around and there was a whole bunch of, of Mexican wob of various kinds and a whole bunch of wobblies like went over and fought in the Mexican Revolution. Because it was, it was, it was the thing to do.
- [17:20]
Tabby
Yeah. The collaboration was to the point that multiple locals in various states in Mexico and also California and Arizona, they were literally like merged. So it was literally like the same local across, you know, national borders.
- [17:38]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And if I'm remembering correctly, like the iww like took a few Mexican cities like in the north, because they were the people who were just doing the uprising there.
- [17:48]
Tabby
Yup. Them and their allies in the Partido Liberal Mexicano, which do not be confused by the name, was an anarchist group that is a whole history in and of itself.
- [18:00]
Mia Wong
One of the all time funniest things we've ever seen of just. Yeah. We named ourselves the Liberal Party of Mexico, but we're anarchists. Just, just incredible stuff going on in the 1900s.
- [18:11]
Tabby
It was a very different time.
- [18:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Speaking of very different times.
- [18:17]
Yamaneika Saunders
Yeah.
- [18:17]
Mia Wong
Do you want to talk more about sort of what is going to be involved in, in, in this tour and I guess also like how people can get involved with it and learn and hopefully like start organizing and fighting in their workplaces.
- [18:31]
Raisa Freiheit
Yeah. So the rough curriculum or agenda for the tour has like four or five primary like sections. But like I said at the beginning of this conversation, like, it's a decentralized tour. So each branch is going to do it a little bit differently, but roughly it's going to be first, like people. We're going to try to like talk with people who attend, like see what people's current conception of a union is. Just like kind of talk about unions broadly and how people perceive them and then transition into Talking about the IWW's way to do unions and solidarity unionism, which doesn't necessarily rely on recognition from the state or capital. Like we recognize ourselves as a union, you know, we take direct action, we're very democratic, very caring, you know, talking about, yeah, the IWW's way to do unionism and industrially, like, how do you do industrial unions? And then moving into how unions can be a revolutionary force and how like we're facing all these things, we're up against these FBI raids in multiple like cities and states across the country. ICE is like literally murdering people in the streets. We've like got genocides going on all over the place. And by taking back control of our labor and shutting shit down, we can be a revolutionary force. And I feel like a lot of people have kind of forgotten about the movement and so to speak because of how shitty like these trade unions can be sometimes and how bureaucratic.
- [20:02]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [20:02]
Raisa Freiheit
And so, you know, we should remember that these are really powerful like things to be doing. And then we'll wrap it up with just talking about like next steps and things. Hopefully get people out to organize your trainings. Just get people connected to their local branches. Make connections with people who are like thinking about the same things about building militant rank and file unions and stuff. Yeah, yeah.
- [20:26]
Mia Wong
Do you want to talk a little bit about the organizer trainings? Because I think that's a really, really cool thing that WWE does that people don't really know about at all.
- [20:34]
Raisa Freiheit
Yeah, I really love the IWW's organizer training. We have an OT101 organizer training. 101 called Building the Committee and it's a two day training, kind of like a big crash course into how to build a union from scratch, like within your workplace.
- [20:53]
Tabby
Yeah.
- [20:54]
Raisa Freiheit
How to start gathering contacts, how to start having like those initial conversations with worker, your fellow workers, and how to develop your co workers into organizers and how to build power in the workplace and shift that balance of power from the boss to the workers. And it's very different than like other union organizer trainings because a lot of other trainings are basically like training you how to do card check campaigns, like how to talk to your coworker, get them to sign a card, and then you never talk to them again kind of thing. But yeah, we're not interested in that. We're interested in like building real relationships and like building real power with our co workers. And that's what the training is all about.
- [21:36]
Mia Wong
Yeah, I think it's fun both on two levels. One, I've been to one of these and it's very, very good. And the second thing that I think is very funny is like the other unions that like suck less in the us like, part of what has happened is they've adopted a bunch of the trading.
- [21:51]
Tabby
The amount of times I've seen some union doing something and being like, they learned it from us, it's very obvious they learned it from us.
- [22:01]
Mia Wong
I will listen to people being like, they're giving a definition of the union. I'm like, that's the IWW one. And I know your leadership doesn't believe this, but. Because that's like not, that's not how your union works. But yeah, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can get the original one from the source. That doesn't have. In the same way that like a bunch of the modern trade unions cut out a couple of verses of Solidarity Forever because they were too radical.
- [22:25]
Tabby
They mutilated our fucking baby. That chaplain is rolling in his fucking grave.
- [22:32]
Daniel
That's our canon.
- [22:33]
Mia Wong
They stole the song. And then they were like, oh, my God, hold on. This like, might teach workers that they don't have anything in common with their bosses. Like, we have to stop. We can't.
- [22:44]
Daniel
There's seven verses all together. Count them.
- [22:46]
Mia Wong
Seven, except no substitutes. Yeah, and most, most unions sing like five.
- [22:51]
Daniel
Oh, if that.
- [22:52]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And you know, in the same way that you can get the original uncut version of Solidarity Forever, you too can get the organizer training that these other people are getting bad versions of.
- [23:06]
Tabby
Yeah, Fun story. So this is unrelated to the iww but also related. A few weeks ago I was Part of the anti Zionist Jewish contingent at the Queer Liberation March in New York City. And of course, I got on the megaphone and led everyone in singing Solidarity Forever.
- [23:31]
Mia Wong
Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. It's a good time.
- [23:34]
Daniel
I hear there's a new Little Red Songbook in the works. I don't know how far along the committee is, but this has been a mammoth project. I could only imagine. Right. Producing a new Little Red Songbook.
- [23:47]
Mia Wong
By the way, I want to point this out to speak. Speaking of other people taking stuff. The IWW had Little Red Books before the Maoists did. Like, they. I. I can't. I can't say for certain that Mao Zedong took that shit from us. But, like, that stuff is from way before Maoism existed. Like, this is not affiliated. Those motherfuckers.
- [24:12]
Tabby
I mean, Mao was a. Was an anarchist before he became a Marxist.
- [24:17]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [24:17]
Tabby
Because the Chinese anarchist movement 100 years ago was way stronger than the Marxist movement. Like, half the original Communist parties in the world were founded by former anarchists.
- [24:32]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And this. This has gone poorly for them. Checks, notes.
- [24:42]
Chelsea Handler
This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible for. You're the problem.
- [24:52]
Yamaneika Saunders
If you come over here to play games, I'mma check you. Okay. If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I' ma play you.
- [25:02]
Chelsea Handler
Join Yamaneka Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the Problem with Yamaneika.
- [25:09]
Yamaneika Saunders
Do you know I just found out who Sydney Sweeney was.
- [25:12]
Chelsea Handler
New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Date Dear Chelsea Network.
- [25:18]
Yamaneika Saunders
If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men do better or do less so I don't have to do so much.
- [25:25]
Chelsea Handler
So join Yamaneika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem?
- [25:30]
Yamaneika Saunders
I'm Yamaneika and I'm out. Listen to youo're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [25:48]
Mia Wong
Filtering back to the 2000 and twenties from the 1920s. Where can people find where tours are happening and. Yeah. And get more involved.
- [26:00]
Raisa Freiheit
Yeah. We have a website. It's industrial worker Cardco. There's two Rs in card. I don't know if we can link that. Link in the description of the podcast.
- [26:11]
Mia Wong
Oh, yeah, we can. We'll link it in the description.
- [26:13]
Raisa Freiheit
Okay, cool. So, yeah, that website will have all of the tour locations. Right now there's eight locations. There might be one or two more being added in the near future. But as of right now, it's like Portland, Sacramento, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, Green Mountain, which is Burlington, Vermont, New York City and Ypsilanti, Michigan, who are all having locations on this tour. And that website will have all the tales like when, where, etc.
- [26:40]
Mia Wong
Hell yeah. I'm excited.
- [26:41]
Tabby
I also want to shout out specifically. First off, I'm the proud chairwoman of the Orientation Committee of NYC iww. Actually former branch secretary treasurer of Northern New Jersey before we merged with New York. But NYC IWW is having our fire your boss tour stop at Woodbine in Manhattan on August 22 starting at noon. Free lunch will be provided.
- [27:10]
Mia Wong
Oh yeah.
- [27:10]
Tabby
So if you're in the NYC area, please stop by. You get to meet the sexy trans woman with the transatlantic accent.
- [27:20]
Daniel
I visited Woodbine when it was still in Ridgewood, Queens. I'm very much looking forward to checking out their new location and joining you all.
- [27:28]
Tabby
They still have that Queen's location. I think they've just expanded into Manhattan. Right?
- [27:35]
Daniel
It's been ages now. But anyway, if you're in northern New England, you could join us at the public Library in Burlington, Vermont on Sunday, August 16th. That is Bennington Battle Day, a state holiday unique to the state of Vermont.
- [27:52]
Mia Wong
Do you have anything else that you want to tell everyone before we, before we head out?
- [27:58]
Tabby
I would say that I think what the IWW does very uniquely that I haven't really seen any other union do, is that in my opinion, at our best, we, we go contractless. Shout out to Stardust Workers United. They're an NYC IWW shop. Who are the singing waiters and other staff at Ellen Stardust Diner. And of course I'm a fan, since I'm an actress and singer myself, and of course Phil worker. But they don't have a contract. What they do is they use direct action and various tactics to exert their power and negotiate with the bosses issue by issue. They don't use state power to enforce it at all. There's been no election, there's no contract signed. All they did is get a bunch of their fellow workers to join the IWW and exist as a bargaining unit and exert power that way. And I think that's very powerful because we aren't relying upon the state to enforce our will. We're doing it ourselves. And that's such a powerful thing when so many people just are screaming, why Won't someone save us? You know, everyone's like, why? Why won't someone do something?
- [29:21]
Mia Wong
Why won't someone do something?
- [29:24]
Tabby
Why would someone do something? And I'm just like, you can do it yourselves. You can make your own conditions better by you and your co workers alone. And I think that's so special about the IWW is that there truly is a revolutionary break from the state.
- [29:45]
Raisa Freiheit
The thing that I would want to end this conversation with is I feel like the labor movement in the United States has been trying the same thing over and over again for decades. Like, ever since the National Labor Relations act was passed, we've been trying this contract model, this service model that we've been talking about. And it's kind of why the labor movement is as weak as it is today. And the current administration is going after these protections that we had. And it kind of just goes to show how we can't rely on these pennies that the state throws us. These protections, they're not really real. So we need to build our own power. We need to be reliant on ourselves. And there's one quote that I have really loved. I don't know who said it, but it says today's labor movement, which involves the absolute majority of the global population, along with its allies and marginalized groups and minorities, must mount an offensive reviving strategies and energetic, energetic dedication to radical methods. And that's what we're trying to do with the Fire Boss tour is like, return to these radical methods that worked so well, like historically. We need to try something new.
- [30:57]
Daniel
So, yeah, yeah, it's something very, very new and very, very old at the same time.
- [31:04]
Tabby
There are some historians that put the estimates of members of the iww. It's kind of hard to track due to a lot of the members were migrant workers. Put it at possibly over a million in the 1910s. And, you know, in my opinion, it's a good start. Yeah, you know, let's, let's get there. I mean, the AFL CIO is like 3, 4, 5 million. You know, I'm. I'm hoping the fire your boss tour is the. Is the start of, you know, great, amazing things for our union because hell knows millions of people, if not billions, could benefit from us.
- [31:46]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [31:47]
Daniel
Every worker and organizer. I hope that's a step we're taking. Right. I hope everyone that joins us on this tour gets to feel more like an organizer, feel more like a leader, and really understand what's going on in their workplace and all around the world, because that's what we need as we go forward.
- [32:05]
Mia Wong
Yeah, but that's a good note to end on. And thank you. Thank all of you for coming on the show and talking.
- [32:10]
Raisa Freiheit
Thank you so much.
- [32:11]
Tabby
Yeah, thank you for having us.
- [32:14]
Mia Wong
Happy to. And hopefully we all get to see each other like on the front lines of the class war someday soon. And when I say you, I mean everyone. You the listeners too.
- [32:24]
Raisa Freiheit
Polarity.
- [32:25]
Tabby
Thank you. Lovely listeners. Also, one cannot be an attention if no one is there to listen to her.
- [32:36]
Mia Wong
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
- [32:55]
Chelsea Handler
This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea, Every week the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.
- [33:04]
Yamaneika Saunders
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