On the Line: A Story of Class, Solidarity, and Two Women’s Epic Fight to Build a Union w/ Daisy Pitkin/The Ruling Class, Abortion, and Roe V. Wade w/ Jenny Brown

On this edition of Parallax Views, longtime community and union organizer Daisy Pitkin, who is now playing a role Starbucks Union wave as part an offshoot of the union UNITE, joins the program to discuss her new memoir On the Line: A Story of Class, Solidarity, and Two Women's Epic Fight to Build a Union. She tells the story of her attempts to help organize for workers at industrial laundry factories with dangerous working conditions in Phoenix, Arizona. In doing so she shows that labor organizing requires not only righteous anger but solidarity between workers and touches upon the ways in which labor organizing must democratize knowledge of organizing. Organizers, in other words, must share their knowledge with workers themselves so that the workers can organize themselves. We cover these topics as well as the role of metaphorical role of moths in her memoir, getting to know workers on a personal, the rise of a youth that is calling itself "Generation U" o "Generation Union", the history of labor law in the U.S. and how workers face an uphill battle legally, how the the labor struggle cannot simply be one through hoping for legislation but creating an organic movement that will apply external pressure to those in power, and much, much more!

Then, in the latter half of the program, women's liberation movement organizer Jenny Brown joins the program to discuss the issue of abortion rights and Roe V. Wade with a focus on how these matters relate to class struggle. In particular, Jenny explains how the ruling class has thought about abortion from the past to the present and addresses the powerful, monied forces that are in favor of restricting abortions and overturning Roe V. Wade. All that and more in this fascinating discussion that touches upon a number of of seemingly disparate but related topics such as economic growth in capitalism, immigration, labor, the overpopulation theory popularized in the late 1960s by Paul Erlich's The Population Bomb, declining birthrates, and more!