Synopsis: The Power of Solidarity: Lessons from Flight Attendants. Sara Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, discusses labor movement strategies and the importance of worker solidarity in an exclusive interview with Laura Flanders. “We have to understand that if one group is under attack, we're next. So we have to rush to each other's sides. But we can also turn this around and not just be on defense. . . We are in a crisis. Yeah. Our world is burning. We can actually set the agenda and make things better.” **Stay informed and engaged! Don't miss out on our captivating weekly episodes that dive deep into the heart of our economy, culture, and politics from the past to the present. Please hit the podcast subscribe button if you've yet to subscribe.** Description: Sara Nelson knows how to leverage worker power — and so do the 55,000 flight attendants she represents. She’s been the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014. In this episode, Nelson and Flanders explore labor movement tactics and strategies, wins and losses, and why general strikes and cross-industry worker solidarity are critical in this moment. Guest: Sara Nelson: International President of the Association of Flight Attendants, (AFA-CWA) (representing 55,000 Flight Attendants at 20 airlines) Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters. - Watch the episode released on our YouTube channel July 18th 5pm ET; PBS World Channel July 20th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings) and airing on community radio & available as a podcast July 23rd.
Synopsis: US Labour Leader Sounds Alarm on Government Attacks. Sara Nelson's urgent call to action for cross-industry worker solidarity and general strikes as a powerful countermeasure against the Trump administration's plans to gut government agencies ending federal contracts is both timely and crucial. The uncut conversation includes the entire rich and inspiring discussion ringing in at 50minutes.
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Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
Description: Sara Nelson knows how to leverage worker power — and so do the 55,000 flight attendants she represents. A union member since 1996, she’s been the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014. You may remember her integral role in threatening a strike, which helped pressure the Trump administration to end the 2019 government shutdown. But under the second Trump term, the administration plans to gut many government agencies and has canceled one million contracts for federal workers so far. “We have to understand that if one group is under attack, we're next,” she tells Laura Flanders in this exclusive interview. “So we have to rush to each other's sides.” In this episode, Nelson and Flanders explore labor movement tactics and strategies, wins and losses, and why general strikes and cross-industry worker solidarity are critical in this moment. What is her message and her mission for 2025? All that, plus a commentary from Laura on floods and profits.
“We have to understand that if one group is under attack, we're next. So we have to rush to each other's sides. But we can also turn this around and not just be on defense. . . We are in a crisis. Yeah. Our world is burning. We can actually set the agenda and make things better.”
Guest: Sara Nelson: International President of the Association of Flight Attendants- (AFA-CWA) (representing 55,000 Flight Attendants at 20 airlines)
Watch the episode released on YouTube July 18th 5pm ET; PBS World Channel July 20th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast July 23rd.
Full Episode Notes are located HERE.
CHAPTERS:
2:44 thoughts on today, forward on your mind: 911, lay-offs, bankruptcy & crisis capitalism, fighting back, immigration issues facing colleagues
5:29 How safe is flying today? Safety: air traffic controllers, pilots, flight attendants. Attacks on the industry. Dismantling of departments that help aviation including national weather service, USAID intersecting with rising pandemics.
8:27 What is coming in this moment and the cuts to agencies and a move to privatize the national weather service or air traffic controllers. An opportunity for the labor movement in this moment.
11:22 Sara’s origin story and the importance of unions and putting a check on unchecked capitalism.
14:00 Union fights for flight attendants including no smoking, weight restrictions, sexism, high heels. Fighting for ‘rest rules (10 hours of rest)’, health care, pay and pensions. Cross-Union solidarity. Win for the labor movement, FAA Reauthorization bill.
19:06 When we fight we win. Power mapping then and now in the industry. Labor movement strategy.
21:40. The plight of Air Traffic Controllers in the Reagan years then informing the labor movement now.
23:14 The New Deal and union power to the decline of unions. Imbalance of power. The power of organizing on many levels. Call to action, ‘what you can do’. Building labor solidarity.
29:40 Union’s in the Trump era. Now is the moment to lean in, organize and pushing back.
Your not going to win if you don’t fight. Mother Jones and the Colorado miners fight.
33:56 Communities rising to the occasion. Democratic candidate, Zohran Mamdani’s run for Mayor of New York City. Working class agenda and the spirit of solidarity.
37:30 General strikes. History lessons including Iceland’s Women’s day off. The need for more women and young people to participate in union organizing.
41:29 Are there potential allies perhaps like some ICE workers who are expressing moral concerns? Systems are the problem, not the majority of workers.
44:45 What do you think the future will tell of this moment?
49:00 Bonus
RESOURCES:
“The Work of Living: Working People Talk about Their Lives and the Year the World Broke” by Maximillian Alvarez, Get the Book*
(*Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. The LF Show is an affiliate of bookshop.org and will receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.)
• Labor Safety, Project 2025, & the Far Right’s Plot Against Workers: What You Need to Know: Watch / Listen: Episode
• Labor Movement v. Fascism: Worker Organizers & Labor Educators Are Under Attack: Watch / Listen: Episode
• UAW President Shawn Fain: "Workers are still up against the same billionaires": Watch
• Special Report- Bernie Sanders & AOC: “Fighting Oligarchy” with People Power Watch / Listen: Special Report, Uncut Interview- Bernie Sanders
• Watch: Episode, Bernie Sanders’ Speech at the Fight Oligarchy rally, Kenosha, WI
• Special Report- Labor Movement v. Fascism: Worker Organizers & Labor Educators Are Under Attack. Watch / Listen
• Is America Pissed Off Enough at Trump and Musk for a General Strike? By Susan Miligan, April 24, 2025, The New Republic
• In Chicago, a Coalition of Unions, Community Organizers, and Riders Have Forced Uber to Come to the Table, by Will Tanzman and Lori Simmons, July 16, 2025, The Nation
• US aviation agency reinstating fired employees after court order, union says, by David Shepardson, March 17, 2025, Reuters
• Unions sue to stop Trump from ending collective bargaining rights for many federal employees, by Tami Luhby, April 4, 2025, CNN
• The Sleeping Giant That could Stop Trump’s Agenda in Its Tracks, by Mary Harris, April 25, 2025, SLATE
• The Call Is Out for Mass, Simultaneous Strikes in 4 Years, by Sarah Lazare, October 14, 2024, The Nation
• How Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson became America’s most powerful voice for labor, by Morgan Clendaniel, September 9, 2024, Fast Company Magazine
• Sara Nelson: Let’s Show Bosses They’re Lucky to Have Our Work, by Sara Nelson, February 13, 2024, Jacobin Magazine
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Narrator: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation.
The following is from our episode with Union Leader Sarah Nelson on Labour solidarity.
A union member since 1996, she's been the international President of the Association of Flight Attendants CWAAFLCIO since 2014, representing 55,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines.
These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
The members of the Association of Flight Attendants know the realities of the aircraft cabin better than anyone.
We don't just serve drinks.
We save lives.
We don't just negotiate contracts, we move major policy issues like the smoking ban, no knives on planes, clean water and save food on board.
The air we breathe matters and we stop the spraying of poisonous pesticides.
Training, rest and no calls on planes matter as we fight fires, deescalate conflict, revive and breathe life.
That announcement from the Association of Flight Attendants in 2016 provides a glimpse of how today's guest frames her message and her mission.
Representing some 55,000 members at 20 Airlines, Sarah Nelson valiantly defends her people.
Back in 2019, she used the threat of a strike to ground air traffic to help end an extended government shutdown.
During the pandemic, she won a $54 billion COVID relief package for her industry.
Nelson is in her third term as AFA International president and widely regarded as one of the most lionhearted leaders in the labour movement.
When Bernie Sanders launched his Fight the Oligarchy tour, she joined.
When UAW leader Sean Fain floated talk of a general strike, she chimed in.
When viewers and listeners to this program ask me what is to be done about the direction in which this country is moving right now, I often think I bet Sarah Nelson has a plan.
And so I am very glad to welcome Sarah Nelson to Laura Flanders And friends, I'm so glad to have you with us.
Laura, thank you so much.
I'm so happy to be talking to you and especially in this moment.
Exactly.
Well, I'll, I'll tell you, it helps me as we begin these conversations to just kind of settle myself.
And I do that sometimes by just asking my guests who is uppermost on their minds, in their hearts as as we begin to speak.
So who is who?
Who are you bringing to this conversation today?
I always bring the people that I work with, so whenever I feel like I have lost my way or anything, I think about the people that I have shared a jumpsuit with, worked across a beverage cart with, had to deal with scary moments in aviation and.
Then I also always always.
Always think about my friends that I lost on September 11th Flight 175 that slammed into the South tower of the World Trade Center and everyone can picture that because all.
Cameras were trained on that site because American Airlines Flight 11 had hit the North Tower 17 minutes earlier.
So I know the exact moment that Amy and Michael and another Amy and Catherine, Al, Alicia, Robert, Marianne, Jesus lost their lives.
But I also know now that in that moment when we were grieving the loss of our friends and trying to pick up the pieces and seeing.
Half of our.
Ranks get furlough slips and then the bankruptcies that followed.
I learned that in that moment when we were grieving and trying to come together, there were crisis capitalists who were trying to redefine the value of a pilot, a flight attendant, a mechanic, a gate agent, and to do what they had done in so many other industries that didn't have as high union density as the airline industry.
To make people work more for less, shed pensions and legacy costs, transfer more of the cost of the healthcare to the people on the front lines.
And so I'm thinking about all of them.
I'm thinking about how to fight back.
And I'm thinking about the flight attendants who are calling us right now saying I'm I'm terrified because my family is in the process of being properly documented.
My family is from another country.
My loved ones are, my neighbors are.
What can we do to help them?
And so you asked what seemed to be a simple question.
But I see those faces.
I see the faces of the people that I love and have lost.
I see the faces of the people who want to honor their memory and and try very hard to do their jobs every single day.
And I see the people who are terrified right now because their loved ones may be taken away from them.
Well, it is so helpful for you to bring us back to that reality because we as passengers, as clients of the airlines, we see your smiling faces, We see the flight attendants who do all that emotional work of keeping from us what's going on for them and making us as comfortable and secure as they can.
How safe are our skies for for customers, clients, passengers and the people you work with every day at this point in 2025, do you think?
Well, look, aviation is the safest mode of transportation in the world.
That is the product of aviation being highly unionized not only in the United States, but also around the world.
When we say things like never forget and never again, we mean it.
We don't just have.
Companies that are beholden to the shareholders and the financiers that, you know, they can say all day long that safety is first, but it's really the people who are putting their lives on the lines, getting onto those flights who truly have the the real interest in keeping safety first.
So our voices are so important.
And I will tell you that there are a.
Lot of stresses and strains on aviation right now and we can get into all of those.
But I know that because hundreds of thousands of aviation workers on the front lines from the people who are engineering and building the aircraft that we fly on to the safety inspectors who are inspecting their work.
The air traffic controllers who are giving us directions in in our route planning and also clearance to land clearance to take off, clearance to taxi the pilots and flight attendants.
And all of the people who.
Bring people to our planes.
All of those hundreds of thousands of workers are asking all day long is it safe?
And that gives the public the ability to take for granted that it is.
But we certainly do have disruptions.
And the first thing that you learn in safety is to.
Remove.
All distractions.
So when you.
Have programs like Doge coming in and telling people to justify their work, telling them to write essays about how they will be loyal not to their country and the oath that they've taken, but to Donald Trump himself.
Telling them that they may not have the people next to them to work with.
Knowing that this president has said Ronald Reagan fired the air truck controllers in four days.
I'll do it in 4 minutes.
You know, these are these are incredible distractions and then dismantling.
All of the programs that help aviation, the National Weather Service, the USA, USAID.
So that we can fly safely around the world and so that we can identify where communicable disease exists, stop it before it gets to our airports and we become the become the conduit to spreading what could be the next pandemic.
So all of these things are of serious concern to us.
What I would tell the public is that today, look to your flight attendants, look to your pilots.
If it's not safe, we're not going to go.
And it may be very frustrating.
There's a lot of delays and cancellations these days.
That is because the people.
Who are on the front lines of aviation are slowing things down in order to keep things safe.
May not be as efficient for everyone, but we're going to keep it safe.
We have had our attention focused with the deadly floods in central TX on those cuts to the Weather Service and NOA.
What do you fear will come of this moment?
More privatization or more reinvestment in the public, Because what we've learned since the dying is how invested some of Trump's appointees to those very agencies and the Commerce secretary himself were in businesses that stood to gain from the privatization of weather prediction.
Yes, I, I mean, the whole approach here, Project 2025 and what I saw very clearly during the government shutdown in 2018 and rolling into 2019 is that this is about breaking government so that it doesn't work, so that everything can be privatized.
There are certain things that just should not be privatized.
I don't think you want your air traffic controllers to be working for the largest buck about how we're going to safely guide airplanes up and down.
I don't think that you want them deciding that somebody who is a billionaire should take off ahead of a commercial airliner that is carrying 500 people to go somewhere.
I you know, there are, there are certain things that just should not be privatized, but there is a constant effort to privatize, whether that's education, more and more of our healthcare system, Social Security.
There was a there was an effort in 2005 to do that that failed.
They're continuing to try.
And so it's about breaking government so that.
People will say fix it.
And they'll be willing to accept things that they haven't been willing to accept in the past.
I also see this as a moment of opportunity because we really understand what's going on here.
The working class can also join together the labor movement.
When I say the labor movement, I do.
Not just me and the people who are holding union cards today because there's not enough of us, but 70% of the public would like to join a union if they could, if they could have access without interference from their employers or interference from the laws.
And so we need to think about the labor movement in that way.
So many things are decided in our politics by A50 plus, you know, 1% vote in order to just get over that threshold of a majority.
But the reality is that there are so many people in this country that want the same things, need the same things, and we can demand it in this moment.
This is a moment of crisis where we can set the agenda and and take a different turn here to set forward policies that actually build our economy from the ground up.
We have learned very well that trickle down and economics does not work.
And I can talk more about what we did during COVID to show that.
But this is this is a moment of incredible crisis, a moment of so much at risk and so much efforts to privatize everything, which will not be good for regular people.
But it's also a moment where when we're breaking everything, we can build this back better if we decide to do that together.
We are speaking our language about what possibilities exist in this moment.
But I want you to go back to how you woke up to the importance of union membership, because if I have my facts right, you didn't get born of a labor activist.
No, no, I was, I was born in in Corvallis, OR my mom was actually a member of a union, but we never talked about it.
So now I know that we had a steady paycheck, we had healthcare, we had all these protections because my mom was a union member.
But that wasn't a part of my consciousness growing up at all.
And so it wasn't until I became a flight attendant with United Airlines that I was out flying the first few weeks on the job.
And I had finished going to a very expensive liberal arts school that my parents had helped pay for and that I was also staring down massive student debt to pay off after that.
And so they were a little upset that I was going to be a flight attendant.
They were much happier six months later when they got the flight benefits to fly all over the world.
But they were.
But at the time, you know, I wasn't asking them for help and I didn't get my first paycheck.
So I, I went into the office to ask someone for help and they said, oh, you get your first paycheck at different times for different reasons and to and to take a very long story, much shorter, I I somehow made it through to the next payday.
A lot of top ramen, a lot of plain food, maybe a couple dates from first class that those were steak and lobster nights.
And then see ya good night.
But but made it through and had nothing left in my bank account by the time the next pay cycle hit.
And so I still didn't have a paycheck and I asked someone to help me, and it was the first time that I felt like I was.
Just a number in an HR file.
And they were.
Saying the same things to me and nobody was hearing me and my rent was due the next day my roommates were counting on me I.
Felt so much pressure and and I couldn't even eat and so the tears started to roll and I have this tap on the shoulder and turn around.
There was someone standing there who looked a lot like me.
She was wearing the same uniform.
I had never seen her before.
I do remember her AFA pen on right up shining right above her wings and but she was just a line member and she asked me how to spell my name and handed me a check for $800.
And she said #1 you go take care of yourself and #2 call our union.
And I did call our union.
And I got my paycheck the next day.
But I really learned everything that I needed to know about being in a union in that moment, because in our unions were never alone.
And typically we care about each other and we want to help other people.
And through our unions, we can be organized about that care and get the most out of it.
So that's what that's really what got me involved in the beginning.
And there were a lot of lessons that I learned along the way.
But then five years later was when September 11th hit.
And that's when I got the really hard lessons in life and the and the real lessons about why unions are so necessary to put a check on unchecked capitalism.
What are some of the things that your union has fought for over your years?
I mean, we all of us, I think if we have any memory at all, remember some of the outrageously sexist and misogynist rules that exist in the flight attendant's flight industry years ago.
But some of the things that I saw you had to fight about, about when the clock begins and ends, were just chilling to me.
Yeah, it's been pretty extraordinary.
I mean, I, I was hired just after we won the the no smoking fight on planes.
So our union took on Big Tobacco and was the first to win and get that out of our workplace and help the traveling public too.
But we had to fight.
It was only three years before I was hired that we stopped having to step on a weight scale when we came to work.
We finally won the wage.
The weight case in.
Court.
And during our bankruptcy?
During the bankruptcy.
Five years later, as we're fighting to keep the pensions and one of the things that I had to do in training is have a day that was makeup day where we would go and learn how to put makeup on.
And we were required to make to buy the makeup if we didn't have our own makeup.
And the guys got the day off and we were required to wear 2 inch heels to work.
So in the middle of this bankruptcy, as we're fighting for our pensions, the flight attendants were saying now that we're working these longer days because we've given so much up from the bankruptcy and we had to work longer days and work more hours in order to make up for the pay cuts.
So people were willing to.
Do that it was the same.
Sort of process that had happened in many other industries they the the big issue became we need to wear comfortable.
Shoes because you're.
Standing longer, it's this has been an issue actually that could have been tackled much earlier.
But in the middle of fighting for our pensions, we stopped everything to do a petition because what people really wanted was to be able to wear comfortable shoes.
And I remember feeling so beaten down and demoralized from that bankruptcy.
We had already been in the bankruptcy for two years so people were feeling defeated, but they won on the shoes we won in a month's time.
To be able to wear the same shoes that nurses wear on the job and the.
Flight attendants felt that feeling of that win and that led to them fighting for the pensions and and taking a strike vote that was 99.9% to be able to fight for that pension.
It was ultimately allowed to be terminated by the court, but we were the only work group to improve upon the pension without having to pay for it with a retirement replacement plan because of our fight.
We also received saved retiree healthcare during that because we just fought on everything.
But then I think about also how important it was as our days were getting longer to finally get the rest rules that we've been fighting so long for.
So, and one of the things that I'm proudest of is our efforts to try to improve our minimum rest on the job.
And it was a massive bite with a lot to learn there.
We had to get bipartisan support.
We we had rallies, we had studies that were commissioned.
We had so much work that happened.
And what it all came down to in the end was it was the last item on the table in the 2018 FAA reauthorization bill.
And in that bill, we were also talking about sexual harassment and upping the fines and, and, and defining sexual harassment and assault as an actual unique crime on the on the job.
So that was also important.
But but in the final moments, I got a message from the leadership of the committee's that this was going through.
Both the House and Senate were meeting together.
And they said there's not a single Republican who will sign up to support your 10 hours of minimum rest.
And I happened to be in a car with the president of the United Mine Workers of America, Cecil Roberts, at the time.
And we had just helped save the miners pensions and healthcare that had been promised to them.
We had been out helping them on that.
And I was going to another rally along the same lines with him right then.
And I said, Cecil, I need you to call Shelley Moore Capito right now.
And he was able to call the senator and not just say, can I do this favor for me?
But he was able to say this is someone and this is a union that fought to make sure that your constitution.
Constituents maintain that retirement security.
You need to do this.
For them now, it's the right thing to do.
And she did it within 5 minutes.
And that is the final argument that was made in that 2018 FAA reauthorization bill.
And we finally won those additional 2 hours of rest that we had been fighting.
For for over 30 years.
Well, it's contagious, the story that you're telling about wins and these.
This is why it is so tragic to me that we get so little coverage of the labor movement as you described, of working people's fights and and experiences and wins.
I want to say when we fight, we win.
Sometimes that slogan rings hollow after the Kamala Harris campaign.
But hey, what I'm hearing from you is when we fight, we win.
And I want to ask you how you're applying that to this moment.
I remember back in that time of the general of the government shutdown hearing, you say we just need to shut down 3 airports.
You've done a kind of power mapping of where the vulnerabilities were in our system or where the pressure points could be.
Yeah.
Have you done that mapping now?
Where are they now?
So.
What's interesting is that our union does use a strike tactic called chaos, create havoc around our system, and part of the power of it is that we don't announce when or where we're going to strike.
Well, fair enough.
So, so we use that, we use that same tactic and it is very powerful.
But what what I would say in that, in that shutdown, it was very clear we did so much work there, there.
These things don't just sort of happen.
I think people pay attention when when issues come to a climax and they they're really paying attention.
What they don't see is all the work that went into those moments and.
So what we did for?
35 days was defined the real safety risks of the ongoing government shutdown.
We continued to find define that.
And what we knew was going to happen was there was going to become a point in time at which we said to our members it is not safe to fly and we have to refuse to fly.
And so we were preparing for that strike while at the same time saying this is a moment of redemption for what happened in 1981 when the Paco workers were on strike, the air traffic controllers, Ronald Reagan fired them, sent many of them to jail, banned them from ever working in the federal government again, which Bill Clinton did turn around.
But most of the most of them had already lost their careers.
Air traffic controllers have to retire at age 56 because it's such a stressful job.
So that sent message to corporate America.
It was open season on unions and that the strike was a dirty word.
And that is you saw the strike activity decrease, you saw unions decline.
You saw corporations draw unions into strikes that they couldn't win to get rid of them.
There were lopsided trade deals.
There was the onslaught of stock buybacks.
So money was shoveled to Wall Street.
And in some cases, those businesses failed because of that, which cost jobs too, and oftentimes union jobs.
So we saw a real decline in the labor movement after what happened.
And so when when we saw in this government shutdown that once again it was air traffic controllers who were on the line and other government.
Workers.
And we said we cannot do what we did in 1981, which was to turn our back on the air traffic controllers and say this isn't our fight because it affected all of us.
This is a moment when we all need to come together.
And that's when I gave the speech and called on the rest of the labor movement to talk about a general strike to end that shutdown.
And defining that worker power in the way in that way was key to ending that shutdown.
Because when there was still no political solution insight on Day 34 and the Senate voted again and voted against it, the very next day, a few flights started to cancel in LaGuardia.
We had already defined that it was workers that were going to take over.
And in order to make sure that we wouldn't get a taste of our power as working people, that government shutdown ended in a couple hours when there was no solution insight for 35 days.
So we can take that lesson of what happened there and understand that first of all, there has to be labor solidarity.
We have to understand that if one group is under attack, we're next.
So we have to rush to each other's sides, but we can also turn their surround and not just be on defense, but think about in a crisis, and we are in a crisis.
Our world is burning.
We can actually set the agenda and make things better.
All right.
So do that.
I mean, we are in that crisis that you just mentioned.
You have union leaders like Sean Fain and few others talking about a general strike.
You have others talking about 2028 as a moment where contracts could be coordinated.
What are you seeing as critical moments for people to be thinking about?
Because as you started by saying, the union movement has been Hanford from growing.
There are less than one in 10 American workers today, and most places are are unionized.
The idea of a strike feels like something from the 30s.
And I've heard a lot of skepticism from people like, well, yeah, nice pie in the sky, but will it ever happened?
How would it happen?
So a couple things, Laura.
First of all, you're right from the 30s, nineteen 34, there was some of the highest amount of strike activity this country has ever seen.
And there were national strikes.
The mine workers were on strike for nine months.
There were general strikes in various cities, Toledo, Oakland.
There was a textile strike all across the South.
There was massive unrest.
And that's actually what brought the corporation's crawling to FDR to ask for labor law because they wanted some stability.
And it also gave FDR the power to sign into law the New Deal, because these were very clear demands coming from labor across the board.
These were not.
These were not legal strikes, but as I always say, there are no illegal strikes.
There are only unsuccessful ones.
If you generate enough power, you can get resolution and protect everyone.
And so there was this massive unrest and that is what created the power to get the New Deal, to get Social Security, to get wage and hour laws passed to get the right to join a union, passed to get.
Everything they're trying to unemployment unravel right now.
All of the things that they're trying to unravel now.
That's right.
And so I know that even though the union density is low, we have to be ready for these moments.
So in those general strikes that happened in 1934, oftentimes that was sparked because there was a group of workers who was going on strike because of their contract.
But the issues the the the level of understanding about the bosses taking everything and everyone else struggling, the rest of the community was organized and could understand that and came out with them because they understood.
That.
This was not just a moment for the auto workers in Toledo.
This was a moment for everyone to change the way that society was structured.
And so they all came out.
So right now, what I encourage people to do is to look for labor strikes.
Get out on a picket line.
You will learn so much by going to a picket line about how to be organized, about how to be very disciplined about having nonviolent activity as we're doing this and making sure that we're not putting in the hands of the oppressors the argument that they can make that things get violent.
So they have to come in and have martial law or police state.
We can't hand any of these tactics over to them, but we've got to rush together.
I think in in LA right now, we're seeing communities rise up and and gather around immigrants and chase away people who are unidentified and not not following the legal process in order to detain someone.
In order to arrest someone.
We have to be, we have to be going out wherever we can, and there's different levels of engagement that people can have.
But first and foremost, there is a fight likely going on in your community.
Find it.
Go out there, learn about the fight, take Donuts to the picket line, you know, contribute to the strike funds, find out what you can do to support in other ways.
And there will be a catalyst that brings everyone into the streets.
It's coming.
I would say for me, my red line has already been passed.
A million workers in the federal government had their contracts canceled.
That was my red line.
But I know that we're not all there yet.
So we have to continue to define these things.
We have to define the commonalities that we have and look for opportunities to build those relationships.
A very simple way to think about it is if there's a takedown, Tesla action, go.
When you go there, exchange cell phone numbers with the other people who are there and promise to go together to the next event.
Share with each other the next event that's coming.
And at that next event, each of you make the commitment to bring 5 or 10 of your friends.
That makes you a union organizer right there and it can build very quickly.
And if people just practice these organizing skills that are easy to take part in today in society, you can find its fights anywhere.
We can actually build up labor solidarity and a real experience for people to be able to take on the big fight.
And finally, I would just say that the strike is very powerful, but the threat of the strike is where the power is.
And so if people are ready to do this, just like in 2019 when it looked like it, we were on the verge.
Of going into an outright strike across aviation, we got to an agreement instead.
So people have to be very clear about what they're willing to do.
They have to be practiced and, and build that up and look for those moments that are going to be the spark for everyone to come out.
I I expect that one of those moments could be if the Social Security checks stop, how will this country function?
How will anyone function?
And if we think it's just a generational issue, trust me.
Gen.
Z does not want to have their parents move in with them.
So this is for everyone and and there will be a moment where we all feel it.
And I believe that a strike is is a strike.
A mass strike is very, very possible.
If it's not the mass layoffs and it's not the mass deportations and it's not the cuts to Medicaid, maybe you're right, maybe it is indeed Social Security.
But I do see these red lines, as you point out, being crossed over and over again.
Hi, it's Laura.
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Now back to our full uncut conversation.
There's two questions.
One I have for you is about the unions that have stuck with Trump and the unions who have been reluctant to participate or even talk about the kind of solidarity that you're talking about.
And then secondly, where you see exciting breakthroughs, because I think we've seen some of those recently too.
But first, I mean, it's not like there haven't been unions back in the the Trump side of all this.
There have.
But yes, and I wouldn't even go so far as to say unions.
I think certain leaders maybe, but I think for the most part what's going on right now is something that naturally happens and that is the human condition.
When you're under attack, the instinct is to go hunker down to get in your bunker and preserve what you have.
And that is exactly the wrong response right now.
So we have to push everyone to understand that nonviolent does not mean non conflict.
We have to lean into the conflict.
It the more that we push back, the harder it is for them to push forward.
These court cases where we have slowed down some of the Trump action.
Is only.
Is only.
Delaying the impact of what we know is coming because by the time these issues get to the Supreme Court, we know how they have been decided.
So we have to use these this these moments right now when some of the worst things have been slowed down to organize and to push back and to show them that people are not going to hunker down in their homes or hunker down in their unions.
I would call on every union to be, you know, to be more clear and what they're willing to do to.
Fight back some have been forced to their own members have been seized and detained by ICE and this is given an opportunity for people who might think this isn't my issue to suddenly realize this is my issue so I do see bright spots like that the.
Problem is that of course we're going to see a lot of pain with it and that is that's a little bit unbearable.
But if we get stuck in that, rather than understanding that if you fight back, you actually have a chance of winning if you do not fight see I, I don't really believe if you fight you win.
I, I, I do want to make a caveat to that if you fight you, the only way to win is if you fight.
So you're not going to win if.
You don't fight.
And sometimes you will lose, but even in the losses you will learn something and you will be able to recalibrate and go to the next battle and usually use those lessons to win, Mother Jones, the great labor organizer, said.
And she said this on the heels of the Ledlow massacre in the early 1900s, where miners were in tent cities striking and the Baldwin Felts and and the National Guard opened fire on them and then set fire.
To their tent city and burned 28 people alive the the in the on the heels of that Mother Jones came there and she said sure you lost because any contest between the Constitution of the United States and the bayonet the bayonet's going to win every time.
But you will fight and win you will fight and lose but you must fight.
And the part of the story that we don't often hear in history is that that was a Clarion call to the rest of the miners across Colorado who came with their guns and their ammunition and held Ludlow safe.
While people could have their funerals and mourn the dead and and and make you know the graves where people could be properly buried.
And they created their own government for a month's time.
No one ever talks about this, but they learned from that.
And from there they continued to organize and make their unions stronger and became the largest union in the country, the United Mine Workers of America.
That then built up the steel workers and the auto workers and gave them the cash to be able to do that and the support to be able to do that.
And so you will fight.
And like Mother Jones said, fight and win, fight and lose.
But you must fight, because nothing will change if you are not prepared to fight.
I have lived through many of these struggles that you've described and seen exactly what you've just described happen.
Communities, A experience what it is to be in community and in struggle with each other and B create things and mechanisms and ways of living that they then get a taste for and actually want to fight for in the future.
We are seeing some exciting changes where establishment forces are being sidelined by movements that have a courage and daring not coming from old guard.
I'm thinking about New York as one example and wondered if you had thoughts about Zora Mamdani's victory in the primary there and anywhere else that you're seeing this kind of burbling up of change.
I'd be curious what you're, what you're catching, what's catching your eye out there?
So Saurons primary victory is just extraordinary, but I think that there's a lot of lessons to learn from this.
What Zoran did not shy away from is the truth.
The truth about the fact that Zoran is trying to create a solidarity in New York City that has us fighting for the working class and actually broke down barriers and fought against every effort to vilify Zoran through through race, through religion, through background experience.
And, and he cut right through that because his message was about bringing all of us together and making a better New York together and to build that from the ground up and to have very bold policies, not just policies that are getting around the edges of massive problems.
That we have.
We have a massive housing crisis.
We have a crisis of no public transportation.
People.
People can't afford to live where they're working and they can't.
Afford to get.
To work either and his policies that he put forward are the real policies that we need in order to rebuild a society that actually is fulfilling the promise of what I thought I was promising every morning in Miss Muldoon's classroom at five years old in kindergarten with my hand over my heart, looking up at that flag and ending that pledge with indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
You know, I didn't think those were just words.
I'm looking around at the other five year olds in the classroom.
I thought we were making a solemn vow.
That's what made me proud to call myself an American.
And then to learn that, you know, we, we haven't always practiced that and we haven't realized that promise yet.
There's a lot to do.
But he fought through every potential effort of the union Buster to divide, delay, distract and demoralize.
He cut right through it with the truth, speaking about real people going into all of the communities, hearing their stories.
This is how we organize and this is how we build the solidarity that can win.
And he's up against incredible forces that do not want him to be there.
So the fight is not over yet, but it is through that very strong working class agenda.
That he set.
And the spirit of solidarity that we have way more in common than anything that can divide us.
And working with Brad Lander to show very clearly that Muslims and Jews can stand together and and fight forward together for what humanity really needs.
It just it just blew in the.
Face of every effort to divide and keep us at odds with each other and thinking that we are in competition with each other rather than in a space where we can lift each other up and all do Better Together.
Two questions just for audiences that may not be familiar with the term general strike.
I heard in your description of it some new things, not just unions in collaboration with each other, but entire communities.
When you talk about a general strike, what do you mean for people that that maybe only do have that image from years ago?
Well, I think one of the best ways to talk about this is that Iceland, the women of Iceland decided about 30 years ago that they had had enough of inequality, they had had enough of being second class citizens.
And so the militant women wanted to call for a single day strike of the women in the country.
And they thought that this is what would lead to the change.
And what was interesting was that there were other groups that were maybe interested in participating, but they were scared to say the word strike.
So they all settled on a Woman's Day off and everyone took the day off, whether that was from changing diapers to teaching in the classroom to to working in the retail.
Stores or or working in the.
Hospitals or whatever it.
Was women across the country took the day off and that led to the equal rights amendment in in Iceland that gave women equal rights.
And it was only 10 years later that they had a woman that was president of Iceland.
And so this is very powerful.
This is what I'm talking about.
And if you look through history at changes that have been made, if you look at the recent example in South Korea, that is actually, you know, a story that is several decades long.
But people just saw that there was martial law declared, that the people rose up, that it was the labor unions leading that, but that the rest of the community came out.
And if you look, you can see that 4% of the population taking action can be all that is necessary to make massive changes to to oust authoritarian regimes, to make changes in policy that everyone is asking for.
And that really has to come from the labor movement leading that.
But it is the entire community that makes it possible.
And when I say the labor movement leading that, because oftentimes we hear about the opposition party and in most cases where there have been general strikes and massive political change in countries, it has not been a political party that has LED that.
It has been the workers themselves who have led that.
And in most cases, the opposition party was very unpopular.
People look so much to elect electoral politics for our change.
How can we continue looking to a place that is completely overrun with money?
And a corporate agenda and an unlimited amount of money to control our politics.
We have to find leaders who can back up the people who get elected to office to do the job.
But we have to be very clear that we're never going to look to elected leaders to lead the way, that that agenda has to be set from the ground up.
And then we have to get people elected who are on that agenda and continue to hold them accountable.
It doesn't end with that.
So a lot of people will say, are you going to run for?
Office and I say I did and I won.
I'm the president of my union and that is it is an incredibly important role that union leaders have to play.
And for the people who are not yet leading their unions, I say to women everywhere, join unions and run unions.
We need more women leading this movement, meaning we need young people.
There is a structure there that exists, but also you can be a part of that and be come out to those union events, encourage those unions, encourage union organizing, and you don't even have to be certified, just like they weren't in the 30s in order to make massive change.
And are you going to run for president?
Laura one one thing at a time here maybe.
We'll, we'll, we'll work on making.
Sure, we don't have our First Amendment rights stamped out.
There was a story recently and then we're drawing to a close, but there was a story recently about how unhappy some of the workers are in ICE in the immigration enforcement, or what is it, Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
There was a story recently about how uncomfortable and unhappy many of the ICE workers are at Immigration, Customs and Enforcement, which made me think maybe there are allies that we haven't thought of yet.
And also a reminder that the systems we talked about this on last week's show that some of the systems that we hate most are maintained by our labor.
Do you think there are allies within ICE and other agencies that could be reached out to?
So I do, I think that if we start there, much like, you know, in the last election there was big to do about Democrats courting Republican votes, I think you're going to lose your way because you're going to be negotiating.
Against.
Yourself before you even start.
So what we have to understand is that the systems are the problem.
The workers are never our competition.
The workers are never our enemies.
There may be some who fall in line with the agenda of the boss, and we have to be aware of that and we have to be very clear that that's not OK.
I think that the people who are feeling uncomfortable about that are hearing from the public right now.
That's why they're uncomfortable.
They're being questioned about what they're doing, which is making them question it themselves, if they weren't already.
So we have to continue to keep up that very clear demand for everyone to operate with a clear moral conscience, but we also have to leave our arms open.
For allies to join us that has.
To be a part of the of the overall plan to build a movement that's big enough to win and, and to, you know, there's a couple.
Things in organizing, we know it's good to sort of get the dissidents to, you know, slow down their rhetoric to be, to be a little bit demurred.
In in their advocacy against the union, right?
That's important too, even if you don't win them all the way to the other side.
But also we often find that some of our most ardent supporters and people who really are fighting for the union, we see this right now actually in Delta organizing with the Delta flight attendants are people who had been on the boss's agenda, had believed that the boss was there for them, had believed that this was the right agenda.
And then they see that they have been used to advance an agenda that was actually against themselves.
When people see that and they see that they have been wronged and they have been LED in the wrong direction, sometimes those are your best activists.
So you just have to leave the door open to them.
That's not where you start.
You don't start there.
You make it really uncomfortable for them to be on the bus's agenda, but then you open your arms and make it possible for them to come in when they're ready to, to break free from that and to change the way that there are they're acting.
Beautiful, the question we ask all our guests at the end of these episodes.
And I want to thank you so much for your time and your passion and everything that you're you're saying and doing really is resonating, I'm sure with our audience.
We ask what we think the future will be that the story tells of.
Now, I don't want, I don't know whether you want to go forward 100 years or 50 or 25 or five, but pick one.
What do you think is the story the future will tell of this moment?
Well, I, I think that there will be a lot of criticism about why did it take so long for people to wake up and act.
And, and so I, I think that we can expect that.
I mean, that's, that goes back to the old poem of, you know, they came for the treated unionists and I did not speak up.
And by the end of it, there was no one left to speak up for me when they came for me.
And that is really the the moment that we're in here.
So we will, we will see if there is a moment where everyone understands which.
Side we're on and what we're fighting for and how critical this moment is to be together to fight.
I do.
I do wonder how far.
It's going to go.
Is it going to go to?
The place of having mass incarceration for.
A majority of the working class with these prisons that they're building and and then use that prison labor to essentially have slave labor again in this country, they're already doing that.
They've been testing it out for decades already.
But to do this at mass scale is maybe where we're headed.
And so how far are we going to let this go before we stop?
I I do just want to say on an inspirational note that we did win $54 billion, not just to save the airlines, but on our plan a workers first plan.
It was the very first time that airlines were told exactly what they could do with the federal money.
And that money had to go flow through directly to our paychecks, keeping us connected to our healthcare and our retirement contributions and paying local taxes.
And we also put in those conditions that there.
Had to be a ban on stock buybacks and a cap on executive compensation.
And it was the only industry not to grow in inequality during Covad because of what we did and we did that with.
The power of. 80% unionization in the airline industry.
We had hoped it would be used.
Everywhere else.
But I say all of that at the end of the show, Lord, because it is important for us to know that we got that plan passed.
In a week's time in a government that was not friendly to workers because we we put forward an agenda, we fought for it, we made the airlines come to our side and it was a crisis.
We took up that moment to make change.
That is that.
Is really what can be done now, as our earth is burning and as our First Amendment and due process rights are being unravelled and the very idea that this country was founded on is in jeopardy, This is definitely a crisis.
Moment and so my only question is how much more pain will we feel and how far away will we go from the realities of what we all at one point I think have have been able to be proud or or hopeful at least for what our country can be.
At what point are we going to stand up and change it?
And I do believe.
But that moment will come.
I just wonder how many lives are going to be lost.
How many people are going to be hurt before we get there?
And in that case, things are going to be so broken that if we have leaders with a vision about how we can build up a society that will actually work for everyone, This is a moment of potential massive change that can save our world, save our country, and set a brighter future for our children.
And, and it's my belief, I may be an internal optimist, but it's my belief that with the good hearts of people everywhere, and most people do have good hearts.
We see it on our planes every day, even though we remember the people who get on the Evening News that that we are going to see a massive change for the better.
I just, I just know that we're going to have a lot of pain.
In the meantime.
I want to believe, I believe, I want to believe.
Sarah Nelson, thank you so much of the AFA.
It's been a pleasure talking with you.
Thank you, Laura.
Appreciate it so much.
That was great.
All right, all right, marching orders, people out there it.
Was.
Funny, when you mentioned Cecil Roberts at the very beginning, I covered the Pittston strike and I was like 12.
No.
And, and that was one of those experiences where the experience that those folks had and Cecil was not the president, it was it's Trumka at that point.
No, but Cecil was leading that strike.
Exactly.
Trumka was in DC while Cecil LED that strike and LED the takeover of Moss 5 and, and told the the bankruptcy or I'm sorry, not the bankruptcy judge told the, the state judge that he would not comply with the, with the order, with the injunction that it was unjust and he was not going to do anything that was unjust.
And we need that kind of leadership and, and, and confidence and, and power to be able to stand up to people who are currently in power.
And it was a good example too.
So I had covered the, the, the NUM, the the National Union of mine workers strike in England, which had just preceded that in 84.
And the women there hadn't been able to be part of the union.
So the women had played this solidarity and support role in the UK and then they came over and met the Pittston women, Women for cult, whatever they were called and.
The Women's auxiliary.
Group the women's auxiliary yeah that whole anyway you're taking me back.
But yeah, fascinating is such a such a good story.
And then the and then not to keep you, but the story that we did last week took about 50 years is the story of the Lucas Aerospace workers in England 50 years ago made a plan of how to transition away from military to And they're still we we found two of them still alive, still kicking, still super strong and, you know, just lighting their tongue from saying we told you so.
Yeah, right.
So thank you.
Thank you.
We need room tone which.
Narrator: Thanks for taking the time to listen to the full conversation with Union Leader Sarah Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants, CWAAFLCIO, representing 55,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines.
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