Belabored Podcast #165: Communities Unite for Border Resistance, with Cosecha Movement

We spoke with an immigrants’ rights activist from the Cosecha Movement about conditions at the border.

Tijuana (Photo by Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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For weeks, the Central American migrant caravan has been approaching the U.S. border and gathering the government’s ire, and now in Tijuana, we’re bearing witness to a humanitarian crisis, an economic crisis, and one of the most glaring moral failures of Trump’s immigration policy, as throngs of desperate and exhausted migrants have come seeking asylum. Instead of providing refuge, border authorities have brutalized and gassed them simply for demanding their basic rights. We spoke with an activist with Cosecha Movement about the conditions at the border, and how ordinary communities and workers are banding together for mutual aid and resistance on both sides of the border. You can learn more about their organizing work and connect with other groups involved at LaHuelga.com or on Twitter @CosechaMovement.

In other news, we look at Black Friday and strikes across Europe by Amazon warehouse workers, and at the local backlash against Amazon at the soon-to-be new home of HQ2, Long Island City. We’ve also got updates on the devastation of auto worker communities as GM shutters plants across North America, and a new turning point in the union battle at Columbia for graduate workers and UAW.

This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org.

News

Amazon workers strike in Germany, Spain on Black Friday (Reuters)

At rain-soaked rally in Long Island City, protesters vow to continue fight against Amazon HQ2 plan (QNS)

Michelle: The Gender Wage Gap Is Worse Than We Thought (The Nation)

Still a Man’s Labor Market: The Slowly Narrowing Gender Wage Gap (IWPR)

GM’s Plant Closures Confirm the President is a Liar and a Fool (The Nation)

Union Workers Walk Out of GM’s Oshawa Assembly Plant Following Closure Announcement (Jalopnik)

Grad student and postdoc unions approve Columbia bargaining framework, forfeiting strike power until 2020 (Columbia Spectator)

After UAW’s betrayal, Graduate Workers must vote ‘no’ (Columbia Spectator)

Sarah and Michelle: Belabored Podcast #111: Workers’ Rights for Graduate Employees, with Lindsey Dayton (Dissent)

Conversations

Movemiento Cosecha