Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InTheseTimes.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.
Labor
What It's Like Being a Gravedigger During the Pandemic
A conversation with a cemetery worker about politics, life and labor during the Covid crisis.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Long, Uphill Battle to Unionize Workers at Religious Institutions
A conversation with Maggie Levantovskaya, a lecturer at a small Jesuit university, about how workers there formed a union, despite the fact that the National Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction over religious institutions.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
One Big Union for Charter Schools?
A conversation with Tyler Powles, who was a 4th-grade teacher at Caliber: Beta Academy for five years, and Erinn Murphy, an education specialist (and school parent) at Caliber: ChangeMakers Academy.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Meet the Tongan-American Unionist on a Pilgrimage To Support Striking Workers Around the U.S.
A conversation with Tevita 'Uhatafe, a rank-and-file member of the Transport Workers Union Local 513 in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
50 Years of Class War in Wisconsin
A conversation with veteran educators and organizers Frank Emspak and Adrienne Pagac about the conditions that paved the way for the Wisconsin Uprising.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Campus Workers Withdrawing Their Consent
A conversation with student and graduate employees about why workers are simultaneously on strike at two universities.
Maximillian Alvarez
FeatureInterview
Why Nina Turner Is Taking on the Establishment Again
On her second run for Congress, the plainspoken progressive is still calling it as she sees it.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Incredible, Winding Path of a Working-Class Nurse in Wisconsin
A conversation with long-time artist, activist, and registered nurse Susan Simensky Bietila in Milwaukee.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Why Workers Picketed the Southern Poverty Law Center
Employees and union activists say the civil rights organization mistreats its lowest-paid and most marginalized workers.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Howard University Faculty Win Tentative Agreement Just Hours Before Planned Strike
After nearly four years of bargaining with the university to get their first union contract, lecturers at Howard University narrowly avert a strike at the 11th hour.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Wisconsin's Labor Movement Was Forged in Fire
Scholars Harvey J. Kaye and Jon Shelton talk about the strikes and uprisings that paved the way.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Wisconsin Teachers Still Trying to Rebuild Unions After Scott Walker Gutted Them
A conversation with K-12 teachers in Hortonville and union organizers with the American Federation of Teachers.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Unions Stand With Exploited Immigrant Demolition Workers in NYC
A conversation with Chaz Rynkiewicz, vice president of Laborers Local 79.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Political Transformation That Happens When Workers Speak for Themselves
On the importance of deep conversations—and listening.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
A U.S. Court Just Intervened to Stop 17,000 Railroad Workers From Going On Strike
A conversation with Jeff Kurtz, a railway engineer and union member for 40 years.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Teachers Being Demonized for Trying To Save Us From the Pandemic
A conversation with locked-out members of the Chicago Teachers Union.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
A Buffalo Starbucks Worker Talks About Why He Wants a Union
A conversation with Brian Murray, one of the Buffalo workers, and journalist Jordan Chariton, who recently traveled to Buffalo to speak with Starbucks workers.
Maximillian Alvarez
Culture
Fiction Is a Beautiful Weapon in the Class War
A conversation with Sarah Lazare, the co-author of the leftist noir novel, Testimony.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Insurgent Slate Just Won the Teamsters Election. Here’s What’s at Stake.
A conversation with journalist Indigo Olivier.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
We Could Be Looking at a Historic Healthcare Industry Strike
Overworked and underpaid, 35,000 Kaiser Permanente workers could walk off the job on Monday.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Solidarity and Togetherness During These Bleak Times
A special conversation with close friends of the Working People podcast.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Rank-and-File Fight for Direct Democracy at UAW
A conversation with Justin Mayhugh, a worker at General Motors in Kansas City, about a referendum on whether UAW members can directly elect top union officers.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Kellogg's Workers Are Striking Against a "Two-Tiered" System of Workplace Inequality
A conversation with Dan Osborn, who has worked at the Omaha, Nebraska, plant for 18 years.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Wisconsin Hay Farmers vs. Big Ag
A conversation with Lisa Doerr, co-owner of a hay farm in Polk County that supplies food for small-scale livestock farmers in the area.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Small-Town Beekeeper Facing Down Big Ag
A conversation with rural Wisconsin beekeeper Kristy Lynn Allen.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Hollywood’s Overworked Crews Overwhelmingly Vote to Authorize a Strike
IATSE members discuss how workers in the entertainment industry have been run into the ground—and why they're fighting back.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
How Rural Wisconsin Communities Are Fighting Back Against Big Ag's "Hog Factories"
Why residents are taking on industrial meat production.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Talking to Bourbon Workers on the Picket Line
A conversation with Matt Aubrey, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23D.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Tragic and Irreversible Consequences of Workplace Bullying
The family of grocery worker Evan Seyfried has not stopped seeking justice.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Teaching at the Epicenter of the Pandemic, In a District Too Exhausted for Fear
A conversation with with Casey Scully, a former elementary-school teacher and current high-school math interventionist in Charleston, South Carolina.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
They Rappel Down Skyscrapers to Clean Windows. And They're Going On Strike.
A conversation with Eric Crone, union steward and window cleaner who works for Columbia Building Services.
Maximillian Alvarez
VIDEO: Big Agriculture Has a Bleak Future in Store for All of Us
Factory farming operations have swallowed up much of the U.S. farming economy, and independent farmers warn that we’re not prepared for the future they have in store for us.
Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino and Hannah Faris
Labor
When the Plant Closed, These Workers Were Left Behind
The shuttering of the Mylan pharmaceutical plant in Morgantown, West Virginia left more than 1,400 people out of work.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
"One Day Longer": A Miners' Strike Fed By Solidarity
Meet the coal miners who have been on strike for more than five months.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Indy Journalists Who Covered a Massive Coal Miner Strike That Corporate Media Ignored
A conversation with the grassroots journalists who have consistently covered the strike.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Pandemic Made the Divide Between Ruling and Working Class Clearer Than Ever
A conversation with world-renowned economist Richard D. Wolff.
Maximillian Alvarez
VIDEO: Factory Farming is Pushing Independent Farmers to the Edge of Extinction
Government and industry incentives have accelerated the death of the independent farm — rural residents like Kristy Allen are "literally at ground zero."
Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino and Hannah Faris
Labor
Work Doesn't Have to Destroy Your Soul
How worker cooperatives are creating direct democracy on the job.
Maximillian Alvarez
Documentary: Factory Farms Pose an 'Existential Threat' for Rural Wisconsin Communities
Big Agriculture and the factory farming industry are taking over more of the US landscape and farming economy every year. But these rural communities in Wisconsin are fighting back.
Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino and Hannah Faris
Labor
Rideshare Drivers in California Strike for the PRO Act
A conversation with Ahmad Ibrahim Moss, a rideshare driver in San Francisco.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Striking Frito Lay Workers Say They Deserve More Than Crumbs
Worker Cheri Renfro speaks out from Topeka, Kansas, where Frito Lay workers have been on strike since July 5.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Uniquely Dangerous Work of Massage Therapy During a Pandemic
A massage therapist speaks out about the gross and unfair treatment she was forced to endure.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Score One for the Smithfield Workers of Sioux Falls
After suffering one of the worst workplace outbreaks of Covid-19 in the country last year, pork processors in South Dakota have secured a major labor victory.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
No Evil But Plenty of Union Busting at Vegan Food Company
Two former workers at No Evil Foods in Asheville, North Carolina, sound off on the company's recent layoffs.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
The Painful History of Injury in the Workplace
In the latest instalment of Working People, author Nate Holdren discusses his new book, 'Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era.'
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Fighting for Freedom From Colombia to Palestine
Millions are taking to the street to resist economic degradation and ethnic cleansing. A conversation with revolutionaries on multiple continents.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
Why Is the AFL-CIO Going After Its Vermont Affiliate?
David Van Deusen, president of the Vermont State Labor Council, says his organization is facing investigations and threats of further action.
Maximillian Alvarez
Labor
How the U.S. Military Reinforces Our Brutal Class System—And Vice Versa
Why does our economy ensure a constant stream of recruits? And why are the armed services so attractive to the marginalized? Vets answer these questions and more.
Maximillian Alvarez
