Capitalism, Race and Democracy - Tuesday, June 16, 2026

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1. Explore and picnic in the gardens before the show.
2. Further information available at www.theatricum.com and at kpfk.org.
3. Hi, this is Gloria Steinem and you're listening to 90.7 FM KPFK Los Angeles.
4. 112,000 watts of progressive free speech radio.
5. This week on Capitalism, Race and Democracy.
6. So we need to follow BDS by refusing to handle Israeli weapons,
7. refusing to ship them, refusing to make them,
8. refusing to cooperate with Israeli institutions,
9. for example universities or labor unions like the Histadrut.
10. Workers speak out about their labor conditions and stand up for Palestine at the Labor Notes conference in Chicago.
11. Not only are we using the genocide, the biggest genocide, we've committed more than one.
12. The biggest genocide that we Germans have committed, namely the Holocaust, to hide behind it so that we can support another genocide,
13. namely the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.
14. Not only do we do all of that stuff, we also come across as idiots.
15. Germany suffers an unprecedented diplomatic defeat at the UN General Assembly.
16. From Pacifica Radio, this is Capitalism, Race and Democracy,
17. a collective effort by producers from Pacifica stations and affiliates across the US.
18. I'm your host, Thomas O'Rourke.
19. Thousands of trade unionists came together at the Labor Notes conference last weekend in Chicago.
20. Amazon workers from North Carolina spoke about their struggle for a union and health and safety.
21. They were interviewed by Pacifica's Steve Seltzer.
22. My name is Italo Medelius. I'm the secretary for Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment.
23. cause. And here today at Labor Notes, what's going on with Amazon and your organizing efforts
24. in where you are? So Amazon organizing has really picked up in the last year.
25. Our organization started at a facility called RDU1 in Gardner, North Carolina, about 5,000 people.
26. And we've now expanded into five different locations. And we have footholds in every
27. warehouse in the city of Durham, North Carolina, which right now is like the beating heart of
28. labor in North Carolina. We have expanded our organizing committees, and right now there is a
29. real, real push for unionization within Amazon, because Andy Yassi, the CEO, just wrote a
30. shareholder letter where he's explicitly saying that their business plan is to automate away our
31. jobs. So we have to be at the table when robotics and AI come into our warehouses.
32. And there are many workers who would like to have a union. They're joining unions,
33. but the company's refusing to recognize the union. San Francisco, where I'm from,
34. that's the situation in over two years.
35. How are we going to get union contracts?
36. So the only way to get union contracts, in my opinion,
37. is for all the different Amazon groups to come together and take on the behemoth.
38. I do happen to believe that it's going to have to be a mixture of NLRB elections,
39. which do put a lot of pressure on the company.
40. They don't want NLRB elections, but that's not going to be the saving grace.
41. As we've seen with ALU, they don't have a contract yet, right?
42. So it's going to have to be a combination of shop floor actions,
43. of economic pressure when it comes to things like
44. prime boycotts and redirection of money into unionization So economic pressure NLRB elections and on organizing to put pressure on Seattle because ultimately the warehouses themselves
45. don't make the big structural decisions.
46. We got one pinpoint, it's Seattle,
47. and that is the boardroom, that is Jeff Bezos,
48. that is Andy Yassi, David Zapolsky.
49. And these people, some people call them techno-fascists
50. who are running these tech companies,
51. they're bringing in AI.
52. A lot of workers at Amazon have been injured.
53. What is going on? Because you should have some protection if you're working at Amazon.
54. What's the reality of a worker at Amazon?
55. Oh, the work at Amazon is very, very grueling.
56. It's almost like being an athlete.
57. You're almost a professional athlete when it comes to the physical work that you do.
58. And injuries and even deaths, we're finding, are being covered up by Amazon.
59. Isn't that workers' comp fraud?
60. Oh, of course it is. Of course it is.
61. Can they be criminally prosecuted for that?
62. You would think they should be, right?
63. And we found out that two people at least have died at Amazon locations this year
64. One person died at our location.
65. And right now we're running a 911 campaign because Amazon has a policy where they discourage people from calling 911.
66. You first have to go to a manager or to your internal medical unit.
67. And that's why one of the people at our facility died.
68. He had a stroke and had to wait for like an hour before he got help.
69. So right now we're putting pressure through, making sure that those policies are not on the books.
70. But then also we have to uncover, going all the way back to 2015,
71. Amazon's been accused of hiding deaths and hiding injuries, and they are very, very good at it.
72. So these things need to start coming out.
73. Isn't that criminally prosecutable?
74. Because under workers' comp laws, you're not supposed to hide injuries,
75. but it seems like what you're saying is they're flagrantly hiding injuries.
76. That's right.
77. Right now we're working with the North Carolina Attorney General to open up an investigation on these Amazon practices,
78. and we are talking about a national 9-1-1 campaign.
79. That's one of the beautiful things about the Amazon labor movement,
80. that every year we unite more and more and more.
81. and here at Labor Notes we're going to meet with Amazon workers from all over the world, right?
82. Mostly from all over North America.
83. So if we can have sort of a continental unity of Amazon workers,
84. that's going to be Amazon's worst nightmare and we're getting very close.
85. There have been strikes in Italy of the Amazon workers there
86. and in England they forced them to sign a contract.
87. But it seems like as a principle they don't believe in signing any contracts for Amazon workers here.
88. That's right. No, no, no.
89. And we had one person from France that came over and she asked,
90. hey, do you all have employment contracts here?
91. and we, no, employment contracts we don't really have.
92. You either get the job or you don't.
93. And you have to abide by the terms and conditions the employer gives you.
94. And the look on her face was, she thought that she was living in another world,
95. which she technically is, right?
96. But, yeah, they don't want to give us contracts here.
97. They believe that it's, I don't know, against the American way or something to give people contracts.
98. And the government has re-engineered, re-districting to knock out black representation in the South.
99. What do you think about that, and what do you think the labor movement should do about that?
100. So, I think the labor movement should continue building that power in the warehouse and in
101. the workplace.
102. I think the workplace definitely is your key point of political organization.
103. I mean, if you can't democratize the workplace, the place where you spend more than half your
104. life at some points, you don't really have a democracy, right?
105. How can people get in touch with you, Gru?
106. Amazoncause.com, email us at communications at Amazoncause.com, and please get in touch.
107. Thank you.
108. Good.
109. Behold it.
110. So what's your name?
111. My name is Reverend Ryan Brown.
112. And you're here at the Labor Notes Convention.
113. You're going to be meeting with other Amazon workers.
114. What is the situation for Amazon workers where you are and your organizing efforts?
115. Yeah, so where I'm at, it's the same situation at every Amazon.
116. Low wages, very, very poor working conditions.
117. The bosses can at any given time change whatever they want to change And they don look at individuals as human beings but as robots
118. And we're in this fight because we see Amazon as an existential threat.
119. Even if you don't work at Amazon, Amazon has an impact on your life.
120. It has an impact on our planet.
121. and it is definitely an evil empire that needs to be dealt with.
122. Jeff Bezos and other tech billionaires believe that they should use AI to get rid of workers.
123. Are you concerned about that, and how is it affecting workers at your plant?
124. Where's your plant at?
125. Yeah, so our plant, so we represent 7,500 workers roughly in multiple plants in Wake County and in Durham.
126. so it's not just one plant. It's very interesting with AI. Now that I understand what AI really is,
127. I have actually watched slowly AI come into the building. I watched when we first started working
128. at Amazon five or seven years ago, you could just go in, choose the station you want to work at,
129. It's fine. Now they say quote unquote, the computer is telling me that I have to send you upstairs. The computer is telling me I have to put you on this line.
130. The sad thing about AI and some of the concerns is that, well, you're a human being. I'm telling you that physically my arm hurts. My back hurts.
131. that computer, that AI doesn't know that.
132. So some of the concerns with the AI would be that Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy,
133. and other bigwigs at Amazon have already told us in the next five to seven years
134. that the majority of the jobs will be automation.
135. And so that's the gospel that we're preaching to workers in the Carolinas and throughout the South
136. or anyone who would sit down and listen to us,
137. is that now or never is the time that we need to come together with whole lot labor and unionize.
138. For the head of the company, the owner of the company to tell you,
139. you have no future, that we don't need workers.
140. What does that mean to not only Amazon workers, but the workers in this country?
141. Yeah, so to me, that's a dark future.
142. Dystopian?
143. Yes, and it's a future that I don't want to live in.
144. It's a future that is not good for humanity.
145. And again, when I'm saying preaching, because I'm a reverend, preaching the gospel of liberation,
146. that's our message, that you don't want this anti-Christ spirit, this anti-human spirit,
147. And for the boss to tell us that, so for the boss, when you ask the question about if thinking about AI taking out jobs,
148. they've already told us that we're worthless by the way they treat us each and every day when we go inside the warehouses.
149. And workers, Amazon workers are organizing here, they're organizing around the world.
150. Do you think the tide is turning, that workers are beginning to rise up and organize?
151. and also the attack on black representation in the South.
152. Resegregation, you have politicians who say,
153. we've got to go back to the good old days.
154. We can't talk about civil war in our schools because people will be offended.
155. What does that say to you as a person from the South?
156. Yeah, so what it says to me is that one of the things, let me put it this way.
157. One of our biggest challenges in the South is that you deal with a lot of people that indoctrinated They been indoctrinated to believe that to celebrate this empire They been indoctrinated to June believe that if you just go to work and work hard
158. that things are going to get better. That's just not true.
159. So they have illusions about the nature of this.
160. Yeah, they have illusions. And so one of the biggest challenges is providing political
161. education to folks. When I see fascists who are banning books, not wanting to tell the
162. story of the real truth here in America, why? It's simple. Because our ancestors, regardless
163. of those ancestors, regardless of the color of their skin, whatever good cause they fought
164. for, they've already given us a playbook. And how I look at it, it's the same Pharaoh,
165. It's the same Nebuchadnezzar, it's the same Caesar, it's the same empire.
166. It's just dressed up with a different language, it's just dressed up with a different suit.
167. But the past gives us a way to fight these folks.
168. And there have been history of labor struggles, union struggles in this country.
169. In the 1930s there have been textile strikes in the 1930s.
170. So workers have a history of struggle in this country organizing, fighting back and getting
171. unions.
172. But now watch this.
173. textile fights is from a town that I grew up in, Gastonia, North Carolina. In Gastonia,
174. North Carolina, you had some of the most ferocious fighting with these textile mills. I went
175. to school in the public schools. It wasn't until last year I took a fellowship with the
176. City University of New York on labor and democracy, or leadership and democracy, that I even learned
177. that, hey, this happened right in the town I grew up in.
178. That history wasn't there for you.
179. No, not at all.
180. They didn't talk about that history.
181. No, not at all.
182. So that's the hidden history of working people in this country.
183. Yes, and our folks are so indoctrinated that when we come on the scene,
184. like, hey, you don't have to live like this.
185. You don't have to.
186. This is a digital plantation.
187. You're not getting ahead.
188. The housing is not affordable.
189. That's why, again, I emphasize we have to provide the political education, the patience.
190. And when you're organizing in the South, it's a breed of a horse of a different color than, say, like our older siblings, Amazon Labor Union in New York, where the folks are very familiar with unions.
191. because you're actually talking to a guy that when I first started organizing,
192. I knew nothing about a union.
193. I grew up with my grandparents.
194. One worked in the textile mills.
195. The other one's a construction worker.
196. They were not union members.
197. I can tell you five relatives that I have that were union members, but this is the way.
198. And now, even when I read the Bible, in any holy text, that I see unions, I see people coming together to fight evil injustices.
199. Those were North Carolina union organizers at Amazon talking about labor conditions, including health and safety, and why they are fighting for a union.
200. Labor for Palestine organizer Joanna Rokholt, a steelworker in Pittsburgh, spoke to Pacifica's Steve Zeltser about what issues and demands concerning Palestine her group is raising at the Chicago Labor Notes Conference.
201. My name is Johanna Rockholt. I'm with Labor for Palestine National Network.
202. Labor for Palestine National Network is a huge network of more than 50 member
203. groups from individual unions, cities and states supporting Palestinian
204. We work together and we coordinate together and help each other find the best ways to build real worker power for Palestinian liberal liberation because it's been getting worse for so many decades and it's only still getting worse.
205. And the national unions are doing hardly anything about it. What they're doing is at most signing a letter saying we'd like a ceasefire and then not following up on it and not doing anything else.
206. So we really think that this needs to be a bottom-up, grassroots, worker power movement.
207. And so we're recruiting as many people as possible to be a strong part of that movement and come together,
208. put our foot down or feet down, and say enough is enough.
209. We need to put an end to this apartheid. We need to put an end to this genocide.
210. We need to follow BDS, which is a picket line that the Palestinians have asked us to be following for 20-something years, 21 years.
211. And so we need to follow BDS by refusing to handle Israeli weapons, refusing to ship them, refusing to make them, refusing to cooperate with Israeli institutions, for example, universities or labor unions like the Histodrut.
212. What is the Histodrut?
213. The Histodrut is a large Israeli labor union. Elizabeth can tell you more about the Histodrut.
214. The Canadian Labour Congress, I understand, broke relations with you.
215. They did! They did! It was so cool!
216. They had this amazingly organized campaign
217. because a lot of unions all around the earth still work with the Hista Drude.
218. Even in Europe, where the pro-Palestine movement is generally stronger than here,
219. a lot of labour unions still work with the Hista Drude
220. and that really is a violation of BDS, a violation of this picket line
221. because BDS is a picket line.
222. and so we can't have that happening and so the Canadians were able to organize this movement and
223. you know get their Canadian labor congress to to say no we're not going to do that anymore we're
224. not going to have meetings with the history and take advice from them and yeah and so they're
225. starting that change now and that's so very cool and this is just you know one example of the kind
226. of power workers have when we really put our minds to it and work together we just got to be
227. enough people working together and not giving up, we can make real change.
228. And the U.S. is supporting billions of dollars to Israel.
229. They want to integrate the U.S. and Israeli military.
230. I mean, at the same time in this country, hospitals are closing.
231. People can't get housing.
232. The transportation system is broken down.
233. It seems like the priorities for both the Democrats and Republicans is more money to Israel.
234. Yeah.
235. I mean, like if we weren't funding our overly bloated military, especially in Palestine,
236. but everywhere, the amount of money that we spend on that,
237. if we put that towards our own people instead,
238. all of us unions, we wouldn't even have to be fighting
239. and fighting and fighting over which crumbs to beg for.
240. There wouldn't be any crumbs, it would be our meal, right?
241. There's so incredibly much money that goes into that,
242. and the fact that we're spending our tax dollars on that,
243. it's absolutely mind-boggling to me.
244. uh...
245. like there's so much better uses of that so much infrastructure
246. to protect human beings instead of bombing human beings
247. yeah
248. yeah
249. uh... we need infrastructure we need education we need health care we need a
250. social safety net
251. like we need all of these things that are so hard to get and the excuse is always
252. we don't have the money
253. but we do we're just spending it on bombing people how can people get in touch with your
254. organization laborforpalestine uh has uh a lot of information and also ways to get in touch where you can sign up for our newsletter You can also register your group as a member group I think we have 55
255. now and counting. So if you already have a group of labor activists who are working together
256. on Palestine, you can register and be a member group. If you don't already have a group,
257. get in touch and let's see if we have people who are very similar to you in the same union
258. or the same state or the same city in the same industry,
259. and we can put you in touch and you can make a member group.
260. Okay, thank you. Very good.
261. Thank you.
262. That was Joanna Rekolt, organizer for Labor for Palestine
263. and a Steelworker Union member,
264. speaking to Pacifica's Steve Zeltzer at the Chicago Labor Notes Conference.
265. Yeah, this one's for the workers who toil night and day
266. by hand and by brain
267. To earn your pay who for centuries on past for no more than your breath
268. Have bled for your countries and counted your days
269. In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
270. We've often been told to keep up with the times
271. For our skills are not needed
272. Then streamline the job and whistle, line, roll and stop
273. What a pride they ever are
274. We're the first ones to stop
275. We're the first ones to die
276. The first ones in line for that pie in the sky
277. And we're always last with the grimace hit out
278. For the worker is working when the fat cats are born
279. And when the sky darkens...
280. That was the Dropkick Murphys, Worker's Song.
281. You're listening to Pacifica's Capitalism, Race and Democracy.
282. I'm your host, Thomas O'Rourke.
283. Germany suffered an unprecedented diplomatic defeat at the UN General Assembly
284. when it failed to secure a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council
285. for the 2027-28 term.
286. In a June 3rd vote, Berlin received only 104 votes,
287. falling far short of the required two-thirds majority,
288. and was outvoted by Portugal and Austria,
289. which secured the two available Western European seats.
290. German historian Tarek Cyril Amar
291. and host of Syriana Analysis Kevork Almasian
292. discuss.
293. Why do you think the world
294. voted against Germany?
295. I think this is the question that we should ask.
296. What has the German officials
297. have done in the past two years
298. which created
299. a public opinion among
300. the international community
301. in the UN General Assembly
302. to not allow
303. Germany to become a non-permanent
304. UN Security Council member?
305. Yeah.
306. It's sensational. It's not that the seat as a non-permanent member gives you that much power.
307. But not to make it for a country like Germany through this vote is sensational.
308. That's a sensational defeat. It's very unusual.
309. They have been thoroughly humiliated in the presence of the foreign minister of Germany, Johann Badefuhl.
310. Now, what has Germany done to deserve this? Well, everything.
311. So, the single most important factor is of course complicity in the Gaza
312. genocide right And various other all other Israeli crimes leading up to Iran and Lebanon and what they did in Syria Germany has always been on their side massively not in a sneaky way
313. not in an ashamed way, but like really proudly on their side. When South Africa, thank God,
314. launched the process at the International Court of Justice against Israel because of genocide,
315. and people have to understand that is still going on. That is still going on, of course.
316. The Germans voluntarily, because they felt like it, stepped up to support Israel. That's just
317. one incident. They have delivered weapons to Israel. They are the second most important or
318. second biggest deliverer of arms and munitions and weapons in general to Israel after the US.
319. That's Germany actually. They have ramped up corporations with Israel right through the
320. genocide, right through the genocide, including on weapons and AI. We could give details, but it's
321. all there. The Germans have shamelessly, not the Germans, but Germany as a country, under
322. governments from different political parties, so this has been as Americans would say, bipartisan,
323. have shamelessly, shamelessly supported Israel while Israel is genociding. And then some. That's
324. reason number one. They have also, of course, inside Germany, and I've been targeted that way,
325. by the way, I'm defending myself with the help of a lawyer, but I know this a little bit from
326. inside by now. They have targeted everyone who has spoken up in the mildest manner on the side
327. of the Palestinians, trying to smear those people, including me, as anti-Semites. I mean,
328. everybody who reads my book will understand that doesn't make any sense at all. But hey,
329. whatsoever. The Germans have gone so far that German police, German prosecutors, German judges,
330. I'm not Jewish, but they've gone after Jews. They've gone after Jews. Non-Jewish Germans have
331. dared go after Jews because those Jews, as I mentioned before, are among those who stand up
332. against Israel crimes. So you've got to get this into your head, right? A German policeman going
333. after a Jew in Berlin because the German knows better than the Jew what the consequences of the
334. Holocaust, which the Germans have committed against the Jews, should be. Wow! Wow! That's what's
335. happening in this country. And of course, I'm not saying everybody who's in the General Assembly
336. knows all of this, but there has been enough to understand a lot. In general, also, beyond Israel,
337. Gaza, Palestine, and so on, there also is a general all-purpose arrogance. I mean, we all remember
338. how exactly the same Annalena Baerbock was traveling when she was German foreign minister
339. to China
340. and trying to lecture them.
341. I mean, there is this wonderful picture
342. of Wang Yi
343. talking to her or trying to talk to her.
344. I guess it's horrifically difficult
345. to talk to this person.
346. And he turns to the camera.
347. I've mentioned this before.
348. If you know Wang Yi,
349. you know he's an incredibly professional,
350. self-processed man.
351. It's an incredible experience.
352. But he looks at the camera
353. and you can see he's stunned.
354. He's encountered Baerbock.
355. And he's just like,
356. oh my God,
357. He just can't grasp it anymore, right?
358. So we have a record as a country of
359. breathtaking arrogance We are actually in decline We are in decline massively economically politically and so on Culturally I would say very much as a German we are in decline educationally across the board And we stride across the world as if we
360. had to teach lessons to everybody and on everything, while we side with a genocidal Israel to the hilt.
361. And even in his speech, Wadephul was making this insane statement. He's made it before,
362. But he repeated it. He dared repeat this at the UN General Assembly.
363. He literally argued that certain states don't have a right to international law.
364. And he meant Iran, of course, not Israel. He meant Iran.
365. So his argument was, if I, Johann Wadden Foole, think that you, Iran, have been bad, then you don't have any claims under international law anymore.
366. Everybody who's not a total brain-dead zombie understands that that claim is absurd, completely absurd.
367. If every state were allowed to point at every other state and say,
368. oh, you are not a good state, therefore international law doesn't apply to you,
369. well, why do we have international law?
370. What sort of brain do you have to have to dare make such a claim and to make it in public?
371. public. This is our foreign minister now. He's as incompetent, dramatically incompetent, as Annalena
372. Baerbock was. So the general point behind this is not only are we arrogant, not only are we siding
373. with genociders, which precisely because of our history we should not, not only are we using the
374. genocide, the biggest genocide, we've committed more than one, the biggest genocide that we
375. Germans have committed, namely the Holocaust, to hide behind it so that we can support another
376. genocide, namely the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, not only do we do all of that
377. stuff, we also come across as idiots.
378. Wow, what a package!
379. What a package!
380. That was German historian Tarek Cyril Amar speaking to host of Syriana Analysis, Kevork
381. Almaschin.
382. And that concludes today's edition of Capitalism, Race and Democracy.
383. We thank all of Pacifica's sister stations and affiliates that contribute to the production of this show.
384. Today's program was produced by the Capitalism, Race and Democracy Collective,
385. with contributions from Steve Zelzer, Anne Garrison, Polina Vasiliev, and myself, Thomas O'Rourke.
386. You can find this and all previous episodes at our website, capitalismraceanddemocracy.org.
387. Make sure you click the subscribe button.
388. Follow us on X at PacificaCRD.
389. I've been your host, Thomas O'Rourke.
390. Thanks for listening.
391. This is Nick, host of Bike Talk Online at KPFK since 2008.
392. I used to have a car.
393. But you don't need a car to get around in LA.
394. And we talk about that every episode.
395. Just do it!
396. I donated my car to KPFK, called 877-KPFK-AUTO.
397. They took it away. Tax deduction.
398. Anyone can have their car taken away.