Labor fights from the front lines.
Working People follows the lives and fights of workers facing pressure from employers, agencies, hospitals, corporations, and government power. Its recent episodes move from picket lines to polluted towns, using interviews and reporting to keep attention on people closest to the damage.
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Working People is a political labor show focused on workers, communities, and the systems pressing down on them. It has a strong point of view. Recent episodes center people facing strikes, toxic exposure, immigration raids, public-sector pressure, and hospital labor fights. The show is not detached from its subjects. Its coverage tends to begin with a concrete place, such as Roseland, Baltimore, Greeley, Los Angeles, Seadrift, or New York City, then widens into the institutions shaping what happens there. A plant explosion becomes a story about black smoke, contaminated waterways, and residents who do not trust the response from authorities. A security guard strike becomes a story about public contracts, unfair labor practice charges, and workers demanding respect. Postal workers become a way to examine public service, privatization, and community obligations in an era of immigration enforcement. The pace is urgent. Episodes often carry the feeling of an update from the front line, especially when nurses, security officers, meatpacking workers, or immigrant families are still in the middle of the fight being described. The show pays close attention to names, locations, unions, employers, and public agencies. It also leaves room for emotion. Its moral vocabulary is blunt, especially around immigration raids, corporate pollution, and the abandonment of poor and working people in places described as sacrifice zones. The strongest episodes connect policy to bodies, homes, shifts, schedules, families, and fear. Listeners hear about line speed, staffing grids, job replacement, layoffs, union activity, public money, ICE check-ins, and chemical contamination as lived realities rather than background issues. The show is especially suited to people who follow labor organizing, left politics, public infrastructure, environmental justice, and immigrant rights. It is less a studio conversation about the working class than a recurring dispatch from the places where those fights are already underway. Its appeal comes from proximity. Working People keeps returning to the same central claim: workers' stories matter because they reveal how power operates in daily life.
Made for: For listeners who follow labor organizing, immigrant rights, environmental justice, public services, and worker-led politics. It especially suits people who prefer field-grounded reporting and direct testimony over pundit panels.
What sets it apart: Working People ties national political fights to specific workplaces, towns, unions, hospitals, plants, and families. Its strength is the combination of urgent reporting, worker testimony, and a clear solidarity-based frame.
Working People: A podcast by, for, and about the working class today (now in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network).Working People is a podcast about working-class lives in 21st-century America. In every episode, you'll hear interviews with workers from around the country, from all walks of life. We'll talk about their life stories, their jobs, politics, and families, their joys and hopes and frustrations. Overall, Working People aims to share and celebrate the diverse stories of working-class people, to remind ourselves that our stories matter, and to build a sense of shared struggle and solidarity between workers around the country.
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Nurses frame safe staffing as the moral and practical core of a union contract fight.
Working People follows nurses as they bring a contract fight to U.S. bishops gathered for a conference, asking them to call management and help move bargaining toward a fair union contract.
Investigations with patience and consequence.
Famous lives, followed past the headline.
Asia’s headlines, explained with context.
Christian-conservative talk with moral urgency.
Railroad workers discuss how Biden and Congress blocking their strike will affect their voting decisions.
Baltimore nurses rally at the Catholic Bishops' meeting, demanding Ascension follow church teachings on worker dignity.
The longest-running strike in the US, by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers, has ended with a victory as the court ordered the company to restore contract terms.
Railroad workers and experts discuss why the proposed merger between Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific would be a disaster for workers, service, and the economy.
This episode investigates a plant explosion in Roseland, Louisiana, that released toxic chemicals, highlighting the struggles of residents in a sacrifice zone.
Baltimore security guards strike for respect, healthcare, and a union against Abacus Corporation over unfair labor practices.
This episode discusses the US Postal Service's value, threats of privatization, and postal workers' stance against collaborating with ICE.
Workers at JBS Beef Processing Plant in Greeley, Colorado, launch the largest US meatpacking strike in 40 years over unfair labor practices, demanding better wages and working conditions.
Working People host Maximilian Alvarez interviews fourth-generation Seadrift, Texas, fisherwoman Diane Wilson about her hunger strike outside Dow's Union Carbide facility.
Working People host Maximilian Alvarez interviews Diane Sona and Nikhail Delehay about Ludovic Bach, a Cameroon-born regional fighting-game champion detained by ICE during a routine check-in.
Working People host Maximilian Alvarez interviews Beth Loudon, a neonatal nurse and New York Presbyterian executive committee member, about nurses rejecting a tentative agreement during a 31-day strike.
Working People host Maximilian Alvarez interviews Kaiser Permanente workers Sanayo Kondo, Katie Gonzalez, and Lucky Longoria during a strike involving an estimated 31,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawaii.
Working People host Maximilian Alvarez returns to East Palestine, Ohio, three years after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed on February 3, 2023.
This episode of Working People reports on federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, including the arrest of union leader David Huerta, and criticizes the Trump administration's actions.