
Show Notes
Featuring Chris Brooks on labor’s crisis and the strategic, militant class struggle that can turn it all around. Brooks, former chief of staff to UAW President Shawn Fain, urges organizers to be flexible in their methodology, explains the federal monitor’s anti-left lawfare against the UAW over Gaza—and why labor must build for 2028.
Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig
Read more:
“Is Labor at the Point of No Return?” by Chris Brooks in New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/is-labor-at-the-point-of-no-return
“Is Labor at the Point of No Return?” by Chris Brooks in New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/is-labor-at-the-point-of-no-return
“Shawn Fain’s UAW Is Facing Strong Headwinds” by Nelson Lichtenstein in New Labor Forum newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/05/15/shawn-fains-uaw-is-facing-strong-headwinds
“The War on the UAW” by Ella Fanger in The Nation thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-elections-monitor-gaza
Find Bad Energy and Songs My Mother Taught Me at Haymarketbooks.org
The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to imperialism and immigration. Hosted by Daniel Denvir.
More from Jacobin Radio
Featuring Alyssa Battistoni on Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Fossil-fueled capitalism has pushed our planet into a profound set of crises. How Marxists should make sense of this all, however, is unclear. Battistoni offers a Marxist theory of nature that’s simultaneously a brilliant reworking of Marxist theory more generally. The first episode in a two-part interview.
Rodrigo Nunes, author of Anatomy of Disintegration, speaks about Bolsonaro, Brazil, and the global far right. Shawn Gude, author of American Socialist, details the life and legacy of Eugene V. Debs
Featuring Yael Bridge, Jeremy Flood, and Erick Stoll on Who Moves America, a powerful documentary about the massive 2023 Teamsters strike against UPS that ultimately did not happen.
From Madrid to Paris, tenants and teenagers are forcing their crises onto the agenda. Suzi talks to Agustín Santos Maraver, Spain’s former UN ambassador and Sumar MP, who explains how the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal ignited a national housing uprising, why the Catalan right sank the government’s rent decrees, and why a general strike on the eve of the November 29 snap election is a first for Spain.
The Left looks poised to pick up some big electoral wins in the midterm elections. But with virtually all of the Left’s victories since the first Sanders presidential primary coming through elections, are socialists and progressives at risk of devolving into electoralism?