For this episode, we’ve brought back Dennis Olson, a senior policy staffer at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, to discuss projects and policies that UFCW and others are building through a farmer-labor alliance to advance shared interests. Dennis discusses the complexity of building a farmer- and worker-owned supply chain, why a revived cattle herd and fair rules for the market are an essential labor and climate policy, and the PRO Act, which would restore the human right to organize.

This podcast features a conversation between Angela Lang, Executive Director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC) and Julie Bomar, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union (WFU). They’ll discuss the issues that are common to Black residents of Milwaukee and rural residents and farmers in “out-state” Wisconsin. Their conversation shows the need to do the hard work of breaking down barriers, confronting racism, and working together on shared issues to build a stronger Wisconsin.

This episode we’ll meet Nick Webber, the organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 953. Nick’s journey into Wisconsin politics and organizing, which began when he was just a high schooler, shows how unions, campaigns, students, teachers, and families all push a person into organizing, and how work sometimes becomes much more than that. Nick’s story brings us through Act 10, the Obama years, and to the Wisconsin of today.

This episode explores the farm activism of the 80s through one of its core leaders, former Wisconsin Farmers Union Executive Director, Tom Quinn. Tom’s story reveals the tension between the New Deal generation and those that came after, and how relationships with labor came together, though in limited ways.  

In the following two episodes, we’ll hear from leaders in farm activism and students of its history. Farmers have long been organizing into movements, with varying degrees of success and solidarity. Their insights and memories inform our work for the future. For this episode we talked with two historians of farm activism, one amateur and one professional, about farmer-led political organizations of the early 20th century, National Farmers Union and the Nonpartisan League. Their insights and memories inform our work for the future.

This episode, we’ll look at the structures that make people more powerful together than they are as individuals. We'll cover the basics of unions and coops through the personal stories of labor leaders in the state, and WFU camp director Cathy Statz.

In this chapter, we listen to union leadership and farm policy advocates about power in the workplace, a way to rethink farm prices, and keeping workers informed during coronavirus confusion. It's about fair wages and fair prices, and how they're connected.

In Chapter 1, we discuss how in recent decades corporate power has put downward pressure on farmers and workers, and why to confront the challenges of today, we need to strengthen old alliances and build new ones across the supply chain and labor force.