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The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many serious and dangerous challenges for workers everywhere—not just for workers on the job, but for workers trying to exercise their right to organize. But there have also been unexpected bright spots on this front over the past year, including a boom in union drives at nonprofits around the United States. One of those nonprofits is the American Civil Liberties Union, where staff workers recently voted to unionize with the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU). In this episode, we talk with two representatives from ACLU Staff United, Gillian Ganesan and Alex Ortiz, and NPEU President Kayla Blado about the unionization effort at the ACLU and the growing nonprofit labor movement.

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Working People

Working People is a podcast about working-class lives in the 21st century. In every episode, you’ll hear interviews with workers from all walks of life. 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 world.

Gillian’sTwitterpageAlex’sTwitterpageKayla’sTwitterpageACLU Staff UnitedwebsiteandTwitterpageNPEUwebsite,Facebookpage, andTwitterpageNPEU, “PRESS RELEASE: ACLU Staff Ask Leadership to Voluntarily Recognize Staff Union“Eli Rosenberg,The Washington Post, “ACLU Workers Are Forming a Union, The Latest in a Wave of Nonprofit Staffs to Organize“Hamilton Nolan,In These Times, “A Quiet Frenzy of Union Organizing Has Gripped the Nonprofit World“Eli Rosenberg,The Washington Post, “Workers Are Forming Unions at Nonprofits and Think Tanks. Their Bosses Aren’t Always Happy“Kayla Blado,In These Times, “The Answer To Burnout At Work Isn’t “Self-Care”—It’s Unionizing“Hamilton Nolan,In These Times, “The Animal Legal Defense Fund Is Busting Its Union With a Smile“

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive:freemusicarchive.org)

Jules Taylor, “Working People Theme Song”Astrometrics, “I Have Heard of a Place”