This week, Roqayah and Kumars are rejoined by Katy Slininger, a former postal worker and DSA organizer who recently chronicled her personal experience of pregnancy discrimination and unemployment in an article for Popula.com. Katy was a member of the ad hoc steering committee for the Boston chapter of DSA before moving to Connecticut, where she started a DSA organizing committee in the rural Northeast, known as Quiet Corner DSA. Katy fills Roqayah and Kumars in on what she’s been up to and why she left DSA, then details how she suffered as a result of the US Post Office management’s disregard for pregnant workers’ health and the failure of existing union and welfare state protections like the Family Medical Leave Act to help her. She goes on to describe being forced to quit and undertaking the grueling process of applying for jobs given the grossly inadequate protections of pregnancy discrimination legislation for blue-collar and service workers. The gang ends on a practical note, examining Katy’s call for more radical unions and considering what organizers need to do differently to ensure that freeing reproductive labor is a priority on the left.
Follow Katy on Twitter @itsbreadtimebch, and read her piece ”Alienated Labor”.
A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.
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