Speaker 1: Over the first weekend of April twenty twenty five, over
Speaker 1: seven thousand people attended the third annual Working Class Literature Festival,
Speaker 1: held at a former car Parks factory on the outskirts
Speaker 1: of Florence. The opening day of the festival was the
Speaker 1: one thousand, three hundred and sixty seventh day since the
Speaker 1: workers first seized the plant in opposition to the company's
Speaker 1: attempt to shut it down. In the days before the
Speaker 1: festival was due to begin, workers received their third and
Speaker 1: now final redundancy notice. Yet despite this news, the festival
Speaker 1: remained both a buoyant and militant occasion as the workers
Speaker 1: push ahead with their plans to reopen their factory as
Speaker 1: a worker cooperative building ecological goods. This is working class Literature.
Speaker 1: Before we start, a quick note to say that we're
Speaker 1: only able to continue making these podcasts, both Working Class
Speaker 1: History and Working Class Literature because of the support of
Speaker 1: our listeners on Patreon. If you like what we do
Speaker 1: and want to help us with our work, join us
Speaker 1: on patreon dot com slash working Class History, where you
Speaker 1: can get benefits like early access to episodes, exclusive bonus content,
Speaker 1: discounted books, merch and more. For instance, Patroon supporter has
Speaker 1: got early access to this episode with our ads, and
Speaker 1: they also get exclusive access to our two Patreon only
Speaker 1: podcast series, Radical Reads and Fireside Chat link in the
Speaker 1: show notes. You might remember that back in February, we
Speaker 1: put out two episodes about the Working Class Literature Festival
Speaker 1: in Florence. For the past three years, this festival has
Speaker 1: taken place at the former GKN car parts factory that
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one was taken over by its former
Speaker 1: employees after they were made redundant, and has been under
Speaker 1: their control since. To get a fuller understanding of how
Speaker 1: the festival got started and the GKN struggle itself, we
Speaker 1: recommend you go back and listen to those episodes first.
Speaker 1: But as part of making those episodes, the author and
Speaker 1: festival organizer Alberto Brunetti, who we interviewed for those episodes,
Speaker 1: suggested that I attend this year's event. I should note that,
Speaker 1: unlike normal episodes, the interviews used here were recorded on
Speaker 1: site at the festival itself, so apologies in advance for
Speaker 1: the quality of some of the audio, which can vary
Speaker 1: quite a bit. As such, in April, I made my
Speaker 1: way out to Florence to experience it for myself, a
Speaker 1: weekend of music, talks, discussions, and performances, not to mention
Speaker 1: food and beer that brought together over seven thousand people,
Speaker 1: making it easily the biggest working class cultural event in
Speaker 1: Europe and perhaps even the world. But more important than
Speaker 1: the scale of the event was the way that it
Speaker 1: was different from pretty much any other literary event that
Speaker 1: I'd been to, even though specifically about working class writing.
Speaker 1: As we touched on in the previous episodes, this festival
Speaker 1: is not just about increasing working class representation in middle
Speaker 1: class dominated areas of society, like publishing in academia. It's
Speaker 1: about transforming society itself, something that was evident in the
Speaker 1: slogan of this year's festival, We will be Everything. The
Speaker 1: result of this is that while there were professional writers
Speaker 1: and scholars who are from working class backgrounds or writing
Speaker 1: about working class issues, there are also many talks by
Speaker 1: people who write and research but might not think of
Speaker 1: themselves primarily as writers or researchers.
Speaker 2: My book is about it's some kind of chronicles, it's
Speaker 2: some kind of a memoir. It's my first year in
Speaker 2: Sweden and they so if you want to know my background,
Speaker 2: I'm at high school dropout. I come from Poland.
Speaker 1: This is Daria Bogdanska, a union activist living in Malmo,
Speaker 1: southern Sweden, and the author illustrator of the graphic novel
Speaker 1: Wage Slaves.
Speaker 3: I don't come from.
Speaker 2: A union tradition, you know. I'm now thirty something. When
Speaker 2: I grew up, I was kind of maybe considering myself
Speaker 2: a leftist, but I have no idea of actual union work.
Speaker 2: You know, I was a part of the precarreat and
Speaker 2: in this way you read about union traditions, you read
Speaker 2: about left wing history, but it's very apps right.
Speaker 3: It's the past.
Speaker 2: You don't see, at least me being the like young
Speaker 2: millennial leftist. I couldn't relate to this in my daily life.
Speaker 2: Just working shit jobs and a way of changing your
Speaker 2: conditions would be changing a job instead of taking a fight.
Speaker 2: Your European Union opens to Poland, where I go, of
Speaker 2: course London, where I did the bike messager work for
Speaker 2: a few years.
Speaker 3: I consider it a shit job. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I did some bike mechanic jobs, I did some waiting,
Speaker 2: I did any any kind of shit job you can
Speaker 2: imagine in Spain, in the UK. And I'm kind of
Speaker 2: a typical European EU nomad, going and doing different ship
Speaker 2: jobs and just finding means to to live, and then
Speaker 2: I end up in Sweden. That's actually a fun story
Speaker 2: because there is those schools people schools FORCA schooler. It's
Speaker 2: some kind of vocational schools for people who didn't finish
Speaker 2: high school. So if you don't have a high school diploma,
Speaker 2: you can apply for such a school. And I got
Speaker 2: information that you could maybe apply to this kind of school.
Speaker 2: I always did writing and drawing, so I applied to
Speaker 2: comics school. Actually I just want to try something, and
Speaker 2: iled that I knew Swedish and my application and I
Speaker 2: got in and I was okay, then I'm going to Sweden.
Speaker 2: Basically me in my backpack and I've, you know, a
Speaker 2: few hundred euros in my pocket. The whole book kind
Speaker 2: of depict my first year in Sweden and kind of
Speaker 2: my classes with the Swedish system, the clashes of my
Speaker 2: imagination of Swedish system as a kind of orderly, bureaucratic
Speaker 2: welfare paradise where everybody is equal and you know, the
Speaker 2: land of social democracy where maybe shitty jobs would be
Speaker 2: less shitty, and what I found out during this first
Speaker 2: year that I work in a restaurant there. I work illegally,
Speaker 2: even though I'm from EU and I have right to
Speaker 2: work in Sweden. I found in some kafkan situation where
Speaker 2: you have to apply for this personal number in Sweden,
Speaker 2: like social security number in order to have a like
Speaker 2: legal job. But in order to get this number, you
Speaker 2: have to have a job. So it's a catch twenty
Speaker 2: two situation, you know.
Speaker 3: So I work illegally.
Speaker 2: I work at a restaurant. It's an Indian restaurant, and
Speaker 2: I'm the only white person working there, and I earn
Speaker 2: like five years an hour and this is shitty, but
Speaker 2: I'm used to shitty, you know. I just need to
Speaker 2: pay my rent and I go to work before and
Speaker 2: after school. But what I realized is that there's people.
Speaker 2: There's a whole karaokee of workers there. And I earn
Speaker 2: five euro, which for a Swede is slave wage. But
Speaker 2: there is people from Bangladesh who work earn four and
Speaker 2: a half a euro. But there is a guy from
Speaker 2: Pakistan who earns three euro. And there's you know, well,
Speaker 2: I call it a letter of desperation that you know,
Speaker 2: more desperate you are for a job for money than
Speaker 2: then the last like the last he get paid, and
Speaker 2: this is something that pisces me off really and this
Speaker 2: is something to push me to try to organize, which
Speaker 2: I do formally for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2: So this is a story of me going through this
Speaker 2: journey kind of awakening in that sense into trying to organize,
Speaker 2: trying to organize the kind of precarious situations, try to
Speaker 2: also navigate how to organize when there's so much at stakes,
Speaker 2: like people who have working visas and risk a lot,
Speaker 2: or like some shady connections with the owner who lends
Speaker 2: them money or they live at his place, or they
Speaker 2: live at the restaurant, you know, and how to organize
Speaker 2: in those conditions. That So this is a parallel story
Speaker 2: of the union organizing and also me finding my way
Speaker 2: in Sweden, finding my life in Sweden, kind of observing,
Speaker 2: trying to understand what's going on around me, what's this
Speaker 2: country about.
Speaker 1: After this period in her life, Darry began organizing among
Speaker 1: market workers with a number of different unions, something that
Speaker 1: she continues to do to this day. But one thing
Speaker 1: she mentioned was how her writing and her activism are
Speaker 1: often in tension with each other when it comes to
Speaker 1: competing for her time.
Speaker 3: After I wrote a book.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was a lot of interest in the
Speaker 2: book because they don't have an immigrant woman talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, our own conditions, you know, which I understand
Speaker 2: the interest because I prefer to speak about myself. We
Speaker 2: migrants speak with our own voices. Then somebody else tells
Speaker 2: you about how we have it. So there was a
Speaker 2: lot of interest. But I noticed also one thing that
Speaker 2: I would be like invited by the major unions to
Speaker 2: talk about both the culture sector, and then the unions
Speaker 2: would would invite me and I would talk about my
Speaker 2: situation in my book, but they like to hear how
Speaker 2: terrible it was. But as soon as I came with
Speaker 2: some criticism or solutions, as soon as I was showing
Speaker 2: some agency, they were not interested anymore.
Speaker 3: And after some years.
Speaker 2: Of doing this kind of being being like a I
Speaker 2: don't know, a spokesperson for migrant in like culture sphere,
Speaker 2: like you know, by being a writer, I just got
Speaker 2: tired of it and I realize, like shit, I just
Speaker 2: want to do organizing. I want to help also other
Speaker 2: people who are in a situation like me. So I
Speaker 2: started getting more involved with the union. I struggle with
Speaker 2: this because sometimes you know, we have this kind of
Speaker 2: idea of a successful person who's like both and the
Speaker 2: activist and the brilliant thinker and also fantastic organizer and
Speaker 2: writer and everything. And I'm like, you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: so smart, I'm not so fantastic. Like maybe I cannot
Speaker 2: manage to do be everything at once, and right now,
Speaker 2: I mean I would manage to do both, and right
Speaker 2: now I just out of way. I'm more of a
Speaker 2: practitioner right now than talker. But I still think it's
Speaker 2: valuable to talk about those things, and I'm really happy
Speaker 2: that I did, but I just kind of got impatient,
Speaker 2: but just talking.
Speaker 1: Daria was just one of the many excellent speakers that
Speaker 1: I met over the fest of a weekend. But another
Speaker 1: that I had a chance to speak to was Luca Leijang,
Speaker 1: postdoctoral fellow at the University of Macau in China, an
Speaker 1: editor of the anthology Asian Workers' Stories. In many ways,
Speaker 1: Luca's research picks up where Dari's graphic novel left off
Speaker 1: in terms of giving a voice to migrant workers, though
Speaker 1: in Lucas case, her focus is on those who are
Speaker 1: further down what Daria calls the ladder of desperation.
Speaker 4: I wrote my PhD on working class literature in China
Speaker 4: and Singapore as a comparative study. One important part of
Speaker 4: my research focuses on micro worker writings in Singapore and China.
Speaker 4: So in Singapore, just put it briefly, there are a
Speaker 4: lot of migro workers come from less developed countries such
Speaker 4: as the Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh, and they work there in
Speaker 4: those three D jobs such as domestic helpers and construction workers.
Speaker 1: Three D jobs here refers to the three d's used
Speaker 1: to describe the work done by market workers that is dirty, dangerous,
Speaker 1: and demeaning.
Speaker 4: So that's all basically the magrant workers do in Singapore,
Speaker 4: but Singapore is not the unique case. They are also
Speaker 4: in places like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan
Speaker 4: and China too. In China, I mean slightly different, they're
Speaker 4: not transnational workers, but the nature of the work is
Speaker 4: the same. So along with my research, I have met
Speaker 4: a lot of worker writers who are writing a lot
Speaker 4: of things about their life, their job. And I have
Speaker 4: also read a lot of older working class literatures from
Speaker 4: this region, for instance, those who are actively writing in
Speaker 4: the nineteen seventies, and I found it is very different
Speaker 4: that how those older group of workers write their life
Speaker 4: and work as a working class writers and the contemporary
Speaker 4: domestic workers. So after I did my PhD, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I really wanted to collect those worker writers to put
Speaker 4: them together in one book. I really want to highlight
Speaker 4: this kind of collective way of framing workers writing, not
Speaker 4: only as individual workers. For instance, a lot of magan
Speaker 4: worker writers in Singapore has been framed as migrant writers,
Speaker 4: and I have a trouble with that term because in general,
Speaker 4: when they talk about magnant writers, it seems worker identity
Speaker 4: has been raised or downplayed. So there are a lot
Speaker 4: of literal events and activities about megan worker writings in
Speaker 4: this region, for instance Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but
Speaker 4: I'm always worried about how they downplay the worker aspect
Speaker 4: in these writings. And there are a lot of things
Speaker 4: also happened within this writing community. For instance, when migrant
Speaker 4: workers are writing about their home lives, their personal emotions,
Speaker 4: they are very welcomed by the local government's literary events.
Speaker 4: But there's a line where when they started writing about
Speaker 4: their working conditions as workers, or when they want want
Speaker 4: to have some improvements in their life conditions, they are
Speaker 4: no longer walcomed in this kind of writing practices. So
Speaker 4: I wanted to do a book where I didn't encourage
Speaker 4: them to write about their working conditions, but I really
Speaker 4: want to put this working class literature class perspective in
Speaker 4: this book, and certainly maybe the last one is I
Speaker 4: want to kind of I want to the writers know
Speaker 4: they are not writing alone. They are workers in different
Speaker 4: parts of Asia writing about the writing. So I want
Speaker 4: to kind of bring this book to them and let
Speaker 4: them know, see, you're not working alone. We have a
Speaker 4: lot of people writing on their lives. They are writers
Speaker 4: in these collections who are very experienced writers, they have
Speaker 4: been writing for years. But the fact is some of
Speaker 4: the writers are very experienced ones and they are published
Speaker 4: that they are recognized, but some of them are very
Speaker 4: very new. And there is also a relatively older worker
Speaker 4: writer from Malaysia in this collection, so I found he's
Speaker 4: very interesting because he was connected with the older working
Speaker 4: class writing in Malaysia in the nineteen seventies. So in
Speaker 4: Malaysia in nineteen seventies, Malaysia and Singapore in the nineteen
Speaker 4: sixties and seventies, there was a very active working class
Speaker 4: writing group who basically of the factory workers or bus
Speaker 4: drivers or plantation workers, because there was a very active
Speaker 4: working class culture at that time, but now they are
Speaker 4: kind of forgotten or marginalized because they're not a lot
Speaker 4: of working class literature studies or institutions in that region.
Speaker 4: So I read his books. He self published to a
Speaker 4: collection of his writings in Chinese, and I read it
Speaker 4: and I kind of approached to I asked him, do
Speaker 4: you want is that okay if I translate one or
Speaker 4: two of your stories to this collection, and he said,
Speaker 4: of course. So that's again one of my kind of
Speaker 4: hope that I can historic size those writings. And because
Speaker 4: those writings are not you know, like speaking of from
Speaker 4: working class writing perspective, it's not something that new.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things about Asian workers' stories is
Speaker 1: the range of different jobs and nationalities of its contributors
Speaker 1: and how these interact with various literary traditions that inform
Speaker 1: their writing.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of domestic workers. They live in
Speaker 4: the households, and it is exactly very hard to draw
Speaker 4: the line between life and work in a sense where
Speaker 4: they work at where the employers live, and they live
Speaker 4: there right, so you can see a lot. Their stories
Speaker 4: are very kind of centered this household. So it's also
Speaker 4: kind of no longer the traditional working class life where
Speaker 4: you go to a factory or you go to a
Speaker 4: place to work. Maybe Stephanie's story is a very good
Speaker 4: example where Stephanie's story the Autobiography of the Other Lady
Speaker 4: Gaga is particularly interesting in terms of the form or
Speaker 4: the round word she uses. Her stories in this collection
Speaker 4: is drawn from this form called dectly in the Filipino
Speaker 4: literary tradition, where I think it's similar to flesh fiction
Speaker 4: or mini stories or mini fiction in English terms, and
Speaker 4: those writings. This genre started at the beginning of twentieth
Speaker 4: century in the Philippines after the Philippines in the US War,
Speaker 4: and people wrote in this form they published on local
Speaker 4: magazines newspapers in their vernacular languages. So she also used
Speaker 4: this form for her writings, which I find very interesting.
Speaker 1: The Autobiography of the Other Lady Gaga is a contribution
Speaker 1: to Asian workers' stories by Stephanie j Alfarez, a trans Philippine,
Speaker 1: a migrant worker who works for almost fifteen years in
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. As Luca mentioned, the dagli form that she
Speaker 1: uses in her story has its roots in the anti
Speaker 1: American newspapers and magazines that proliferated after the Philippine American
Speaker 1: War at the turn of the twentieth century, But as
Speaker 1: the translator's note in the anthology makes clear, the dagli
Speaker 1: is also a former vignette or sketch for expressing romantic
Speaker 1: love for a woman. This context feels very present in
Speaker 1: Alpharez's story, not just in terms of the political origins
Speaker 1: of the dagli, but also its roots as a romantic genre.
Speaker 1: But those romantic roots contrast starkly with the multiple depictions
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment and violence in Alvarez's story and in
Speaker 1: dou and So Alvarez powerfully twist those routes into a
Speaker 1: sick parody of themselves. Like Lucas says, for domestic workers,
Speaker 1: the line between life and work is often hard to draw,
Speaker 1: and as can be read in Alvarez's story, the same
Speaker 1: can be said about the line between workers issues or
Speaker 1: the issues of migrants, women, or LGBT plus communities, particularly
Speaker 1: in places like Saudi Arabia, where their vulnerability as oppressed
Speaker 1: groups is made worse by the conditions of their employment. However,
Speaker 1: Alvarez is not the only writer in the collection to
Speaker 1: use form and genre in interesting ways.
Speaker 4: Speaking of form, I'm very interested in, for instance, the
Speaker 4: form of journal or how they document their factory life
Speaker 4: or construction workers life. So I mean those other forms
Speaker 4: for other boushease writings or middle class writings, but they
Speaker 4: I find those kind of writing from those worker writers
Speaker 4: gave a new meaning to those roundwolks. For instance, diary
Speaker 4: caeping might be a very kind of I mean, most
Speaker 4: of the times we read a diary from writers write
Speaker 4: famous writers Virginia vol for others, but they also for instance,
Speaker 4: the writer in this book, the last one, M. D.
Speaker 4: Shari Fooding. He's from Bangladesh and he used to work
Speaker 4: as a migrant worker in Singapore in constructions, and he
Speaker 4: published actually two books on his life in Singapore, and
Speaker 4: those two books are named as Diary of a Migrant
Speaker 4: Worker in Singapore. And again, in terms of form, maybe
Speaker 4: keeping a journal or diary was supposed to be very
Speaker 4: intimate personal writing, but his writing was meant to be
Speaker 4: read by others, others in terms of Singaporean people and
Speaker 4: other fellow workers for other different purpose.
Speaker 1: Last year on the working Class Literature podcast. We published
Speaker 1: a three part series on migrant worker poetry in China,
Speaker 1: with a significant focus on the poetry anthology Iron Moon.
Speaker 1: One thing that came up during my conversation with Luca, however,
Speaker 1: is that those Chinese mirgant worker poets who have been
Speaker 1: translated into English themselves often reflect the biases of Western
Speaker 1: scholars and translators. If you'd like to listen to our
Speaker 1: series and Chinese market worker Poetry, we'll include a link
Speaker 1: to it on the web page for this episode link
Speaker 1: in the show notes.
Speaker 4: So in China, everything's very complicated, even when it comes
Speaker 4: to workers' writing. There are so many workers are writing
Speaker 4: in China today or in the past, and I find
Speaker 4: this is very interesting in terms of who God translated.
Speaker 4: Irol Moon did a great job in terms of how
Speaker 4: collectively poets are translated, but there is also a trend
Speaker 4: that they are certain type. I would say worker poets
Speaker 4: got translated into English, and it's really sometimes I even
Speaker 4: feel it depends on who was discussed or written by
Speaker 4: Western academics. And maybe this point is controversial, but what
Speaker 4: I wrote in my PhD is that there is a
Speaker 4: group of underground worker writers or poets. I mean, they're
Speaker 4: not like popular in China, but their work are not
Speaker 4: talked about by overseas readers or even scholars. So the
Speaker 4: first one I found it's extremely important and interesting that
Speaker 4: they have a very radical class consciousness. And they secondly,
Speaker 4: they write and they want to publish, and they organize
Speaker 4: this collective because they want to build up a working
Speaker 4: class culture. And that's also paradoxically the reason they stay
Speaker 4: largely unknown by most of the people, because they don't
Speaker 4: want to get to know by the mainstream media or
Speaker 4: mainstream middle class publishing houses. Because in their publication, they
Speaker 4: have published three collections of their own works and they
Speaker 4: wrote very clearly that so our aim of those writing
Speaker 4: and these publications is to build up a working class culture,
Speaker 4: and it is from the working class, the workers, the
Speaker 4: Chinese workers, and it is for the working class. So
Speaker 4: I've found that is extremely interesting and very important if
Speaker 4: we want to talk about working class literature, because from
Speaker 4: my perspective, a lot of worker writers are consumed today
Speaker 4: by the middle class taste and middle class or mainstream
Speaker 4: publishing industry, and those writers are very radical also in
Speaker 4: terms of why do they write. They see a political
Speaker 4: potential there in their writing. They want to change, right,
Speaker 4: They want to kind of call for a more collective
Speaker 4: way of writing and building up a culture of their own,
Speaker 4: and certainly they want kind of working class solidarity from below.
Speaker 4: So even in the very beginning, when I approached to
Speaker 4: the poet out and writer, he's very kind of suspicious
Speaker 4: of me, which is okay. He was like, okay, who
Speaker 4: are you?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: You can feel he has a sense like I don't
Speaker 4: want to be studied, right, So I spent years or
Speaker 4: sometimes talk to him and explain my views and build
Speaker 4: up these kind of connections with him and as well
Speaker 4: as other few writers from this collection. I found that
Speaker 4: that's really really important, even in China or in Asia today,
Speaker 4: that you know how the worker writers are approached and
Speaker 4: how we collaborate with them as academics or translators or
Speaker 4: published industries. A lot of worker writers, as far as
Speaker 4: I know, are consumed. And I also I wrote about
Speaker 4: this in Singapore, like how a worker writer are made
Speaker 4: and am made by middle class writers or that industry
Speaker 4: in general.
Speaker 1: There's about to be a quick ad break here. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to listen to our episodes without ads, then
Speaker 1: do support us on Patreon for ad free episodes, as
Speaker 1: well as a bunch of other Patreon only content at
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Working Class History. Luca and Daria
Speaker 1: were just two of the incredible speakers at the festival
Speaker 1: this year, but there were numerous others in both English
Speaker 1: and Italian, and always supported by a seemingly endless network
Speaker 1: of volunteer interpreters. More than any one particular talk or performance, however,
Speaker 1: what really made the festival so unique was its connection
Speaker 1: to the ongoing struggle at GKN, which, as we've mentioned before,
Speaker 1: goes beyond the everyday struggle of work and wages towards
Speaker 1: something more fundamentally transformative. Over the years that this struggle
Speaker 1: has been going on for workers have put together an
Speaker 1: industrial plan to reopen the factory as a worker's cooperative,
Speaker 1: but not making car parts as they were before. In
Speaker 1: the new industrial plan, the GKN workers intend to restart
Speaker 1: production making ecological goods like a range of cargo bikes
Speaker 1: for fossil fuel free delivery services and solar panels, both
Speaker 1: to sell as a product in and of itself and
Speaker 1: also for the factory to produce cheap, renewable energy for
Speaker 1: the local community. This is all part of the Factory
Speaker 1: Collective's plan for what they call a socially integrated public factory,
Speaker 1: a factory that will be at least fifty one percent
Speaker 1: owned by the workers themselves and responding to the needs
Speaker 1: of the local area. To help bring this about, the
Speaker 1: GQN Factory Collective proposed a law on public industrial Consortiums,
Speaker 1: which will allow public bodies to buy up industrial sites
Speaker 1: once companies shut down production. In December twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: this law was approved by the regional government in Tuscany.
Speaker 5: Now, the next step we are struggling for the city
Speaker 5: halls and the regional government to airy up in the
Speaker 5: process of creating this public consortium that is the one
Speaker 5: that they can create in Othersinga, is the season on
Speaker 5: our law, in order that maybe in June July they
Speaker 5: can start to prepare game with the ownership in order
Speaker 5: that this building becomes a.
Speaker 1: Public This is Daria Salvetti, the spokesperson for the GKN
Speaker 1: Factory Collective, speaking to a group of international attendees this
Speaker 1: year's Working Class Literature Festival. Longer term listeners might remember
Speaker 1: that we also spoke to Dario in our previous episodes
Speaker 1: on the festival. And the struggle at GKN.
Speaker 5: The right wing parties in Toscany are attacking us. They
Speaker 5: say that our law of public consul is a law
Speaker 5: that brings you back to the.
Speaker 6: Soviets in Toscany.
Speaker 5: I would like to, but it's not the case. It's
Speaker 5: a very very moderate law that is simply allows a
Speaker 5: public government to say, if there is a factory, you
Speaker 5: have to be like that is a factory. You cannot
Speaker 5: treat a factory like a real estate investment. This is
Speaker 5: the basic purpose of the law, not less, not both.
Speaker 5: And we have a fear that the Democratic Party want
Speaker 5: to invest in this law because they want to use
Speaker 5: it into the electoral field. But we won't succeed because
Speaker 5: their will is not what they sometimes do. Because a
Speaker 5: party that has been formed in us and ars in
Speaker 5: privatizing everything now that they have to a public.
Speaker 6: Feing to those so fail. So there could be also.
Speaker 5: The shot very want to let us win, but they're
Speaker 5: not able because they don't have the real mind to
Speaker 5: be created something public, so that there would be the
Speaker 5: worst scenario that is that in September, when September October,
Speaker 5: when the election comes, the right wing attacked us because
Speaker 5: we have Richard, no nothing. They attack the Democratic Party
Speaker 5: because of Foreman has formed the public consortion that is
Speaker 5: not functionate, and that could be the word sinnaty.
Speaker 1: The Democratic Party that Darius were into here is not
Speaker 1: the one from the United States, but the main center
Speaker 1: left party in Italy, but one which, like many center
Speaker 1: left parties across the West, has been firmly near liberal
Speaker 1: now for decades. And as Dario explains why the law
Speaker 1: itself will open up space for workers to finally take
Speaker 1: control of their factory, it cannot simply be left up
Speaker 1: to a political party that for years has been dedicated
Speaker 1: to privatization. Rather, the plan will have to be fought
Speaker 1: for by the GKN workers and their supporters, and as
Speaker 1: a result, the plan also includes space for other groups
Speaker 1: to be included.
Speaker 5: That moment proposal will be that it's not part will
Speaker 5: remain such a part of the factory, so that these
Speaker 5: activities will become a regularly and that will be founded
Speaker 5: a permanent office of the working class culture, not only literature,
Speaker 5: but everything and the other part of the factory, in
Speaker 5: the first part producing solar planets, there will be a
Speaker 5: part that won't be used by us because our industrial
Speaker 5: plan media nine thousand square meters. This is eighty thousand
Speaker 5: square meters of the area and thirty five square meters
Speaker 5: the fund.
Speaker 1: This permanent office for working class culture that Dadiol mentioned
Speaker 1: is part of a plan to start a working class
Speaker 1: cultural hub on the site of the former GKN factory.
Speaker 1: This cultural hub would include a museum, social and labor
Speaker 1: movement archives beginning with that of the Tuscan Metal Workers Union,
Speaker 1: are permanent headquarters for the organization of European working class
Speaker 1: literature festivals, and an audio visual center including training for
Speaker 1: aspiring filmmakers. This is just one of the projects that
Speaker 1: will be developed on the site, which will be run
Speaker 1: by a cooperative made up not only of the former workers,
Speaker 1: but climber and migrants rights campaigners, mutual aid associations and
Speaker 1: social centers. The plan is incredible, almost too good to
Speaker 1: be true, But as with all the other obstacles that
Speaker 1: have gone in their way, the factory collective has a
Speaker 1: strategy for overcoming it and turning their plans into reality.
Speaker 6: For or less, we need twelve million euros okay, six
Speaker 6: hundred thousand can come from our unemployment benefit, because we
Speaker 6: can shift our employment benefit in.
Speaker 5: The properatives we have some ethic financial fund that would
Speaker 5: make two millions in loop and ethic bank that make
Speaker 5: to two million euros. And then we have another public
Speaker 5: sector that would bring into the project like half million.
Speaker 5: And then we have like five million that should come
Speaker 5: from the bank. Okay, and we are burgaining with some bank.
Speaker 5: And as I was saying, they're not yeah because they
Speaker 5: are clever or because they won't that our struggle win,
Speaker 5: but because this druggle is so popular that it's an
Speaker 5: occasion also for the bank to the social wash. We
Speaker 5: know this is the game. But it's impossible to start
Speaker 5: a factory without alone.
Speaker 6: From a bag.
Speaker 1: Unsurprisingly, the plan hasn't been well received by the business community.
Speaker 5: What it's been clear in the last months is that
Speaker 5: very is total skeaticism from the industrial sector in Italy
Speaker 5: little least, but I think it's something that is zero.
Speaker 5: There is total scadism in the chance to produce solar
Speaker 5: panels here. The want to leave the technology to China.
Speaker 5: And you could say, well, it's better if someone will
Speaker 5: do solar panel. I don't mind if we are China
Speaker 5: and Italy. Yes and no, it would be better to
Speaker 5: produce solar panel with a short chain of value because
Speaker 5: of course more kilometers the solar panel do and later
Speaker 5: will be the recovery of the energy that the solar
Speaker 5: panel produces.
Speaker 6: We had to change a lot of things in the
Speaker 6: industry plant.
Speaker 5: For example, we don't want to produce classical solar panel
Speaker 5: like the Chinese one or what is We can also
Speaker 5: produce those one, but the kind of solar panels that
Speaker 5: we want to produce will be solar panel that are
Speaker 5: contr customers. I said, in order to be involved in
Speaker 5: the existing buildings and not to waste other square meters
Speaker 5: of a free ground, for example in the countries. So
Speaker 5: everything was difficult, but going quite okay from a day
Speaker 5: to another. We started to feel that every private investor
Speaker 5: was trying to find an excuse to wit the project.
Speaker 5: And the real reason is that then those aspects of
Speaker 5: banks are saying it's possible in solar panel in and
Speaker 5: they say Mario Draghi, that is the former Prime Minister
Speaker 5: of Italy in a recent interviews, say you know, we
Speaker 5: have lost the technology, leave solar palet to the Chinese
Speaker 5: and we went to our other fie. So it's not
Speaker 5: a question that we want to steal solar panelts to Chinese.
Speaker 5: We don't want to steal to anybody. We want to cooperate,
Speaker 5: not to compete.
Speaker 1: This context of struggle of work has taken over a
Speaker 1: fanct and reimagining what they could do with it filled
Speaker 1: the Literature Festival with so much energy, and as in
Speaker 1: previous years, one of the ways that this energy manifested
Speaker 1: itself was in a demonstration of thousands of attendees through
Speaker 1: the streets on the outskirts of Florence, singing as always
Speaker 1: the GKN workers anthem occupiamola, which in English translates to
Speaker 1: let's occupy it. Not that final chant siamo tuti g
Speaker 1: capa translates as we are all GKN. This was something
Speaker 1: more than a simple literary festival. Of course, It was
Speaker 1: also that, with the kinds of interesting speakers and discussions
Speaker 1: that you would expect at such an event anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world. But it was also something else as well.
Speaker 1: It was working class literature as an active part of
Speaker 1: working class struggle, which gave the event a totally different
Speaker 1: energy and atmosphere. And of course that energy and atmosphere
Speaker 1: was in a huge part down to the attendees themselves,
Speaker 1: often activists and organizers from across Italy and beyond.
Speaker 3: Hi I'm Francisca.
Speaker 7: Hello, I'm Gabrielle.
Speaker 8: Hi I'm Bianca.
Speaker 7: We come from Turin in the northwestern Italy and we
Speaker 7: represent Quomunette, which is a collective and must realistic association
Speaker 7: which had a role in the gk and struggle in
Speaker 7: the past four years. Many of our comrades helped in
Speaker 7: many different ways, some of them with the industrial plan.
Speaker 7: We also helped with the communication, doing graphic design and
Speaker 7: helping with the media. We also helped with the legal
Speaker 7: part of the struggle, especially in the first years.
Speaker 8: Two three years ago we slept inside the factory. We
Speaker 8: passed a lot of time with collective, the fabrica and
Speaker 8: with a lot of association, and so it's like the
Speaker 8: memory of the place and the fact that we each
Speaker 8: time we knew, we know new people and we meet
Speaker 8: some people that we already met in the past.
Speaker 9: Turina we had a very great history of workers that
Speaker 9: made the very great struggle. But this is something new
Speaker 9: also because it's not a struggle for that struggle and stop,
Speaker 9: but it's a struggle for a better future that for
Speaker 9: that reason cannot stand only on to fit and has
Speaker 9: to go with all the society. So all the parts
Speaker 9: of the struggle, like the transfeminist movement, the ecological movement,
Speaker 9: all the kind of work and struggle in society are
Speaker 9: involved in the rendiustrialization in an ecological way, in a
Speaker 9: new way that made the factory not an isolated the place,
Speaker 9: but a place of work and of reproduction of life
Speaker 9: that is connected to all the parts of society.
Speaker 10: I think it can all be summarizing two words. It's
Speaker 10: building autonomy, okay, man I mean's David. I'm one of
Speaker 10: the funder of the editorial project Chronicle Rebelli, which is
Speaker 10: a project that was born on social media in twenty
Speaker 10: sixteen to talk about history from a prospective and talk
Speaker 10: about the history of come people and minorities and their
Speaker 10: struggles the way, you know, the history of GPN has
Speaker 10: been an history of as many others have been in Italy,
Speaker 10: but i'd say in Europe and general is speaking, and
Speaker 10: in North America as well, of the industrialization, and you know,
Speaker 10: of basically taking down all the industrial what is called
Speaker 10: you know, Western countries to relocate them and the way
Speaker 10: it can be stopped from below because many many workers
Speaker 10: made probably the mistake they're to say that of trusting
Speaker 10: too much of the traditional parties and Indians and trying
Speaker 10: to think that they would have, you know, solved the
Speaker 10: creases from above. But actually Jkian, it's a clear example
Speaker 10: and now constructing something you know that starts from below,
Speaker 10: from the low level is actually the first step in
Speaker 10: gaining unsustainable solution.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Kuzma.
Speaker 11: I'm from Germany, from a South of Germany tied guide
Speaker 11: and I'm here with some friends and especially in the
Speaker 11: context of the campaign We Drive Together and German Defensisam.
Speaker 3: My name is Julia.
Speaker 12: I live in Leipsis and I'm a PhD student there
Speaker 12: actually working on the GK and struggles in some years.
Speaker 12: So I'm also here as part of the solidarity network
Speaker 12: from Germany and as a scientist.
Speaker 11: I always wanted to come to see GIKEN and especially
Speaker 11: because on the last years we as we said, we
Speaker 11: did the campaign we Drive Together and germ DEFERANCISAM.
Speaker 3: Which is a campaign between the Climate Justice.
Speaker 11: Movement and workers from the public transport and the union Verdi,
Speaker 11: and doing that campaign and especially the bargain and campaign
Speaker 11: the workers had the beginning last year we had a
Speaker 11: first climate strike where it was also a warning.
Speaker 13: Strike of the workers.
Speaker 11: And during all that time, I think I was very
Speaker 11: inspired by the struggle the workers are fighting year and
Speaker 11: so it was always on my mind to one day
Speaker 11: come here and to see it all.
Speaker 12: I mean, I tried to come here as often as possible.
Speaker 12: But at the moment, I'm here because some months ago
Speaker 12: they rode and passed or it was passed, this regional law.
Speaker 3: So they now hope that.
Speaker 12: The regional government will expropriate this building so that they
Speaker 12: could start their cooperative not in any place, but in
Speaker 12: their factory right here. And on the same time they
Speaker 12: were fired again someday years ago. So it's a very
Speaker 12: contradictory moment at the moment, and this is how you
Speaker 12: always feel being part of the struggle, that it could
Speaker 12: be the last moment to be here, to be part
Speaker 12: of that struggle in that place, really in the factory.
Speaker 3: So this is why I thought, Okay.
Speaker 12: Before they could be really finally evicted, everyone should come
Speaker 12: here to support and this is actually part of their
Speaker 12: struggle and how they make history that whatever attack is arriving,
Speaker 12: they kind of have a counteraction.
Speaker 3: And I see this literature festival as a part of it.
Speaker 12: To do something to mobilize people to yeah, make sure
Speaker 12: that the police doesn't come to victim. And to me,
Speaker 12: the introduction yesterday was already quite touching because Dadio, one
Speaker 12: of the workers, he said something like, okay, it's important
Speaker 12: that we tell our story and that we do this
Speaker 12: literature festival because as working class people, we don't have
Speaker 12: a lot of institutions or a lot of power resources,
Speaker 12: at least when we.
Speaker 3: Are not in a working factory anymore.
Speaker 12: So we cannot go on strike and stop production for example.
Speaker 3: So what we have is our.
Speaker 12: History and our stories, and this is how we can
Speaker 12: shape society and how we can build our alliances. And
Speaker 12: they are thought, okay that moment of like, as Marxists,
Speaker 12: we like to talk about the structures, right, but they
Speaker 12: really remind us the whole time that also our stories
Speaker 12: and ideas they do shape class consciousness enormously. So and
Speaker 12: this is why I really think how they talk about
Speaker 12: their struggle and how also poetic it is. It's quite important.
Speaker 12: One central question is how the climate movement and the
Speaker 12: labor movement can fight together, and there are so many difficulties,
Speaker 12: and here they show how even industrial workers, even in
Speaker 12: this situation of dismissals can with all their dignity, be
Speaker 12: part of also climate movements and shape climate politics and
Speaker 12: their way and show that there would be a way out.
Speaker 12: And they do not show it only ideologically, but they
Speaker 12: really with that new law for example, they could really
Speaker 12: be an example of how also in other regions of
Speaker 12: the world this de industrialization could be answered in an
Speaker 12: ecological way.
Speaker 3: That's really impressive.
Speaker 11: I think, yeah, I think it's just in general, it's
Speaker 11: so important and inspiring in order to have this eutopia
Speaker 11: here for us in Germany, for example, to know where
Speaker 11: we have to go to, as you said, democraticize union structures,
Speaker 11: to work on the climate, labor turn in a climate
Speaker 11: movement as well as in unions, and to yes, just
Speaker 11: have this example of how it could be. I think
Speaker 11: it's very important also to have hope and to look
Speaker 11: up to it.
Speaker 12: And then this really the cultural place where which really
Speaker 12: feels like a.
Speaker 3: Small real utopia.
Speaker 12: I think that everyone can go to an industrial sphere
Speaker 12: where it's only a shopping mall and some trees left,
Speaker 12: and otherwise that the factory. That you can come here
Speaker 12: and see how people are jointly fighting, eating, discussing about politics.
Speaker 3: That's just something I've never.
Speaker 12: Seen like, it's really a social movement in an industrial
Speaker 12: area which connects kind of new social movements and the
Speaker 12: tradition of workers councils from the last one hundred years,
Speaker 12: and you can really feel it that this is something
Speaker 12: very special.
Speaker 1: These are just a few snapshots of some of the
Speaker 1: conversations I managed to record while I was at the festival.
Speaker 1: But one conversation I had, which in many ways summed
Speaker 1: up everything from all the others that I've been having
Speaker 1: over that weekend, was with a trade unionist from the
Speaker 1: nearby city of Prato.
Speaker 14: I am I am a union organizer, and I'm organized
Speaker 14: with this union called SUD COBUS SU double D COBBAS.
Speaker 14: It means union, unity, democracy and dignity, and then cobus
Speaker 14: means like base committees, because we are an autonomous union
Speaker 14: and we think that the core of a union organization
Speaker 14: should be the workers and the group of the workers
Speaker 14: that organize inside the workplaces.
Speaker 13: We are here as volunteers.
Speaker 14: I have been translating the panels in English, and I've
Speaker 14: been doing security.
Speaker 13: I did a shift at the bar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so various various jobs.
Speaker 14: We knew comrades from GKN even before the ninth of
Speaker 14: July twenty twenty one. They were among the first to
Speaker 14: always come to the strikes we were doing in the factories,
Speaker 14: mostly in the textile district in the Prato area, which
Speaker 14: is one of the biggest textile district in Europe, and
Speaker 14: GKN workers were always among the first to come to
Speaker 14: take their solidarities to cook meals for the workers who
Speaker 14: were on strike, and so we during these years we've
Speaker 14: developed these strong connections and we try to help the
Speaker 14: struggle as much as possible because we feel the.
Speaker 13: Struggle as our own.
Speaker 14: Somehow, the majority of workers we organize with our migrant workers.
Speaker 14: They come mostly from Pakistan, but also from other countries
Speaker 14: because the majority of people who work here in the
Speaker 14: area and have problems at work and work in exploitative conditions,
Speaker 14: like a lot of people work.
Speaker 13: Twelve hours per day, seven days a week.
Speaker 14: And one of the most important things that we try
Speaker 14: to do organizing together is to be a megaphone for
Speaker 14: their voice and their experience and their desires to struggle
Speaker 14: for a better life. And so I think that the
Speaker 14: Working Class Literature Festival can really be a vector for
Speaker 14: this because it's one of its goals is to tell
Speaker 14: the working class, but also to let the working classes
Speaker 14: speak and tell their own stories and talk about the
Speaker 14: condition the working class experiences at work, but also what
Speaker 14: kind of alternative people think it's necessary and want to
Speaker 14: commit to build together. So yeah, that's why I think
Speaker 14: this space is really something needed for the working class
Speaker 14: to tell its own stories and to share its own perspective. Yes,
Speaker 14: just now, it's a podcast so you can see what
Speaker 14: we are seeing. But just looking in front of a
Speaker 14: DKN factory. On the left, we have an hotel. Inside
Speaker 14: this hotel, a group of female workers is organizing. They
Speaker 14: do cleaning for the hotel rooms and they are basically
Speaker 14: paid for the rooms they clean and not for the
Speaker 14: hours they work. That's a big problem in the tourism
Speaker 14: sector in this line of work.
Speaker 13: And on the right we have a.
Speaker 14: Warehouse of a furniture logistic company called the Mondo Convenianza.
Speaker 13: They also work.
Speaker 14: In a subcontract.
Speaker 13: Company in the Mondo Conveny and soa warehouse.
Speaker 14: And we were able to change this kind of condition
Speaker 14: with five months of strike, sleeping in front of the
Speaker 14: factory for five months. And yeah, but workers are still
Speaker 14: organizing there. Yes, because new problems emerged. Even if we
Speaker 14: won that struggle and people got a regular contract, but
Speaker 14: we now are fighting for security at the workplace. And
Speaker 14: in front of us there is a supermarket called the
Speaker 14: Panorama and the workers are struggling there against the layoffs.
Speaker 14: On the side of the Mundo convenience warehouse, there was
Speaker 14: a sub supplier factory who worked for the brand mont Blanc.
Speaker 14: Pakistani workers were working there doing mont Blanc bags twelve
Speaker 14: hours a day, for six days a week for one
Speaker 14: thousand euros per month. And when the union and they
Speaker 14: conquered their rights and their right to an eight hour
Speaker 14: five days time table, mont Blanc decided to take away
Speaker 14: the work from this factory and so they found themselves
Speaker 14: without a job basically, and so they're struggling since twenty
Speaker 14: twenty three to be reinstated in the mom Blank supply chain.
Speaker 14: Because made in Italy and fashional luxury is a sector
Speaker 14: that we often think it's a good sector for people
Speaker 14: to work in that because clothes or bags are so expensive,
Speaker 14: then the working conditions must be good.
Speaker 13: But actually it's a sector.
Speaker 14: Where multinational companies and fashion brands try to extract the
Speaker 14: maximum profit possible from the workers. So yes, the Working
Speaker 14: Class Literature Festival is in front just for example of
Speaker 14: all the situation, and we think that gkyn as an experience,
Speaker 14: as a project of socially integrated public factory could really
Speaker 14: be an important poll for the workers to meet, to
Speaker 14: recognize theirselves, and to build a collective way to tell
Speaker 14: their own stories.
Speaker 1: This for me, really sums up so many of the
Speaker 1: things that made the Working Class Literature Festival so special.
Speaker 1: Partly that blurring of boundaries between attendees, volunteers and speakers
Speaker 1: that meant a union organizer might do security in the morning,
Speaker 1: translate in the afternoon, give a talk in the evening,
Speaker 1: and work the bar after dinner. But also the way
Speaker 1: the festival was not just a platform for the GK
Speaker 1: and workers, but also how it brought together the struggles
Speaker 1: of so many others. This is what gave the factory
Speaker 1: site the feeling of being a small utopia. As Julia
Speaker 1: and Kusuma put it, the quality of the conversations you
Speaker 1: had and the connections you made with people felt different
Speaker 1: to those you have in normal, everyday life. You really
Speaker 1: brought to mind a line from the novel Disneyland by
Speaker 1: Scottish author De Ed Johnson, who he interviewed in Working
Speaker 1: Class Literure Episodes five and six, where he writes, quote,
Speaker 1: shared endeavor is the basis of meaningful conversation end quote.
Speaker 1: What made these conversations, not to mention the singing and
Speaker 1: marching and chanting, so meaningful was that they took place
Speaker 1: in a setting where people weren't just talking about social transformation,
Speaker 1: but one in which transformation was actually happening. Truth be told,
Speaker 1: I'm almost embarrassed at how significant an experience it was
Speaker 1: for me, because I feel like it makes me sound
Speaker 1: like a born again religious fanatic. But it's like Hemingway
Speaker 1: once wrote about Paris, if you're lucky to have lived
Speaker 1: there as a young man, then wherever you go for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, it stays with you. For
Speaker 1: Paris is a movable feast. Unfortunately for me, I'm no
Speaker 1: longer a young man anymore. But regardless, my brief visit
Speaker 1: to Pubsensio was an experience that absolutely will stay with
Speaker 1: me for the rest of my life. As I'm recording this, however,
Speaker 1: the struggle remains in a state of flux. As mentioned
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of this episode, the workers were
Speaker 1: made redundant for the third and final time, just before
Speaker 1: the festival. There is now a fear that they could
Speaker 1: be evicted at any point. At the same time, they're
Speaker 1: waiting for the Industrial Consortium to become operational to allow
Speaker 1: their socially integrated public factory to take shape. Yet the
Speaker 1: Factory Collective and their supporters are not resting. Events continue
Speaker 1: to be organized throughout July to celebrate the fourth anniversary
Speaker 1: of their struggle. Plans continue to be drawn up for
Speaker 1: the new factory, and financing continues to be broken in
Speaker 1: order to make it a reality. The Working Class Literature
Speaker 1: Festival and the struggle with the former GKN workers highlight
Speaker 1: what literature and politics fundamentally have in common. That in
Speaker 1: the end, both literature and politics are about producing stories
Speaker 1: to understand both ourselves and the world, and they both
Speaker 1: involved imagining new worlds. And ultimately, a group of workers
Speaker 1: taken over their factory and fighting to transform it into
Speaker 1: an ecosocialist co op against a background of rising far
Speaker 1: right reaction sounds like the stuff of fantasy, of science fiction,
Speaker 1: even mythology, and yet there it is in an industrial
Speaker 1: suburb on the outskirts of Florence. While I was at
Speaker 1: the festival, I shared a sleeping area with about five
Speaker 1: other people. One of them was a retired firefighter and
Speaker 1: veteran of numerous Italian social struggles who said something that
Speaker 1: has since stayed with me. He said, when you're in
Speaker 1: the desert, you need to know where the oases are
Speaker 1: if you want to survive. But if you don't look
Speaker 1: after your oases, even they will dry up. The GKN
Speaker 1: struggle is one such oasis, and it's down to all
Speaker 1: of us to help cultivate it and to cultivate new
Speaker 1: oases if you want to survive the moment we're in.
Speaker 14: I think j kn's struggle is significant because from the
Speaker 14: first moment they put their struggle at service of every struggle.
Speaker 14: Somehow they started this struggle against the layoffs and the
Speaker 14: closure of the factories, saying, yes, we are fighting for this,
Speaker 14: but there is more to fight for, and we want
Speaker 14: to put this struggle at service for the change of
Speaker 14: the whole system of all the problems in the society
Speaker 14: that we experience, but not only to struggle against all
Speaker 14: these problems, but also try to build an alternative, and
Speaker 14: in this sense, the project of the social integrated public factory.
Speaker 14: I think it's a fundamental example of the necessity of
Speaker 14: struggling against the problems we face, but also in the
Speaker 14: meantime already beginning to build an alternative because we cannot
Speaker 14: wait the final victory to start questioning ourselves about what
Speaker 14: do we want?
Speaker 13: What do we need?
Speaker 14: But we should start from now to build the world
Speaker 14: we want to live in.
Speaker 15: So different society, that's all we've got time for in
Speaker 15: this episode.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about the Florence Working
Speaker 1: Class Literature Festival and the GKN workers struggle, we recommend
Speaker 1: you check out our Working Class Literature episodes ten and eleven.
Speaker 1: You can also find out more info on the web
Speaker 1: page for this episode link in the show notes. It's
Speaker 1: only support from you, our listeners, which allows us to
Speaker 1: make these podcasts, So if you appreciate our work, please
Speaker 1: do think about joining us at patreon dot com slash
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Speaker 1: podcast app. Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this
Speaker 1: podcast possible, and a special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando
Speaker 1: Lopez Ojeda, Nick Williams, and Old Norm. Our theme tune
Speaker 1: for this episode is Okupiamola, as sung on a GK
Speaker 1: and workers demonstration in twenty twenty four. Many thanks to
Speaker 1: Real News for letting us use their recording and you
Speaker 1: can find a link to the documentary it's taken from
Speaker 1: on the web page for this episode. This episode was
Speaker 1: edited by Jesse French. Anyway, that's it for today. Hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the episode and thanks for listening.