Frito Lay Strike and Worker Co-Ops Show Inherent Humanity of Labor Struggle

Published: July 19, 2021, 8:19 p.m.

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary hosts Sean and Jacquie are joined by Heather Benno, attorney and founder of Immigrant Justice Solutions, a community legal defense for immigrants to discuss a federal judge in Texas declaring DACA illegal, the terror and limbo this could inflict on hundreds of thousands of people and the inherent cruelty of immigration laws in the US.


In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Laith Marouf, political analyst and media policy and law consultant with the Community Media Advocacy Centre, to discuss Lebanese PM Saad Hariri stepping down, how this affects conditions for the people in Lebanon, and how US interests in the country intersect with Washington’s broader plans for control in the Middle East.


In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by award-winning investigative journalist Robert Hennelly, author of the new book ‘Stuck Nation: Can the United States Change Course on Our History of Choosing Profits Over People?’ to discuss the connections between the way the US handled the toxic air from the fires after 9/11 that sickened and killed thousands and our country’s handling of Covid-19, how we’ve overlooked race-based, economic exploitation, how the consolidation of media outlets in the US contributed to the rise of “click-bait propaganda” and the Jan 6 insurrection, and the way forward to get us unstuck from all of this.


And later in the show Sean and Jacquie are joined by Maximillian Alvarez, Editor in Chief of the Real News Network and host of the podcast “Working People” to discuss the workers strike in the face of inhuman working conditions at the Frito Lay plant in Topeka, KS, the exploitation of farm, healthcare, and gig workers being highlighted in the labor struggles in those industries, how the class struggle can sometimes be reflected in generational political struggles, and the hope for better working conditions for all workers that can be found in worker cooperatives.