Getting Unruly on May Day: Education Workers, Labor Power, and the Fight Ahead

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Here at Unruly Subjects you know we’re celebrating May Day ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿

So this week, we’re featuring two interviews that help us think through this critical question: What does it take to build the kind of power that can actually meet this political moment?

In This Episode:
First, Chenjerai interviews three major labor leaders: Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and a national vice president of American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Jessica Tang, president of AFT Massachusetts and former president of the Boston Teachers Union; and Carl Rosen, who recently retired as general president of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). Todd, Jessica, and Carl talk about May Day as more than symbolism. They talk about it as part of building the infrastructure we may need later: labor, civil society, public institutions, community organizations, immigrant rights groups, education workers, and ordinary people finding ways to move together before a crisis hits.

Second, Our Unruly homie - the scholar and poet Demetrius Noble - talks with Carla Harris, a public school teacher and organizer in Guilford County, North Carolina. They discuss the everyday realities of working in public education and also about organizing in practical terms: how you talk to a coworker who is tired, scared, skeptical, or has never been asked to act before.

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Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly Beatz

Unruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome Productions

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Further reading & sources from this episode:

AAUP/AFT Platform: A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education
https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2026/Higher_Ed_Vision_and_Policy_Platform_326.pdf

May Day Strong
https://maydaystrong.org/

Kids Over Corporations
https://kidsovercorporations.org/index.html

https://www.ednc.org/4-23-2026-state-house-dems-call-for-budget-with-raises-for-educators-and-other-updates-from-the-start-of-short-session/#:~:text=Ben%20Humphries/EdNC-,Senator%20to%20file%20a%20

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Cancelling Classes
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXhiOqzEWQ9/?igsh=ZDJ4MWR5YWo5OGx2