Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: The 'Big Quit' & Chilean Election News

Chloe Watlington talked to four women about their workplace experiences and their decision to quit in her article in LA Taco called "The Big Quit of 2021 – as told by women of color in Los Angeles."The backdrop is what has happened to work during the pandemic. Month after month workers have been quitting jobs at unprecedented levels—for a variety of reasons including lack of childcare, burnout from toxic working conditions, and more. We talk to Chloe to get the big picture—who is quitting, which jobs they are quitting, why they are quitting—and what the long term implications are for the future of work and working conditions.

Oscar Mendoza joins Suzi to explain the Chilean Presidential election taking place on November 21. The massive social protest movement of October 2019 accomplished what decades of center-left rule could not: the end of the Pinochet Constitution, the right to develop and write a new one based on the guarantee of universal social rights, and the recognition of Chile as a plurinational, multilingual society. The election for the constituents wiped out the right and the center. The next step was the formation of new electoral coalitions to select their presidential candidate. That brought more surprises, with the collapse of the traditional right. Gabriel Boric, the candidate of the left Apruebo Dignidad coalition, is now being challenged from the very far right pro-Pinochetista José Antonio Kast, and polls show the fascist Kast gaining on the young leftist Boric—but Oscar Mendoza cautions that the polls have been more wrong that right. We get the story.