The sudden end of World War II was met with both exultation and terror. While millions of Americans understood that the killing abroad could come to an end, the fate of the depression economy that had only been revived by wartime mobilization now hung uncertainly in the balance. The saga of demobilization and reconversion, the name for the process of converting the economy back to civilian production and the winding down of military contracts, is the subject of Episode 18 of Fragile Juggernaut: a battle between business interests and a revived CIO social democracy for hegemony over the reconversion process, fought in the backdrop of the largest strike wave in American history.
Buy Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, 20% Off: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/458-detroit-i-do-mind-dying
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, we’ll see a billionaire called before the Senate to answer for his company’s union busting. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, which is 20% off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
In 2026, we’re celebrating 25 years of publishing “Books for Changing the World.” In those 25 years, we’ve helped build critical space and infrastructure for radical ideas and movements on the left to grow. That work of institution-building and popular political education has never been more necessary or more urgent. We need your help to continue to do this work.