Episode 8: Michelle Crentsil

In this eighth episode of Black Work Talk, host Steven Pitts welcomes Michelle Crentsil, political director for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). The members of NYSNA have been through hell this past year dealing with the extreme conditions caused by COVID and federal government ineptitude. We talked about these struggles and the reality that the pandemic has forged greater solidarity among nurses and led them to advocate for structural changes in the health care system based on their experiences this past year. As the conversation moved toward Black workers, Michelle talked about the need to see how Black workers are impacted by race and class and the inability to see both of these intertwined factors will result in organizations being largely irrelevant to the Black community.

Om Podcasten

Black Work Talk is a show that elevates the voices of Black labor, workers, leaders, activists, and intellectuals in discussions on the connections between race, labor, capitalism and culture in the struggle for progressive governing power. On season three of Black Work Talk, new hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers explore the impact of 2023’s strike wave in conversations with rank and file workers from unions that have fought or are still fighting for better, more equitable contracts in 2023; including the UAW, Teamsters, Writers Guild of America and more. Where did the energy for this wave of labor movements come from, what does it mean for black workers, and where does it go from here? They also open the conversation by calling in the 90% of American workers who have yet to organize in their workplace with an ongoing accessible and educational series on the process of organizing and filing to start a union from scratch.