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Labor’s Role in Blocking Trump’s Authoritarianism

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Block & Build
Block & Build
Labor's Role in Blocking Trump's Authoritarianism
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This week Cayden is joined by former President of United Teachers Los Angeles and contributor to Convergence Magazine and Jacobin, Alex Caputo-Pearl. We published an essay in his ongoing series on UTLA’s organizing efforts last December, in which he laid out strategies and guidelines of how organized labor can adopt a Block & Build framework during this second Trump administration. We discuss what he laid out in that essay and how the movement is doing three months in.

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Episode Guests

Alex Caputo-Pearl

Alex Caputo-Pearl was a teacher in South Los Angeles for 22 years before being elected United Teachers Los Angeles President (2014-2020) and UTLA NEA VP (2020-2023).  He then returned to the rank-and-file to work as a UTLA member with the Los Angeles Unified School District Community Schools Initiative. He is an elected member of the UTLA North Area Steering Committee and serves on the Bargaining Team. Alex is a Labor Movement Fellow with the UCLA Labor Studies program. 

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About the Host

Cayden Mak
Cayden Mak

Cayden Mak is the publisher at Convergence Magazine and the host of Block & Build: Roadmaps for the Left.

Prior to Convergence, Cayden spent nearly a decade in various roles at 18 Million Rising, including five years as Executive Director and two as Chief Technology Officer, developing the organization inside and out into the digital-first anchor of national progressive Asian American organizing. His other movement work has included organizing for community-designed affordable housing with the Save E. 12th Coalition, co-founding Youngist, a youth media collective, organizing graduate research assistants for a labor union, and helping coordinate tracks and network gatherings at the Allied Media Conference. He serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Kairos Fellowship and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the International Storytelling Center.