JP Covers “Which Side Are You On?” and Dedicates a Song to Bill Moyer and Bill McKibben

This episode of the Folk Labor Desk is a special episode made while JP laid over at his away-from-home terminal in Nashville, TN. It features poetry about contemporary life on the railroad from a fellow locomotive engineer, Cary Depew, as well as the classic union song “Which Side Are You On?” written by Florence Reece. It also includes an original song, “You Ain’t Gonna Ride This Train,” to frame a commentary about the bust economy affecting workers and communities in the Appalachian coal-producing regions of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

About the Author

Mike Elk
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter and alumni of the Guardian. In addition to filing nearly 2,000 stories from 46 states, Elk traveled with Lula from Sáo Bernando do Campos all the way to the Oval Office in the White House. Credited by the Washington Post for being the first reporter to track the strike wave systematically, Elk started Payday Report using his NLRB settlement from being illegally fired for union organizing in 2015. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and works frequently in Rio de Janeiro, where he attended college at PUC-Rio. He speaks both Portuguese and Pittsburghese fluently. His email is [email protected]

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