The New York Review of Books presents the third installment in a series of online events hosted by Fintan O’Toole. For this event, O’Toole hosts New York Review contributors Astra Taylor and Zephyr Teachout, and AFA-CWA, AFL-CIO President Sara Nelson for a conversation on what successful opposition looks like today.
Sara Nelson has served as the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014, representing 55,000 of aviation’s first responders at 20 airlines. She has been a union Flight Attendant since 1996 when she started flying at United Airlines. Sara designed the successful payroll support program that was an historic Worker’s First relief program that kept aviation workers connected to their paychecks, healthcare, and other benefits for 16 months during the COVID pandemic, while banning stock buybacks and dividends across the industry and capping executive compensation for two years after the relief period ended making aviation the only industry not to grow in inequality during the pandemic. Sara believes labor should set the agenda every time.
Astra Taylor is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer. She is the director of numerous documentaries and her books include The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, and the American Book Award winner The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. Her most recent book is Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea, co-written with Leah Hunt-Hendrix. She was the 2023 CBC Massey Lecture and she cofounded the Debt Collective, a union of debtors.
Zephyr Teachout is a Professor at Fordham Law School. She is the author of Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuffbox to Citizens United and Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money.
About this series
The New York Review of Books is pleased to announce a series of virtual events on the most pressing issues of the second Trump administration. In each conversation the New York Review‘s Advising Editor Fintan O’Toole will talk to a group of contributors and esteemed guests about critical subjects, including the rule of law, immigration, the state of the left, and the fate of the climate. Each event, held on Zoom, will last about ninety minutes and include an audience Q&A session. All events are pay-what-you-wish (with a suggested fee of $10) and open to the public.
