One of my favorite newsletters comes from the IAM. Every few days, the organization sends subscribers a few stories about what’s going on in the union. Who are we organizing? Who is on strike? What new government policies are going to affect us? What does International President Brian Bryant have to say? You can subscribe to IAM emails at goiam.org to receive answers to these questions and more.

My favorite thing about the IAM newsletter is the “What We’re Reading” section. It appears in a blue box at the bottom of the email. The box usually shares three stories from publications as diverse as:

• The Alaska Beacon
• The Copper Courier
• Game Developer
• Healthcare Brew
• NBC Connecticut
• Repairer Driven News
• Trains Magazine

The IAM only shared each of the above once in the 2024 newsletters. I chose to highlight them because they reflect the diversity of the union. The IAM represents workers in industries as diverse as:

• Aviation
• Lobstering
• Logging
• Rail
• Retail
• Shipbuilding

And a bunch of others I’m missing, too. The IAM shared a lot of local press in 2024. The newsletter exposed me to so many stories I would not have read otherwise. Relating to workers’ stories from across the country is crucial for building solidarity. It turns out this Maine shipbuilder has a lot in common with workers from Alaska to Kansas to the Virgin Islands.

I thought it would be a fun project to make a list of the publications the IAM shared in 2024. I sat down and filtered my email for “from:(imailreturn@iamaw.org).” I marked all the emails “unread” so I would not miss any.¹ Finally, I began making a list. You can download it here.

Top 20 Publications the IAM Shared in 2024

I counted 330 stories and 159 publications from January 2 to December 19. Twenty publications appeared more than three times. The above chart shows how many times the IAM newsletter shared these publications.

I counted 18 stories from the Labor Tribune, making this St. Louis-based publication first on the list. The Labor Tribune calls itself “the country’s top union paper.”² More than 60 unions subscribe.³ According to the University of Missouri:

“Railroads helped the state remain an important crossroads of commerce during the later 19th and into the 20th Centuries. Today, the railroads help Missouri remain an important hub for commerce and growth.”⁴

The IAM has represented railroad workers in Missouri for a long time. In the early 20th century, “the IAM became the special target of employer associations mobilized to stamp out unions” in Missouri.⁵ It didn’t work. Today, IAM District 9 continues to represent Missourians in a wide range of industries.⁶

Reuters won second place with 17 stories. Reuters is not a labor publication, but it has always been the first to get the scoop. When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, the volcano was a part of the faraway Dutch East Indies. Reuters broke the news in London before the Dutch even knew about it.⁷ Over 140 years later, Reuters remains an early reporter of major events like strikes. An apt metaphor, because labor has the untapped potential of a volcano. In the 1940s, a manager at Ford complained a union contract “is about the same as a contract with Mt. Vesuvius… Except here the eruptions are more frequent and just as uncontrollable.”⁸

Today’s unions lie dormant by comparison, but studying the blue box reveals the IAM’s radical potential. Although Bloomberg ranks third, then NPR, and The Washington Post, the number of radical publications surprised me. One of the things I found most interesting was that People’s World found its way to the top 20. The IAM newsletter shared publications from People’s World 6 times in 2024! People’s World claims to be a continuation of the Daily Worker, a communist newspaper that began in 1922.⁹ Don’t let this fool you. They do excellent reporting at People’s World on all kinds of labor issues.

The IAM newsletter shared stories from other radical publishers like Jacobin, too. Jacobin is a socialist newspaper, but don’t let that turn you away either.¹⁰ Jacobin provides excellent commentary on issues affecting working people like inflation. In August 2024, the IAM shared a story titled “CEOs Inflated Their Paychecks—and Our Prices.”¹¹ It’s worth a read regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum.

When I talk politics, I like to bring up a book by Jacobin contributor Branko Marcetic. In 2020, Marcetic wrote Yesterday’s Man to provide a leftist critique of then presidential contender Joe Biden. It was a great book, and I refer to it to show people trapped in a media bubble how nuanced politics can be. Joe Biden was not the “radical leftist” right-wing media made him out to be. Marcetic made the case Biden was actually a conservative. From the introduction:

“Biden has spent his career reflexively adopting right-wing opponents’ positions as his own. Genuinely believing in consensus and bipartisanship for their own sake, he has repeatedly worked with Republicans to advance the lion’s share of their political goals, dismantling the legacy of the New Deal in the process. At the same time, whether it has been crime, drugs, terrorism, or something else, Biden has tended to get swept up in every right-wing panic of the last few decades, often going even further than Republicans in his response.”¹²

Agree or disagree, Marcetic proves one thing for sure. There are progressives for whom Biden’s politics were too far to the right.

No matter what your politics, mine, or the IAM’s may be, it is important we make an effort to step out of our media bubbles. Subscribing to the IAM’s newsletter is a great first step. Taking this step will expose you to more news about your union, and it will expose you to a diverse range of other publications, too.

This does not mean the IAM is free of bias. Obviously, the IAM’s newsletter is biased towards the IAM. This is an observation, not a criticism. I myself am biased towards the IAM. Every publisher has its biases, and From the Deckplates is no exception. Bias is an inescapable fact of communication. If you want to find the truth, it is important to acknowledge the limits of relying on any single source.

I couldn’t help but notice something missing from my analysis of the blue box, something I didn’t notice until I really dug into the newsletter. The IAM did not share a single Labor Notes publication in 2024.

Labor Notes is one of the biggest publishers of union news. It describes itself as “a media and organizing project that has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement.”¹³ Labor Notes explains:

“That movement is needed because workers are being hit hard by their employers. We have lower real wages, less job security, and smaller, weaker unions than our mothers and fathers did.

“For the most part, our leaders are doing a poor job of navigating us through the crisis. Some can’t get beyond business-as-usual; others see the need to organize by the millions, but don’t believe that workers themselves need to have a say in their unions. Some unions operate only to service their members’ bread and butter needs instead of encouraging their involvement in a movement to fight the employer offensive and transform our society.”¹⁴

This mission often puts Labor Notes at odds with union establishment. Reporting critically on issues like union elections, for instance, does not always paint them in the best light. Last March, Labor Notes reported:

“[The IAM] accused Labor Notes of trying to influence the outcome [of District 19 elections] through an article we ran, describing us as an organization that ‘has interests that appear to be inimical’ to the union, while also acknowledging that the union could not demonstrate that the article had impacted the election.”¹⁵

Another story listed the IAM as one of the largest unions in the country to allow direct election of its national officers.¹⁶ Labor Notes also reported the last election was uncontested.¹⁷ For industrial democracy to work, it is important members educate themselves. Real education comes from contrary perspectives. It comes from participation. The facts are not always flattering, but just because you read Labor Notes does not automatically make you inimical to the IAM.

I do not mean to imply inimical coverage caused the IAM to not share Labor Notes in its newsletter. It may just be a coincidence. The IAM frequently shares publications broadly inimical to its interests. The newsletter shared stories from The Wall Street Journal and New York Times 5 times each in 2024. Both newspapers are biased in favor of corporate elites, not working people. Even so, the stories the IAM shared contained information members ought to have known.

The IAM shared a broad cross section of American media in 2024. Still, the IAM isn’t the only place I get my news. No one person or organization has all the answers, no matter who it is. You should read as much news from as many different sources as possible. If at all possible, you should read direct sources, too. If an issue really matters to you, you should do more than read other people reporting on it. You should read their sources, too. Reading is a radical act. I encourage everyone to do more of it, and subscribing to the IAM newsletter at goiam.org is a great place to start.

1. I probably missed something anyway. The chart shows a margin of error of ±2. ↩︎
2. “Our Story,” Labor Tribune, accessed January 25, 2025. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. “Missouri’s Railroads: A Bicentennial Overview,” University of Missouri St. Louis John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, accessed January 25, 2025. ↩︎
5. Robert Rodden, The Fighting Machinists: A Century of Struggle (Kelly Press, 1984), 38. ↩︎
6. I reached out to the District 9 communicator for comment, but I received no response. ↩︎
7. Simon Winchester, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (HarperCollins, 2003), 194. ↩︎
8. Quoted in David Noble, Forces of Production: A Social History of Automation (Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 23. ↩︎
9. “About People’s World,” People’s World, accessed January 23, 2025. ↩︎
10. “About,” Jacobin, accessed January 25, 2025. ↩︎
11. goIAM, email to author, August 6, 2024. ↩︎
12. Branko Marcetic, Yeterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden (Verso, 2020), 6. ↩︎
13. “About,” Labor Notes, accessed February 20, 2025. ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. Joe DeManuelle-Hall, “Rail Machinists Rerun Contested Election,” Labor Notes, March 4, 2024. ↩︎
16. Chris Bohner, “Direct Elections for Labor Leaders Make for More Militant Unions,” Labor Notes, January 5, 2024. ↩︎
17. Ibid. ↩︎