WCL14: Live from the Working Class Literature Festival

Following our double-episode on the Florence Working-Class Literature Festival back in February, our co-host Matt was invited to this year’s festival, recording this episode on-site at the ex-GKN factory in Florence. Featuring the various writers, researchers, organisers, and activists in attendance, this episode captures the atmosphere of the festival at this critical time for the GKN struggle. Our podcast is brought to you by patreon supporters of both Working Class Literature and Working Class History. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory Taking place on 4-6 April 2025, the opending day of the festival marked the 1367th day since the 400+ workforce at the GKN car parts factory in Florence was first made redundant. They subsequently seized the factory and remain in control of it to this day, despite receiving their third – and now final – redundancy notice in the days leading up to this year’s festival.Recorded on-site at the occupied GKN factory on the outskirts of Florence, this episode features the voices of various writers, researchers, organisers, and activists that we spoke to while at the festival. These conversations took place against a frenzy of activity, both for the festival but also the GKN struggle itself. Acknowledgements Thanks to all our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando Lopez Ojeda, Nick Williams and Old Norm Our theme tune for these episodes is ‘Occupiamola’ (or ‘Let’s Occupy It’) as sung on a GKN workers’ demonstration in 2024. Many thanks to Reel News London for letting us use their recording. Watch the documentary it’s taken from here This episode was edited by Jesse French

You can listen to WCL14: Live from the Working Class Literature Festival online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

WCL14: Live from the Working Class Literature Festival is an episode from Working Class History by Working Class History.

This episode is 59:57 long.

This episode was published on Aug 20, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Working Class History when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.