Posted on 27 March 2019. Tags: "Free Trade", Celeste Drake, NAFTA, Non-Compete Clauses, Open Markets, Sandeep Vaheesan
So, you want another job? That’s a pretty normal kind of desire for millions of people. Maybe there’s a better job out there that pays more money. Maybe the place you work just stinks, it’s abusive or you’re the target of sexual harassment. So, ok, off you go to polish up the old resume and […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast
Posted on 20 March 2019. Tags: Debbie Berkowitz, ITEP, Matt Gardner, OSHA, Safety & Health, Taxes
I offer a public service to progressives—and to those, like me, who are irritated by progressive leaders who don’t know how to talk about specifics when it comes to policy, and just spew out sloganeering, even when they get caught making mistakes. It’s embarrassing. So, today, Matt Gardner, a leading expert on tax policy, comes […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast
Posted on 13 March 2019. Tags: Bangladesh, Big PHARMA, Houston, Marianela Acuna Arreaza, Monika Hartsel, Solidarity Center, Wage Theft
If you are looking for a place to see the scourge of free market capitalism at work, you don’t have to look further than Bangladesh. I talk with Monika Hartsel of the Solidarity Center about the thousands of workers in Bangladesh who have been recently fired for protesting and demanding better wages. I, then, welcome […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast
Posted on 06 March 2019. Tags: California, Democrats, Kimberly Ellis, Scott Slawson, United Electrical Workers, Wabtec
A classic workers versus corporate greed battle is underway right now in Erie, Pennsylvania. Just about 2,000 workers who make locomotives are walking the picket lines in freezing weather—and I talk with Scott Slawson, the president of the union, to get the details on their struggle against, Wabtec, a union-busting company. Kimberly Ellis is back […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 27 February 2019. Tags: Amazon, Dave Mertz, Jeff Bezos, Los Angeles Times, RWDSU, UBS
Here’s one thing we learned in recent days about Jeff Bezos—like all CEOs, he’s a bully and quite uninterested in engaging in a give-and-take with community leaders where Amazon does business. I talk to union leader Dave Mertz about the decision by Amazon to back out of the deal to build part of its new […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast
Posted on 20 February 2019. Tags: Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Politics
In case you hadn’t heard…Bernie Sanders has entered the race for the 2020 presidential Democratic nomination. I devote the entire podcast this week to a re-airing of my in-depth conversation with Bernie just before the 2016 general election—what he had to say then is still quite relevant today. Enjoy!
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Posted in Audio, Current Events, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 13 February 2019. Tags: Climate Change, Katharine Hayhoe, Mark Dimondstein, Postal Workers
They are back—and trying to get their hands on your mailbox. Big money interests have tried for a very long time to make a ton of money by privatizing the postal service, and now the danger is ramped up with the ideologues in the White House. Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, […]
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Posted in Audio, Labor, Podcast, Politics
Posted on 06 February 2019. Tags: Ashley Tabaddor, Burgerville, Fight for 15, Immigration
Thousands of workers, and supporters, have rallied and marched for several years under the banner “Fight for 15”—a demand that fast food workers, and all workers, be paid at least $15-an-hour, almost double the poverty-level federal minimum wage, and, as important, have the right to form a union. It’s been a hard slog but a […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast
Posted on 30 January 2019. Tags: Arab Spring, Elizabeth Warren, Greed, Hind Cherrouk, Inequality, Jeff Bezos, Oxfam, Paul O'Brien, Solidarity Center, The Rich, Tunisia
The rich are living the creed of the 1987 film “Wall Street”: Greed is good! Consider this: 26 billionaires now have a collective wealth of $1.4 trillion—equal to the wealth of the bottom 3.8 billion people on the planet. That’s just a smidgen of the immorality I discuss with Oxfam America’s Paul O’Brien, whose organization […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast
Posted on 23 January 2019. Tags: Climate Change, Daphne Wysham, DPE, Jennifer Dorning, Risk Bonding, Teachers, UTLA
Just as we were wrapping up the podcast episode, the striking teachers in Los Angeles won a new contract. I review the highlights, and underscore the smart strategy the union used in the campaign that generated overwhelming support for the teachers. Then, I chat with climate warrior Daphne Wysham about “risk bonding”, a demand that […]
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Posted in Audio, Economy, Labor, Podcast