Working Life

You may remember that last month I did a curtain-raiser on the Jet Blue flight attendants’ union organizing campaign vote (Episode 74). Yesterday, the vote came in—and the workers crushed it, winning by a 2-1 margin. You get to hear first-hand from three front-line flight attendant activists how it all came down. I also talk […]

Read the full story

Now it’s the turn of teachers in Oklahoma to rise up. I chat with Alicia Priest, the president of the Oklahoma Education Association, and Jennifer Thornton, a third-grade teacher in Tulsa, after the state’s teachers walked off the job to push for higher pay so they don’t have to go to a food pantry to feed their […]

Read the full story

  The gall of greedy employers never seems to end, right? This time it shows up in the restaurant biz where the other NRA—the National Restaurant Association–was trying to get its hands on waiters’ tips. I talk to Judy Conti, a key leader in the successful battle to slap down that money grab. I, then, […]

Read the full story

Betsy Devos has already shown herself to be entirely unqualified to be running the Department of Education. I add on to what we already know with a look at how she is breaking the law by trying to impose rules on workers in the department without bothering to reach agreement with the union representing the […]

Read the full story

Nine days striking isn’t the longest walk-out you will see. But, when you do that in defiance of the law, whoa, now that’s showing some spine. I kick off the podcast with a chat with the president of the West Virginia Education Association, Dale Lee, to get a read on what we can learn from […]

Read the full story

The attacks against public sector unions—an attack on all working people—reached their legal pinnacle Monday when the Supreme Court heard the case, Janus v. AFSCME. But, something else is exposed in the case: the links between the conservative right-wing ideologues on the Supreme Court, greedy billionaires and piles of money that have funded bigots, racists […]

Read the full story

I love this description of the people burrowing deep inside government agencies to screw the people: political termites. And it comes courtesy of investigative journalist David Cay Johnston who returns to the podcast to discuss with me his new book, “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What The Trump Administration Is Doing To America”. I […]

Read the full story

The super-wealthy keep getting richer and, while they are human beings, they just don’t seem to care how many people die or go hungry while billionaires party on. That’s the only conclusion you can come to after reading a new stunning report about global wealth and inequality out from Oxfam–and I delve into the report […]

Read the full story

Yeah, I get it: you like Uber and Lyft because it’s the “new thing” in the app-centered corporate world. But, know this: Uber and Lyft are very bad corporate actors, stomping around the country, using right-wing, anti-consumer, anti-union tactics, to trash fundamental rights in every state—as I learn from Rebecca Smith, co-author of an incredible […]

Read the full story

Republicans tried all sorts of tricks in their tax scam bill to target taxpayers in Democratic states, including messing with the deduction for local and state income and property taxes…except we’re smarter than they are—at least Dean Baker is. As I find out in my chat with him, Dean has found a way to keep […]

Read the full story