Working Life

Even Paul Ryan, the odious Speaker of the House, is in the electoral crosshairs and has a good shot at losing in the 2018 midterm elections. The man who is up to the task is Randy Bryce, better known in the Twitterverse as @ironstache. Randy joins me for a talk about politics, his campaign and […]

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It’s been 13 years since Ray Gonzalez was killed in an explosion at a British Petroleum facility in Texas. I have a searing conversation with his daughter, Katherine, who keeps his memory alive by campaigning for safety and health in the workplace. Out in California, Colonel Doug Applegate is taking another shot at unseating the […]

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Don Blankenship, the coal CEO robber baron, served a year in prison for his central role in a conspiracy that killed 29 miners in a massive 2010 mine explosion. Because workers’ lives don’t matter in our legal system, Blankenship could only be convicted of a misdemeanor violation, not manslaughter or murder. But, hey, when a […]

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Leading off, I had a thought about how we should think about the estate tax—billionaires owe us that dough! Keeping up the podcast’s regular reporting on real people running for office, longtime union organizer and first-time candidate Tanya Boone stops by to talk with me about her race for a Congressional seat in New York. […]

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No one would suggest unions have outsized predators like Harvey Weinstein. But, sexual harassment, driven by an entrenched male culture and power structure, has been a long-time problem inside labor. And, now, in dribs and drabs, people are speaking up. I talk about it with labor activist and former AFL-CIO official Ana Avendano. And you […]

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Sure, there were shenanigans in the 2016 Democratic primary. But, we need to understand what is tough politics versus what is rotten in the system. I unwind this a bit in an Election Rigging 101 (and, hey, nice election results last night). I also dig into the battle for labor rights in South Korea with […]

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Just about every piece of clothing you put on is made with blood, sweat and tears of exploited labor. I revisit the April 2013 murder of 1,138 garment workers in Bangladesh with my two guests, two women global labor leaders: Christy Hoffman, the deputy secretary of the 20-million member UNI and Nazma Akter, who began working […]

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  We start this week’s podcast by remembering Paul Wellstone, the progressive firebrand who died exactly 15 years ago in a small plane crash while campaigning for re-election. I, then, bring us the voice of Bruce Franks, a powerful leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in St. Louis and across the nation. I also sit […]

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  We’ve got great stuff on tap for our one-year anniversary episode. I start off by asking members of the Democratic National Committee “What are you thinking?” with a bizarre loyalty resolution aimed at Bernie Sanders. Then, I turn our attention to the right answer to the question of how to create economic growth—raise wages, not cut […]

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Today, 152 million children—children—are in forced labor around the world, along with 40 million people are simply slaves. Don’t turn your head away! Because we need to know about this—and understand the movement afoot to end this moral stain on the planet. After participating in a United Nations summit, I speak to two leading global […]

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