Working Life

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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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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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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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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A lot of people are wondering: should Bernie Sanders run? Is Bernie going to run? In today’s episode, I consider the notion that Bernie would become the most powerful politician in the country, and it could be better for the progressive movement, if maybe he sidestepped running for president. Whoa! Then, I check in with […]

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I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently on the very bad deal made by New York and Virginia with Amazon to lure the company to build its new headquarters in those two states. Amazon is an important story because of the power it exercises over our economy—a power that grows every day. This week, […]

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The least surprising thing I might say is: the GOP Tax bill last year was an utter scam. We knew it. But, now we have a full year to look back at the lies and the realities of the tax cuts—where has all that money gone? I discuss all this with Richard Phillips, senior policy […]

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I’ve loved baseball since I was a kid. But, at the same time, I don’t believe we, the people, the taxpayers, should spend a single dime to help build baseball stadiums, or any sports arena, for the rich people or corporations who own teams. Don’t believe the hype—these projects never pay back the subsidies doled […]

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I circle back on the bad deal made by politicians in New York and Virginia with Amazon, honing in specifically on the vicious anti-unionism Amazon pursues—and, despite the hallucinating by the NYC mayor that somehow bringing Amazon to NYC will magically turn it into a fuzzy pro union company, I talk with Dave Mertz of […]

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Join me in choking on the following three words: Trump was right. When he criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a bad deal during the 2016 campaign, he was telling a truth that resonated for many working people—even though, of course, Trump, who defrauded thousands of people who worked for him and […]

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