America’s Work Force Union Podcast

Two conversations that cut to the heart of what workers and retirees are navigating right now — one about what happens when an employer decides union members are expendable, and one about finding the right healthcare coverage when the landscape keeps shifting.

The University of Maryland, College Park, laid off more than 80 workers earlier this summer. More than 80% were union members. The university's nearly billion-dollar endowment went untouched. So did the president's $1 million-plus annual salary and the multi-million-dollar coaching contracts for coaches with losing records. And almost immediately after the layoffs were announced, the university lifted its hiring freeze. AFSCME Local 1072 President Todd Holden, union steward Sarah Eppley and laid-off member Sarah Grun describe what happened, why the local filed 40 grievances covering workers laid off while on FMLA, pursuing grievances or active in union organizing and how to sign the AFSCME toolkit letter to the University System of Maryland at afscmemd.org.

Then, BCBS NLO Executive Director Merrilee Logue and BCBS Association Medicare market analyst Duncan Lawson discuss a Medicare Advantage landscape that has become more complicated for union retirees to navigate. For the second consecutive year, more than 2 million Medicare Advantage consumers had their plans terminated and even more saw their benefits reduced. Logue and Lawson explain which plans and regions have been most affected, why Medicare Advantage remains the most popular retiree coverage option despite the changes and what union members approaching 65 need to know to find coverage that fits — including how to work with a broker, check union fund coverage and take advantage of special enrollment periods.

Visit afscmemd.org for more on the AFSCME Local 1072 fight and bcbs.com/MedicareAdvantage for Medicare Advantage resources. Follow @BlueLabor on LinkedIn and X for updates from the BCBS National Labor Office.

She did not grow up thinking about roofing. She spent years in other work before deciding she wanted real pay, real benefits and a real career path. A woman she knew had gone through Hire360 and told her to look into it. She did. Now she is an apprentice with Roofers Local 11 in Chicago, and she is not going back.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Donetta Thomas tells her story of entering the building trades through Hire360, the Chicago workforce development organization that connects women and people of color to union construction careers. She walks through what Hire360's pre-apprenticeship program actually does to prepare people for the trades, what life on a roof in Chicago really looks like and what she would say to any woman or person of color who is sitting on the fence about making the move.

Visit hire360chicago.com to learn more about Hire360 and rooferslocal11.org for more on Roofers Local 11.

Today's episode of the America's Work Force Union Podcast brings together two conversations that cut to the heart of what it means to be a worker in America right now — one focused on who keeps people safe and one on who makes the decisions that shape their lives.

First, National Nurses United President Jamie Brown and NNU Assistant Director of Health and Safety Jane Thomason discuss a workplace safety crisis that most Americans never see. Healthcare workers account for approximately 73% of all nonfatal workplace violence injuries in the United States, nurses are five times more likely to be assaulted at work than people in any other industry and the actual rate is dramatically higher because most incidents never get reported. Brown and Thomason make the case for the Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act, which would mandate safe staffing ratios and workplace violence prevention programs at hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding, and address chemical and environmental hazards nurses face daily, including antineoplastic drug exposure, post-COVID disinfectants and wildfire smoke entering hospital facilities through filtration systems not designed to stop it.

Then, IAM Union retired International President Tom Buffenbarger delivers his monthly independent labor voice segment covering three significant stories. Boeing's new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, is meeting directly with machinists, reinstating union advisory channels and committing to keep manufacturing in Puget Sound, representing what Buffenbarger calls the most meaningful cultural shift at the company in years. Tariff uncertainty, rather than tariff levels, is causing profitable companies to lay off manufacturing workers because the planning horizon has disappeared. And the One Big Beautiful Bill is structured to remove an estimated 11 to 12 million people from Medicaid through administrative burden and shift SNAP costs to states in ways that will reduce benefits for children, veterans and working families.

Visit nationalnursesunited.org for more from National Nurses United and goiam.org for more from the IAM Union.

The conventional wisdom says union contractors cost taxpayers more on public projects. A peer-reviewed study of 128 Sacramento County public works projects completed between 2018 and 2022 found the opposite: union contractors were associated with 5 to 6 percent lower costs and 14 to 22 percent faster completion times than non-union contractors.

On today's trades day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, NorCal CIC Policy and Research Analyst Dr. Larissa Petrucci walks through how the study was built using California's publicly available certified payroll data and hundreds of public records requests, why the statistical methodology ensures the findings are genuinely about union contractor status rather than other variables and what building trades councils in other states can do right now to push for the data transparency that made this research possible.

Visit norcalcic.org for more.

Over one million federal workers lost collective bargaining rights by executive order. For the second year in a row, a union member in Congress has added bipartisan language to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act to start reversing that for 770,000 Department of Defense employees. And IFPTE just organized approximately 200 NOAA fisheries workers in Hawaii.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, IFPTE President Matt Biggs discusses the Norcross NDAA language and what happens next in the Senate reconciliation fight, why stripping DoD collective bargaining rights harms rather than protects national security, the SAVE Act's voter registration barriers and what the numbers on voter fraud actually show and an organizing surge producing more requests for union representation than IFPTE has organizers to handle.

Visit ifpte.org for more.

Two sheriff's deputies in Union County, South Dakota, had a yard sign for the losing candidate on their property. Three weeks after their sheriff won his election, they were fired in a letter citing the at-will employment law and no stated cause. They were in the middle of negotiating their first union contract when it happened. The county's lawyer had argued against including just cause language in that contract just weeks before the firings.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, AFSCME Council 65 Labor Representative Jordan Deffenbaugh discusses the Union County case, the active response campaign including petitions, rallies and appeals to the governor and attorney general, a pattern of conduct concerns at the sheriff's office that predate the deputy firings and why he believes this situation could spark a broader organizing surge in Southeast South Dakota, where union density currently sits at approximately 2.7 percent.

Visit afscme65.org for more.

70 percent of Boston's greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings. Boston hospitals consume four times as much energy as other city buildings. And a technology that already exists, installed by trained workers already on the job, could dramatically reduce both figures. It's called mechanical insulation.

On today's trades day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Mechanical Insulators LMCT Executive Director Pete Ielmini discusses a Commonwealth Beacon investigation into energy consumption at a Boston hospital and what it means for the broader push to make mechanical insulation energy audits mandatory. He also covers the Hale Building at Brigham and Women's Hospital as a model of what properly designed construction can achieve, the gap in inspection requirements that allows new buildings to be completed without the insulation they were supposed to have and the status of the Federal Mechanical Insulation Act in the Senate with December's end of Congress deadline approaching.

Visit mechanicalinsulatorslmct.com for more.

Columbus Metropolitan Library workers filed for their union election in December 2025, waited six months and faced weekly anti-union emails from administration the entire time. On July 7, they voted yes with 86 percent approval. OFT filed a demand to bargain the same day.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper joins us fresh from the AFT convention in Washington. She discusses the federation's growth to 1.875 million members, why she calls it the fastest-growing union in the country, the five fightback pillars shaping AFT's strategy, and the convention resolutions on school funding and child labor accountability. She also breaks down what is at stake in Ohio's governor, Senate and Ohio House races this fall and where to find the OFT voter guide.

Visit oft-aft.org for more.

An organizer showed up for a first meeting at a sawmill in rural Mississippi and was handed 40 signed union authorization cards before taking a seat. Workers at Big River Sawmill in Gloster, Miss., had already organized themselves. The Van Devender family's ownership fired four workers, held captive-audience meetings, and turned the mayor against them. On June 25 and 26, the workers won anyway.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, United Steelworkers Assistant Director of Organizing Mariana Padias tells the full story of the Big River campaign, including the unusual role of Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a pro-union minority equity investor that publicly backed the workers when the owner refused to stay neutral. She also explains why the national average time to a first contract is 480 days, how companies use that window to erode worker support, and what the bipartisan Faster Labor Contracts Act, now before the Senate, would do to change it.

Visit usw.org for more.

The Cleveland Orchestra contract expires at the end of August. Active bargaining is underway, with Local 4 having already exchanged financial presentations and delivered its first proposal. A key priority this round is relief weeks for string players whose instrument positions create real risk of repetitive stress injury over time. And four of the country's most storied orchestras are at the table simultaneously, setting benchmarks for the entire symphony sector.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, AFM Local 4 President Len DiCosimo discusses the Cleveland Orchestra negotiations, his election to the AFM international board at the 103rd convention in Ottawa and the growing threat artificial intelligence poses to working musicians, composers and lyricists. He calls on the public to support live music and human artistry with their discretionary spending, drawing a direct parallel between choosing AI-generated content over a working musician and choosing a self-checkout line over a cashier.

Visit afmlocal4.com to learn more about AFM Local 4.