America’s Work Force Union Podcast

America's Work Force Union Podcast brings together two conversations spanning American history, retirement security and a fight over who controls your Medicare coverage.

American Legion Media and Communications Director Henry Howard opens with a recap of how the Legion marked America's 250th anniversary, including a reenactment of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Lansing, Michigan on July 8, the date Colonel Nixon first read the document publicly in 1776. Howard also covers the conclusion of the USA 250 Challenge, which engaged more than 3,100 American Legion family members over the past year in fitness, wellness and community service, and a historic flag escort by American Legion riders from Pittsburgh to Arlington on July 4. He then previews the August edition of the American Legion magazine, which highlights ten notable American inventions that shaped the world and honors the late Diane Carlson Evans, the Vietnam combat nurse who led the decades-long fight to establish the Vietnam Women's Memorial on the National Mall.

Then, Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans State Director Norm Wernet discusses two developments directly affecting retirees and disabled workers. The first is bipartisan momentum to scrap the Social Security earnings cap following a joint op-ed from Sen. Bernie Moreno and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and what that step would do to address the 2032 Social Security funding cliff. The second is the WISeR program, a pilot AI prior authorization program now running in Ohio and six other states that is delaying and denying Medicare Advantage coverage with a financial incentive built into the algorithm to keep saying no.

Visit legion.org for American Legion updates and retiredamericans.org for the full congressional voting record on retiree issues.

OSHA inspections are down. Penalties are down. The workers most at risk are afraid to speak up. And two preventable crises are claiming lives that should not be lost: the extreme heat epidemic that kills workers at dramatically higher rates if they are Latino or Black, and a growing wave of accelerated silicosis among young countertop fabricators exposed to engineered stone products so high in silica that they have been banned in Australia.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, National COSH Associate Director Katelyn Parady describes what is happening to workers right now and what workers, unions and advocates are doing to fight back. She covers the creative organizing happening at the city, state and supply chain level to address heat in the absence of a federal standard, the preemption laws being used in Texas and Florida to block rather than create protections and National COSH's preparations to call for a national ban on engineered stone as young Latino immigrant fabricators in their 20s and 30s continue to need double lung transplants and lose their lives.

Visit nationalcosh.org for more.

America's Work Force Union Podcast brings together two conversations that capture the labor movement's momentum heading into a consequential fall election season.

First, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga joins fresh from the AFL-CIO's 30th Constitutional Convention in Minneapolis, where delegates voted to set a new organizing target of 2 million new union members by 2032 after surpassing the previous goal of 1 million. Burga reports on a broad wave of organizing activity across Ohio spanning healthcare, construction, higher education, hospitality, libraries, museums and the arts, with recent wins including workers at Jeni's Ice Cream, United Academics of Ohio University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He also addresses the ongoing challenge of securing first contracts after organizing wins and what Ohio workers should watch for when the General Assembly returns from summer recess and the lame duck session begins after November's elections.

Then, CWA District 4 Administrative Director Frank Mathews discusses a ratified four-year contract for approximately 300 DirecTV customer service workers across Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Minnesota and Colorado, delivering compounded wage increases of 13.4% and preserving health care after workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike in April. Mathews addresses the growing difficulty of protecting health care at the bargaining table, describes a roughly tenfold increase in CWA organizing activity since COVID and details the CWA's new Fighting Oligarchy political education training rolling out across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan ahead of November's elections.

Visit ohioaflcio.org for Ohio AFL-CIO updates and cwa-union.org for more from CWA District 4.

In the most recent year with available data, roughly 1,000 construction workers died from workplace accidents. In the same year, approximately 5,000 died by suicide and 11,000 died from overdose. Construction workers are approximately 16 times more likely to die by suicide or overdose than from a conventional workplace injury. And the industry is not yet treating mental health with the same intensity it brings to fall prevention.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Bill McCamley, director of the New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition, discusses the wellness coalition model he believes every building trades council in the country should adopt. He shares his own mental health story, explains why peer support from workers with lived experience is the most effective tool available for reaching workers before a crisis becomes fatal, and makes the case for why contractors have a direct financial interest in funding these programs.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Visit nmbtwellness.org for more.

CONTENT NOTE: TODAY'S EPISODE CONTAINS FRANK DISCUSSIONS ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE. LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

More than 335 organizations have signed an open letter to every member of Congress calling for Medicare for All. A national day of action is planned for July 30 to mark the 61st anniversary of Medicare's original passage. And nurses say people are arriving at hospitals too sick to be saved because they put off care they could not afford.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, National Nurses United President Jamie Brown and Medicare for All Campaign Director Jasmine Ruddy make the case for why this is the most important moment for health care reform in a generation. They discuss what nurses are seeing on the hospital floor as federal cuts take effect, why Medicare for All is a fundamentally labor issue that would remove health coverage from the bargaining table and eliminate employers' ability to threaten benefits during strikes, and how unions, including the UAW and UE, are active partners in the campaign.

Visit medicare4all.org to join the July 30 day of action or sign up for updates.

A nursing home company cheated nearly 6,000 workers out of wages for years. The Department of Labor sued, went to trial and won $35.8 million. Then a federal appeals court ruled that federal wage law does not cover some of those unpaid hours and told workers to go find their own lawyer in state court to recover the rest.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, longtime union lawyer Andrew Strom breaks down what happened and why it matters for working people everywhere. He explains what overtime gap pay is in plain terms, why a rule the Department of Labor has had on the books since 1968 was not enough to protect these workers, why the dissenting judge called the result unfair and why being in a union is the most practical protection against exactly this kind of wage theft.

Bloomberg Philanthropies just committed $90 million to get high school students directly into registered apprenticeship programs across 10 cities. Chattanooga got approximately $9 million of it. And UA Local 43 — chartered in 1890 and at near full employment today — is part of the team building the program.

On today's trades day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, UA Local 43 Plumbers and Steamfitters JATC Training Coordinator Joe Coke and Business Manager Matt Johnson discuss how a partnership with community workforce organization Chattanooga 2.0 and IBEW helped land Chattanooga's share of the initiative, what a direct high school pathway into a registered apprenticeship program looks like in practice and how Local 43's most recent apprentice class drew 200 applications from people aged 17 to 50. With 1,300 members at near full employment, new projects added to the pipeline weekly and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting 44,000 plumbers, pipe fitters and steam fitters needed annually nationwide, both guests described the moment as one of the brightest in the Local's 136-year history.

Visit ualocal43.org to learn more.

Someone created a deep fake video of SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator saying false things about the union's own contract during the 2023 ratification vote. Tens of thousands of people saw it before Instagram took it down five days later. It is the kind of story that explains why the fight for AI protections in the entertainment industry matters far beyond Hollywood.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland discusses a ratified 2026 contract that achieved what the 2023 strike demanded — without another strike. He walks through the contract's two-tiered AI protections covering both digital replicas of real performers and the use of synthetics — AI-generated performances with no human source — and explains the bipartisan No FAKES Act moving through Congress that could give every American a legal right in their own image and voice for the first time. He also discusses the planned merger of the SAG Producers Pension Plan and the AFTRA Retirement Fund, set for early 2028, which will provide retirement benefits to nearly 1,000 SAG-AFTRA members per year who currently earn enough across both plans to qualify but not enough in either one to collect.

Visit sagaftra.org for more.

Renewables produced zero megawatts for four straight days during a recent winter storm while coal, gas and nuclear carried the full grid load. Southwestern Pennsylvania has the second-largest natural gas deposits in North America, barely tapped. And Boilermakers Local 154 Business Agent Shawn Steffee believes his region can lead the national energy and data center build-out — with a workforce ready to do it.

On today's trades day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Steffee discusses the Homer City campus, where he believes a 4,200-megawatt natural gas power block is under active construction alongside hyperscale data center plans he projects could generate 3,500 building trades jobs on that site alone. He addresses community concerns about water and electricity prices, makes the case that natural gas is the only near-term solution to the grid reliability crisis and describes a Local that went five years without taking a single apprentice and is now on pace for 175 new ones — with more needed still.

Visit boilermakerslocal154.com to learn more.

One carrier controlling 40 percent of the U.S. rail freight market. Monthly grade-crossing safety inspections are being reduced to quarterly. And a Long Island Rail Road strike that stopped the trains and finally delivered what two presidential emergency boards had already recommended.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen Secretary-Treasurer Brandon Elvey walks through three active fronts in the rail industry. He discusses Union Pacific's third attempt to acquire Norfolk Southern through the Surface Transportation Board, why the BRS and a coalition of rail unions and customer associations oppose it and what a 20 percent membership reduction on Union Pacific already signals about what that railroad looks like for workers. He addresses the AAR's push to reduce grade crossing warning device inspections from monthly to quarterly — a deregulatory move the BRS says contradicts 30 years of safety data. And he describes the Long Island Rail Road strike in which six rail unions working together finally forced an agreement after three years of bargaining under the Railway Labor Act.

Visit brs.org to learn more about the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.