Working Life Podcast

Episode 100: A quick "birthday" promo: you are listening to the 100th episode of the podcast. Make today the day you become one of our small financial supporters--go to workinglife.org, click on the Patreon link and sign up to be a monthly contributor.

Every bite of food you take has a lot of sweat and tears of agricultural workers around the world. I welcome back our good friend and global organizer Shawna Bader-Blau, executive director of the Solidarity Center, to talk about the tens of millions of people who toil in the food global supply chain--and how to build a food justice movement.

Turning to the recent elections in New York, Katherine Brezler, grassroots activist extraordinaire, drops by to pick apart why progressives should feel pretty damn good about the results at the polls.

Our Robber Baron of the week is the CEO of a drug company that jacked up the price of a critical drug more than 500%.

Episode 99: Anonymous did, in fact, do us a great favor—but probably not in the way he or she (most likely a “he”) thinks. I ruminate a bit on the point I have made for a long time—Anonymous simply showed us that Donald Trump and the Republican Party, as a whole, are one and the same.

I, then, turn to a discussion with American Federation of Teachers leader Jay Rehak about his union’s efforts to use its large pension fund holdings to undercut the private prison industry’s role in tearing children from their families under the immoral Trump immigration policies.

And, finally, I converse with Anastasia Christman from the National Employment Law Project about the hard conditions facing bank workers.

Our Robber Baron of the week is the CEO of General Dynamics.

Episode 98: Curious which states have a better work environment? We have the answer thanks to Oxfam which unveils a ranking based on wages, worker protections and the right to organize a union. I chat about the details with Oxfam's Minor Sinclair. I, then, welcome back Alicia Priest, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, for a chat about how the teachers' uprising in her state led to a slew of primary defeats for Republicans who voted against a tax hike to fund education. Lastly, I engage in a "what does labor need to do to grow?" with Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, who always has an interesting, informed progressive take on the way forward for unions. Our Robber Baron is the CEO of Primavera, an online charter school.

Episode 97: As Labor Day looms on the horizon, I ring up Larry Mishel, distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, to talk about his new study looking at CEO greed. Not a shock, but if you are wondering where that pay increase went, it’s probably in the CEO’s bank account. A logical conversation after digging into CEO greed is this: how do you fight inequality? The answer is, and has always been, more unions, as I’ve emphasized during many episodes. That’s great rhetoric—but Suresh Naidu has the actual data proving that this has been true going back many decades, before government statistics began tracking the connection between union strength and an equal society. He joins me to talk about his path-breaking work. Our Robber Baron of the week is the CEO of Prime Healthcare.

Episode 96: When Toys R Us went belly up, 33,000 workers were cast into the streets with no severance because the bankruptcy laws favor corporate thieves and raiders. But, those workers are fighting back. I talk to two key leaders in the campaign to change the laws and get a bit of justice, not just for Toys R Us workers but all people. I, then, welcome back a good friend, Richard Bensinger, to talk about a new initiative he’s launched to teach workers inside companies how to launch effective union organizing campaigns. The Robber Baron of the Week is the CEO of Toys R Us

Episode 95: The destruction of our education system hasn’t just been a natural phenomena like the sun rising in the east. It’s been a determined assault on our schools and teachers by right-wing ideological zealots. To get the facts about this campaign of destruction, I talk to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, about the union’s important new study, “A Decade of Neglect: Public Education Funding in the Aftermath of the Great Recession.” I, then, explore with tax expert Richard Phillips the below-the-radar tax scam slipped into the Republican tax plan robbery called “opportunity zones.” Our Robber Barons of the week are the CEO and Chairman of Dish Network.

Episode 94: Yesterday was Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, the day that signifies how long it would take for an African American woman to work in 2018 to equal the *2017* pay of a white male counterpart. I noted this day a year ago in Episode 41—and come back to it today in conversation with Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute. And it isn’t just black workers facing racism: Hispanic workers face similar bias, which is what I discuss with Marie Mora, who is with the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley and co-author of a new EPI report. Our Robber Baron of the week is the CEO of Kimberly Clark.

Episode 93: In the sea of millions of migrant workers who end up slaves or in forced labor, a pilot project has empowered Nepalese women working in Jordan’s garment industry to make a better deal. I spoke to the International Labor Organization’s Phillip Fishman about how the project works—and whether it can be scaled up. I, then, talk to the co-authors of a study looking at how companies are using the majority of profits to buy back shares, a gambit that goes back to the time before the Republican tax cuts which are going, as well, largely to buy back shares--which is great news for CEOs who get rich but not so much for workers. Our Robber Baron is the CEO of Lowe’s, a company buying back shares with money that could, if used for workers’ wages, give a pay hike of almost $20,000 to each worker.

Ep. 92: Republican Steve King is a racist, a despicable politician who fans the flames of hatred and division aiming mainly at immigrants. So, I welcomed to the show J.D. Scholten, the progressive Democrat who is aiming to take this guy down in November in the race for Iowa’s 4th Congressional district. Kimberly Ellis comes back to the show to talk about her new effort looking to be, as she says, an “incubator for the next generation of political disrupters”. Our Robber Baron of the week is the CEO of Tronc who sacked scores of New York Daily News journalists.

Episode 91: Anyone remember the talk show “Firing Line” with arch-conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., which ended its run in 1999? Well, it’s baaaaack…with a new host, my conservative friend Margaret Hoover, who visits with me to talk about reviving the iconic show, as well as the state of conservatism and the Republican Party. I, then, welcome back our all-things taxes guru Matt Gardner to tell you’all the truth about why we have a $15.7 trillion debt—and, psst, it’s all about tax cuts for the rich and war, not social spending. Our Robber Baron of the week, for the third time, is Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and now the richest man in human history.