Working Life Podcast

Episode 170:

I try to mostly stay away from long monologue and ruminations, leaving the topics to be explored in conversations with my guests. Today, a little change because of the issue—I’m going to dig into a recent important study that shows what is pretty obvious to anyone looking at the numbers—Medicare for All saves money and lives. That’s the conclusion of experts who published their peer-reviewed findings in The Lancet. You will want to catch this one to grab some easy talking points for future debates.

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Which will be a good transition, then, into chats with two progressive candidates running for Congress who both support, among other progressive positions, Medicare for All—Robin Wilt in New York and Chris Armitage in Washington state.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 169:

It’s easy to get dragged into a negative head space if you do any kind of politics or movement building work—it’s hard out there and too often we have a tendency to focus on the really bad stuff, like “the planet is burning up and imploding” or a few people own more wealth in the world than hundreds of millions of people.

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But, truth is—we’ve had a lot of victories that have shifted the conversation. And it’s important to talk about those victories because it reminds us that, yes, change is possible and, yes, it takes a long time—sometimes. So, today, I chat with economist Dean Baker about how progressive ideas have shifted the conversation and won the debate on many economic issues.

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And, then, yet another progressive candidate joins the program—you just don’t hear about most of these great progressive candidates on any show but this one. He is Jim Harper and he is running for a seat in Congress from Indiana, a seat a centrist Democrat held for 35 years and, thus, a Democrat should win this one—hopefully, a progressive Democrat.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 168:

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Hypocrisy is pretty much a given when you are in politics. I’ve pointed out the particular hypocrisy of all those flag-waving politicians who shout a full-throated “I support our men and women in uniform” but, then, cut benefits for vets and cut funds for the VA.

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Today, I hone in on another hypocrisy: politicians who wax eloquently about the importance of families but refuse to advance paid family leave, a benefit enjoyed by tens of millions of people in other advanced economies. Just days after the 27th anniversary of the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which introduced unpaid family leave, I explore the lack of movement to expand the crucial benefit of paid family leave with Jared Gaby-Biegel of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

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Then, I chat with Lauren Ashcraft, a progressive running for the 12th congressional district in NY and challenging a long-time Democratic incumbent.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 167:

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It’s pretty likely that when you cut into a nice juicy roast chicken at home or in a restaurant a worker in some poultry processing plant was injured cutting up that chicken into commercial pieces. And in some cases, it’s even worse: in January, two workers in poultry plants were killed in the space of a little over a week. I talk about their deaths and the brutal working conditions in poultry plants with national safety and health expert Debbie Berkowitz.

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Then, Tom Winter, a progressive populist, joins me to talk about his race to win the congressional seat in Montana—it’s a conversation about how to win in so-called “red” areas with progressive ideas.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 166:

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With the Iowa caucuses just a few days away, I thought this would be a good time to devote the entire episode to progressive candidates who I’ve been talking to over the course of a number of weeks, with many more to come throughout the year. Today, you’ll hear from three women candidates—two are running for Congress—Morgan Harper in Ohio and Kathy Ellis in Missouri—and one, Paige Kreisman, who is running for a state house seat in Oregon.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 165:

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“Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people.” Those two sentences lead off Oxfam’s annual look at inequality. This year, Oxfam looks at unpaid and underpaid care work and the global inequality crisis. I speak with Paul O’Brien, Vice President of Policy and Advocacy at Oxfam America about the in-depth report that is startling and bracing, and reminds us of the vast chasm dividing the very rich from the rest of us.

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Then, almost three decades ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, which devastated working people and the planet because NAFTA meant poverty for millions and an open season for corporations to abuse workers and the planet. Last week, NAFTA 2.0 passed the Senate so it’s a time to ask: Is it any better? Well, that depends on who you ask—so I debate that question with Eric Gottwald, the AFL-CIO’s trade expert.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 164:

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Most people, when they walk out the door to go to work, don’t think, “damn, I’m going to get killed today or seriously ill with a chronic disease”. Yes, if you work in a mine or on a construction site, you are more aware of the dangers. But, most people just assume work is a safe place and they will come home. Well, it’s getting more dangerous at work—the death rate has spiked to the highest point in a decade. And that’s the cheery topic of my first segment today in my conversation with Peter Dooley, a pro-worker safety and health activist, analyst and consultant with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).

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I also talk with Jon Hoadley who is running for the Democratic nomination for the 6th Congressional District in Michigan and a chance to take out a long-time Republican incumbent.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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Episode 163:

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The GOP Tax Robbery Bill, the tax cuts that shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars into the hands of the very rich and corporations, was built on a complex set of lies. And, now with the close of 2019 and the numbers in on a full year of corporate 2018 tax returns, we have the numbers to prove it. It’s worse than you imagine—not only did hundreds of corporations pay a piddling amount of money to no taxes at all, but the Treasury Department, run by banker-to-the-elites Steven Mnuchin, created regulations and rules entirely out of thin air that gave even more money to corporations. Hear all the dirt in my in-depth conversation with Matt Gardner of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy.

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Then, I visit with Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, a strong progressive activist, who is running for the Democratic nomination for the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas, and for the right to take on incumbent, and Mitch McConnell sycophant, John Cornyn.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 162:

As the New Year beckons, there’s good news and bad news on wages. The good news is something I’ve been able to talk about for the past few years at the end of each year—come January 1st, a whole lot of people are going to see their paychecks increase because of some state and local minimum wage hikes that go into effect. Which shows why movements matter—in this case, the Fight for 15. The bad news: we are quickly becoming a country divided in half when it comes to minimum wages standards. That’s on tap here in our first segment in a discussion with Yannet Lathrop, policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project.

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And two years after she first came on the program, progressive candidate Kara Eastman is back to talk about her second campaign to unseat a Republican incumbent in the 2nd Congressional district in Nebraska—and, even though she came so close in 2018, the party elites are not in her corner.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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Episode 161:

Shut your damn mouth or be deported. That’s basically the upshot of what happened to Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, who wanted to tell the truth about the collapse of the under-construction Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans but, two days after he was hurt in the disaster, Joel found himself dragged off by ICE into detention and, then, deported back to Honduras after living in New Orleans for 18 years. I’ll be talking in today’s episode to Mary Yanik, senior staff attorney with the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, about this abuse of workers to set the stage for a rally later today in New Orleans to “Bring Joel Home”.

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Then, two more progressive candidates visit with me. Mike Siegel is running to unseat a Republican incumbent in Texas’ 10th Congressional district—and even though he came pretty close to winning the seat in 2018, the Washington Beltway consultant class and the DCCC are pushing a much more centrist candidate. Liam O’Mara, the son of a dockworker, is also trying to unseat an incumbent Republican in California’s 42nd Congressional District.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

Sign up for The Working Life Podcast at: www.workinglife.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.tasini.3