Working Life Podcast

Episode 160:

I love the bosses who wring their hands when workers try to unionize, the ones who say, “don’t you love us? Aren’t we good to you”? That isn’t the point. Everyone needs a union so workers together don’t ever have to rely on just good feelings from employers. Which is what I talk about with Cameron Coleman, a bakery worker at Grand Central Bakery who is a key organizer in a unionizing campaign which comes to a head tomorrow with a vote.

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I also chat with two progressive candidates who are running in Democratic primaries with the ultimate goal of winning a general election in Republican-held seats—Jennifer Christie, who is a candidate in Indiana’s 5th Congressional district, and Jason Butler who is campaigning to win the nomination in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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Episode 159:

Twenty years ago, thousands of environmentalists, union leaders and members, and lots of other progressive forces swept through the streets of Seattle to confront the global corporate beast known as the World Trade Organization, the WTO. They were met by the Seattle police force, buttressed by all sorts of other police and security operations, who tear gassed, pepper sprayed, assaulted and arrested people who were simply trying to exercise their free speech rights. Today, I am going to revisit that mass uprising with Lori Wallach, the director of Global Trade Watch. I also talk to a young progressive Democrat who is running against an entrenched Democrat in Illinois

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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Episode 158:

Hypocrisy probably makes it into the top three characteristics, alas, of the vast majority of politicians. That isn’t a reason not to participate in the electoral process but it’s just one of those cautionary, red lights to keep an eye out for. To wit: all those politicians who eloquently talk about the importance of unions—mostly that talk comes when a politician wants a union endorsement or a check—but they get very weird when their own staffers try to unionize. So that’s what makes the unionizing effort among staffers at the New York City City Council something to watch—partly because it could set a standard for the whole country. Zara Nasir, a City Council staffer and a main organizer of the unionizing effort, joins me for a chat about the campaign.

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I also revisit the race for the Democratic nomination for New York’s 16th Congressional district, which has drawn another great progressive candidate who is challenging the odious corporate Democrat, Eliot Engel. The son of immigrants from Eritrea, Andom Ghebreghiorgis joins me in a chat about his vision as a young progressive activist running to unseat a long-time incumbent who is way past his expiration date.

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And, last, I’m not big on the holiday consumption craziness but I will say there is even more data out just in the past few days that make a clear case that, if you have to shop and consume over the next few weeks, don’t use Amazon. I touch on two reports that document how workers are killed, maimed, and stressed by the Amazon machine which relentlessly has one goal: to make Jeff Bezos even richer, no matter the cost to workers.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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Episode 157:

Deval Patrick has become very, very rich since leaving the post of Massachusetts governor. That’s what happens when you become a managing director of Bain Capital, one of the behemoths in the private equity industry. Patrick became rich working for a company—being a managing director of a company—that has screwed thousands of workers, especially 30,000 workers for Toys R Us who don’t have a job today because Bain Capital, with Patrick in the leadership, drove that company into liquidation. I talk about Bain Capital’s role in the demise of Toys R Us with Jim Baker, executive director of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.

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Over a decade ago, I started reading about something called a “Financial Transactions Tax”. It’s often also called a “Tobin Tax” after its creator, economist James Tobin, and it originally focused on taxing currency speculation. But a broader idea is popular: each time a Wall Street trade is made, a very, very, very, tiny tax is levied—which could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) proposed the tax way back in 2008; Bernie Sanders has been for it, and made it part of his 2016 presidential campaign—and both of them are pushing some version of the tax right now in Congress. Jessica Schieder of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, who recently co-authored a paper on the financial transaction tax, chats with me about what the heck it is.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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Episode 156:

Anyone remember that TV advertisement that Merrill Lynch used to have, with the big bull trotting along a beach? I’m reincarnating that bull today for a pretty simple discussion: what is economic progress and how do we have economic growth without destroying the planet? Evelyn Astor, an economic and social policy advisor at the International Trade Union Confederation, joins me to talk about better ideas to measure what a healthy economy looks like for regular people, not just investors and billionaires.

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Then, Brianna Wu stops by with an update on her primary campaign to unseat a corporate Democrat in the 8th Congressional District in Massachusetts.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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IKEA, Volkswagen, Nestle and Airbus are pretty different companies but all of them have a two-faced corporate Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that explains a lot about the oppression workers face in the U.S. South. Across the pond, all those companies have a pretty reasonable posture towards unions and workers trying to unionize. But just let them come hunting over in the U.S. South to do business and, bingo, they turn into your garden variety, vicious, union busting, corporate pigs. Cathy Feingold, the AFL-CIO’s international director, talks with me about an amazing new report tracing the European corporate marauding down south.

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Then, Kim Williams joins the show to talk about her Democratic primary challenge against a long-time Blue Dog-Corporate Democrat in the 16th Congressional district in California.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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Episode 154:

The Gordon Gekko boast in the fictional movie “Wall Street” that “Greed is Good” is really an organizing principle for the financial vultures who rob the country day after day. Today, you will hear two tales of greed and robbery by hedge fund and private equity vultures.

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First, it’s Paul Singer, the CEO of a hedge fund called Elliott Management, who has a net worth of $3.5 billion, is a political buddy of the Koch brothers and is a funder of climate change deniers. As Beth Allen, the communications director of the Communications Workers of America, explains in our chat Singer now has his sights set on screwing thousands of CWA members who work for AT&T by trying to extort money from AT&T.

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Then, I circle back with Eileen Appelbaum, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who was on the program just three weeks ago digging into how private equity vultures are behind the plague of surprise medical bills. This week, Eileen and I talk about a sham study that private equity leaders have ginned up to try to deflect the rising chorus of criticism against their tactics.

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And last up, finally, thankfully, a leading corporate Democrat Gregory Meeks has a primary challenger in New York’s 5th Congressional district—Shaniyat Chowdhury, a great progressive and a proud democratic socialist, chats with me about his campaign.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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

Episode 153:

EI’m in a politics mood today, having nothing to do with impeachment or the bizarre spectacle of a previous Democratic presidential candidate going seriously off the rails and accusing with no evidence, in McCarthyite fashion, another Democrat of being some sort of asset of Russia…I mean, crazy shit fills up my news dump every day.

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So as an antidote, I figured I’d bring to you two more progressive women candidates running for Congress against two corporate male Democrats: Eva Putzova in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District and Rebecca Parson in Washington State’s 6th Congressional District.

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Episode 152:

The running joke about Whole Foods is its nickname: Whole Paycheck. But there’s a far darker side to the touchy-feely, organic feel of Whole Foods than the higher prices—the exploitation of workers everywhere along its supply chains where workers labor in slave-like conditions, and are abused day after day, especially women workers. Oxfam is out with a devastating report on Whole Foods—and I talk with an Oxfam expert about what the report found.

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Then, among the politicians no one would miss, ever, on the political scene is Eliot Engel who voted for the Iraq War, has worked to deregulate Wall Street and is a staunch mouthpiece for the most right-wing, racist governments Israel has produced. Thankfully, he’s got a serious primary challenger, Jamaal Bowman, a middle school principal and educator who grew up in public housing in New York City. Jamaal joins me to talk about his campaign.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini

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

Episode 151:

I would never have said it before today but it turns out health insurance companies aren’t the most evil players in the healthcare industry. Don’t freak out—health insurance companies are bad, and they are bankrupting millions of people, and the country. But it turns out even worse than the health insurers are some big mega private equity vultures who are gobbling up big pieces of medical services and socking millions of people with surprise medical bills—and I’m going to go in depth on this story, which is not being covered anywhere else, with Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and one of the great experts on private equity.

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Then, I’m kicking back into gear with regular segments with great progressives running for office. Today, I chat with Rachel Ventura who is running in the Democratic primary in Illinois’ 11th Congressional district against a corporate Democrat who is awash in Wall Street and real estate dollars.

Support the podcast here: www.patreon.com/WorkingLifePodcast

-- 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