Hey, you're listening to the labor radio podcast weekly produced by the labor radio podcast network, labor radio network.org. I'm Chris Garlock. On this week show. Clinton, you know, wanted to be posted. He was a quote, new Democrat, unquote. He wanted to show he was more business friendly than, than Democrats of the past. And, uh, so I think that's one reason he pushed hard to have NAFTA ratified . That's the payday report. Steven greenhouse discusses. How NAFTA bread working class distrust.
In the rust belt. So what happens is we end up having to assess them and really say, how sick are you? And what can we do right now to put a bandaid on it? Workers take on Kaiser Permanente again in Southern California on the working people podcast. We found that most Southern states adopted a similar set of economic development models characterized by low wages, a lack of regulation on businesses, a regressive tax system, a weak safety net, and staunch opposition to labor unions.
On the state of working America podcast, Naomi Walker and Shondra childcare is discussed the Southern economic development model. And I was just this It's a fascinating life of a fisherman who would go out to sea and battle the elements and bring a valuable food source back. And then I was one of the people who was responsible to make sure that they got a good enough price that they made a living for themselves and their families.
Barbara Stevens, whose parents were both union activists in the United fishermen and allied workers, union tells her story. And on the line stories of BC workers. what inspired me to write Together We Can Move Mountains was watching footage of this woman who had never been involved in organized struggle before. And, she's sitting on her couch and she's explaining how, having never participated before inspired her when she saw, the results and felt the solidarity Singer songwriter, Bev grant.
He tells the story behind her song Together, we can move mountains on the labor heritage power hour. And in our final segment, we go all the way to Melbourne Australia. For the solidarity breakfast podcast report, featuring a photo exhibition exploring Greek, Australian life. What we did was, we've gotten into five categories. There's, um, work, there's leisure, there's politics, there's art, and, um, It escapes you. And culture, and culture, sorry.
That is all ahead on this week's edition of the labor radio podcast weekly. And we start off as usual with Harold's shows, you should know. Social media guy Harold Phillips here, folks, and, well, that was quite an election night, wasn't it? It won't surprise you to find out that a lot of labor radio shows and podcasts were talking about the election situation leading right up to Tuesday, and they've been talking about it ever since.
Here's some shows you should know for the week of November 3rd. Dr. Rosa Colquitt talks with Tina and Audrey about the preparation for the Oregon delegation to the National Democratic Convention in the three weeks before the event on Labor Radio on KABU. The Valley Labor Report looks at the effort to unionize Starbucks, why the Ironworkers endorsed Harris, the UAW's political education program, and more.
On Union Talk, Randy talks with canvassers and organizers about the importance of talking face to face to get out the vote during the last few days of election season. Mark and Linda talk about what fascism is, and what it isn't. Talk with Nancy McClain about Christian nationalism and more on Voice of the People. On Worker's Beat Extra, Gene shares some thoughts about what working people should be focused on the day after the election.
And on the Green and Red podcast, Scott and Bob discuss their Election Eve thoughts from this being the billionaire election. To the right wing movement of Democrats for the past 50 years. And you know where to find links to all these shows, right? At LaborRadioNetwork. org. Be sure to follow us on social media at LaborRadioNet. And keep an eye on the hashtag LaborRadioPod for the latest episodes discussing what happened and where we go from here. Back to you, Chris. Thanks. Hey, thanks Harold.
And by the way, folks, we would love to hear from you drop us a note [email protected]. Okay. Here's Mike elk and the payday report. This is Mike Elk coming to you live from Pittsburgh where we have an election later this week. It's heating up and it's going to be a close race. Most likely this race will be decided by less than 100, 000 votes one way or the other. A crucial issue in western Pennsylvania is trade.
Western Pennsylvania has been devastated by mill closings and the Democratic Party gets a lot of blame, particularly Bill Clinton for passing NAFTA. So in this episode I sat down and I talked with retired New York Times labor reporter Stephen Greenhouse. Who just wrote an article for the Guardian, outlining how trade issues continue to hurt Democrats in the Rust Belt.
Stephen, uh, you wrote an article for the Guardian that, you know, a lot of, you know, union members and working class voters in places like Pennsylvania don't necessarily trust the Democratic Party anymore because of NAFTA. Why is that? So, uh, you know, NAFTA was, you know, a trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that created much freer trade. It was, uh, when Bill Clinton was president, he pushed to have Congress ratify it.
Uh, at the time, Clinton and almost all economists, you know, were saying, uh, it's not going to cause the loss of jobs in the United States. We're more, we've a more productive economy with, you know, higher trained workers, more productive workers than Mexico and Canada. So as a result of NAFTA, we should. I'd be attracting factory jobs, but it turns out that, uh, we lost, uh, hundreds of thousands of factory jobs as a result of NAFTA.
The Economic Policy Institute, a labor backed, uh, think tank, said we lost 692, 000 manufacturing jobs as a result of NAFTA. Um, so on one hand, I think it's totally legitimate and fair for many working class Americans to be upset with Clinton and the Democrats for, you know, pushing NAFTA through.
On the other hand, Uh, I think it's unfair that, that they're so mad at the Democrats but not the Republicans because the idea for NAFTA started being pushed under Ronald Reagan, a Republican, during the 1980s. The president who negotiated NAFTA was a Republican, George H. W. Bush. Uh, Bush negotiated it, finished the deal, uh, but didn't have time to get it ratified in Congress before he left. So it was kind of left in Clinton's.
Hands like you have to be a good bipartisan person and get it ratified. And, uh, Clinton, you know, wanted to be posted. He was a quote, new Democrat, unquote. And that meant he wasn't going to be an old style, pro worker, somewhat, you know, progressive, you know, FDR New Deal Democrat. He wanted to show he was more business friendly than, than Democrats of the past. And, uh, so I think that's one reason he pushed hard to have NAFTA ratified.
Uh, and also, you know, Far more Republicans in Congress, far more Republicans in the House, far more Republicans in the Senate voted to ratify NAFTA than, than Democrats. But still, you know, Donald Trump has done a great job, Republicans have done a great job saying NAFTA is all the Democrats fault.
And, and, one legitimate reason for being angry at the Democrats and the Republicans, uh, about NAFTA is that, you know, workers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and also kind of had higher hopes for the Democrats to go to bat for them and to represent their interests. And they never expected Republicans really to, uh, help them out. They knew Republicans were the party of business, but they felt, as I said in my article in The Guardian, they felt betrayed by Clinton.
Thanks again for joining us on this episode of Payday Report. Be sure to sign up for our podcast online on Spotify and sign up for our newsletter which is free. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Working People. I'm your host Mel Bewer. Working People is a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today.
On October 21st, after contract talks broke down, 2, 400 behavioral health workers with Kaiser Health System in Southern California walked off the job on strike in a bid to bring their employers back to the table and negotiate a decent contract. In the first week of the strike, the union joined two bargaining sessions with the health care provider in an attempt to close the gap between proposals, while workers continued to walk the picket lines at multiple locations in Los Angeles and San Diego.
Chief among their demands is for Kaiser to secure safe staffing levels and reduce appointment wait times for their patients, as well as bring parity between the Southern California workers and their Northern California counterparts in pay, retirement benefits, and scheduling. With me today to discuss the contract negotiations and the strike are Chris Reeves, a psychiatric RN with Kaiser, and Lisa Carroll, a licensed clinical social worker and medical social worker with Kaiser.
Thanks for coming on the show. It's deception. Chris, do you want to speak more about, um, the conditions that you're seeing in Los Angeles? Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, as Lisa mentioned, you know, we prepared vigorously months before we actually were able to get bargaining dates from Kaiser.
Um, we actually tried to engage with Kaiser in bargaining in early spring because the conditions for our workers were so bad and for our employees were so egregious and they did not give us any bargaining dates until the Basically, the start of fall. Um, so July 31st. Um, and so since meeting with them, um, we've brought forward many proposals. And like Lisa said, it's usually met with either complete silence, rejection, not interested, um, or we like things the way we are.
We'd like to keep the current contract language, They are paying for, um, our patients are paying for memberships and they're not able to see providers when they want to as often as they need to even they're not able to see the providers. According to the standards, their own providers have said. So the provider might say, please come back to me in two months or three months or six months. And you're seeing patients who are going well beyond that because there's no appointments.
Um, right now, the clinic books appointments about three months out and every Monday, a new schedule opens up for the providers on a week by week basis, and by Monday morning, we're completely out of appointments because the patients learn that that's the day you need to call and they're basically fighting in line trying to get that appointment. So by Monday afternoon, they're all gone, which that shouldn't be the case.
I mean, we're talking about all the appointments are gone for the next three months. And so that's when we get messages because those clerks are, they don't know what to do. They don't want to tell the patient, we can't do anything for you. And so they say, Oh, talk to the nurse. Maybe they can get you a sooner appointment, but we don't have any magic keys or access to appointments that just don't exist. So what happens is we end up having to assess them and really say, how sick are you?
And what can we do right now to put a bandaid on it? I often say that. Um, which is truly been the most difficult thing for me and my job, um, is putting a bandaid over a bullet wound, um, because I realized, you know, as important as the work that we do, it's just a very small piece. And there are just critical things within the foundation of Kaiser mental health system that is just broken and it's not working. so it's very interesting.
Um, the ability to do our jobs have gotten, you know, significantly more difficult. as always, I want to thank you all for listening and thank you for caring. We'll see y'all back here next week for another episode of working people. Welcome to the state of working American podcast Southern politicians claim that business friendly policies lead to an abundance of jobs and economic prosperity for all Southerners. But is that true?
Or is the Southern economic development model simply about ensuring that businesses have access to cheap labor at the expense of working people? Hello, and welcome to the State of Working America podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Walker, and I'm so excited to be with Chandra Childress today, who is the author of the Rooted in Racism series of reports that we're going to be discussing. So hello, Chandra. Thanks so much for joining me today. Hi, thank you so much for letting me share my work.
Excellent. So let's start with the name of the series. Rooted in racism and economic exploitation. That is a bold statement and it carries some really powerful implications. A history of racial exploitation that's fostered by, and to this day, prioritizes business interests and the wealthy over ordinary folks. So let's talk about that for a minute. Yes. So, the first thing that we did was we wanted to identify the key components of the Southern Economic Development Model.
What made the South so different from other regions and Southern states so different from states outside the South? We found that most Southern states adopted a similar set of economic development models characterized by low wages, a lack of regulation on businesses, a regressive tax system, a weak safety net, and staunch opposition to labor unions.
As I began looking into the history of these policy positions, I found that they developed after the end of slavery as a way to continue to access the labor of black men and women while paying them as little as possible, and sometimes nothing. All right. So Chandra, one of the things that we hear all the time from right wing policymakers is that it's fine to pay people nothing because the cost of living is nothing in the South. Is that true? No, that is not true.
According to my data, we look at earnings for each of the states and then I take state level measures that adjust for differences in the cost of living across states. And when I do these adjustments, I find that Southern states still continue to be some of the lowest earning states. I think five of the 10 lowest earning states are states from the South and you don't see Southern states among the highest earning states. So what about job growth?
We hear a lot about the South outperforming other regions of the country in economic performance and job growth. And people say that's why it should be a model for other parts of the country. Is that right? Do proponents of that philosophy have a point there? No, in looking at the data, what I found is that what we see across in the South, it's actually population growth. The South not only has had the greatest population growth, you know, land is cheap with air conditioning.
It's more comfortable to live there now. So you've got more people coming. Both from within the United States, but also internationally into southern states. And so what they're calling job growth, it's just population growth. And you can see this, for example, if we compare the South with, say, the Northeast. In the Northeast, job growth exceeds population growth. But across the South, job growth can't keep up with population growth. So we see a lag there.
So that indicates that what we're seeing is just the growth in population. Too many Southern workers and their families are barely making ends meet and are struggling to provide for themselves and their families while a wealthy few increase their wealth and their power. However, it is possible.
To change this model by Southerners coming together across lines of race, gender, immigrant status, and all the other divisions that those in power try to use to keep everyone down, to build worker power, political power, so they can change their own futures and the future of the South. That was so well said, Chandra. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. Thank you so much for having me.
Welcome to another edition of On the Line, a podcast that shines a light on VC's rich labor heritage. I'm your host, Rod Mickelborough. In our last episode, we brought you stories from women who worked in the province's once numerous canneries and fish processing plants. For some of these shore workers, this was a stepping stone to working on the fishboats themselves.
Today, in the second of our two part series on women, In the BC fishing industry, we hear from Barbara Stevens, daughter of the legendary Homer Stevens, who spent more than 30 years as an organizer and leader of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union. Also featured is longtime Prince Rupert resident Joy Thorkelson, who held many positions in the UFAWU over the years, including president. The interview with Joy was done by myself and Donna Sekuda in 2019.
When Joy Therkelson was a young woman, she thought she might like to work on a fish boat, so she headed north to Prince Rupert. But first, she managed to get a job at a fish plant, filleting ground fish. Well, I worked for five years, um, uh, at that plant. Some of those years I went back to university, and some of those years I stayed.
And, um, and then in Um, 1970, 1978, I decided, um, that I, I didn't want to go back to university and I tried some law school courses and I found out that I, No, it wasn't for me. And then I got a call in, uh, I don't know, January, February saying, um, probably in January saying, do you want to work for the UFAW? The call came from Mike Darnell, well known in the area as the Union's Northern Representative. Joy took on the task of Northern Organizer.
It was a giant step up for someone who knew almost nothing about unions when she first arrived in Prince Rupert, when I, when I was a, you know, middle class kid from Vancouver. Yeah. Went behind the ears, came and called everybody misses, like I never called an adult woman. Or an adult man by their first name ever until I went in the fish plant So now I could barely say anybody's name because because they were all it was all first name basis even the box, right?
and and that just and it frightened me and but the The first day that I started working The women who I was totally afraid of Told me the lunchroom. So I went up to the lunchroom, they sat me down, they gave me the card and they gave me an initiation card and a pen and said sign there. You're signed to UFAW and don't you ever as a student think that you can undercut what those of us who are regular workers are, are, are earning here. You have to vote and support the union all the time.
So I just signed the paper and thought, holy shit, this is pretty cool. And, um, and I believe in the working class. I love the class aspect of it, yeah, for sure. And, and it was exciting. It was fishermen, it was lots of money coming into town, you know. And, and lots of excitement for a short time period. Real people. Real people, like, um. And, uh, as I got to know the show workers better and better and more and more, Um, you know, it was dominated by, by women. Uh, so, I really liked that.
And it was dominated by strong women. The shop stewards were strong women. Most of them were First Nations. And then on the fishing side, it was this, you know, this dangerous thing of going out to sea, and fishing, and how it went on their boats, and they drew me pictures, and took me down the boats, and showed me things. And I was just this It's a fascinating life of a fisherman who would go out to sea and battle the elements and bring a valuable food source back.
And then I was one of the people who was responsible to make sure that they got a good enough price that they made a living for themselves and their families. I mean, what a responsibility for a 20 year old kid, right? I'm your host, Rod Mickelborough. We'll see you next time on the line. from WPFW 89.3 FM in Washington DC It's the Labor Heritage Power Hour, a weekly radio show celebrating the cultural heritage of the American worker.
We are a proud founding member of the Labor Radio podcast network. Labor radio network.org. I'm Chris Garlock in Washington DC, and I'm Elise Bryant in Dallas, Texas. Bev Grant is a cultural worker from Brooklyn, New York. She's also a singer songwriter, a social justice feminist, a choral director, occasional band leader, dance artist, and a photographer, too. Bev is perhaps best known for two songs, We Were There, which we featured in a previous show, and Together We Can Move Mountains.
Today, she tells us the story behind that song. what inspired me to write Together We Can Move Mountains was watching footage of this woman who had never been involved in organized struggle before. And, she's sitting on her couch and she's explaining how, having never participated before inspired her when she saw, the results and felt the solidarity with the tenants, And she said, together we can move mountains. And me as a songwriter with.
Well, there's my song and, I went home and I wrote that song in about, it felt like five minutes, probably one of the quickest songs I ever wrote. You know people, sometimes we despair. When we think we're alone, and it's gonna change. We get stepped on, abused, ignored, and confused. Made to suffer, and told where to lay. But together, we can move mountains. tabitha Arnold describes herself as a southern socialist making textile art about unions.
Her wall sized tapestries pop with color and action, with subjects like This Woman's Work, Picket, Time Off Task, Hot Labor Summer, and These Hands. So that piece I just, I portrayed the work going on an Amazon different scenes of people on both on and off task. And little references to news stories, like the sort of infamous symbol that came out of Bessemer, I think was the water bottle full of pee, where the company denied these rumors that, drivers got so little time.
They got so little, breaks during their driving that they had to pee in a water bottle. And, drivers had to actually come out and post photos and give. Like these on the record statements that this is happening. This is a symbol. It's the practice that the company knows about and that we have to do just to stay on track during our day. Yeah, I wanted to I wanted to portray all of that worker centric story. And also, have it be a very like victorious story. So it ends at the top with this worker.
If I recall correctly, my mind's eye, he's like spearing a dragon in the style of St. George and the dragon, which is a pretty iconic, that's a pun, I guess it's like a Byzantine icon, like a Christian image. So I wanted to play with that imagery with the worker prevailing over this, this company narrative. And their humanity and their story getting to be the one that comes out on top and be victorious. Tabitha Arnold, a Southern Socialist making textile art about unions.
You can see her work at TabithaArnold. com. Thanks so much for listening to the Labor Heritage Power Hour, which comes to you from the Labor Heritage Foundation. The art and soul of the american labor movement We'll see you next week And you're with Annie on Solidarity Breakfast and we're going to change direction now. We're going to talk to Agapi about an upcoming, uh, exhibition or a visual journey of Greek Australian life. G'day Agapi, how are you? G'day, fine, thank you, and yourself?
Oh, good. It's a lovely day. And, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, we've been, uh, following some of the dire news in Palestine and, uh, also some of the political background in Australia over the program, so it's kind of, uh, a nice thing to be able to, uh, talk about something like this, which is an exhibition. Uh, can you tell us about how this exhibition came about? Well, the exhibition came about because the fourth exhibition of the Greek Democritus League, um, we started it four years ago.
Last year we had, um, an exhibition called Greek Writtings under the Southern Cross. This was the weddings of Greeks in Australia in the 60s, the 50s, the 60s, and the 70s. Um, this was the catalyst for other Greek organizations and publications of what, uh, democracy was setting into motion. This year's exhibition is the logical continuation of that exhibition.
It's a collection of both black and white photographs and color photographs, and it's a visual journey that documents the existence of the many. Aspects of Melbourne's great community. Um, what we're trying to do with this exhibition. Um, this exhibition is not, um, a definitive and comprehensive depiction of Australian Greek life, but it is a step forward in the right direction to visually document those lives of the first generation.
Um, the photographs provide a deeper understanding of the migrant experience. We've got over 120 photos that have been. given to us by people in the Greek community, not by professional photographers. People were taking photos of each other of what they were going through or what they were living through. And they graciously have given us those photos. Oh, that's fantastic. How did you actually curate them?
Because, uh, uh, I mean, there's nothing like, it's like falling into, like Alice in Wonderland, falling into, uh, down the rabbit hole when you look at photographs that people have collected. What we did was, we've gotten into five categories. There's, um, work, there's leisure, there's politics, there's art, and, um, It escapes you. And culture, and culture, sorry. That's the five categories that we've put them in. Ah, it's fantastic. Yeah, because that's what we believe.
One was the um, continuance of the other. You had, the first thing they had to do was find work. After that, it was leisure time. After that, because of what was happening in the workforce, there was the political scene, and then the culture and the art scene. Do you find that this is, people find it difficult to see that we live in a complex society, not a monocultural society? Mm hmm. I don't, I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that, Annie.
Um, because, I don't know, because the Greek Democritus League has always taken part in not only Greek things, but everything in the, um, in Australia. We're liaised on with Trade Talk, we're liaised on with Philips. Um, so, I don't, I don't know. I don't believe that, um, people do know what this Australian culture is made of. Yeah, and so you're inviting everybody down to, uh, this exhibition, uh, with an open hand. Yeah, and the entry, it's a free entry and everyone's welcome.
Thank you very much for talking to me this morning, Agapi. Thank you, Amy. And that's a wrap for this week's edition of the labor radio podcasts, weekly, our sampling of some of the amazing programs aired over the last week on more than 200 labor radio and pod care shows, they are all part of the labor radio podcast network shows the focus on working people's issues and concerns. We've got links to all the network shows, labor radio network.org. You can also find them use the hashtag.
Labor radio pod on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And a reminder, let us know what you think of the show. Drop us a note info. At labor radio network.org. And you can be part of the network. You don't even need a microphone. Labor radio podcast network t-shirts are now available. They are union made. You will find them in all sizes and two [email protected]. This podcast is recorded under a sag after a collective bargaining agreement.
The labor radio podcast, a weekly was edited this week by Patrick Dickson. I produced the show. And our social media guru always and forever is Mr. Harold Phillips. For the labor radio podcast weekly, this has been Chris Garlock and a reminder to stay active and stay tuned to your local labor radio podcast show. We will see you next week.