You're listening to the labor radio podcast weekly produced by the labor radio podcast network, labor radio network.org. I am Chris Garlock on today's show power at work podcast, host Seth Harris talks to labor secretary Julie SU about empowering workers and the state of labor 2024. there are still far too many workers in this country Who get up in the morning and go to work and don't know that they're going to take home all the wages that they earned Right.
There's still far too many workers who get injured on the job, Then on workweek radio, Amazon workers in San Francisco demand recognition. if we can join their medical, um, insurances and policies. That they have and their 4 0 1 Ks, I'm sure we can join a union, that'd be okay to do. The building bridges podcast talks with Rachel Abara from Starbuck workers United. I want to work in food service my whole life. I, I like food service. I like fast food. It's embarrassing.
But like, it's work that I enjoy doing. And I know that I won't be able to do it my whole life because my body is already giving out Next. David Kevin edge who worked at a west rock paper mill in Washington state until it was shuttered and steel workers, legislative director, Roy Houseman on fair trade On solidarity works a podcast from the United steelworkers. They laid off originally around. 110 employees by the end of October, and then it was pretty much every 2 weeks.
They do another round of layoffs until currently now. As of September 23rd, so it's been a year now we have 8 employees left at the facility. What matters most to senior flight attendants, we find out on the it's time live podcast from sky west AFA. So if I had a magic wand, I would expand upon the flight attendant pay scale at SkyWest Airlines, prioritizing consistency. fairness and the well being of our dedicated crew members. On America works German sausage maker, George needin.
If I make a Nuremberg sauce, a Nuremberg bratwurst, it's got to taste like Nuremberg bratwurst. It can't be just something else, even though I could do that, because that's what a lot of butchers do. They'll just call it what they want And in our final segment. After an impressively long run radio labor that's L a B O U R, which brought us labor news from around the globe is hanging up their microphone. Their final program was about project 2025 and the pro act.
project 2025 is proposing that states, um, be able to ignore federal minimum wage and hour law to experiment with other ways of overseeing minimum wage laws. That's all ahead on this week's edition of the labor radio podcasts weekly. Here's the show starting off with Harold and this week's shows you should know. Thanks, Chris. Social media guy Harold Phillips here again, folks. And you know, one of the things I really love about the network is the diversity of all the shows.
There are so many different views, there are so many different topics that our shows cover, and I think that's really reflected in this week's Shows You Should Know. For instance, two Working People podcasts were released over the past week. First, Max talks to PhD candidate Mamadou Thiel about Cornell's disciplinary actions against he and other international students participating in political protests.
Then Max talks with Diana Baptista about Mexico's ongoing water crisis and what it has to do with the human and environmental costs of AI and cloud computing. Jacob and Adam take a deep dive into the ILA's strike at East Coast ports and all the bad takes that are being spread about it on The Valley Labor Report. The El Cafecito Del Dia podcast shares critical information about how the wage gap affecting Latino workers also negatively impacts their families and communities.
In Español. Sam and Gabe released three Labor John podcasts over the past week. First, they sit down with Dr. Peter Cole, author of Ben Fletcher, Life and Times of a Black Wobbly, and Wobblies on the Waterfront. Then they look at the incredible life of Bayard Rustin, who fought for civil rights as a black, gay, radical labor agitator and peace activist.
And, finally, Gabe joins the Jewish Diasporists Jordan and Carolyn Luca for a deep dive into Jewish labor's evolving role within the broader context of capitalism and colonialism. Chris, I knew you were gonna make me say these names when I wrote them. Kumi Naidoo and Shah Razavi talk with Zeena Awad about what governments, workers, and employers organizations can do to expand social protection coverage and protect the most vulnerable as we face the climate crisis. On the future of work.
And point of personal privilege, I'm gonna throw one more in here. Do you know what a pump storage project is? Find out when Harold, hey, that's me, talks with Ron Eyrig and Amanda Kitchens about all the cool things happening in Klickitat County, Washington. On the Working to Live in Southwest Washington podcast. See what I mean? There's such a broad variety of topics being covered. And how can you find out what topics our Labor Radio podcast network members are covering?
Just follow Labor Radio Net on Facebook, Instagram, and, ahem, Twitter. Or search for the hashtag LaborRadioPod. Back to you, Chris. Thank you, Harold. Always the consummate professional. All right. Here's the show. Hello, powerful people, and welcome back to Power at Work. My name is Seth Harris, and I'm a senior fellow at the Burns Center for Social Change. And I'm delighted to be able to welcome you To yet another very special blog cast today.
We'll be talking with acting us secretary of labor, Julie Sue. I'll talk with secretary Sue about the condition of workers in 2024, her role, mediating some big collective bargaining disputes and her perspective on the future of worker activism. Worker power. Madam Secretary, I am so delighted to have you on Power at Work, and I'm really grateful for you for making the time. It's so good to see you, Seth.
Thank you, and thank you for your leadership and, and paving a path, and it's a, it's a privilege to carry on the work of this department. For the purpose of this question, let's just assume that Vice President Harris is elected, uh, in November or December I'm not asking you to say that or advocate for that. You're not allowed to and I'm not advocating for it either. Let's just assume that it's true. What, what are the most important action items?
On your to do list that you're not going to be able to get done by January 19th, 2025 that are going to have to be picked up on January 21st, 2025 by. Either you or whoever the next secretary of labor is going. Yeah, I mean I would say Seth that goes back to our earlier conversation About how there are still far too many workers in this country Who get up in the morning and go to work and don't know that they're going to take home all the wages that they earned Right.
There's still far too many workers who get injured on the job, you know, whether it's in, you know, construction in, uh, I mean, you know, on farms or in mines or anywhere else. Um, and there are still all the issues that you mentioned, right? That far too many workers who save their entire lives for retirement security and then don't have it because they get You know, cheated out of their, um, out of their retirement or their pension fund was insufficient. Right?
These are all things that this administration has addressed because I think we recognize that you, the experience of working people is not just one thing, right? It's not like just one thing affects their well being. It's all of these things together. And we have to be able to, uh, you know, to, to, to Okay.
To respond, um, uh, to, to many needs and to build an effective department and effective federal government that helps workers who just want, again, like their own fair shot, right, to know, um, uh, that, that their government is on their side. Um, so, and the, the reversal of, again, these decades of deep seated. Inequality, deep seated poverty. Um, it takes more than a few years to reverse.
Um, and so I think what we've done is we've, we've really planted seeds and many of them have started to bloom, right. But in terms of everyone feeling that shade, it's going to take a while, um, for those things to happen. So just to name a couple of them, you know, I think, um, being able, you know, it's an unfortunate thing that I know, you know, well, which is when we, um, put in place rules that really try to breathe life into laws.
And make sure that working people are truly protected by them. Sometimes, we get challenged by them. And unfortunately, You know, the last administration in particular filled the courts with judges who are hell bent on, uh, on not protecting workers. And so, even just being able to, you know, protect what we've done is, is, is, is work that's going to be ongoing. But there's also work we want to finish, right? You know, our heat rule is not done.
And there are workers who are dying for a lack of very basic things. Water. Shade time to rest and recover. Um, a plan in place so that when it hits certain temperatures, we actually take care of our people. And in this moment, especially when there's record temperatures all across the country, right? That's just seems so fundamental. And so, you know, we, we, we, we want to get that done.
Um, and then I, I, I just think the other piece of this is, you know, when I say the department has an outsized role in a, in a, in a administration that really cares about workers. In order for every worker to feel like they have real opportunity in their community, it's like the workers who, again, because of the last administration's policies, ended up having to leave their homes, leave their families to find a job somewhere else, because the factory that they worked in closed down.
We have been, I've been to, you know, I've been to those places that are now open because of, This investing in America agenda of this administration, right? Again, those changes, those reversals are, we've started them, but they are going to take some more time to truly solidify Secretary of Labor, Julie Hsu, what a privilege, what a pleasure to have you on Power at Work. It's fantastic to see you.
Thanks for taking us inside the inner sanctum of the Secretary of Labor, the inner office that nobody gets to see. Our viewers got to see it thanks to you and what a fantastic. Our set of arguments and presentations that you gave us really a privilege. It was so much fun. Great to see you. Thank you This is Work Week with Steve Zeltzer. The growing frustration and anger of Amazon workers is leading to their joining the Teamsters unions around the country.
In San Francisco, Amazon workers at DCK6 got a hundred fellow members to sign union cards and they had a rally on October 3rd to demand that Amazon recognize their union without an NLRB election. They spoke out about the health and safety conditions and why they want unionization. My name is Alejandro Negrete. I've known most of you by now at this point, but let me just say congratulations, right, for what you all have done here.
It's historic. Teamsters, Amazon Teamsters, right, brothers and sisters from across the country, right, who are engaging in the same fight for things like a living wage, dignity, respect, right, health and safety. So welcome. And with that, I want to introduce Peter Finn. First, I want to say you guys are an inspiration to every single Teamster, to the entire world. It's all about what you guys did yesterday or to demand recognition to get a voice on the job. Right? Is what it's all about.
It's about forming a union with your coworkers and standing together to get a voice on the job for fair wages, fair health care, for a fair safety. Are we ready to fight? Yeah. I'm here today to support my, uh, coworkers and myself. You know, we're, we're real, really very unhappy with what's going on in there. You know, what is going on in there? We just basically have people who are getting paid to do a job. They don't do, you know, our safety is being put in danger.
We're being worked like pack horses, you know, no one cares. They just come in, they check in, they hit the clock, they get paid for what? Nothing. You know, we just had a new safety person come into our, our facility and no one's doing any of the stuff that they're supposed I've been there for since 2021. I've been here and I got transferred from another Amazon, you know, so that they could upgrade and over here. And since I've been here, I've had no training.
They, they, they don't do any working wells, you know, and, and, and they just basically keep hiring people. People keep leaving, you know, and I'm like, you know, that right there is an answer and a cry out for help right there. And, um, I'm sure administration is seeing all of this information and they're not doing anything. They just keep hiring. Keep hiring people, people keep leaving due to mistreatment, you know, due to all sorts of things.
Most of the people that I deal with when it comes to the management, they, they, they're more childish than anything. They're not really professionals, you know, they, they like to play and, and, and joke around in, in, in that environment and there is not a, uh, a place where you do that. Are workers afraid if they join the union, they'll be retaliated against? I'm a worker. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. I mean, that's our opportunity and our option as a worker should have a legal right.
We can, if we can join their medical, um, insurances and policies. That they have and their 4 0 1 Ks, I'm sure we can join a union, that'd be okay to do. I'm sure that if, if, if we could come to an agreement with the teamsters, you know, as workers, you know, and, and things can be formalized into a contract. And if it benefits us all, then I'm sure we can come to a good union together. The workers that I've seen, they've come in and they've gone out. They've come in and they've gone out.
This has been work week radio on KPOO. Solidarity has no borders. Hello and welcome to Building Bridges, a podcast from the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, where we explore the people and stories of the labor movement. I'm Maya. And I'm Kate. And today we're talking with Rachel, a Starbucks barista who is organizing with Starbucks Workers United. Hi Rachel, how are you doing today? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Good. Thank you.
Really excited to have you here and learn more about the work that you're doing as well as the work of the union. And just for some background, how long have you been working at Starbucks? Oh, I've been for, it's like four years. It's like a little more than four years. I don't remember how much exactly, but a little more than four years. And so, what are some of the main issues that Starbucks Workers United is fighting for right now, both locally, within your store, and nationally?
Mostly what we're doing locally is reaffirming the national goal, which is get, get bargaining. We would like the contract very badly. Um, we're very excited to, to be able to, like, I, having started in this campaign in like, a hundred million years ago. Um, it, I, like, I can, I can taste it. Like, we're this close. Um, I'm really excited to work under a contract to have union representation.
Um, and that's a lot of what we're doing locally is, like, focusing on, like, how can we educate folks about bargaining, how, uh, like, the, the stuff that we've already won and the stuff we're trying to win. Um, and, uh, a lot of, like, making sure folks understand. what we've won and how we won it. Um, like being super clear about like us all standing together and like the more stores we get, the more people who are organized, the more people like we have on our side to, to win this contract.
What would you say is one thing you want people to know about the struggle to unify Starbucks, as well as the struggle to getting a fair contract? I think something that I think about when I, like, think about how long I've been doing this, uh, and like, especially before, like, It felt like we really were, like, about to win. Like, about to get this contract. I, we were, we were all in a dark place. We were like, it's never gonna happen. We're never gonna win this.
Like, we're just gonna be doing this for the rest of our lives. Um, and thinking about the fact that, like, food service, service in general, but food service, uh, is the one that I have the most experience with. So it's the one I talk about. Um, food service workers, are pretty much ubiquitously treated without respect. and so like, Making food service, like, a respectable, livable job. I, I want to see a food service industry that doesn't treat workers like they're disposable.
I, I want to work in food service my whole life. I, I like food service. I like fast food. It's embarrassing. But like, it's work that I enjoy doing. And I know that I won't be able to do it my whole life because my body is already giving out. And that just shouldn't be. The accepted reality of any job, and it is of many of them. Thank you so much, Rachel, for joining us. And thank you everyone for listening to this episode of Building Bridges.
Last month, on September 18, members of the United Steelworkers Union from across the US traveled to the nation's capital in Washington, DC, to talk to their elected officials about fair trade. Specifically, they spoke with members of Congress. about the importance of reauthorizing trade adjustment assistance, which provides training and educational opportunities for workers who lost their jobs due to foreign countries like China, circumventing trade rules.
The program, which began under the Kennedy administration, ended in 2022 and needs to be reauthorized by Congress in order to continue providing benefits. Today, we're talking with David Van Pevenich, who worked at a Westrock paper mill in Washington State until it was shuttered due to unfair trade. I'm Chelsea Engel, proud member of the United Steelworkers, and welcome again to Solidarity Works.
I worked in Tacoma, Washington, uh, with Local 12 237 for 24 years at Westrock, um, paper and power company. Um, I worked in the environmental lab for, um, the majority of those years, for about 22 of those years, um, testing the air and the water. Um, I have an environmental engineering degree.
I found out on September 23rd of 2023, Tom Stigers, the CEO of Westrock, flew to our site and had a meeting with all the union heads and announced we were closing the facility because we were too much of a high cost per ton producer. And they had had other opportunities to produce the same products we were producing at a lower cost. I found out from our union that only. Approximately 2 months earlier, they had purchased 2 mills in Mexico.
So, at that point, I, we negotiated for about the next 3 months, um, the terms of the. Closure and how employees would be laid off by seniority and how pay would work and how overtime and all these other aspects would work. And then from there. That's pretty much how it started. They laid off originally around. 110 employees by the end of October, and then it was pretty much every 2 weeks. They do another round of layoffs until currently now.
As of September 23rd, so it's been a year now we have 8 employees left at the facility. I'm still doing cleanup and they hope to have the facility shut down. I've heard by. The end of this year, maybe March of next year, that is their goal and then the facilities up for sale, but only to companies that are willing to tear it down. And use the land for its next purpose. They will not allow another paper mill to work at that site. So, what impact did trade have on this closure?
we had just negotiated only 6 months. It took us June of 2000 or actually September of 2022. We had our new contract, which was a 4 year contract. We had just negotiated and was a very, a very good contract. The company seems. You know, happy they gave us all our terms pretty much. I mean, it was, it was, it was a win win for both sides. Um, so it was definitely shocking. Um, and I think that trade the 100 percent I believe that trade directly affected us.
Until next time, take care, and stay safe, siblings. Welcome to It's Time Live episode 20. I'm Galen David with the Association of Flight Attendants and I'm on board today with Jackie Crossley, Brandon Finley and Tad Solomon. Based in Salt Lake City, Seattle and Minneapolis, St. Paul. Welcome everyone. So today we'd like to give our senior mamas and papas a little bit of love.
So we're talking to Brandon Finley, who has been at SkyWest for 19 years, and Tad Solomon, who has almost his 19 year anniversary. They will tell us what they think is important to bring to a new contract, what we need to definitely keep in a contract, and what needs to be changed, because everything will be up for review when we get our AFA union in place and negotiate our first legally binding contract with the company.
Well, so let's dive right in and talk about some things that are going to affect our contracts. Let's start with pay. How do you guys feel about the pay scale we currently have and how would you change it if you had a magic wand? Well, I obviously think that we could have a better pay scale that reflects the work we do on, uh, on our aircraft.
We're required to offer seamless service for our partner airplanes, which often means we do the work of two or more mainline flight attendants with either one or two SkyWest flight attendants, depending on the aircraft type that we're on. So if I had a magic wand, I would expand upon the flight attendant pay scale at SkyWest Airlines, prioritizing consistency. fairness and the well being of our dedicated crew members.
So one of the, uh, things that I would like to change would be establishing More transparent tiered pay scale based on seniority and cabin position, as we know that, um, the, the two positions, you know, forward and aft, you know, they, they each have their own separate duties. And, you know, 1 position may be a little bit more, uh, involved with, with work during the boarding process than the other. So, you know, recognizing that workload, um, would be very, very important.
I mean, let's be real. It's, it's a team effort, but the forward flight attendant is pretty much responsible for on time departures and, and they have a A lot of stuff going on during the boarding process. You're right, Jackie. A lot more than the aft. The forward flight attendant is really kind of like the keeper of the clock during the boarding process. And, you know, the forward flight attendant is ultimately responsible for getting the boarding door closed on time.
And there's a lot of things that the forward flight attendant has to do in order to make that happen. You know, we have pre departure beverages on our multi class aircraft. You know, greeting passengers, monitoring, you know, carry ons for size, you know, looking, you know, keeping your eye out for ABPs and, you know, potential hazards and communicating with the flight deck. And there's a lot of things that the Ford flight attendant does. Oh, making announcements and, and whatnot.
You know, it's, it gets pretty busy and, you know, it's kind of unfair to, to pay. You know, each flight attendant at the same rate if the workload isn't the same. Follow the it's time live podcast and connect with the campaign at o o it's time. com and on social media at O O it's time. See you next time. Welcome to America Works, interviews with contemporary workers throughout the United States.
This is American Folklife Center staff folklorist Nancy Gross, and this episode features excerpts from a longer interview with German sausage maker George Neiden, who with his German born mother, Maria Neiden, and 60s. own and run the Old Country Sausage Kitchen in Maple Heights, Ohio. The Nydens were interviewed by folklorist Lucy Long for her occupational folklife project, Ethnic Grocers in the Urban Midwest.
They began by recalling how George returned to Cleveland after serving in the Merchant Marines, anxious to start his own business. They decided to buy out their local German butcher and have George train with a German sausage maker, who came to Ohio and lived with the Nydens for a year to teach George the basics. So, I had managed to collect all the oldest books I could find on sausage making in German. And, uh, some of my customers provided them to me, which was really neat.
And, uh, I studied those, and I started experimenting a lot. And I, just from tasting, and I figured out how to make it all. And now, you know, it's, I'm the guy. I do it now. I've been doing it now for 33 years. 34 years now, right? The traditional spicing, that's from Where, wherever they come from. In other words, if I, if I make a Nuremberg sauce, a Nuremberg bratwurst, it's got to taste like Nuremberg bratwurst.
It can't be just something else, even though I could do that, because that's what a lot of butchers do. They'll just call it what they want in Germany. There is no one type of type of bratwurst. There's many, many hundreds of recipes of bratwurst. Whatever the butcher says it is, it is. But I try to, I try to make the spice that's traditional for that area.
And I've gotten success because I've had people come up to me with tears in their eyes and said, I haven't tasted this since being back home. When they say home, they say back in the old country. And I knew I had something then. When you get that kind of emotional response, then you know you have something. Well, you know, the Hofbrauhaus approached me, and they wanted me to develop some sausage for them special. And they wanted a beer bratwurst. And I tasted their premium lager. It's very good.
It's excellent. I mean, I'm not a big beer drinker, but dad is good beer. And when I tasted it, I thought, yeah, I bet you it would taste this. I had an idea, because it was a sausage I've been wanting to make for a long time. And I decided to incorporate the beer in it, and it worked out beautifully. And so I put together this recipe and they call it, they call it now their Hofbrat, premium bratwurst. Hofbräu, premium, Lagerbratwurst.
The fun part is trying different things and then the seeing what, what I really like is seeing the reaction of the customer of. The good reaction. Then it makes it all worth all the work I do. But, you know, if you do the work, you have to do it with some kind of a heart. If your heart's in it, then the product comes out good. There's a magic that comes out into the food. It's like any good cook, you know. This is a FC staff Folklores.
Nancy Gross, on behalf of the American Folklife Center and with a special thanks to a FC intern Maggie Jones for her help with this episode. Thank you for listening to America Works. This is Solidarity News on Radio Labour. Hello, I'm Mark Boulanger. The Republican Party of Donald Trump in the U. S. is planning mass deportation of immigrant workers, the banning of public sector unions, and other attacks on labour. I talked to Harris Freeman about the Republican plans.
Mr. Freeman teaches Labor and Employment Law at Western New England University. He is also on the faculty of the Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. Besides being a law professor, he is also a toolmaker by trade, and was a member of the United Auto Workers Union, the UAW. I asked him about a policy document called Project 2025, which has been associated with the Republican Party of Donald Trump as the country heads into elections, scheduled for November 5th.
There are sections of Project 2025 that mention labor rights. What is happening? To that subject in the States right now. Project 2025 contains a series of proposals to undermine the National Labor Relations Act, which is the law under which most private sector workers unionize. But there are a range of other proposals that speak to other protective laws that have been put in place as a result of the struggles and organization of working people over the course of the 20th century.
And 21st century. For example, um, Project 2025 is proposing that states, um, be able to ignore federal minimum wage and hour law to experiment with other ways of overseeing minimum wage laws. For example, they want to give 16 and 17 year olds, people who right now are excluded from working in various dangerous jobs. Occupations who lie to, um, work in a whole series of dangerous occupations from mines to mills that, um, really undercut basic protections of child labor law.
Um, it wants to allow employers to stop paying overtime in ways that are guaranteed at this point. For example, right now, you are guaranteed overtime if you work more than 40 hours in a given week. You're guaranteed time and a half for that. Time project 2025 wants to change it to. You don't get overtime unless you work more than 80 hours in 2 weeks. So you could, for example, in 1 week work 55 hours the next week. You'd work 25 hours and you would be entitled to no overtime at all.
Even the 1 week, you're putting in time. That's way longer than the average workday. There are, uh, attacks on OSHA trying to exempt small businesses and first time violators of OSHA from any kind of fines or penalties for safety violations. Um, and as I, as I mentioned, there are all kinds of, um, attacks on the, uh, rights of immigrant workers that are also part of Project 2025.
In addition, um, Project 2025 is Looking to shift the enforcement of anti discrimination laws from protecting the rights of, um, African Americans, Latinos, women, uh, LGBTQ workers, to instead focusing on, um, the protection of conservative religious and pro life views, uh, which, uh, Project 2025 presents the viewpoint of workers that are really, you know, under attack.
So you begin to see when you look at the full panoply of proposals here, a complete gutting of protection, um, of workers right in across the board. Radio labor, a great global labor news source for many years, promoted global communication between labor organizations. They will be missed. Hey, this is a reminder to be sure to support your favorite labor radio shows and podcasts. Almost all of them are put together by volunteers or staffers with a lot on their plates.
So following the shows, commenting, liking, and sharing, that really helps us all to keep going. That is going to do it for this week's edition of the labor radio podcasts weekly as always just a teeny tiny sample of the amazing programs aired over the last week. On more than 200 labor radio and podcast shows, they are all part of the labor radio podcast network shows that focus on a working people's issues and concerns. We have got links to all the network shows, labor radio network.org.
You can also. Also find them use the hashtag labor radio pod on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And a reminder, you too can be part of the network. You don't even need a microphone. Labor radio podcast network t-shirts are available. They're union made. You'll find them in all sizes are two [email protected]. This podcast recorded under a sag AFTRA collective bargaining agreement. The labor radio podcast, weekly 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 stay active and Hey, stay tuned. To your local labor radio podcast show, we will see you next week.