You could work here for 25, 30 years, and you might still get the same base salary as a brand new teacher down the hall. The cost of this isn't just that Tamara can't buy strawberries. The cost is nobody wants this job, which means students don't have the teachers or counselors or bus drivers that they need. Honestly, it is exhausting to spend this much time thinking about how much an avocado costs
. You're listening to the labor radio podcast weekly and that's the school me podcast from the nea the national education association As mary ellen goes shopping with one florida educator to expose the reality of what it means to live On a teacher's salary. People do rely on the library to use drugs and to have, you know, access to that.
So there's been a 529 percent increase in overdoses that have happened in libraries On KewpieCast, Moe and Brianna sit down with Brandon Hayes from Kewpie Local 4948 Yedolahi from Kewpie Local 79 As they return to the bargaining table with their employer.
I learned about, the scope, the breadth and the depth of impact in terms of sociology and environmentally to resource development projects and was really able to graft that experience onto being a location scout because it's very much figuring out what the impact of filming is going to be for a business or a homeowner. Real, that's R E E L, Greenlead at Creative BC.
Justin Barnes discusses the organization's efforts to move the needle when it comes to sustainable motion picture production in British Columbia on Apple Box Talks. when you are knocking on a stranger's door, and you are basically giving them a choice to band together with their neighbors to fight their landlord, you have to have a plan, and it needs to make sense Hannah Schreger talks with Daniel about how to build tenant unions by applying labor organizing models.
On the dig podcast it's focused on the infrastructure money that's going to come into the municipalities and states. And we wrote a resolution that requires their contractors to hire at least 30 percent of employees from the metro, Birmingham metro area, and then 15 percent from pre apprenticeship programs.
Jacob and adam talk with patricia todd with jobs to move america about getting a local hire ordinance passed in birmingham And they react to trump's latest attacks on federal workers on the valley labor report Many people we interviewed, um, for our larger project on, uh, union politics told us this, that they had received, um, the ear of government like they had never before and certainly not in the, the years in the wilderness, uh, when Harper was in power.
But I'd say his first government didn't really produce much policy on labor rights, actually. And on labor start stephanie ross and larry savage discussed their new book shifting gears canadian autoworkers and the changing landscape of labor politics As usual, these are a few samples from the dozens of radio shows and podcasts airing on the labor radio podcast network You'll find all the shows at laborradionetwork. org, which we've recently updated to make it even more user friendly.
I'm chris garlock and that's all coming up on this week's edition of the labor radio podcast weekly As usual, let's get started with harold's quick rundown of shows.
You should know. Social Media Guy Harold Phillips here again, folks, and Ha ha ha ha I don't have to tell you that things have been kinda crazy this week with all the news that's coming out of the Trump administration, and Doge trying to take over agencies, and Treasury payments, and It can just be Be maddening to try and keep up with the news. The good thing is that our labor radio show and podcast members are doing their best to keep up with things for you.
And to remind you that there are some things that are happening that aren't all about Washington, D. C. Check out these Shows You Should Know for the week of February 6th. Tina, Audrey, and Deborah celebrate Black History Month by sharing the voices of Coalition of Black Trade Union Members discussing why union representation is necessary and what motivates them to be union activists on Labor Radio on CABU.
Joe Wilson, Larry Hamm, and Charles Hall talk with Bob about how A. Philip Randolph still speaks to us today. And how his perspective can help us navigate the challenges we face during the era of Trump 2. 0 on What's Going On Labor Monday. Workweek Radio shares stories on Panamanian unions protesting Trump's threats, a protest at billionaire David Sachs mansion, and the life and struggle of United Farm Workers of America founder Al Rojas.
Tilda and Jordan discuss beheaded Prime Minister's statues. The tech crash in the stock market and, of course, play some great music on Slacker Radio. Robert talks with former craft distiller and current SEIU Local 105 organizer Ben Ulrich about Colorado's outdated labor laws and why more workers are choosing to organize on the labor exchange. Madison Labor Radio shares stories on organized labor joining with immigrant workers ahead of the expected Trump administration assaults.
The Madison labor temple being put on sale. Trump going after not only the NLRB general council, but also a term protected board member and more. And if you're looking for letter carrier voices reacting to the no vote on the NALC's tentative contract with the post office. Check out some of the mail carrier oriented shows like Classes of Mail, Hot House with Richie Ray, and, of course, From A to Arbitration. And you know where to find links to those shows and over 200 more, right?
They're at laborradionetwork. org. If you want to be notified about the latest episodes of Labor Radio shows and podcasts in our network, be sure to follow us at laborradionet on Blue Sky. I'm Richie Ray. And yeah, we're still on Facebook, Instagram, and I can almost guarantee you that the weeks ahead are going to be just as crazy. So be sure to stay tuned to your local labor radio shows or podcasts and be sure to keep up with the network. We'll be keeping up with them. Back to you, Chris.
Thanks harold Here's the show Um, Welch's OJ cereal, orange chicken, uh, beef patties, bread, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, toilet bowl pods. My view are there. Crushed tomatoes are over here. Everything seasoning is over here. Salmon's back there. Avocados are there. Hi, this is Mary Ellen Flannery with NEA Today and that was Tamara Russell and her grocery list. Tamara is a National Board Certified fourth grade math teacher in Central Florida. This is her 26th year of teaching.
And her base salary is about 48, 000. So food shopping is a challenge for her. Recently, she took me along. See these St. Louis ribs? Were they good? Yes. And that's like five meals. Tamara shops twice a month because she gets paid twice a month. And she shops at Costco, even though her husband's a baker at another grocery store, because they run the numbers. And even with the annual membership fee, They spend less when they buy in bulk. This is 8. 79 for four boxes of Cheerios.
Normally, that would be one box of Cheerios. Now I just got four for less than 9. That makes a lot more financial sense for me. Tamara has a few strategies to save money. One, she buys stuff that will last. It's really important for us to buy staples that will keep. So if I buy strawberries here, I gotta eat strawberries like they're going out of style, otherwise they're gonna get spoiled. When I buy apples, that'll last me a long time. Oh, those are amazing. Those beets, do you like beets?
Two, she works with friends to split stuff up and share the costs. So I have one of my very best girlfriends at work. Every day, she goes to Dunkin and she buys an avocado toast. The avocado toast is like 4. 26 an avocado toast. I said, sis, because we're like sisters, and I said, sis, look at, look at the cost of this everything bagel seasoning. We could get that and then I could get a bag of avocados and you can freeze your, your bread.
She goes, I'm not going to be able to eat a whole bag of avocados. I said, well, why don't you split it with me? I love avocados. Yeah. She's like, okay, now I'm in. Um, so I need garlic. When Tamara first started teaching in Florida back in the late nineties, Florida ranked about 30th in the nation for average teacher salary. Today it's 50th. New teacher salaries are okay, but they don't go anywhere.
You could work here for 25, 30 years, and you might still get the same base salary as a brand new teacher down the hall. The cost of this isn't just that Tamara can't buy strawberries. The cost is nobody wants this job, which means students don't have the teachers or counselors or bus drivers that they need. Honestly, it is exhausting to spend this much time thinking about how much an avocado costs. Tamara's food budget is 500 a month.
That includes restaurants, which she doesn't go to, a few trips to the bodega, and two visits to Costco. For today, she's budgeted 300. Buying healthy, which is also her goal, is more expensive than buying unhealthy. And when we roll up to the cashier She's a little anxious. Girl, and we're at 211. Yeah. It feels like a win when we come in at 211, but it's a short term win.
Florida has a problem, and the long term solution is for educators to join their union and get organized for the pay and strawberries that they deserve, and that is exactly what Tamara is doing. In the meantime, I'm Ariellen Flannery from NEA Today. Thank you for listening. Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of QPcast. Are you hoping to learn more about unions and progressive movements? Then you're in the right spot. My name is Brianna Plummer. I use she, hers pronouns.
And I'm Mohammed Alqasem. On today's episode, we sit down with QP Locals 49, 48, and Local 79, and we discuss how they're engaging their members and the public as they head back to the bargaining table with their employer, the City of Toronto. Uh, so just to add on to what Mo has said today, we invited Brandon Haynes and Naz Yelahali, um, to QPCAST to speak about their campaign and how they're engaging with their members and the working class. during this round of bargaining.
So first you'll hear from Brandon. President of QP Local 4948, followed by Nas, President of QP Local 79. My name is Brandon Haynes, and I am the president of the Toronto Public Library Workers Union. We are members of CUPE, and our local is 4948, and I've been working at the library since 2004, so it's been quite a while, and I've been involved in different roles in the union. Um, but have been president since the very end of 2019 and slightly before, uh, the beginning of the pandemic.
I represent about 2300, uh, library workers at the Toronto Public Library. So we have a whole range of, uh, members in different roles, librarians. We have people that are truck drivers, uh, clericals, members that work in IT, and the whole gamut of all the unionized, Staff at the library, and we are the busiest public library system in the world. We do get millions and millions of visits every year.
And, um, there was a little bit of a running joke when Taylor Swift was in Toronto, because if you look at the number of people that attended, um. For concert every day. We do get more visits at the library per day than Taylor Swift attendees. It's about 34, 000 people that use the 100 locations in the city of Toronto. So we're very popular, very important to the city.
over the years, we actually have, uh, you know, experienced an increase in violence and harassment and other related incidents at the library. Um, you know, libraries are generally safe, but they are open to everyone. And we've seen an increase in, uh, you know, harassment, threatening behavior. Violence to the tune of 71 percent increase from 2022 to 2023. Another issue that we face is because of the decisions that are made.
Um, there's been a huge increase in the number of overdoses by the Ford government in terms of closing things like safe consumption sites. People do rely on the library to use drugs and to have, you know, access to that. So there's been a 529 percent increase in overdoses that have happened in libraries, and we support the workers that, you know, provide that harm reduction service to people. We've stood in solidarity with other locals, such as local 79.
Uh, whose members, uh, help with with that crisis that we're facing in the city, but it does trickle over into the library as well. Hi, Mo. Hi, Brianna. Thanks for having me, uh, on the podcast. I think a lot of people don't actually know, um, that we represent 30, 000, uh, City of Toronto inside workers, um, different than outside workers who are represented by local 416. So, um, we represent over 45 divisions in the city of Toronto.
So everything from child care, employment, social services, Toronto community housing, Bridgepoint Hospital, recreation, water, recreation facilities, Bylaw officers, shelters, long term cares, um, we have folks who are responsible for maintaining, uh, facilities. Um, I mean the, it's, it's really endless. So can you tell us what are some of the key issues the members of your local are facing in the workplace? I can, I can tell you the top two, three issues.
I think that's probably a good starting point. Uh, workers are overworked, they are underpaid and a lot of them have been complaining about mismanagement. So, um, recruitment and retention, uh, is a direct result of wages. Not being competitive and, um, you know, workplace morale is low and which leads, uh, or mismanagement is responsible for the low workplace morale. And, um, I mean, I think it's obvious, but people are overworked because of the recruitment and retention. Issue, right?
So when you don't, when you can't keep people and you can't recruit people, then you're, you know, the work does not demand it to go away. The work is still there, so you get other workers to carry the work of the workers that you can't recruit and retain. Thanks for listening. And as always in solidarity. You're listening to the labor radio podcast weekly from the labor radio podcast network labor radio network org Welcome to Apple Box Talks. I'm Crystal. And I'm Hilary.
Today on the Apple Box, we are joined by Justin Barnes, the lead for Real Green at Creative bc. Real Green was founded in 2006 and is committed to empowering productions and educating workers and unite species motion picture industry in driving how we can reduce our collective environmental impact. before I worked in film, I worked with the federal government and the provincial government in various levels of treaty negotiation and environmental impact assessment. And it was.
Really there that I learned about, um, you know, the scope, the breadth and the depth of impact in terms of sociology and environmentally to resource development projects and didn't feel like it at the time, but it was really able to graft that experience onto being a location scout because it's very much figuring out what the impact of filming is going to be for a business or a homeowner.
And doing it hyper, uh, fast time, you know, having about 10 to 15 seconds to look at a, at someone and realize, you know, what's the impetus for this person to engage, uh, because filming can be interruptive. And, uh, there's a few motivations you have to bring to people to that are just outside the fiscal, the monetary. So, um, really just doing that in hyper focus, quick drive and, and.
At the end of the day, putting an options on the table for homes, businesses, parks, any of that thing, so it didn't seem like there was a good, uh, overlap between those two, but as the process unfolded, it was quite clear to me that you're doing this 50 100 times a day and have finding out how to mitigate people's concerns or find ways to just bring them to the table.
Can you talk a little bit about your journey starting as someone doing research in politics and economy and all of these different pieces? What was the impetus for sustainability?
Well, sustainability really began for me, um, Half a lifetime ago, when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, um, I was working with a small community in northern Ecuador, um, indigenous community, helping them with their land use planning and really learning from them to figure out how they interacted with the land and what their objectives were. So it was really my first foray into community development on a grassroots level. I lived in a mud hut at 3000 meters.
without running water and one of those by candlelight. So it was a very much like living with on the same level of the people in my community and figuring out what life was like with them and how to understand.
How they interacted with the world around them and how I could help them with technical assistance and what that looked like was Doing some micro enterprise work with the women's group of my community working with the children to identify plant species and propagate them and create a nursery As well as, you know, doing some English teaching on the side to just really integrating myself into the community and earning the trust and then helping them operationalize what it
was they wanted to do in a structured way. Well, thank you for coming in today. You come by this work very authentically and, uh, I'm really happy to, to have you here for this interview and in this space and working with us and for us in our film community. I appreciate all the work that you folks are doing here. It's great to have partners like this and what's going to take as a community to really raise awareness and I really appreciate being invited here. Thank you so much.
Welcome to The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin Magazine. My name is Daniel Denver, and I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island. The Connecticut Tenants Union, or CTTU, is building a model. It has a plan to build strong, organized, militant tenant unions across their state, and then throughout the country.
I, for one, am a gigantic fan of the model that CTTU is developing, and I'm likewise a really big fan of my guest today, Hannah Schreier, an organizing wunderkind and comrade who leads CTTU as its president. Hannah Schreier, welcome to The Dig. Thanks. Nice to see you at your day job. I, uh, I ostensibly spend some time here occasionally.
so what we're doing and what we were doing at Connecticut Tenants Union when I met you was, we were trying to basically build a tenant union learning from the successes of labor unions, um, in the past 100 years.
And one of the things that I think is most important about the labor union to tenant union model is that labor unions In response to the boss's organization, built their own organization, they have eboards, they have really tight structures, they have income from their members, um, and that's the reason, or one of the reasons why labor has been able to maintain, even if it's lost a lot of power and the power has gone up and down over the past few decades, they're still
around, right, you don't see a lot of tenant unions that are still around from the 20s, from the 70s, From the fifties. You just don't, even though they did exist. And so what we're doing at Connecticut tenants union is. We passed a constitution that laid out a structure that was very similar to the structure of 1199. And then we borrowed a lot of methodologies from labor as well. And so we have a functioning tenant council, which functions like our e board.
And we build supermajority unions to fight for collectively bargained leases. Tell me more about what the Connecticut Tenants Union looks like in terms of its scale, its reach, its organization, and then also specifically. What your relationship with SEIU 1199 NE looks like now and how that, how that took off.
So we're a statewide union, which means we have chapters all across the state in Hartford, Stamford, Windsor, Woodstock, um, we're organizing a chapter in Stonington, we've got chapters in Bloomfield and Newington, et cetera, it can go on and on, um, and we have those chapters all across the state and they're organized either by building complex, by city, or by landlord, but most of our chapters are organized by building complex, and we have several
chapters that have the same landlord, so we're waging coordinated fights across multiple Um, our relationship with 1199 is really interesting because we use a lot of the 1199 organizing model. The way we think about the organizing conversation, the way that we think about militancy and escalatory action. And we really benefit from our deep relationship with the organization and the leaders of the organization where they let us use their office spaces.
They were our initial funder and they still are funding us significantly. And they also help in the sense of we are a tenant union that is part of the SCIU State Council where 1199 is also a leading member. And so when we fight, we get to say, you know, we are a member of SEIU and the other SEIU locals get to show up for us as a member union.
Like, when you are knocking on a stranger's door, and you are basically giving them a choice to band together with their neighbors to fight their landlord, you have to have a plan, and it needs to make sense. And I think that's actually where a lot of tenant unions and tenant organizing gets lost, is if we're just bringing people to a meeting, and then a meeting, and then a meeting, but it's not clear what we're doing together.
And so the plan to win really clearly lays out how we go from leader identification to winning a strong collectively bargained lease and a stepwise way get the leaders together and Have the leaders map out the complex, drop cards, get to supermajority, go public, escalate. even that simple stepwise framing is much more effective than just saying, don't you want to do something about it? Um, and then not having an answer to exactly what we do, how we win and how that model has worked in the past.
Well, Hannah Schreier, thank you very, very much, as always. Thanks, Dan. Labor creates all wealth. All wealth should go to labor. And you're listening to the Valley Labor Report. My name is Jacob Morrison. My co host is Adam Keller. If you've got anything to add, you can leave us a voicemail at 844 899 TVLR. We might respond to it on the next program.
We have on the line, right now, Patricia Todd, the Southern Policy Manager for Jobs to Move America, also a former legislator in the state of Alabama. Patricia, welcome to the program. It's good to be here with you all, um, with a lot to cover in these challenging times. So let's start with Birmingham. That's the city that you live in the city that you represented in the legislator. And, uh, what we're going to be talking about is a local school.
Higher ordinance that was recently passed by the Birmingham City Council jobs to move America was, um, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe the primary advocate for this local higher ordinance. So, um, so explain to us. What the ordinance does and how and what jobs to move America's role was in getting it passed. Well, we've been working on this for a year and a half with, uh, with the city, starting with the mayor's office and then, um, the chair of the Economic Development Committee.
And it was really, it's focused on the infrastructure money that's going to come into the municipalities and states. And we wrote a resolution that requires them, well, to require their contractors to hire at least 30 percent of employees from the metro, Birmingham metro area, and then 15 percent from pre apprenticeship programs. Now, we, um, It wasn't as forceful as we wanted, but it's a step. It's the first one in Alabama.
We would have liked to see it included, um, a minimum wage scale, um, priority hiring of people from marginalized communities. But this is a beginning and it passed unanimously. Um, and so we're moving on to another city to see if we can get the same thing done. And so this, this is only related to federal funds. I saw that the federal funds were mentioned in your press statements about it. So, so this is not, this is not generally applicable to Birmingham construction expenditures.
This is just about any money that we're getting from these federal infrastructure dollars. Uh, we're going to prioritize hiring local Birmingham residents. Here's the problem we have in Alabama. The Alabama legislature has power to preempt local resolutions or, uh, laws. And years ago, the city of Birmingham passed a resolution to have, uh, raised the minimum wage in Birmingham to 15. The state legislature preempted it so they couldn't do it.
So we have to be very careful in how we, um, and these funds allow for local hire, but that's why we can't expand it to be just all contracting. We hope in the future that we can, um, you know, this is taxpayers money. And the one thing that we focus on at Jobs to Move America is that when jobs are created through, um, taxpayer funds, whether it be through procurement, contracting or economic tax incentives, that they must be good jobs and go to people who really need them. And that's.
You know, um, the basis of the resolution. And the city council members got it because we have a high poverty rate in Birmingham and a high unemployment rate. And so the pre apprenticeship programs will give some of those people access to good skill training to be used down the road. So it is a win. It's a major victory. And, um, we hope other municipalities will, you know, follow suit. Thank you so much for your time, Patricia Todd.
Is there anything else that you want to make sure that you leave our listeners with before we let you go? Yeah, I just appreciate what y'all do and having these open discussions and I look forward to continuing to work with you. Same to you. Patricia Todd, Southern Policy Manager for Jobs to Move America. Really appreciate your time on the show today.
You're listening to the labor radio podcast weekly from the labor radio podcast network labor radio network org Hi, I'm Pat Bowmer with Labour Start, and my guests today are Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage, Labour Studies professors and authors of Shifting Gears.
This is a book that looks at the evolution of one of Canada's most formidable unions, from the UAW Canada to the CAW to Unifor today, and in particular the union shifting approach to politics from close ties to Canada's Labour Party, the NDP. to a more flexible approach with its political support in recent years. It's quite an evolution and journey, they recount, and, uh, disclosure, I'm a uniform member. Welcome. I just gave you my 15 second summary.
How would you describe your book in a few sentences? Well, thanks for having us, Pat. Um, uh, well, our book explores the political evolution of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, as you point out, which became Unifor in 2013.
And, um, really in the book What we chart is that, you know, as it became more difficult for auto workers to defend economic gains at the bargaining table through the 2000s and onward, and as the political environment became more hostile to working class concerns, which we started to see in the 1990s, um, the union has had to adopt a more pragmatic set of strategies to secure policies that might be protect the union's key sectors.
So we show how the union has moved away from a strong partisan relationship with the NDP that endured for nearly four decades, actually, to what we might say is a more transactional and defensive politics that tries to extract the best policy it can from whatever party is in government. And so we explore how and why that happened while also showing how these are dilemmas that are being faced by most unions today. So that's that's it in a nutshell.
I'd say perfect. Prime Minister Trudeau is leaving. He is resigning and, um. Despite some back to work legislation, it might, it might be considered that he may have been the most pro labor liberal leader we've seen. So what happens now? Well, I, I might want to take a little bit of issue with the premise of the question. I think, you know, there's some ways in which what you say is true, but on the other hand, you know, was Trudeau really pro labor?
Or did his minority government status and his, you know, in the last several years, his dependence on the NDP's support push him in that direction, you know, like his first government. immediately removed the anti union legislation that was put in by the Harper Conservatives, which was, you know, a promise that he had made to those segments of the labour movement that came into the, their electoral coalition. Uh, he was certainly more open to talking and consulting with unions.
Many people we interviewed, um, for our larger project on, uh, union politics told us this, that they had received, um, the ear of government like they had never before and certainly not in the, the years in the wilderness, uh, when Harper was in power. But I'd say his first government didn't really produce much policy on labor rights, actually. Um, when he had majority power, he didn't really use it to advance a labor rights agenda.
It's only with the minority government that we see the ban on the use of scabs. We see like the leap. Forward on other kinds of important social policies, like for working class people like PharmaCare Dental Care, and, and I don't think we should ignore the interventions at the ports in rail at Canada Post in, in some ways, I might argue that this reflects the liberal's default position on labor. Um, and, and that, you know, that being said.
I think it will be interesting to see what the new liberal leaders approach is, especially if they're fighting to stay in power, uh, and they need to maintain support from key unions as part of their electoral coalition. So, we may see, still, Some real debates inside the liberal party about how important the labor movement is to their electoral fortunes. Well, thank you for your time today.
And that's a wrap for this week's edition of the labor radio podcast weekly a roundup of Some of the programs aired over the last week on more than 200 labor radio and podcast shows They're all part of the labor radio podcast network shows that focus on working people's issues and concerns We've got links to all the network shows at labor radio network.
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You don't even need a microphone labor radio podcast t shirts are available their union made and you'll find them in all sizes and This podcast is recorded under a SAG AFTRA collective bargaining agreement, and the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly was edited this week by Captain Swing. I produce the show and our social media guru always and forever is Mr. Harold Phillips. For the Labor Radio Podcast Weekly, this has been Chris Garlick. Stay active and stay tuned to your local labor radio podcast show.
We will see you next week