America’s Work Force Union Podcast
America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides a clear and unfiltered voice for the working people of America. Radio veteran Ed “Flash” Ferenc leads the discussion with a focus on topics that include the impact of labor unions in America, workers’ rights, legislative actions and labor-management relations. Featured guests include various labor leaders, politicians, journalists and more. America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides updates and information from sources around the United States and continues to be the trusted voice for workers across the country.
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U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell on Trade, Social Security and Fighting for Workers
<p>Her father-in-law was fired for union activity, contracted tuberculosis and was sent west to die. He came back to Detroit, won a congressional seat and helped write the Social Security Act — standing in the room when Roosevelt signed it in 1935. That history is what Congresswoman Debbie Dingell carries into Congress every day.</p> <p>On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Dingell joins the Labor 132 series as co-chair of the 129-member Congressional Labor Caucus. She discusses why USMCA has not created a level playing field with Mexico, the national security threat posed by Chinese autonomous vehicles collecting da...
Insulators Local 6's Jeff Saliba on Energy, Recovery and Union Power
<p>Without the union, he says, he would qualify for Medicaid and food stamps doing the same insulation work. He has been sober for more than 20 years. He holds a Massachusetts license in addiction counseling. And he watches his members vote against their own economic interests every election cycle and cannot figure out how to get through to them.</p> <p>On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Heat and Frost Insulators Local 6 Business Manager Jeff Saliba joins on behalf of Pete Ielmini and the Mechanical Insulators LMCT. He discusses why the Boston hospital energy report...
Food Is Medicine, Aviation Safety and 49 Years of the Labor Fight
<p >Two conversations that connect the health of workers to the history of the movement that fights for them — one looking at what union members eat and how it affects their long-term health, and one tracing 49 years of a union that keeps the aviation system safe and has been fighting for the right to do that work well since 1977.</p> <p >Blue Cross Blue Shield National Labor Office Executive Director Merrilee Logue discusses the Food Is Medicine movement and what it means for the 18 million union members covered through BCBS plans. She outlines updated USDA dietary guidelines emphasizing protein, healthy fa...
USW's John Lepley on Homestead, Carnegie and the Fight That Built Labor
<p>Carnegie's name is on libraries, museums, endowments and an entire town in Pennsylvania. His 1889 essay, The Gospel of Wealth, said the wealthy should give away their fortunes for the public good. After Homestead broke the union in 1892, workers who had eight-hour shifts went to 12-hour shifts and eventually to 24-hour shifts every two weeks. A worker killed in a blast furnace left his family $75, including burial. That is the other side of the Carnegie story.</p> <p>On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, United Steelworkers Director of Education John Lepley traces the full arc of the 1892...
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan on the Labor Caucus, PRO Act and Clean Energy Jobs
<p>The federal minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009. The Congressional Labor Caucus has 128 members — and everyone must actually support the PRO Act to join. Clean energy projects that were creating union jobs across the Midwest have been canceled by the Big Beautiful Bill. And 50 million Americans would join a union today if the barriers were lower.</p> <p>On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Wisconsin Congressman and 30-plus-year IUPAT member Mark Pocan discusses what worker power looks like from inside the House of Representatives. He covers the Labor Caucus membership requirement and why vi...
9/11 at 25, US Shipbuilding and the 2032 Social Security Cliff
<p >Two conversations that connect the service of the past to the policy fights of the present — one honoring those who answered the call after September 11, and one sounding the alarm about a Social Security funding cliff that Congress has the tools to prevent but has not yet used.</p> <p >American Legion Media and Communications Director Henry Howard joins with the September update as the 25th anniversary of September 11 approaches. The September cover story of the American Legion Magazine, Sacred Honor, was written by Ben King — a Radio Shack worker in Washington who decided within hours of the attacks that...
Bill McCamley on Wage Theft, Labor History and the Trades Crisis
<p>In 1806, members of America's first labor union were found guilty of criminal conspiracy for demanding higher wages. In 2017, wage theft cost 2.4 million workers more than $8 billion. Today, construction workers die by overdose at approximately 16 times the rate of conventional workplace accidents. The fight for a fair day's wage is 232 years old and still going.</p> <p>On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition Director Bill McCamley joins the Labor 132 series for a conversation that runs from the 1794 Cordwainers through the Gilded Age robber barons, the Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting era and the...
Medicare for All History, Head Start Cuts and Ohio's Education Fight
<p >Two conversations that connect the long arc of labor's fight for workers and their families to the battles happening right now — one tracing a century of organized labor's role in winning healthcare coverage for Americans and one reporting from the front lines of public education in Ohio as the school year begins.</p> <p >National Nurses United Medicare for All Campaign Director Jasmine Ruddy traces the labor movement's century-long fight for national health insurance, from the first push tied to the Social Security Act in 1935 through the AMA's repeated opposition campaigns, the AFL-CIO's landmark 1957 declaration of government health insurance as...
SMART Union and Union EAP on Mental Health Support That Actually Works
<p>They audited the EAP numbers. They called them. One program — marketing comprehensive mental health services — told them it did not do mental health when faced with a complex case. That is when SMART's Chris Carlough and Union EAP's Ben Cort knew something had to be built from scratch.</p> <p>On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, SMART Director of Wellness and Mental Health Support Chris Carlough and Union EAP CEO Ben Cort discuss 14-plus years of peer training inside the sheet metal trades, what the audit of existing EAPs actually revealed and how Union EAP was buil...
Cleveland Teachers Fight Back and 100 Years of American Labor Law
<p >Two conversations that connect the labor movement's past to its present — one showing what union solidarity looks like in action today and one tracing the legal history that explains why that solidarity is still so necessary.</p> <p >Cleveland Teachers Union President Errol Savage discusses his first day in office — the same day the district announced 310 teacher layoffs — and how he responded the only way he knew how: by organizing, showing up and fighting alongside his union brothers and sisters. More than 600 teachers and Cleveland community members showed up at a Board of Education meeting that typically drew a handfu...
