Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240703

Living paychecktopaycheck and the sector of Union Strikes looms larger than it has in years. A partial look at how things are on this labor day. Welcome to washington journal. We begin asking you about the Biggest Challenges you see facing American Workers. Going in the discussion. If you are currently employed and working, the line is 202 7488000. If you are looking for work, unemployed, 202 7488001. If you are retired, use 202 7488002. We welcome your comments via text. That is 202 7488003. Tell us your name and where you are texting from and you can post your comments on facebook, x and instagram cspanwj. The Biggest Challenges you see facing American Workers, things like job security, pay, remote work, unions, etc. 202 7488000 is the line to use for those of you who are working. 202 7488001, if you are unemployed or looking for work. We will get to your comments and suggestions momentarily on washington journal. We will start with nerd while its look at seven stats about American Workers. They do a lot of financial facts. Labor day snaps not, seven thats about American Workers. When labor day became a federal holiday in 1894 before Artificial Intelligence and remote work, the American Workforce faced other significant disruptions. Workers were beginning to leave the farming jobs that up until the 1800s had made over half the work force. According to a 19 66 Wesleyan University study, many of those farmers as well as new immigrants, headed to growing cities for industrial work. The seven challenges they see on this labor day, 2023, lowest on employment rate in five decades. Women are gaining on men in the labor market. Unemployment is low among all tract races and ethnicities. Ai looks to be the new frontier in the workforce. Artificial intelligence is the latest disruptor there. Union membership is more rare than ever, but more workers are going on strike. Finally, postcovid they say, work from home arrangements are here to say. We will dive into that a little more from nerd wallet. This is from the associated press. Their headline, about unions, from strikes to new Union Contracts, labor days organizing roots are especially strong this year. They say that conservatives need the eartember tribute to workers has been an official hodaforemost 130 years. But, and emboldened Labor Movement has created an environment closer to the era from which labor day was born. Like the late 1800s, workers are facing rapid, Economic Transformation and a gwing gap in pay between themselvesnd new, billionaire leaders of industry, mirroring the start inequality seen more than a century ago. 202 7488000, the line to call if you are currently working. 202 7488001, if you are looking for work. If you are retired, 202 7488002. We ask you the question this morning, what you see as the biggest challenge facing American Workers . This was the president of the aflcio, lives sure, and her state of the Union Address state of the unions address. Here is some of what she had to say. [video clip] every day, i travel this country and talk to workers. I am talking to workers in onions, but also unions, but talking to people who are yet part of a union. This is what i hear from them. I do not feel good about my future. I need to make more money. I wish i could afford a home. I need a stable job. I wish i had some power over my work and my life right now. There is a reason that song, north of richmond, is the number one song in this country right now. For a long time, working people in this country have felt powerless. They have been powerless. Here is the truth we are going to talk about today. Working people are reclaiming our power. [applause] working people. Working people are taking on the companies that have exploited us for a long time now. So, the state of the unions, the state of the unions is on the rise. [applause] on the rise with every strike, with every picket line, every win we deliver for workers all over this country. Host part of liz schullers comments last week. 202 7488000, the lines use for those of you who are currently employed. 202 7488001, for those of you who are looking for work, unemployed. For retired workers, 202 7488002. The biggest challenge facing American Workers. Our opening topic on washington journal this morning. From the Washington Post this morning, the headline, workers cast aside the 95 grind. Whitecollar workers back in the office, just do not expect them for eight hours as more companies tell American Workers to return to their cubicles for3 or four days a week, part of a wave of tougher returned to Office Mandates kicking in this fall. One thing is clear. The era of sitting at your desk from 9 00 a. M. To 5 00 p. M. Is over. Instead, a transformative shift to the work day, employees are cashing in on an unspoken new flexibility, they are returning to the office on their own terms. Coming in late after a workout, or leaving early to grab groceries or pickup their children before logging back on. While Many Employers are now asking people to come in a certain number of days a week, hardly any are tracking exactly how long they stay. In most of the country, about half of Office Visits now last at least six hours, according to a work place analytics firm, that is in stark contrast to before the pandemic. Kevin, virginia on the retired line. Go ahead. Caller yes, living on a fixed income is hard. I feel there should be basic, universal income for 500 a month for all retirees. That is how i feel. I think it would help out a lot. Host all right. Also from queens on the retired line is joe. Good morning. Caller good morning. The issue with jobs and everything, this is a great country and there is always opportunity. What is happening now is, america got during covid. Work is still the same. The achievement is still the same, working at home then going to be honest, i think being home, we are getting more accomplished. The travel that some of these workers take, takes two or three hours to go back home, especially in new york city. He popped out of bed, start working and getting into the grind of things. You probably get things done. I think because of covid, the workforce has changed. It is making america lazy in a sense, they do not have to get up and get dressed and get ready to go. In the other sense, you are probably getting more work done being at home. It is not a bad thing in that sense, either. It is a catch 22. We are in the middle. Host host it is a tough one. Appreciate that. This is the view from nerd wallet and the seven trends they are seeing in the American Workforce on this labor day. The work from home arrangements are here to stay. They write the majority of fulltime workers, 59 still spend their weeks on site at their jobs but the pandemic seems to have caused a permanent shift for many. The larger share of workers not spending all or some of their time working from home, according to an August Survey of working arrangements and attitudes. Before the pandemic, workers spent less than 5 of their time working from home according to the American Time use survey. Now, they do so more than 30 of the time. A consortium of researchers and universities that has conducted the monthly Online Survey since may 2020 saw the figure has 60 in the fall of 2021, at the height of the pandemic. Biggest challenge for American Workers. 202 7488000, for those of you who are working. For those of you who are working for work, 202 7488001. For our retired callers, 202 7488002. Lynn is in baltimore. Good morning. Caller yes, unfortunate that americans do not really know the authentic history of labor day, why it came into being. I am a little disappointed cspan has let me down on that this morning. I wish you would have reminded people that the original holiday for started i the International Working Mens Association in the 1840s was called mayday, it was held on mayday. That was considered the International Level celebration of the working class. Labor day as we know it here in the United States was an innovation by some clever american capitalists that created an alternative to coopt those tendencies and lure workers away from the ideas of these radical marxists that basically celibate in their labor day on mayday. We have labor day as a counterpoint to what was the International Celebration the workers held every year, mayday. It is pretty clear the biggest challenge the American Working class and the International Working class faces is ai robotics and centralization of power and institutions like the World Economic forum, or the uns world health organization. I thought it was interesting that your prior caller blamed this or that or talked about the pandemic. There was no pandemic in my eyes. What we had were lockdowns. I do not even accept the media that there was a pandemic. That is part of the problem we are facing. If you are willing to submit to that false narrative, you have surrendered your rights as an independent, human being. If you are going to make them vax you to have a job or be tested or stick that qtip up your nose or be forced to mask because of these corrupt, corporate institutions telling you you are in the middle of a pandemic, you deserve what you get, American Working class. Thanks for giving me the time. Host lets here for todd from todd who is looking for work in michigan. Caller yes, i am calling from the state of affairs in my state. We have lost so much population that we have taken away the Good Companies and me being 25 years, almost 30 years in the Construction Business, you cannot find anybody now that pays you legally. That wants to take your taxes out, that will give you Social Security or benefits. Host why not . What is going on there . Caller well, it is due to the population loss we have lost in our state for almost 15 years. The way i look at it, we are at the bottom barrel of employers. They refuse to 1099 you, they refused to w to you. Therefore, i am not going to work for another company when i spent time to where i built up a nice Social Security for myself and i am going to turn around and i am going to work the last 10, may be eight years, of my working career for nothing. Host what kind of work do you do . When you are working, what is your career . Caller i am an interior and exterior kolker. I have been for almost 20 years. You just cant find any reliable, Good Companies in this state anymore. It does not matter if you are a framer, a drywaller, a painter, whatever. The Construction Business back in michigan, they refuse to take they refused to 1099 you. Therefore, that hurts your Social Security when you get older in life. You have to pay into it. If you do not pay into it, you do not get nothing. Host if they are not going to give you a w2, what are they doing . Caller you know what, they go through so many people it is surprising, sir. It really is. They have such a big turnover in this state in construction that it is amazing. Yet, unless you are not a union worker in this state, this is the way our state is running now. Host i appreciate your experience. We will go next to joel on the working line calling from middleton, wisconsin. Good morning. Caller hey, bill. You are one of my favorite hosts ever and i appreciate you and cspan. Residency, 120 hours a week. I do not buy into this less than eight hours a week, or this coming in crap. It is not going to work that way around me, i guarantee you. Im getting older. No. It is not going to work. We are not going to compete with the rest of the word world well with that mentality that many people do. I do not have anything profound to say. Host what kind of work have you been doing . Caller physician. And, i work half a day. 6 00 a. M. To 6 00 p. M. Or 6 00 p. M. To 6 00 a. M. That is what it takes to get the job done. If people get that mentality we have the capacity to do that. For people that have to take off to take a quick cleaning or something, no, we are not doing that. So. Thank you, bill. Host thanks for your call. 202 7488000, the line for those of you who are currently employed. If you are unemployed, not working, 202 7488001. The line for retired folks, 202 7488002. From foxbusiness opinion piece, labor day 2023, here is a principal way for workers to make their own choices. The authors of this piece right that, conservatives need to commit to poliethat prioritize workers having the unities they needo lead rewardg and fulfilling careers using their own ingenuity and initiative to contribute to 21st century innovation and serve families and local communities. That means empowering workers to make moretheir own choices, std of letting bureaucrats and Union Officials control what they earn, where they work and how our economy forces. Nor the workforce of 2 resembles that of the 1950s big lar era, which iof the reasons workers and families we bng have to begin with the freedoms for workers to make important career decisions or themselves. The opinion piece of a couple authors in foxbusiness. Lets hear from john in amsterdam, new york, on the retired line. Go ahead. Caller good morning. If younger people today are demanding certain benefits that they are not receiving, that a lot of places they do not have pensions like they used to, you can collect Social Security by going all over the country and working, but they should have the same type of system for pensions. So, the younger people that are demanding certain hours and hours they want work, the factories where i work are gone. Most people, younger people, if you do not have that much of an education, you end up working in a Department Store or supermarket. There is nothing wrong with that. But, there is something wrong with this. As long as we got to change our work habits, the younger people are not going to want to work 40 hour work weeks. If you can pay your bills and biden thinks you want to buy, there has to be a big change of the workforce in which there is. If people are losing their pensions who got pensions which is not right, that is something that has to be looked into. Social security is going broke. The amount of money you put into your immediate family, not to other people, that is what it should be. That is what people are getting pissed off about. It is your money and it should be used for your family when you are gone. Host nerd wallet on this labor day, the seven stats about labor day, the workforce on this labor day. A couple more of those here we have talked about a few already. Ai looks to be the new frontier in the workforce, the workplace. Artificial intelligence is the latest disruptor to the workplace. Accelerated by generative ai tools like chatgpt, from openai and barda. An estimated one quarter of all tasks could be automated among the jobs most exposed to ai. According to a march report from olden sacks, another report released in july at mckinsey estimates that by 2030, workplace activities that account for up to 30 of hours worked in the u. S. Could be automated. A couple other stats, Union Membership is more rare than ever. About 14. 3 million workers were part of a union in 2020 according to the bureau of labor statistics. As a portion of u. S. Workforce, Union Membership is more rare than ever. In 2022, 10. 1 percent of workers belonged to a union, down from 20. 1 of workers in 1983, the earliest comparable data. They say that more workers despite that are going on strike, even while Union Membership is down. More workers are turning to strikes as a way to pressure employers to agree to higher wages and better working conditions. The number of workers participating in a major strike involving at least 1000 workers increased by at least 50 from 2021 to 2022, according to the beos, that is from the statistics compiled by nerd wallet. Lets hear from ronald in roxbury, massachusetts. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller i keep on hearing about this show me something on the tv about this. Talking about the, at 187,000 people that got jobs. What is they talking about . I was in south korea. Then, i was in the vietnam war. I do not see where all these jobs are. Stop making these phone calls and keep campaigns with jet engines. What happened to the four jet engines . Even trump flying a jet engine with two engines. You got to show me something on the screen on tv. Host lets hear from michael in columbia, south carolina. Go ahead. Good morning. Caller how are you doing . How are you doing this morning . Host just fine, how are you doing . Caller i was doing i am doing fine. I am calling concerning the gap in michigan. If you are owing to work, you have got to work for a company and they are going to take Social Security out. Therefore, i hear him say he is working these construction jobs and that is where you have got to pay into your own Social Security. If you do not pay into Social Security, you do not get none. His point was, he is not putting into Social Security. You have to go to the Social Security office and get those forms and put your money into the Social Security. Host what i think part of his point to was, he was saying in michigan, there are not any jobs the employers he was working at, providing jobs that were either w2based or 1099based. Caller still, no matter you have got to put in, too. I know in my younger days, i worked three jobs. I worked at night, during the morning and for myself a little bit. I still put into Social Security. It is something to let the people know. They want the government to give them something they aint worked for. Host how long did you work for before you were retired . Caller oh, man. I worked since i was 17 years old. I worked legal jobs after school. I went to college, i worked at night. People got to understand in order to get Social Security, you got to put into it no matter what. Host from the hill this morning about President Bidens labor day plans, bite into tout economic plan in labor day remarks in philadelphia. The present will travel to lavelle for today to mark labor day. And deliver remarks likely set on his administrations economic plan for American Workers, a white house official says. The president is slated to speak at the annual tristate they were parade in philadelphia where he is likely to discuss his bidenomics agenda. The white house has spent the last few weeks lobbying its agenda in the wake of the oneyear anniversary of the inflation reduction act, a sweeping economic legislation aimed at tackling inflation, increasing jobs and decreasing unemployment levels. On this labor day, we are talking to you on the Biggest Challenges you see facing the American Work worse. It is 202 7488000, the line to use if you are working. 202 7488001, if you are not. If you are retired, use 202 7488002. We will hear from darrell in warren, michigan. Good morning. Caller hello. Host go ahead. Caller i worked at General Motors since i was 18 years old. I worked at 70 implants. They closed all 70. I worked four years in wisconsin. I worked 26 in detroit. They closed all of them. So, i applaud sean fain for taking him on. What they tell you is not the truth. That is just the truth of that. They do not tell you the actual truth of what they are going to do. If i applaud biden for showing up in philadelphia because in the charter area, i do not know what happened. [laughter] that is the truth on that. Host what is your sense . Is there going to be a strike in detroit . Caller yes. I hope if they are going to do it, they take on all three. It never made any sense to me to punish one company and give the other two an advantage. Host what do you see as the Sticking Point . What does the uaw went . Caller end of tears. Simple as that. When i get hired in 90 days, i get paid the same amount of wages and benefits that a guy that had worked for 30 years there. You should not determine what somebody is worth by when they got hired in. Host so, the companies are now having different pay levels for when folks are hired . Caller yes. Which is basically wrong, because anybody who works here on the line is going to get only hurt bodily. I have had six epidurals in my back. I have had back surgery. When they say when you work on the line, you give up your back, i am living proof. Host this is reporting of the New York Times this morning on the potential strike you were talking about, auto strike looms, threatening to shut detroits big three. They write the United Auto Workers union and three detroit automakers have less than two weeks to negotiate a new labor contract and a strike of some sort seems increasingly likely. The unions president sean fain has primed rank and file members to be prepared to walk off the job of the unions long list of demand for improved wages and benefits are not met, a against one of the companies prolonged stoppage could send an economic jolt through several midwestern states and quit the profits of General Motors, ford motor or still want is gm workers. Gm workers walked out for 40 days in 2019 before reaching an agreement. A strike against all three says the New York Times, a step the union has never taken but one mr. Mcbain said he is willing to call for this year, could have a noticeable impact on the broader u. S. Economy. Ray is in arlington, virginia. Tell us about your working experience. Caller i worked in virginia. Host go ahead. Caller i am from arlington, virginia. Host ray in arlington, vermont. Im am sorry about that. Caller yeah. Well, the way i look at it is, the workforce is being weakened because of Illegal Immigrants they are allowing to come through in this country. Flooded everywhere, flooding all the cities and stuff. Not only that, but we are taking our instructions from Charles Schwab and the economic form, what to do, stepbystep instructions of, better be followed to the team. Getting rid of your oil, which our country, one of the strongest countries with natural gas and oil and stuff. They are cutting those things out. All the things that are good are becoming bad because purposely, being done. It is a plan to make america less of a powerful nation. And to bring other nations up to where we are at. And, directions to a new world order that weakens america and weakens the people of america and help the elitists to get what they want and run the country and the world. Host lets hear from clara calling from murphreesboro, tennessee. Good morning. Caller good morning. I can understand workforce today wanting to have fewer work hours. My main problem with todays workforce is the quality of work that we receive. From the Health Care Industry to the industrial industry, you name it, quality of workmanship is not there anymore. Especially in the fast food and retail industry. I personally think that because of the universities and the school systems, they are not churning out being educated workforce today. So, i do understand why, especially some industries, the Construction Industry in particular, would want a reduced workforce. But, that is my comment. I think if they want fewer hours, at least the quality of workmanship should be there, no matter what you do. Host youre bigger point is that you feel that the education level, the education has failed, at least the workers you are encountering as you say in the industrial and fast food arena . Caller and the medical industry. Often, that as a consumer that consumer of that. I am telling you, the caliber. I admire the nurses and everyone working in the medical field, but i am telling you, the quality is not there anymore. It is just not there. People could care less if they do their job or do not do their job. If they do not do their job, so what . They will live in a tent somewhere. The quality is just not there. I do believe that a lot of it is because of the educational system that we have. Host thanks for your call this morning, an opinion piece in this mornings Washington Times this labor day. The writer, mark mix, th headline on his piece, America Needs the natiol right to work act is his opinion in the Washington Times this morning. She was on this program a short while ago talking about strikes and the rise of stripes in this country this year. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] workers across the country have looked at conditions of the economy with inflation and other things. Not keeping up with inflation is a important part of ones financial stability. Unfortunately for the last couple of years, inflation has been running rampant because of increases in Government Spending and stimulating the economy in a way that encourages people to stay home and not go to work reflects that. There has been an increasing number of strikes and labor disputes. Part of the reason is because joe bidens department of labor and the National Labor Relations Board have decided they are going to use the tools they have two encourage unionization. Joe biden said he once to promote unions, promote unions, promote unions. I think a lot of Union Officials understand that and think when they think of the department of labor and the international Relations Board, really against them is something they do not expect. They can be more aggressive and they have been previously. Host the opening question for you, what do you see as the biggest challenge facing American Workers . The lines to use, if you are working, 202 7488000. If you are not working, unemployed, 202 7488001. The line for retired folks, 202 7488002. Some comments from our viewers and listeners on facebook, facebooks facebook. Com cspan. Elsa says getting a fair wage, health insurance. From bob, government is at every level, taxing them excessively and inflation generated by the same governments reducing of buying power that is left. Tom says the challenge is, which of the million jobs created under biden to take . Carolyn says being told they have to take an injection. This one says, getting a fair compensation for their work. Corporations are making record profits and ceos are compensated heavily. Been too long that workers have not received better compensation. Don is in washington state, looking for work. Good morning. Caller good morning, bill. I am actually calling on behalf of my father. A little story here. I know you guys a couple weeks ago had the union guys on for yellow trucking, ups and whatnot. I just wanted to add my piece of the pie to that. My dad, he is two years short of 70 years old. He has been working for a Trucking Company that was purchased by yellow about seven or eight years ago. He has worked for that company for 30 years. He worked all through the pandemic. His hours, he gets up 9 00 at night, drives all night, longhaul trucker across country. Gets home. He has done that for early years. He spent his whole life in the truck. I was watching foxbusiness about a week ago and a union rep for yellow and ups, all of them, was on there. I do not know if you can find the clip. He mentioned that he went to the white house two weeks ago to meet and was asked at the end of the segment if he was part of the do Joe Bidens Administration to sacrifice 30,000 Union Members through yellow to make a deal with ups to get back at amazon. My dad is now unemployed. He has tried to get a job the last three week because the Social Security got raised last year. Now, he has to work two more years. That will probably keep getting bumped up. He has gone to about four different places. No one will hire him. The man has over 3 million miles. He has got more wards for Truck Driving then i have ever seen. Awards for Truck Driving and i have ever seen. I wondered if you could pull that clip up to show where the man who runs the union for these folks made a deal to sacrifice 30,000 Union Workers through yellow make a deal with joe bidens union. If you could pull that clip up, that would be great. Host i do not know that we can, but thanks for informing us about that. In monument, colorado, ted is next. Go ahead. Caller i am ted from colorado. I love cspan. I was retired, i was a steelworker for 25 years. The plant shut down and i was on retirement. I moved to colorado. I lived with my grandchildren. They could not find janitors to help clean the schools, so i figured i would go back to work. I go back to work, i am enjoying my job, i am enjoying being with the kids and teachers. I am not getting paid too much money, but that is not why i went back to work. I stayed back to work to get busy. I ask the cafeteria worker what is going on. She is going to have to leave her job. She is 76. I figured, let me see what is going on. I applied for another job to help in the cafeteria. I do two jobs, i am a janitor for eight hours and for five hours i work in the cafeteria. My biggest complaint with the jobs is that we are not getting paid to do much money. With the price of cars and fuel and groceries and everything else, you know, i work both jobs and i think i make about 35,000 a year gross. There are jobs out there if people want to work, but they do not seem to be paying too much money for just the average working guy that does not have much of an education. So, they have a referendum in my township or my community where they went to pass a day they want to pass an increase in taxes to pay the teachers and staff more money. It always fails. I live in an affluent community. I am really confused about what is going on. Host when do you think the last time workers at your pay level there in monument in your township had a pay raise . Caller i want to say, i have been getting pay raises. But as a janitor, i am making a little over 19 an hour. This year, i got a dollar raise. Last year, i got two dollars race. Ok . In the kitchen, i got a dollar and a half raise last year. This again, i am a lima in 16 an hour in the kitchen. Believe me, it is a lot of work to feed our students. I love them all and i am glad to do the work. We have got raises. When i started to work, it was 14 an hour. Now, six years later, i am still working for six years, i am going to be 73 in october. My one job in the kitchen is 16 and the janitor is 19, even though we have been getting raises. How do they expect people to live off that kind of money . I am retired and i am getting Social Security and a pension from the steel mill. Here is the kicker. Because i do not have 30 years in Social Security, because the mill shut down after 25 years, i just found out that when i qualify for my pension, they are going to take away some of my Social Security because it is called what the heck is it called that reagan passed about oh, man, i cannot the thing. Windfall tax, they call it. Ok . Ok. Now, when i retire, i plan to work another four years they are going to take away some of my Social Security because of windfall tax. That do not make no sense to me. I would have went back anyway because i like doing service for my community. Host enjoy your wellearned they off on labor day. Day off on labor day. We will go to fill phil in long island, new york. Caller good morning. A lot of good topics between washington, veonand colorado. We have got to remember after the recession is the housing recession in 2007. A lot of jobs that were created were Part Time Service secr jobs. You had people working two and three jobs let the other gentleman spok about t make ends meet. At we are seeing now where a lot of these jobs, bloomberg and otr siness persons, a lot of jobsheyreated were Service Sector jobs. When these people wanted their money or maxed out their credit card, those Service Sector jobs are going to be going away. The other thing the gentleman talked about, the pipeline and cutting deals, when they cut the keystone pipeline, there was a deal between the unions and the Biden Administration that they were going to get those people jobs in the green energy. All right . I do not know how many people got those jobs. Here is the problem. We shut these pipelines down here. Today as we speak in this moment , netanyahu from israel is meeting with cyprus and greeks to put a gas facility inside a ship to europe. At the same time, turkey is in negotiations about a pipeline to go from there to Northern Europe from the middle east. They are paying more here for gas and electric because we are doing less. At the same time, priscilla wants us to pay for brazil wants us to pay for climate change. India is building the World Largest oil refinery on the west coast. They are putting a pipeline inside. Nigeria not nigeria, ethiopia, is putting in a hydroelectric plant. We are going backwards. They are going forward. Nigeria has the dirtiest oil. We have the cleanest oil and are doing less. Most citizens here have no clue what is going on with all this stuff around the world. We are paying for it. You watch, the g20, usa and the west pay for. Let us pay for what they want to do. This is going backwards. As far Social Security goes, you only need to work 10 years to qualify for Social Security. Who works 10 years . Instead of raising the age, they should raise the requirements that you have to work 20 years. Then, you qualify. The public unions in this country are destroying the rest of the country. The private sector unions are going to war and have no idea how much tax dollars are being wasted on private sector unions. It has gone to far. I was a private sector union guy and a Public Sector union guy. Host appreciate your call. 15 minutes of your calls this hour as we are focusing on the Biggest Challenges you see for American Workers. 202 7488000 for those of you working. 202 7488001, if youre looking for work. For the retired line, 202 7488002. From the New York Times on this labor day, the business section, where in the world are workers in the office . Talking about an International Survey of Remote Workers and the countries with the most amount of remote working, the u. K. And britain. Reading from this piece in the business section, when the pandemic took hold in 2020, Many Industries across the world shifted to remote or hybrid work. It was an experiment that yielded different results for different cities. With longterm standouts between executives and workers in some cases and a sweeping return to office and others, levels of remote work there rate across regions on factors like housing density, length of covid lockdowns and cultural norms, surrounding how much workers can fight for workplace at tom amis according to interviews with nearly two dozen workers and executives as well as a study that included researchers at stanford and the institute of technological and the evo institute, who surveyed more than 42,000 workers in 34 countries. Whether a person is more likely to do work at a cubicle, in a big office, or on the living room couch depends on where in the world those cubicles are. A larger survey on this showed the most amount of remote work still happening in the u. S. And the u. K. With up to six days per month, the least amount. In some asian countries, and particularly japan and south korea, with two days of remote work per month. Lets hear from steven calling from vermont on the working line. Go ahead. Caller thanks for taking my call. I do not know where to start. I have been working since the mid1970s when i was in high school. I have been paying taxes. I am going to collect my Social Security. When i turn my retirement age, 66. 5 in january, i purchased a house back in, lets see, 22 years ago. I bought it for 68,000, put about 40,000 into the house. My property taxes then were about 700 a month. Now, they are 3000 a year. I just do not know where it stops. You take a look at people who have worked their whole lives, worked hard. You look at politicians. To hire a politicians after they retire, they are making salaries for life, 400 something thousand, guaranteed. I do not know where it stops. The working people pay for their benefits. The taxes are just crazy. My Property Valuation is right out of control. I live in vermont, have lived here my whole life. People move up from the city, they buy property, they have money and it escalates the cost of property. Just flies right off the wall. I do not know where it ends, but i am going to keep working until i cannot work anymore. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Host vermont senator peter welch spoke about workers and urged parties to come together to support the American Worker from his speech on the senate lore this summer. [video clip] we represent, despite many differences of many issues, share common needs. All the things that families and communities need. Affordable housing, safe schools, good health care, a secure environment for our kids. Good jobs where you can pay your monthly bills and have a little left at the end of the month. We shared that in common. The question i have is this. If we share so much respect for citizens here and our commitment to their shared aspiration, why cant we make more progress . Why are we so divided . Madam president , i believe there is two reasons. First, our democracy is more in peril at this time then at any time since our civil war. Second, working and middleclass americans have been treading water economically for the past 40 years. Topdown economic policies have failed them. The towns many of us screw up in that support our communities are vanishing. Many americans, no matter how hard they work, still struggle to pay their bills. Madam president , our challenge is strengthening our democracy and improving the Living Standards for everyday americans. We must do both, or we will not do either. Democracy depends on trust. It also depends on results. If conditions stagnate for working americans and they fall further behind, their trust in democracy will begin to erode. We need democracy to ensure that working families have a seat at the table when their aspirations are at stake. Host back to your calls on this labor day morning. Wade is in huntsville, alabama. Hi there. Caller hey, this is wayne, retired Sergeant First Class with the army of 32 years. Let me explain what i am talking about. I have been watching youtube. Youtube has shown me where there is a lot of abandoned military bases and ghost towns. These people who are coming across the border, if we can set up these classes where they can speak english and find out what kind of trait did they have, carpenter, maintenance, security, farming if they can get these people on the road to work and become citizens and about three years. Another area i noticed, gary, indiana, all kind of abandoned buildings. Detroit on a lot of places in the United States. Instead of sending them to places like new york or chicago where they are getting handouts, they want to work. That is why they are here, to her. I worked from 15 years old. We got all these abandoned ghost towns, military bases they can go to, learn a skill. Build these places up. I think they would be happier. I know our government can do something if they want to do it. Thank you for letting me be a part of cspan. This is my first time. Host thank you for calling this morning. From our labor day coverage on the cspan networks, we include the aflcio president liz schuler, she gave her speech about the state of americas unions. And, the challenges facing organized labor. She is joined by members of the federation of american teachers, sagaftra and the International Weather code of electrical workers. You can follow her comments tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan, cspan now, our free mobile app and on cspan. Org as the Labor Day Weekend wraps up. President biden, leaving his Vacation Home in delaware early this morning. As we mentioned earlier, headed for philadelphia and the labor day parade. A look at the present earlier this morning. President earlier this morning. [video clip] host lets get back to calls. Gary in evansville, indiana. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are on the air, go ahead. Caller i am a iew union member. I have been working Union Construction most of my life. What i have seen, working class and everything, we are celebrating our 137th year of labor day. Hundreds of thousands of people used to come to princeton, indiana, 100 years ago to march 4 unions and stuff. My main point is this, the same as our constitution and everything, who we are is who we were. People have lost sight of who we were. The battles, the fights that our forefathers fought to give us this great country. People are forgetting that. They look at it like, lets go for the big money. Unions, nobody cares about that anymore. Who we are is who we were. Hundreds of years ago. When we lose that, we lose our country. We lose our democracy. These people have worked nonunion jobs that paid high wages, they get those high wages because the companies are trying to keep the unions out so they pay the high wages. So, high wages came from hundreds of years ago from our forefathers who thought fought with blood for these high wages. Host i appreciate your call. Beth calling from maryland on the working line. Go ahead, mute your volume on your tv and go ahead. Caller good morning. I am a federal worker. I am blessed to be a federal worker. I have been working for the government for approximately more than 20 years. Unfortunately, i am waiting to retire between age 65 and 70. We want federal workers to have benefits. I think a lot in the workforce today, that is the hardest thing. I always tell my children, grandchildren, everyone, what about the benefits . What about the benefits of your job . That is important. Health today is expensive. Health care today is expensive. Acacian, having leap is a great thing. Vacation, having leave is a great thing. One of the things my parents my dad was a federal worker, my mom worked for the government is the benefits. That is important. You go to a job, you look for the benefits. Despite what people say, Government Employees are going back into the office. I work one to two days a week. We are going back in the office and like adding work done. Host have your children followed you into the Government Workforce . Caller no. [laughter] they are looking for jobs again. I think they will go for better paying jobs. It is a hard process. It is a tedious you cannot put in your application and say, here you go. Great, you are hired. You have got to go through a process. I tell everyone, look for a job in the federal government, you have stability there. Despite the budget, at the end of the year, we look at that and people are on edge of what is going to happen. They always do. Especially now in election year. Host congress returning this weekend among the things they have to do is pass the budget or figure out what they are going to do as of september 30. At the end of this month, with the current fiscal year ending. Pennsylvania is next, we hear from tom. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I just wanted to say in 30 plus years, the first 30 plus years i was working, i was in management. Anywhere from supervision up to plant manager. The last 20 years i was working, i was doing a bluecollar job. But, people need to remember, regardless of all the you hear online, if there were no labor unions, there would be no middle class in america. I know that from the years i spent in sitting in boardrooms and listening to the talk and attitude of the management people. One of the things people understand is that, what is destroying the economy is greed. The pie is only so big. You cant pay the guy at the top 10 million a year and expect there to be money left over for the guy at the bottom to make more than 10 an hour. Between the stockholders and reading management greedy management, this is what is draining our economy. They are always looking for some angle to underpay their workforce. And it goes to the stockholders of the corporations. You cannot buy a stock expecting to make a 30 return every year. No way in the world that the pie is big enough in order to do that. Host thanks. One more call from south dakota on the working line. Go ahead. Caller i am living in south dakota. I have worked all over the country. I started work in 1962. Finally got my first Social Security last friday. I called 15 years ago. There was a retired senator saying there would be no more Social Security. 40 years ago people were saying Social Security will not be there. , number i remember Ronald Reagan saying we will have a Service Economy and the plan to send a letter of good jobs out of the country. A lot of good jobs out of the country. When they started work, companies with pensions started doing 401 k s and roth iras. I still work. I i worked for the aclu, tried to keep up with what is going on. Some have answers. I like listening to everything everybody had to say. I live in a right to work state. It ended up being one of the lowest paying states, south dakota. Host i appreciate your insight. Do not be a stranger. Make a call sooner than 15 years. Glad to have you call back. On this labor day, more ahead. Coming up, we continue our conversation about challenges and opportunities facing American Workers. Next, what is behind the surge in the labor protests and strikes and what it might mean for the broader movement. Later, the author of the once and future worker will talk about challenges facing the American Workforce and potential policy solutions. This fall, watch our new series, books that shaped america. Join us as we explore key works of literature from american history. The 10 books featured have provoked spots, won awards, led to significant societal changes that are so talked about today. Hear from experts that will shed light on the profound impact of these works. Among our featured books common sense by thomas payne, a very thin by mark twain, their eyes were watching god, and free to choose. Watch our 10 part series, books that shaped america, starting monday, september 18 on cspan, cspan now, or live at cspan. Org. To spend is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington. 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This makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. Scroll through and spend a few minutes on cspans points of interest. Washington journal continues. Host on this labor day, we are joined by Jody Calemine, senior fellow and labor and policy director at the Century Foundation and former chief of staff at the communication workers of america. Thanks for being with us. Guest thank you for having me. Host you spent many years with the communication workers of america. You are now with the Century Foundation. What is the mission and focus . Guest Century Foundation is a progressive, independent think tank. We employ experts who do research and develop and promote policy ideas that make peoples lives better. It has been around since 1919 in some form or another. Originally, it was the cooperative league. Host you were the labor and policy director. What are you most focus on . Guest the issues of organizing and collective bargaining. Our experts include people who focus on Unemployment Benefits, the Unemployment Insurance system, collective bargaining, Social Security and retirement security, and workforce development. Host lets start with the broader workforce. A question we asked in the first hour was what do you see as the state of the America Workforce and the Biggest Challenges it faces . Guest it is an exciting labor day. The workforce is on the move, especially when it comes to labor unions and organizing and collective action to improve their lives. The First Six Months of 2023, we saw over 58,000 workers gain Union Representation through the most difficult process. That is the biggest number we have seen in a sixmonth period in over 20 years. This is a report recently by bloomberg. What is interesting about it is that a large number of these Workers Organizing unions are younger workers. There have been samples recently by gallup, the alf cio showing that unions Approval Rating in the general public is high but extremely high amongst people under the age of 30. We are seeing a new generation of workers take on the responsibility of sustaining and rebuilding the middle class. Host was this a already underway when the Biden Administration in . Or has it been boosted by the administration . Guest it is a of factors. A mix of factors. More than anything, i think the pandemic put in stark relief for a lot of working people how unfair the economy is. Some of the richest people were pulling in billions of dollars a day, while workers wages have been stagnant for a long time. Workers were told they were essential. Go do this work whether it was an health care or other types of work , putting broadband people some spread were essential but still being treated the same. They threw to realize, especially younger workers as a vendor the workforce, they have less access to the American Dream than their parents or grandparents. They have seen very Little Movement in National Policies in the direction of healthy working people. They are taking matters into their own hands. The thing that has been missing that their parents or grandparents had was a stronger Labor Movement younger workers are now building that. Host we had a caller who was a government worker who talked about yet when she was telling her kids when you look for a job look for benefits. That is may easy for her to say coming from the government job shes been in for 25 years. Are those benefits Still Available in the country . Are there benefits being offered to new workers, union and nonunion . Guest it depends on what benefits. The traditional pension plan is rare in the private sector workforce if you are nonunion. I think only 1 of nonunion private Sector Workers have access to a traditional pension plan, compared to about one third of the unionized workforce. 401 k s have come to replace those but they rest on the workers rather than the employer over time. If you are a union member, you are more likely to have access to a 401 k than a nonunion member. The same goes with employerprovided health care. You have more access to better, more Affordable Health care if you are in a and that not hurt if then not. As she advises her children about finding jobs with benefits, find a union job or make your job a union job and bargain for benefits for host i love your historical perspective. The caller and the other hours at his year is that if there were no labor unions, there would be no middle class. Guest i 100 agreed. That was over the course of fighting over the 30s, 40s, 50s that built this modern american middle class. We have seen decline over the last 30 to 40 years. We have seen the middle class gets we and people get squeezed and people have less access to the jobs that would allow somebody to have the American Dream owning a home, paying for college, taking vacations. Host what are the Biggest Challenges facing organizing for unions . Guest mostly, the Biggest Issue is weak labor laws. The way to form a union in this country it can either be easy or very hard. The perverse thing about American Labor law as it stands today is it gives the employer the decision on whether it will be easy or hard. Lets say you are in the workplace and a majority of coworkers want to unionize and negotiate a contract. You can sign cards, sign a petition, show some evidence of majority support. Tell the employer we want to start bargaining. The employer can voluntarily recognize you and start bargaining. It can be that easy, but if the employer is antiunion, the employer will force you through an election once you present a demand for recognition. That is the employers prerogative to insist upon that election. That election is an imbalanced process favoring the employer. I can explain if you would like. Host yes. Guest in the process, the voters are in the workplace. The employer has the ability to campaign against the union, has the ability to have supervisors coworkers in oneonone and tell urge workers not to vote for the union. And supervisors carry a lot of authority because they control the work day what shifts they get, whether they are favored to get a promotion. There is a lot of influence in those meetings. The employer can require everybody to go to captive audience meetings. These are mass meetings where everybody has to listen to an antiunion spiel. The employer come campaign 24 7 within that workplace. Union organizers have no right to go on the property. The employer can paste antiunion platters around the workplace. They can make it an ordeal. The workers themselves are not permitted to campaign, except on break times and in break areas. It ended up being a slanted process in favor of the employer. And that is all lawful. Plus, employers break the law. They will threaten workers with getting fired as a support the union or fire the organizer. And the positives for doing so are we. Weak. It could take years to get your job back. And when you get your job back, you only get back pay. The employer is not find. It is very easy to engage in a rigorous antiunion campaign. Host Jody Calemine spent a number of years of america, most recently as their general counsel or chief of staff and is now with the Century Foundation we are focusing on gait on labor unions this segment. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. If you are a union member, 202 7488003. We will get to your calls momentarily. A look at the most recent Gallup Survey on how americans view unions. 67 approved of labor unions. 77 say humans mostly help rather than hurt Union Numbers. 43 want unions to have more influence. By party, here is how folks view approval. Total approval is 67 . Democrats approve by 88 , independence 69 and republicans there is still strong Union Support in america. Why the challenge is still in workforces for workplaces . Guest because labor law reform has been stymied in congress for a long time, thanks to things like the filibuster. It has been stuck. The last time we saw significant reform or action was back in the 1940s, 1947, and that was the antiunion reform. But what is promising about those polling numbers is the significant numbers of people, no matter Party Identification who support unions and favorite unions and want to see unions provided a counter force to big corporations and big moneyed interests. That is very promising. And it need not be. It need not be a partisan issue. Labor law reform in 2009 past the house. But when it passed the house, there were more than a dozen public and has numbers and voted yes on the bill. When the protecting the right to organize and, which is the current form of positive labor reform in congress right now, past the house last congress, it also got some republican support. It need not be a partisan issue. In my view, if you are a conservative and you are worried about people having access to the American Dream for your kids and you are worried about income inequality, labor unions and collective bargaining are the best private sector method for solving those problems. Host quickly, we brought up in the last hour, the potential strike in detroit. The New York Times, out of strike looms, threatening to shut down detroits big three. What is your view of those issues . Guest the Biggest Issue is the twotiered workforce that has developed in the big three. What happened a few contracts ago, the big three wanted concessions from autoworkers. The way they got them was to propose a hearing of the workforce tiering of the workforce. They were not going to take away wages or benefits of people currently on payroll but you hires would new hires would receive something less. So those lower tiered workers have grown in size as time has gone on. As higher tiered people have retired, new hires come on and that workforce has changed in such a way that either lower tiered workers are approaching or have become the majority. No contract in the past will treat them like second class citizens. Autoworkers will have to work that out at the table or via a strike. Host so they are Union Members but at a lower tier . Guest correct. Host peter is going from hawaii. Good morning. Caller thank you. I appreciate what you do. I am a movie teamster on the island, one of the most expensive places to live in the country. We are experiencing a strike right now. Need teamsters are not, but our sisters and brothers in the sg g and the writers battling it out with producers and that means that a huge chunk of workers, my friends and family, are not working. The bills pile up. It is part of the price you pay to be part of the unionized business, which is the union movie business. I would also add that i think we in the union sometime get complacent. I went love to see Union Leaders, who i paid dues to, start negotiations much sooner. The teamsters contrast contract in the movie business comes up in 8 months. They should already be talking one other caveat is my experience is that the studios have a very difficult and so many different factors in running studios that employ millions of people. I think sometimes and you probably do not hear this from Union Numbers too much sometimes i think we as Union Members forget help difficult it it how difficult it is to run a huge business. Sit the sooner we can negotiate, the stronger we can negotiate and to appreciate both sides, not to be complacent and to remember to work hard, do a great job and expect as much as we can get from the hard work. We know that we are valued and readd value to the studio, who ultimately make a lot of money, which i do not begrudge as long as they are paying people the best that they can. Host thanks for being up so early or late there in hawaii. Guest thank you, peter. Think what is really great about that call is that this is a union member who understands a lot of the issues and has views on how his union should proceed in negotiations. That is what makes a union strong, when members are informed about what is going on and engaged and informed. No matter how difficult an employer might make things, whether it is in an organism drive or bargaining fight, if members stay together, the union can survive anything. Host what did you think about his comments that unions need to understand challenges facing their employers . Guest i think unions are that they strive to understand their employers. The reality is a union once the olay are to be successful. Once the employer to be successful. That means more revenue to share with the workforce. Unions want to help employers they represent. Not all employers are antiunion. A lot of employers are fine with collective bargaining. A lot of enlightened employers respect their employees right to organize and figure out ways for the union to bring value to the company. Unions, through collective bargaining and bringing the wars of the workers to the table, are able to help a Company Design better workplace procedures, more costeffective procedures and so forth. And a union can be an ally in a competitive market for an employerl employer. I think unions do understand that. In case of the studios, there is an Inflection Point with the growth of streaming services and the way writers and actors will be compensated through new streaming services. There is an Inflection Point for them to make a stand on that issue, as well as on the issue of Artificial Intelligence. That is the tip of the spear in our economy right now, the spread of Artificial Intelligence in the entertainment world especially. Whether it is a threat or a positive thing, it is important that all workers watch what happens in hollywood and with ai. They might set a standard. Host matt, calling from pennsylvania. Caller i would like to get into the plight of the white collar worker. For many years, i was a licensed accountant. When i was working toward my license as a apprentice accountant, i was working 60 to 65 hours a week, no overtime. I would get comp time. When i left the firm, i did not get cashed out. I went to the private sector, worked for a corporation, was not much better. Finally, i had a job with the city of philadelphia, became a member of the union. 40 or workweek. I worked five minutes of overtime, i got time and a half. Felt like i went to heaven. But this is a problem with unionization now. A lot of jobs are white collar. You work for a smaller medium Accounting Firm and you are not unionized. Look at what is happening with twitter. They are bringing employees back to work at 72 hours a week. We need to do something about whitecollar workers. Thank you. Guest i think that the caller has a good point. I would make two points in response. One is there are unions actively working with whitecollar professional workers to organize them. The caller mentioned twitter. Cwa, they are organizing tech workers in a big way with organizing drives at places like google and activision, a videogame studio. Actually, it is a very healthy, Robust Organization where professional workers want unions. And they are specifically a younger workforce. The second point is that when it comes to whitecollar work, some of the most overworked and underpaid workers in our economy armed socalled whitecollar professional workers who fit in that rung of the economy where they are not quite rankandfile employees. They might be low level supervisors or nurses. They recently, in the last week or two, the Biden Administration and the department of labor issued a proposed rule on regulation overtime regulations that would provide overtime to the lowest paid salary workers. If it turns out the employer does not want to pay overtime, find more predictable schedules so they can find more time with their families and less time being overworked. These are people like assistant managers at restaurants and retail stores. Host in the union field, how has the onset and use of remote work, how has that changed what whitecollar Union Workers are asking or negotiating for . Guest i would say it has resulted in a lot of remote or hybrid work, especially among whitecollar workers. At bargaining tables, we have seen a lot of proposals around the right to remote work. I do not know overtime with that will do to the workforce and labor in general. The great thing about remote work when it comes to organizing is that these workers are not in the workplace where the employer will engage in a Serious Campaign and control everything. They are pulled from the positive management and might organize more easily. But there is that possible outcome of remote work. Host Jody Calemines labor and Employment Policy director at the Century Foundation. Calls and comments welcome. Host for democrats 202 7488000 for democrats. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. Union members, 202 7488003. Dan from west virginia. Caller i was wondering how your guest feels about percentage races. It seems that overtime, percentages help the higher income workers gain more of the pie than the lower workers. I was thinking maybe a fixed amount dollar raise would be more equitable to all workers. Thank you. Guest first, and shout out to west virginia, my home state. I was born in morgantown. Great to hear from a fellow west virginian. What is great about collective bargaining if you are any union, your union goes to the table, is that you get together with your coworkers and figure out what kind of wage raises you want to propose. There are many cases in which those kinds of considerations, giving the lower paid workers more of a boost than the already higher paid workers, those are the kinds of proposals you might see. That is essentially what has happened at ups and what is being proposed at uaw with the big three, which is bringing lower paid, lower tiered workers up to where everybody else is. Host become a republican line, andy. Caller collusion are unions collusion . Is that illegal and unconstitutional . I have a lot of friends who own guest stations. We should just start setting government controls everything we do. Maybe we should start a union against the government. They have all these rules, regulations to follow week do not follow. We do not want to be a gang. Guest thank you for the call. Unions are free associations of workers. In the u. S. , we have the freedom of association. These workers get together within a workplace and associate to accrete to increase their bargaining power. Standing alone, they are less likely to get a raise when they go to their manager and ask. Standing together, they have increased their chance of making a change. As for business, there are chambers of commerce, lots of Industry Associations that bring businesses together to push for what they want from the government. They are effective. Host union line is 202 7488002. Caller good morning. I am a first time caller. Thank you to cspan for the programming you do. It is enlightening. I enjoy that. I have a 71yearold veteran, worked for the national archives. I know, but i have had some disappointments and enjoyable times with my union, that i have been at the archives for 24 years. I see employees who were there before me not having the opportunity for career advancement, even though these people are getting high appraisals. What seat is the issue is that the agency is limiting what i see as the issue is that the agency is limiting advancement. We have a gs rating. Most people would be trying to get to gs nine or 11. I want to hear some feedback on that. Guest i am not an expert on federal labor relations. It is a different legal world. Different set of rights when you are a federal employee. Unions within the federal government have limited ability to bargain. They can bargain over Personnel Practices. This promotion issue you are raising may very well be one of those Personnel Practices they could engage the government on. I would encourage you and your coworkers to get involved with your union and talk to them and bring this issue to the table. Host let me go back to workplace organ inc. An opinion piece in the Washington Times bidens union push limits workers prices. The idea is that while labor bossesre thrilled, the rest of us should not be. When the Administration Pushes car checked over private balance,orkers are subjected to harassment and intimidation. If employers remain neutral in campaigns, workers only hear inrmed decision. Annot make an when t work sometimes they must pay unwanted union du and they can lose what stability and operate opportunities workers should have the right to try to form a union fple can disagree about the merits of doing so. People could also recognize that the administration singleminded focus on labor unions harms workers and the economy. Guest sounds like they are concerned about making sure employers remain involved in Union Organizing campaigns. What i just described to you where they have an outside influence and can pressure and coerce employees into voting no. Lets step back and they give out what workers are doing when they form a union. The question is, do you want to bargain over terms and conditions of employment as a group . If so, who do you want to represent you . That question belongs to the workers. But having the employer involved is the equipment, i would say, having the russian government involved in questions of our election. In the end of the day, workers are selecting somebody to bargain with the employer. White with the employer get a say on who that is . Why would the employer get the say that is . That is what i find problematic. Host jean from jackson, missouri, independent line. Caller i like your opinion on the teamsters. I am a retired teamsters. There are deals to get out of our pension fund. Ups is the biggest Truck Driving company in the u. S. We have a pension fund that was going broke. We have got the same thing in Central States. Central states retirement plan. They were wanting us to take a cut and that guy walked away. I would like your opinion on that stuff that is going on there. Thank you. Guest i do not know the details are exactly what you are referring to. I am aware of the Central States pension plan and that it has had a lot of financial difficulties. What i would say is that the great thing about unions and the fact that a pension plan is a union plan is that the union itself is a democratic union. Members have voices. You can get involved. You can organize with fellow members to get involved in press your concerns. Like with the other caller, i would suggest that if you have concerns, you should talk to your fellow members. That is the way change will happen. Host you mentioned the advent of ai. We are seeing that as a factor in this strike with the writers and actors. What other challenges do you see in your years at the communication workers of america . What are some of the newer challenges workers are facing, that they are asking for in negotiations with an employer . Guest some of the new issues are number one ai. It is a twopronged issue. One is that will ai replace workers . Will people lose jobs . That is issue number one. The second issue is it puts it on its head. It is not necessarily rankandfile workers were worried about being displaced. They are worried about managers getting displaced, that ai will manage the workforce, that you will be managed by a robot and try to live up to their standards. We have seen that in places like call centers where ai is used to monitor the tone of voice a worker might be using or the speed with which they speak. You are trying to live up to an ai standard. And that is scary and stressful. Those are two aspects of the ai issue. The question is, i think, will ai control us or will workers control ai . Went workers have control over ai, ai can be used to improve productivity, make work easier and better, but if ai is controlling workers, that is apocalyptic, very dystopian about how we might live in the future. But it is a very early time. This is why the actors writers strikes are important. Host you see that issue coming into play in a myriad of Different Industries . Guest Call Center Workers have been dealing with some version of ai for a while. Journalists are now confronting the issue because a few newspapers have attempted to have Artificial Intelligence rights for stories. They came out poorly written, but there is a threat that ai could be used to produce content like a local news story. It could produce content like dialogue for the tv show or it could create the additional digital likeness of an actor and have that version do the work. Host alex is calling from troy, new york. Caller hello. I was winning to call in. My father was a teamster and my grandfather was a truck driver. There has been some discussion about biden being the most prounion president. I wonder to what degree that is true historically. Not from an opinion level as much as material reality. I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other, but i am prounion and a bit weary of the bidens ministration. Guest i think President Biden has been the most prounion president in my lifetime, which stretches to nixon. He is probably the most prounion president since harry truman and fdr. In terms of material reality, he is not afraid to say the word union and collective bargaining. In the Labor Movement, we would get excited when other president s would just mention those words in a speech. He talks about union and Worker Rights consistently. He is comfortable with them and supports that. He has appointed people to the National Labor Relations Board, the most Important Agency when it comes to collective bargaining, who support collective bargaining. General counsel Jennifer Russo has been pushing the envelope as much as possible to try and make laws more effective such as they are. Issuing regulations like the overtime regulation. He has done some executive action that support unions, like an action that would encourage labor agreements and an executive action that is raised the minimum wage for workers on federal contacts. If you cannot get it passed in congress, he is doing it where he can. Many of his investments in the economy have labor standards attached. Host the Supreme Court ruled against the nrb. What was that about . Guest the northwest glacier decision was a decision about teamsters on strike. They walked out. It was a cement company. They walked out and went on strike, leaving the cement trucks turning so the cement did not drive. The company sued the teamsters for damage, although the teamsters clearly undertook measures to try to protect the cement trucks. This decision, like many from this court, unions can be liable for the economic damage they cause a company in certain situations during a strike. Trex are meant to cause damage to companies as an economic weapon strikes are meant to cause damage to company. It was not a loft that it was this particular decision to not move the needle back much but it was a push in the direction against workers rights and the right to strike. We should just expect this court all the time to go in that direction. Host Jody Calemine is labor and Employment Policy director at the Century Foundation. Good luck and thank you for being here. Still ahead, oren cass, executive director of American Compass and author of the once and future worker a vision for the renewal of work in america. He will talk about challenges facing the American Workforce and potential policy solutions. 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Host oren cass is the executive director of American Compass and author of the book the once and future worker a vision for the renewal of work in america. Good morning and happy labor day. Tell us about your organization. White did you start it . Why did you start it . What is the focus . Guest the folk we started in 2020 and focused on the right of center in american conservativism there has been a clear focus that things are shifting, going back to donald trump in 2016, a realization that Ronald Reagans agenda was not addressing the needs of American Workers, who increasingly were the base of the republican party. We hunted American Compass to start to build up the foundational thinking and the policy agenda for conservatives who want to focus on the interests of workers working families and address the ways of the economy has been failing them. Host we have been talking about this throughout the morning. What do you see is the state of the American Work orders today and its just challenges . Guest it is interesting at the moment. On the one hand, you can look at the Unemployment Rate and say this market looks fantastic very tight. Lawyers say theyre having trouble finding workers. Very few people are unemployed. There are two real problems. One is people who are just not in the workforce at all. When we look at the adam venit rate, that only counts people who are looking for jobs if you step back and say, especially for men, how many are not working . There is an enormous share who are not looking. It actually looks with the bottom of a recession. We have to recognize that our economy is not doing good enough of a job of providing good Employment Opportunities for everybody who we would ideally want to see working. The other problem is that for decades now, wages have failed to keep up with the cost of raising a family. At American Compass, we published the cost of striving index, which looks at how many weeks of age is particularly a man would need to support a family and provide middleclass security. In the 1980s, you could support a family on about 40 weeks of work meant meeting you work, meaning you had time to save burn to save. But now, you need 60 weeks of work, but there are not 60 weeks in a year. We have seen a real problem was all the growth and prosperity we think we have not actually making it to better wages for workers and better working conditions. That is a fundamental problem with the way the economy is working and something we have to fix if it is going to deliver what we want for families. Host why do you think wages have not grown in this country . Guest it comes down to the options available to businesses. If you think about the basis basics of how capitalism works, businesses can generate profit. That is great for investors, but to do that, they also have two find a way to use workers productively. The secret sauce is when the same things that i work good for workers and productivity and wages are also good for investors. What we have seen going back to the 1970s is that those things are disconnected. The best ways for businesses to earn a lot of money have nothing to do with investing in workers. Globalization and the idea that a lot of the time the best way to make money is to lay off American Workers built a factory somewhere else. We have seen high levels of immigration, which has meant that there are many more options of finding lower paid workers in america. And we have seen financialization, which means the rise of wall street. Increasingly what you see on wall street is payment equity, hedge funds, speculation trading money around in circles. It generates a lot of profit for investors but does not translate to better jobs for workers. We wait to make money is by squeezing workers and reducing the the way to make money is by reducing workers and reducing the need for them. And Public Policy has accelerated those forces instead of responding to them. We have done nothing to secure our border or enforce reasonable immigration policies. That is tragic, but that means we can do something about it. Better policy, we could have Better Outcomes for workers. Host our guest is oren cass. We continue to talk about challenges facing the u. S. Workforce. The lines are 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 four republicans. For republicans. Independents, 202 7488002. We vented your organization in 2020, you wrote in the wall street journal that america s a nservative Labor Movement you said that among american institutions, one stan out for thereath of conservative priorities it covance, generating widespread prosperity, limiting government intervention, preserving es and ways ofe, revitalizing communities, and fostering solidarity. That institution is the la union. Sound like an oxymoron, butmight americas dysfunctional unions, creatures of depression era laws , are neither inevitable nor typical of their counterparts elsewhere. In your view, what would a conservative labor union look like . Guest thanks for bringing that up. Unions and the Labor Movement generally are a huge piece of the puzzle. They used to be stronger in the last century. As we have seen a decline, that has been a big factor in workers having less power. Dobbs offered to them and the wages paid are not as good. Jobs offered to them and the wages paid are not as good. In they were unions has become mainly political organizations American Labor unions have become mainly political organizations. The 5 of the private workforce is unionized. We survey a lot of workers asking them their views of labor and unions. You claim that it is actually the middle and upperclass democrats who tend to be excited about unions, often for ideological reasons. The lower and workingclass americans are alienated from them. They do not care. They are ambivalent. When you ask when they do not like about unions, the number one thing they mention is politics. Unions have become an arm of the Democratic Party, funneling knowledge and resources to democratic candidates, even though Union Members are not necessarily or majority democrats. What we try to focus on an American Compass is separating who uses their working or not working in america from the idea of labor and recognizing that the idea of workers being able to join in solidarity to exert collective power in the labor market, that is good, part of capitalism working well. As you mentioned from the piece i wrote, there is a lot for conservatives to like. It is a better way to distribute resources and government redistribution. It is a better way to ensure good working conditions. Better than government regulation. And unions can be a powerful force in the community. We want conservatives to stop cheering on the demise of organized labor and taking it upon ourselves to build something that will work for workers and the country. Host what is the role of way to work states . Right to work states . Guest great to work is a funny issue and one that has become unique. People think of europe as much more prolabor. Thirdly it has stronger labor unions but it is also almost entirely right to work. You choose whether you want to be a member of a union or not, whether you want to pay dues are not. That is regardless of where you work. It is only the american system where we have this arrangement where unions are something you have to have in every workplace. We picture sally field standing on the table in norma rae with a sign that says union. Your 50 plus one vote yes. Now everybody is in the union. If 49 vote yes, nobody gets a union. That is a terrible way of doing things. The fight over the right to work in america comes out of that, but the right to work is not going to solve it, not going to build a stronger Labor Movement. We argue for different models of organizing. Within workplaces, instead of having adversarial unions that are and threaten strikes, you can have much more cooperative arrangements which workers say they would prefer over adversarial ones. They would much rather have a mechanism for cooperating with employers for having employers actually help run the Worker Organization so that people are all on the same side. And then at the same time you can have unions that arent specific to a company. Unions that are much more sort of out there in the world representing all of the workers in a particular industry, a particular region and then you can have those negotiate with all of the employers. A classic example might be new york city janitors lets say. You dont want to organize that skyscraper by skyscraper. You should have a union that represents janitors and they should negotiate terms and conditions with buildings that want to employ janitors. If you do it that way i think you get around a lot and get something thats going to be a lot more effective in delivering better conditions for workers especially in a way thats good for the economy as well. Host lets get to some callers. Hank from ohio on the independent line. Caller good morning. I really enjoy your show. This is a good demonstration of the other side. My point id like to make is it kind of irks me sometimes i watch the news and either someone from labor or somebody from the government or somebody from wall street, they say we produce 100,000, 200,000 jobs this year, of month, this day, this week. But they never bring up what kind of jobs they are. A guy outside pushing a broom making minimum wage is not if not below, he is considered a job because hes paying into the tax system, into Social Security as opposed to another job that can support a family. All these jobs being created are not the same and maybe they should be broken down into grades. The other thing too is labor unions, im not rolling indo or have a second house in florida, but im comfortable. My wifes going to retire in about another year or so. I come from a strong Labor Company and you make some very good points on labor and management getting together. The Painters Union has had a thing for years where labor and management get together and decide what is the upcoming trends in the industry and the union and labor get together and they pay for the training in these new jobs. We also have a thing in the union in our union we have a thing where we are offering this class in this and if you want to be a journeyman painter you take the class. And if you do not want to take the class, fine. When rays time comes around that employer is not paying for someone who does not know the upandcoming trends. Host thanks for your input. Guest that was terrific. He made three points that i think are incredibly important and all sort of emphasize them because i agree entirely. The first is about the kinds of jobs and i hope you wont mind if i mentioned because i wrote about this this morning at the american conservative i have a piece up called where are the secure jobs. At American Companies we think this is an important point and exactly the point i made. We just count up 100,000 new jobs and the federal government collects so much data but it doesnt actually ask what kind of jobs are these. We like to use the definition of what we call a secure job. Nothing glamorous but we say it should be fulltime, should pay 40,000 a year, it should have Health Benefits and paid time off and have some predictability in what you will be earning and what your schedule is. I think most people in the professional world would take all of that as the bare minimum for a job. Most jobs in our economy do not meet that definition. If you just talk to people who are working and ask them, most do not have that kind of job. If you look at those who do not have a college degree, two thirds of them dont have that kind of job. We need to focus on this question not just of how many jobs but what kind of jobs and have policies that are making sure the economy is creating good jobs. So thats one point. A second point that i love he raised is using the Painters Union is an example because the Building Trades i would say are one of the places where labor works best in this country and in part because it is not norma rae in the factory with the sign. If you think about how our Building Trades work, carpenters, painters, etc. Typically they are much more working with different employers at different times going from job to job, job site jobsite and so the union, the North American Building trade union, they have to do much more of this kind of negotiation of the industry level and it works much better. You see it on both sides being much more happy and unionization remaining much higher then it is elsewhere in the economy. The third point was about training. This is something thats very different in europe as opposed to the United States. In europe because unions are these things outside of companies that you join because you want to and have to provide some value, unions are much more involved in training, providing benefits so there are a lot of countries in europe where youre more likely to get Unemployment Benefits from a union than from the government. When you think about some of the problems we have in the u. S. With things Like Health Care insurance, theres a tremendous amount that workers and organizations could do representing workers and providing value to workers. But the unions we have today can really do that under our laws because of the way we have them structured. Host the executive director of American Compass in the article he just mentioned at the american conservative. Com, the article headline where are the secure jobs. The American Labor markets failure to support family supporting jobs is fundamental to the nations problem. You can call in at 2027488000, the line free democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. For independents and others, 2027488002. Next up is amy in west point, georgia. Caller good morning. Earlier in the conversation he implied union jobs arent wellpaid as regular jobs and i wanted to know if he could cite any studies because the studies ive seen have shown union jobs are better paid the nonunionized jobs. If so, while are corporations so against them . They are committed to unionbusting and committed to under the table tactics to not give unions at the plant or their worksite. Point number two is youre talking about all the symptoms facing our workforce, but truly the biggest challenge is corporate greed. And thats what the writers is about, what the sagaftra strike is about. You have corporations and ceos making millions and billions of dollars off the backs of their workers and they are not sharing it. Do you have a solution to that problem . Guest i apologize if i misspoke or was confusing. I entirely agree union jobs do tend to be better paid and union jobs have an effect even on nonunion jobs because if you dont have a union you as an employer are competing with those who are paying a union rate so what youll tend to see is even nonunion jobs will pay better in areas or industries where there are unions. I certainly agree union jobs can lead to higher pay. I think what weve seen in america is a couple sort of problems on the others that help to explain why unions are not that popular. As the caller mentioned, you have the unionbusting problem, corporations just fighting against unions and trying to prevent them from forming. They are doing that somewhat rationally. If you think about it from the perspective of the employer if you have a situation where if your company is unionized and your competitors are not, you can see why that would be scary and you would expect that to be a disadvantage. Thats one of the reasons the system Going Company by company and fight whether to have a union is not a good one. The host go ahead and continue. Guest the second problem is in the short run the union jobs are better paid but if in the process they make that company less competitive what you tend to see is that company tends to lose. Where you have higher unionization in the company, industry and location, businesses and investors will tend to run away from those locations. Even if it works out better for the jobs and employees at that moment as we were talking about with the question of secure jobs over time it might not actually lead to more secure jobs and a healthier economy. Thats one thing we saw in the 1970s and 80s where you had very high levels of unionization and that felt good in the moment but it also led to pretty serious declines in some of the industries that had the unionization. Thats where i say i think whats important is to find a healthier balance here not to do what corporations have said which is unions are bad lets get rid of them. But also not do what folks on the left of said which is just lets get everybody into a union. But to actually reform the system so we can have something producing more of those better jobs over time. Host lets hear from james calling from washington dc, republican line. Caller thanks to npr this is a great form of electronic democracy. My question is related to the underemployment or lack of employment for collegeage students. Only one in four goes to college and completes it. I was wondering in europe there are very active trade school systems. In europe you can train and retrain an upscale for another job whereas here i was wondering what your comment might be on the failure or success of the American Trade School system to service that population. Host thanks for calling and listening to cspan. Your response. Guest its a great question and i think its closely related to this labor discussion. Theres a reason in congress the committees that deal with these issues are typically the education and Labor Committee because of course one side of the question is youre already in the workforce and what are you doing. Just as important is how are we preparing you for the workforce. Another area where American Compass does work is this problem of we have this sort of college for all system that says either we get you through college or we have nothing for you. The result is we have nothing for most people and where producing a lot of young people who do not have the skills that they need to succeed. We dont have that kind of system that European Countries have and that really supported by having a good labor system that helps prepare people and retrain people for the rest of the job that arent those College Educated jobs. Thats something we need more of. Something we proposed at American Compass, the American Workforce act. We take a lot of money we spend on Higher Education today and say lets instead of just saying heres money if you go to a college say here some money if you go to an employer and if youre a trainee and you are on the job but also getting training, than that money can go to support that training whether its provided by the employer, whether they partner with the Community College or whether that employer partners with a union. I think we can work at this problem from both sides. We can have better Worker Organization that want to lead and take responsibility for finding new workers and preparing them for jobs. Building trades are a place we do this today and we can also provide resources and funding to them and say its not just we are spending on college and nothing for anyone else, but that young person who maybe wants to start learning on the job after high school then maybe go into an apprenticeship or also to Community College classes paid for by his employer, he can get to age 20 instead of being a College Dropout with debt, he can have a job and skills and savings in the bank. I think thats the direction we need to be moving in. Host our guests book is the once and future worker, a vision for the renewal of work in america. It came out in 2018. How has the workforce changed since then . Guest obviously weve gone through covid and covid was an enormous disruption to the workforce and i think really focused peoples attention on a couple of things that maybe we werent thinking about before. One was this idea of essential workers and everybody all of a sudden noticed and really for a fairly brief period of time celebrated essential workers and then as soon as the crisis was passed, i think we sort of forgot about that and went right back to the world where those essential jobs or in many cases some of the worst conditions and worst paid jobs in our economy. So i think theres a huge opportunity there to really refocus people and question why arent those good jobs if theyre so essential if not a lot of people want to do them shouldnt that be the exact sort of thing that is a good job . And then relatedly i think we saw with so many people leaving the workforce during the pandemic and coming back to the workforce afterwards and employers complaining so much that they couldnt find enough workers actually having to start investing more in training actually taking on people who may have been increasingly people who didnt have the education credentials they were looking for, weve actually seen how the market can work for workers and so when i combine those things together it brings me back to something i would focus much more intention than i did in 2018 and we sort of started this conversation with which is the idea that worker power really matters. That the way capitalism works and works well and spreads prosperity isnt just that businesses make lots of money and by magic businesses are making a lot of money everybody does well, thats not what happens what makes capitalism work is when you actually have relatively even power between employers and workers and the only way to earn a lot of money is also to do right by your workers. And so i think we really need to focus policy much more on recognizing that any job can be a good job. Any job can be a secure job. The question is whether its in the market to offer that kind of job and so there are so many policies that we pursue the just ignore that. The entire idea, you heard the phrase jobs americans wont do. The entire category of jobs that employers have basically said we will create really terrible jobs , complained that nobody wants to do them and then except to allow to bring in temporary workers for low wages to do them and said. I think thats crazy. We should be rejecting that entire type of thinking. The only way this works is if you make jobs americans will do and that has to be right at the heart of how we approach Economic Policy. Host here is mike in milford, pennsylvania. Caller i think you stole some of the thunder out of this question from the previous caller but the idea, where of apprenticeships gone. My followup would be how do internships and whitecollar jobs differ from apprenticeships and finals question is who finances it. Do the union dues stand behind the excellent apprenticeships like in germany on the factory floor or do they kick it to the Public Sector in Community Colleges and stuff . Those are my questions. The question of who pays i think is a really important one and i think its one of the issues we focus a lot of attention on and where i think weve seen some Real Progress among conservatives where theres a real recognition that there has to be a role for government and for public funding in doing this well. Just as america has long been committed to Public Education sort of kindergarten through 12th grade, actually preparing young people for success in the workforce is something that we all have a stake in. And that while those of us who have been successful and do have good jobs and can afford to pay, that young person going from a disadvantaged background doesnt really have a way to pay for. So actually having public funding that connects people to the workforce that supports that initial training i think is incredibly important and something you are seeing now people on both sides of the aisle getting behind and so when you think about a good example where unions are providing training, who pays for that . Certainly some piece of it can and should be union dues. In that sense they go to the workers in the industry who have been successful and can help support and hopefully benefit and continue to benefit from it themselves. I think employers certainly need to be paying for part of it if the unions werent doing it, employees would have to do the training themselves. I think theres a lot of interest in partnership where there is Something Like a union thats investing in training. I think we also really do want to throw public funding into it. Thats going to help make it a Larger Program and make it more attractive for employers and workers to be involved in it. The last thing i would say about it, we touched on this is it comes back to something thats a real problem in the american system today but we can do something about which is the way unions have become so politicized. I think republicans rightfully say were not supporting anything the gives money when they see unions give 99 of their Campaign Donations to democrats. It doesnt have to be that way. American compass or any nonprofit is governed by a part of the tax code that says you can spend money on elections. That makes sense if were going to get favorable tax treatment and be committed to doing something good for Civil Society and research and education we shouldnt also be funding political campaigns and i think we need to say the same thing about unions. If the union wants to start its own little Political Action committee and ask people to give it money for politics, thats fine. Anybody can do that. But the core function of the union as a Worker Organization and the economy helping workers succeed in jobs and get more secure jobs we have to that that away from politics and i think separating those two things will make unions popular with workers and also make it easier to develop Public Policy that will support them. Host our guest with us until 9 30 eastern. A chance for you to get in a couple of calls. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. Independents and others, 2027488002. Lets go to doris calling from georgia. Independent line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted the guest to explain how todays problems in the labor force are influenced by the history of slavery and immigration. And how the lack of opportunities for immigrants and the descendants of former slaves influences whats going on today. Host any thoughts on that . Guest its a really interesting question and i guess i would certainly separate the slavery and immigration questions. With respect to race in america, one thing we can see is if we look back to prior decades you didnt necessarily see all of the same problems you see today. So for instance when we were talking about the large share of those looking for work, thats a number thats gotten much higher in recent decades and so i think we certainly see that america postslavery, postcivil Rights Movement can have a much stronger labor market. So i wouldnt attribute to the problems we have now to slavery in that respect. The immigration question is a lot more complicated because immigration is something thats ongoing, i think poses a lot of challenges for the labor market today. If you think just in terms of supply and demand, we have a situation where especially at the low end of the labor market we continue to add large numbers of low workers with limited skills, in many cases explicitly saying we are doing it because we want employers to have access to cheaper labor. When we talk about jobs americans wont do paired what we are saying is we dont want employers to create jobs americans will do. We would rather support them bringing in jobs americans will not do. Its been interesting in the last couple of years all the debate around inflation you see people very explicitly saying we have a labor shortage, too much inflation, lets solve that by bringing in more immigrants because that will reduce pressure to raise wages. People are actually at this point quite honest about whats going on. Theres a reason the business lobby so aggressively fights all the time for higher levels of immigration because it relieves them of the pressure to actually do more for the workers who are here. I was can say theres a lot of other regions to support immigration. We have a lot of humanitarian commitments, Foreign Policy commitments. We have all sorts of reasons to debate immigration and why its such a difficult issue. I think is we have those debates we have to be honest in terms of economics and the labor market what would be good for workers who are struggling here today is to have less competition from other workers who would be struggling along next to them. Youve done a good job detailing some of the differences between american trade unions and european unions. How do they differ in terms of political advocacy . Guest i think again because the unions in europe are these sort of companies specific entities, they play a very different role. You also do not have as much struggle back and forth over the politics of whether to support unions or not. There sort of a vicious cycle in america where every time republicans come into power to try to put in place things that hobble labor unions. Every time democrats come into power they put things in place that remote labor unions. As a result unions try to give more money to democrats and as a result sides believe more strongly about hobbling or promoting. In europe you have a much more settled balance where you have very high levels of whats called union density. Either people who are Union Members or people whose work is covered by Union Contract and you dont have this sort of flipflopping back and forth. Unions are still absolutely involved on economic questions as i think they should be. But they actually have the ability to pursue those the way they are supposed to buy negotiating on behalf of workers. You dont see what you see in america which is if you go to the aflcios website, they basically put every single political issue is one of their issues. Name the social issue, whatever it might be they basically just have the Democratic Party position on all of them. We did a survey of workers where we took 20 different issues that the aflcio lister they worked on and we asked workers would you want to be a part of a Work Organization that was focused on this witches check off as many of the 20 as you want. Not a single one did a majority of workers actually say they want their organization working on. Thats what i think we get away from obviously unions are inherently political. Obviously Economic Policy matters to workers, but you dont need labor unions out there on every single political issue taking one side of them when their membership doesnt even feel that way. Host lets get one more call here. Larry is in michigan. Caller is that me . Host that is you. Caller i just had in michigan we are right to work. I remember coming up the first ring was when automation was starting. It seemed like when everything globalization stuff. The two of them were a problem. The companies are employers, for them it became very good excuses. The public themselves i worked in the public, served in the public. They were the unions used to be necessary back in the day but now they are like a guest here is saying bev become more politicized. I would ask them the companies then versus the people who run the companies now, what are they have to treat the workers fairly, decently. When it comes to the chamber of commerce, i tried to explain it im probably off with this. Most of them are conservative. Theres a few that are probably democrat. But they have to pay some sort of dues to be part of that organization. Theyre spending their money all the time on politics. The union are saying we need to wake up because they are beating us here where it counts. Host thanks for the comments. Guest the necessary nests of unions is an interesting question. I think one of the things weve seen happen is regulation has taken over so much of what unions used to do. In the old day Union Organizers were opposed to government regulation of the workplace because they recognize wait a minute thats our job. If you take everything we might negotiate about and just make it the law then whats the union therefore . And so thats one of the reasons we really argue we should see unions as potentially a conservative force. That if you had good representation from workers you would need less regulation from washington and just as an example one thing being proposed is if you have good Union Representation and you have employers and workers negotiating for workplace conditions, they should be allowed to depart from the federal regulations in whatever direction they want. Let workers say this isnt that important or necessary to us. We actually care about this other thing much more and that kind of arrangement is something you can see being great for workers. You can also see employers saying thats interesting for us as well. There something in it for us. So thats just a great example of this sort of thing that a good Labor Movement would do that would make a healthy part of the economy but we just dont have in the United States today. The organization is American Compass. Their executive director, thanks so much for being with us this morning and happy labor day. Guest thank you, happy labor day to you as well. Host there are still more ahead on ts washington journal. Weresking the question the biest challenges youee facing American Workers. If you are currently working or employed please call in, 2027488000. If you are looking for work, the line is 2027488001. If you are retired, it is 2027488003 2027488002. We will get to your calls momentary. This fall watch cspans new series books that shaped america. Join us as we embark on a captivating journey in partnership with the library of congress which first created the books that shaped america list to explore key works of literature from american history. Books have led to significant societal changes and they are still talked about today. Hear from Renowned Experts will share on these iconic works and virtual to significant intricately tied to these and their unforgettable books. Common sense by thomas payne, Huckleberry Finn by mark twain. Their eyes were watching god and free to choose by milton and rose friedman. Books that shaped america starting monday, september 18 at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now or online at cspan. Org. Join us thursday for a preview of books that shaped america with the librarian of congress and historian and bestselling offer douglas. The 14th librarian of congress and the Senate Office of 2015. Douglas brinkley teaches at Rice University and his authored books on several president s and many other topics. Watch the preview of our new series thursday, live at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Washington journal continues. Host we welcome you on this labor day to call in and talk about the Biggest Challenges you see facing American Workers. The lines to use if youre currently working, 2027488000. If you are looking for work, 2027488001. If you are retired, 2027488002. Lets go to robert in Massapequa Park in new york who is looking for work. Caller good morning. This is very apropos for this summer because i feel like there has been this, im calling it a stealth layoff. Im seeing it in a lot of whitecollar folks who are over 40 and im just wondering if companies are now examining their Health Care Costs and calling out the over 50s specifically because those men and women seem to be hit very hard. Also the 40s ive seen. Ive seen more people laid off this summer than i have ring the covid crisis. Its very difficult for anybody in the new york city area to try and get something, find something and ultimately take care of a family of the same time. Host are you hearing any common stories of people you know whod been laid off, the reasons why . Caller the reasons seem to be when you scratch through the surface, i think these are people incur Health Care Costs and they have either diabetic issues or mightve had some other issues. Thats the one Common Thread that ive seen, i asked people and they incur a lot of medical costs and i think this is just a way. A lot of people are being asked and this is a beautiful one, to either take less hours so they get off of the Health Care Plan or if they then choose not to take the parttime work, then they are considered resigning and cannot get unemployment. Thats a beautiful thing the corporations our current i dont understand whats happening, i dont see it reflected when i watch cnbc but there is the stealth layoff happening and unfortunately as you backfill the new york city area with illegals who are costing money we see more people that are taxpayers leaving the area and i think that will be the largest challenge for the democrat majority in new york state. Host lets go to mike in vermont who is working. Caller this is the most people that have ever called from vermont. I guess we stayed home for labor day. I agree with what everybody has been saying, especially the last caller. A quick comment on health care. I lost a Vice President job when obamacare went through and all these Young College graduates could stay on their Parents Health care told he were 26. If youve got a lot of Health Care Problems and you are going over 50 you are pretty easily replaceable. The other thing i wanted to say is that i think the biggest challenge for all workers, not just people over 50 is its hard to make enough during your career to pay for your later years of retirement if you only work 30 years and you live 90 years. I think thats a tremendous challenge prayed thanks for taking my call. Host this is front page of the Washington Times. Strikes, biden drive up union strength. The article says labor unions are flexing their muscles and ways they have not in decades and are subtly gaining the upper hand after waning influence. Though unions are having an moment, whether they can sustain as yet to be certain. Labor drives at starbucks and amazon, of the pole the prounion stance and polls showing increasing support have ignited a spark of optimism after decades of waning influence. Opposition to organizing at sites across the country and an economic downturn. The article also says Union Leaders say they have turned a corner. Workers at starbucks, amazon, trader joes, rei have unionized in the past year. Last month exotic dancers at a los angeles topless club formed the nations first union for strippers. Or than 200 work stoppages involving 320,000 employees marked nearly 10 times the number just two years ago according to the aflcio. The organizations president spoken washington last week. Heres some of what she had to say. [video clip] every day i travel this country and talk to workers. I talked to workers in unions of course but also people who are not yet part of the union. This is what i hear from them. I dont feel good about my future. I need to make more money, i wish i could afford a home. I need a stable job. I wish i had some power over my work and my life right now. There is a reason that song is the number one song in this country right now. For a long time working people in this country have felt powerless. Theyve been powerless. Heres the truth we will talk about today. Working people are reclaiming our power. [applause] working people are taking on the companies that have exploited us for a long time now. The state of the unions, the state of the unions is on the rise. [applause] on the rise with every strike , with every picket line, every win we deliver for workers all over the country. Host we will show all of that speech by the president of the aflcio coming up tonight at 8 00 eastern here on cspan. It will also be on cspan now, our mobile app and cspan. Org. What do you see is the Biggest Challenges facing American Workers . Robert is in san mateo, california. Caller good morning, thanks for taking my call. I was laid off recently and i find its difficult to find an interview now. Im not saying theres democrat disco nation im saying its hard to find work when you get older. My message to those who have their job is you should be so fortunate, try to keep your job and dont mess it up. The conversation is as one gets older, its harder to find work. Host thank you for that. Matt in maryland. Caller good morning, thanks for taking my call. I think a good summary out of my industry is a locust of control is being shifted from employers to employees and the postpandemic job market and economy has kind of accelerated this. In health care we have a vicious cycle as people have left their fulltime jobs for increased flexibility and higher rates of pay we transition from a w2 Employment Status fulltime to more of a transient status. As a result they leave the fulltime workforce creating a greater hole in the fulltime workforce and health care and that creates a greater need which increases compensation for these temporary workers so the vicious cycle keeps going and driving up costs. The individuals seeking more flexibility and increased rates of pay getting more control is theyre essentially influencing the market significantly. What the end of this is hard to tell. Costs are going up and vacancies rise so the cycle at some point should slow down. Host looking for work. Caller companies arent paying people enough and there are also other factors of this host next to loretta in cleveland, ohio. Caller thank you. Good morning america. Im sitting here just laughing out loud, you didnt even play people who worked 250 years for free to build this joint. Everybodys looking at this. So if they are looking at how you can get around paying people, everybody trying to c ya. I dont understand it. Nobodys going to get it right until you do reparations. I watch this show every morning, its hard not to call in because its a bunch of bit a bunch of ignorant stuff being put on air and its not being explained correctly. Host we are focusing on the workforce and your thoughts on challenges for the American Workforce. 2027488000 if you are currently working. If you are unemployed, 2027488001. For those of you who are retired, 2027488002. A caller earlier this morning talked about what are sometimes called stealth layoffs. This is a piece somewhat about that from cbs news. Companies are quiet cutting. Some companies are reassigning workers in a way that sending the mixed messages. Emails in performing employee informing employees their current role has been eliminated but they have not been fired or leaving those Staff Members with feelings of confusion, rage and anger. Quiet cutting is the latest outgrowth of the quiet Cutting Movement effectively allows companies to cut jobs and trim costs about laying off workers. The strategy is gainings traction gaining traction as a costcutting move. Employers will restructure their workforces in this way of the past year. The Financial Research platform alpha says over the last year such reassignments have more than tripled. Arizona, douglas on the working line. Hello there. Caller some businesses, but like starbucks. Host sorry about that douglas. We will go to john in pittsburgh. Caller hello. I just have one thought that goes to what your guest before was saying from compass. How unions are investing in political. A lot of this started with Citizens United when the Supreme Court said corporations are people too and now you can have these billionaires with the secret pack funds. So we have to fight back. I drive a school bus now to make ends meet. Were shorthanded. I know theres a million workers standing on the other to the river who would love to come here and do a lot of work. Because of the last president s pro racism, they are bad people and they are not. 99. 9 of them are good coming to work and be great citizens. This is about unions for political gain just look at Citizens United. They have destroyed this all campaign laws. Thank you. Host austin, texas is next. Roy is looking for work. How is that going . Caller i feel like im 59 years old and a fulltime student. Im about halfway through on getting my degree in computer science. Putting out applications, resumes, but whats frustrating is i dont have the degree. I have a lifetime of experience and what these companies are wanting is people with the actual degree. Host thank you for calling in. Lets look, we are just getting some video from philadelphia of President Biden speaking ahead of the labor day parade. Lets listen in for a moment. Pres. Biden america has the best workers in the world thats a fact. It can take four to five years to train as an apprentice. Its like going back to college. The job is constantly changing. You have to keep stepping up, get more training. So you can be the worst in the world, you are the best in the world. I really mean it. Like the sheet Metal Workers who used to use handdrawn blueprints to design ductwork in buildings. Now you use sophisticated computeraided Design Systems so the project can be laid out in 3d. This is a different world man. You do the job right and on time and it costs less for the guy you are doing it for then if they didnt have labor. People are starting to understand with the business roundtable, the big shots in corporate america. They said why are you so prolabor i said why do not understand why im so prolabor. I said what i was Vice President i spoke with 364 ceos of fortune 500 companies and we asked them what do you most need. Do you know what they said, a better educated workforce. I said what are you doing about it. Youre fighting everything we are doing in the unions as well as in the Democratic Party to make People Better educated. Why are you doing it . All of a sudden now you dont see them going out there doing as much because they know they need you. Americas support for union is higher today than any time in nearly 60 years. Host thats President Biden live in philadelphia. We have all of that coming up for you later in the Program Schedule here on cspan continuing with about 10 minutes of calls asking about challenges in the workforce. Seattle, washington is next. Ronald, welcome. Caller thank you. Earlier in this section someone was saying people are voluntarily moving to 1099. Earlier someone noted just in general in services they were seeing this drop in quality like in Clinical Care and those arent completely disconnected. I see it in other industries as well. Companies are moving more and more to these flexible budget structures. Fewer and fewer people are hiring and more are like travel on the shortterm contract. They cost more but and it causes this drop of quality in care. But lets more profittaking happen by groups you might want to pay preferentially. I think a lot of people dont appreciate that the structures are happening and what we see in response is that these structures, we have nursing protest because the quality of care is dropping and they are not getting secure benefits. You can make some people happy if we move them to the profitable part but on the others you do not get structures where your customers, people in your community, will understand why are these protests happening. Theres this dysfunction whether that something but is a real threat tends to restructure how the companies relationship between where money goes in the company is occurring. Making unions more than organizational or trade structure rather than a company to company argument could be a solution to that. The perspective of whether companies and how they are controlled isnt really understood, the caller this morning blaming somehow the lack of education or training is the reason the quality drops rather than its these institutions are not investing in the system. Host real quick, what about the choice of the workers here. What about people who choose to live that people who choose to say for example working the gig economy whether it be an uber driver or some other field like that . Caller all speaker travel nursing. Essentially when hospitals are not hiring for longterm positions but they are hiring for the travel positions those are the ones available. Theyll pay the travel nurse 50 more than 100 but they have fewer nursing staff. And the travel nurses are moving around a lot. The hospital is saying we can have this excessive budget for three months. But those travel nurses travel so the system ends up with some tightening. Travel nurses go somewhere else and you see this happening. I do know we see the same thing amongst a lot of analysts and software engineers, statisticians. The same thing can happen. Its to the benefit of the companies to have the flexibility. Shortterm profits work better in corporate structures but another side is that that flexibility makes it so that a chunk of the workforce isnt ever going to be on board with a labor negotiation. Theres way less incentive to ever be involved with a local longterm argument. Host appreciate your perspective. We will go to georgia, eugene. Caller how are you doing this morning . Great show. Im a retired union representative. Lets just be honest about what happened in this country. When we went to the trickledown economics system the reagan ushered in, it did away with the middle class. And until we reverse that trickledown mindset that we have, theres a reason conservatism starts with the letter con. It was a con job played on american people. Do away with your pensions. The 401 k was never designed to be your sole provider of your retirement. And until we get back to some common sense and to away with trickledown, this is what weve got. Host next up is michael important orchard is in port orchard washington. Caller im a 30 year plus union guy. Im union all the way. One particular person talking but he couldnt find a job, jobs are hard to find in new york city. Local 147. Those guys make very good money. And really have a comfortable life in new york city with the type of job. You cant be afraid of going down in a tunnel. 365 feet down. If you can handle that stuff you can make a lot of money. On the flipside, talking about other years have spent, if youre not afraid of a little height, you can do highrise work theres a lot of money in that. Welding is a good occupation. You can travel around and make a lot of money. The best way to have a good Social Security check in the mail all the jobs you get make sure they are unionized and make sure that you stay and pump a lot of money in into the time on the job. The time that you work, all the years that you work since you become the age of working. 17 or 18 years old until you get to be 62, whatever. Whatever you get, whatever you made throughout those years, thats going to determine how much Social Security you get. Everybody has different Social Security. 3000 plus a month, stick with those highpaying jobs. Dont around with lowpaying jobs. Host thanks for the advice there. We will get one more here from taylorsville, kentucky. Caller good morning. The number one reason we have labor unions in my opinion is poor management. If the company, corporation, small or large would run their businesses correctly we wouldnt need labor unions. You take a company that projects profits for years, a 2 million profit and they end up making 1 million. They say they lost one million. They just didnt get their projection. The next thing is dont talk about your salary. If you are managing your company correctly and making sure that your employees doing their job correctly, paying them correctly, if you have someone combining dashcam plaint complaining youre not doing your job right. You keep them in the dark, you can control things. A larger company, 50 people or more, you are not going to negotiate these rules and pay scales and so forth. The only way to do that is by labor union because the manager hasnt done their homework on what they can pay you. Host thanks for all your calls this morning. That will about do it for our labor day edition of washington journal but we are back tomorrow morning at 7 00 eastern. We hope you are as well and enjoy the rest of your Labor Day Weekend. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] tarts now. Host on the one hand, jobs are more plentiful and pay more than ever and workers are satisfied with their jobs. On the other, more americans are living paychecktopaycheck and the sector of Union Strikes looms larger than it has in years. A partial look at how things are on this labor day. Welcome to washington journal. We begin asking you about the Biggest Challenges you see facing American Workers. Going in the discussion. If you are currently employed and working, the line is 202 7488000. If you are looking for work, unemployed, 202 7488001. If you are retired, use 202 7488002