Steve greenhouse, thank you so much for coming in to talk about your new book, beaten down, worked up. It was a real pleasure to read it and i look forward to having time to talk to you about it. Guest thank you for your kind words, congressman. Great to speak with you. Host when i think about this book i think of it as having three major parts. After you introduce the situation now you do a really good job, i think, of talking about, through stories about how workers struggled, really they themselves built the middle class in this country to a great extent by organizing, by striking, by bargaining and through diversity and by demanding policy changes and then you go through a lot of the hard times of what i call the reagan era which i think we are still in where companies and starting with the president of the United States really have attacked workers all hot and their unions and then you tell hopeful stories about different creative and innovative ways that workers have been organizing and unions and other forms and make policy recommendations. One of the things i have to say is a lot of books like this are criticized because they come up short on the policy recommendations but i hope we get into that because you really made quite a view, i thought, interesting suggestions on what might be done to restore the voice and power of workers in this country. Why dont you start by laying out where you see things right now and what is the status of working people in this country and their ability to shape their own lives at work . Guest sure. I covered labor and race for 19 years at the New York Times in one of my concerns and interviewing people all over the nation is that so many people had no idea what unions are, what unions do and how unions helped bring us the 40 hour workweek and bring us pensions and theres a Bumper Sticker unions for folks that brought us the weekend. I wanted to explain to people unions have achieved a whole lot in American History that now they are in decline and have been taking on the chin and as a result things are considerably worse for workers, i believe, then was the case 30, 40 years ago. I think far too few americans realize that compared that the American Workers have it bad in many ways compared with workers and other industrial nations and im very basic things but we are the only industrial nation that does not have a law guaranteeing all workers paid parental leave, paid maternal leave and we are the only industrial nations that do not guarantee all workers paid vacation in a 28 nations of the European Union all work as a guarantee for four weeks paid vacation instead of the six weeks in france and for decades now workers have been suffering terrible weight, stagnation all corporate profits have reached record levels and wall street is again at record levels. A lot of workers get in your gut that something is broken and then they are frustrated and in my book i tried to explain why things have gone south for workers in many ways. Worker power in the United States is arguably the weakest its been in decades and the percentage of workers one in ten workers are in unions and thats down from one in three when unions were at their peak and unions and certainly unions have faults but despite those faults the unions have played a key role in building the middle class and helping give workers a voice whether on job safety or pensions or im stopping bullying by bosses and unions have played a key role in washington on an acting and making Social Security more generous but in recent years unions have been on the defensive and Corporate Power has really trumped union power in many ways so i think we, as a nation, have to figure out a way to give workers more power to help create a fair nation and end wage stagnation. For example, we have not raised the federal minimum wage in over a decade and thats the longest time in American History that the minimum wage has not been increased. I submit and argued that that is because workers have so worker power that we in congress are unable to pervade persuade members of congress to raise minimum wage and its hard for millions of americans to live on 7. 25 which is the minimum wage for one of the keys of the book is to educate leaders about the problems workers have and look at strategies to try to increase power for workers to help create a more prosperous nation for millions of americans and millions of workers. Host right. What i think to a certain extent a lot of people dont even realize how few rights they have paid for example, one of your suggestions is that we might go away from our Current System and almost all states, i think, except montana in which workers can be fired for as leonard hanh said, the judge many years ago, a good reason, batteries and or no reason at all. Basically you have no right to your job in this country and you suggest going towards a just cause system where workers could be fired if they did something wrong or not just because the boss doesnt like who you are going out with. They could fire you for that. Or anything like that. Most workers dont think that could happen to them until it does. Host sometimes after as a reporter i get a call for someone on the blue same my boyfriend got fired yesterday at work because he came in two minutes late or because his boss was angry about his attitude or that he wasnt smiling and they say isnt that illegal and i say, dont you understand the United States has at will employment mean your employer can fire you for any reason or no reason except specifically illegal race discrimination. People dont realize that their jobs can be precarious and very uncertain and to my mind one of the big problems is that workers dont have enough power and they are scared to exercise their voice at work and i write about the Upper Big Branch mining disaster were more than a dozen workers were killed on the workers knew about the dangers in the mind but they were so scared of speaking up that they didnt speak up about the dangerous gas that was filling the minds and the mine exploded and the workers died and worker voice is way too weak and workers are scared to speak out. Some people argue that we should move from an at will implement to just cause so that workers could only be fired for illegitimate reason and a just cause a system which certainly makes workers more willing to speak up and they safety problems or when there encountering Sexual Harassment on the job. Host the other issue you mention, raising minimum wage is unbelievable that weve gone this long in this country without a raise in the minimum wage. As you know, the house and the house we passed a raise wage act which would raise the minimum wage in the United States the 15 an hour by 2025 gradually over the next five years or so and we would end the practice of having sub minimum wages for tipped workers who are disproportionately women and people of color and they are taking advantage of and that would put millions and lines of dollars into poor peoples pockets working peoples pockets and workers that i think your point is not have had the power in our politics and in washington and state capitals to just get a decent shake in the United States and in recent years. Guest one think that always kills me is i look at the editorial pages the place about big labor that is supposedly powerful and who is powerful and big and i saw that in the 2016 Campaign Cycle business gave more than 3. 4 billion in their nations which is more than 16 as much [inaudible] according to a respected nonperson group, centers for responsive politics, each year in Washington Court prince spent just under three laying dollars on lobbying which is more than 60, which spent 48 million and that explains a lot of the problems we are seeing in washington so it was weird how congress rushed to enact a 1 trillion tax cut for business when corporations were making record profits [inaudible conversations] how extremely get before we get in a different direction . Guest absolutely. And congress will help explain why too many folks in congress, the senate for instance is a donothing minimum wage because they are listening to their corporate donors. Host i want to talk about these policy ideas but i just want to emphasize to our viewers that i at least got so much out of this book from your story and i think its a great part of the book, really that the bulk of the book is telling the story workers that today but also throughout American History and so i want to ask you, dont you think that a lot of the stories you tell from hundred years ago say have a lot of relevance to today so why dont you talk a little bit about the uprising of the 20000, for example, tell us about that story because i thought that one had a lot of relevance to a lot of the struggles that workers go through today and even a lot of the issues that people would think thats not just about work but issues about immigrant rights and the rights of people of color in society and minority groups. Guest happy to. Ive read a lot of labor histories and theres been a character who is fascinated me over the years and her name is clara and she was born in ukraine and was jewish and her father was very religious and she worked writing a lot of people and relatives have moved to new york and she would write letters to them and she was very illiterate and this horrible programs in the area and her family moved to new york from ukraine and shes a very bright young lady and hoping to be a doctor someday but when she arrived in new york she only spoke yiddish and did not have a High School Education so what did she do . She worked in a sweatshop. She was appalled at the conditions for it she said i often worked from 7 00 a. M. Until 7 00 p. M. When i go into work before the sun came up and i leave work after. Host and six or seven days a week. Guest right, right. And some of the bosses would sexually harass the women sometimes they would have to pay and they be rushed, not to use be in the bathroom for more than a minute or two and they often had to pay for their needle and thread at work and sometimes they had to pay five cents a week to use Drinking Water when they were just making five dollars a week and she thought this is appalling so she became an activist and said im not going to take this. This young woman in her late teens, early 20s became one of the most prominent worker activists and people got fed up and started going on strike and there were long strikes at one, two garment factories and there was a decision there was a huge meeting saying should we have a strike of garment workers to try to put pressure on the factories and there was a big debate in congress and the first [inaudible] was presiding over the meeting and he was temporizing and said i dont know if we should have a strike and i dont know if women workers are dedicated and off to their jobs and carl, 23 years old and said i think its time to call the general strike and im tired of being a pro working woman struggling they today and the place went bonkers and bananas and everyone stood up and that began what was the largest strike to date by women in American History to this day. They were not calling for a 40 hour workweek but a 52 hour workweek. One thing that gets me is people seem to think that the workweek was handed down by god and i explained in the book it was one by struggle by thousands and millions of workers in their unions and in the uprising of the strike that lasted two months in the dead of winter a lot of these women mainly jewish and italian immigrants their families went hungry for many weeks but after two months they won and the one the 50 hour work week down from 56 hours and one for right no longer to pay for needle and thread and most of the factories they won the right to join a union and have union recognition. One of the few factories the receive refuse to recognize wa was factory and two years later there was this horrendous tragedy there where one of 46 workers died in the fire. Host but here you have the story of a teenager and woman in her 20s and many of the workers were teenagers or very young and overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly immigrants and they did not speak english but spoke italian and yiddish and they were despised by the high society, even though some high Society Women ended up coming to their aid but in general you dont have time to suture the details but they were beaten up some of them were beaten up, physically by men goons sent in by their employers and so my question to you is today when we have these inspiring movements that we should stop mass incarceration and black lives matter that immigrants from immigrant lives matter and that the. [background noises] kids are saying by the way other undocumented people and the young people are out here in the movement about Climate Change but when i read your account i thought how inspiring for young people and activists today who are fighting for rights in this country but i dont think in their minds they are thinking i better look to the early 19th Century Labor Movement for inspiration so when you think of this . Guest one is solitary support and people working collectively or acting collectively to lift themselves up and to improve their wages and improve their climate and help fair treatment of africanamericans like black lives matter but also stress that agency is important. Individuals need to be willing to stick their neck out and stand up and try to demand justice. In the uprising of 20000 and what was crazy that it one point they broke 11 of her ribs and she was living how many ribs do we have . She did not even want to tell advance she thought they would not let her go out and speak on a soapboxes and alida strikes and then also there were incidents literally old papers like the new york trip explained that reporters got the thugs and the goons would be the jesus out of these young women and the police would calm and arrest these women and let the thugs go and the police were so onesided back then and it showed how the establishment and the police on the courts were so aligned against the workers but even despite that the workers are able to win the strike and in the book i write about modernday workers who use their agency to fight and i talked about the kansas city worker terrence who held to fulltime jobs and a little like clara he left for work at six in the morning and comes back at midnight and had three daughters and he would leave home in the morning before they woke up and he would return after the second job after he had gone to sleep and he complained and his daughter complained that he worked so hard trying to make ends meet that he did not see his daughters most of the week and for a while they became homeless when from the hours of his job were cut off and it was crazy that someone who is busting his bottom, can hardly make ends meet. He became an activist in the 515 and one of the leaders in the 515. As i explained in the book i was very first journalist in the United States to write about the 515 and when it began seven years ago and the workers were demanding 15 an hour i said that is super ambitious and thats pie in the sky and here we are seven years later and new york, california, illinois, maryland, massachusetts, district of columbia have all enacted the 50dollar minimum wage so it shows that when workers are willing to stand up and individuals are willing to stick their neck out they can achieve big change and a lot of lessons today are activists whether its climate activists for black lives matter or made to womens activists is that they learn from the Labor Movement of old and i write about how the Labor Movement of old whether in the uprising of the 20000 or the sitdown strike in michigan when workers stand up and come together they can achieve historical change and as i explained in my chapter on the teacher strikes in West Virginia and oklahoma and arizona and more recently in los angeles and chicago the teachers were tired of being beaten down and they said we need to do something not just to increase our pay but ensure the schools are getting the funding they need and the classsize does not balloon and that we have enough money to buy modern textbooks and the teacher strikes have sent a message to the nation about how worker power has affected trade unions and can help build a fairer nation. Host lets talk about strikes as a mechanism because they were very important in building the middle class in this country and they have fallen into disuse. Talk to us share both information and stories in the books about how many strikes there were in the 50s, 60s, 70s like that and how both because of the law and weakness in labor perhaps they have fallen into nearly complete disuse and tell us what your thoughts are about today when we are starting to see the teachers but also Hotel Workers and the autoworkers at gm recently, right now my kid is on strike as a graduate employee at harvard. Hes ata so tell us about the sweep and the strikes in the role in history and how you see it going forward. In the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s there were far more strength than there are today and in the 1970s there are 300 large strikes and a year and only about 13 far, far left and workers have become intimidated. A lot of that happen in the 1980s but in the 50s and 60s there were fairly good cooperation between employers and unions, employers were very prosperous after world war ii and the nations economy was growing and they gave contracts and come to 1980s the United States felt pressure from globalization with imports of german cars and Japanese Cars with imports of clothing and tvs and radios and there was a recession in the 1980s and those two things put unions under pressure and made employers folder about confronting unions and demanding concessions. Host but reagan there you go. In the 1980 tell that story. Guest so shortly after he became president in 1981 the air Traffic Control went on strike demanding very large wage increases and a fourday workweek and the engaged and illegal strike and for reagan it was, make my date moment that he said im not going to put up with this illegal strike and i will not even though he had been president of the Screen Actors Guild and lead there he i think he tried to show he will not labor push him around and he fired 11000 air Traffic Controllers for going on strike illegally and i explained in the book that the Union Aircraft control mishandled the strike they did not Work Together to get public support from their fellow union so they were clobbered and i was a major step back for unions across the nation that discouraged and discouraged unions from going on strike but at the same time reagans crackdown on the air Traffic Controllers emboldened Corporate America to get much tougher to unions and followed in 1980s we saw this major decline in strikes and also we saw corporations getting much tougher whenever they are Unionization Efforts and that made it harder to unionize and thats a big reason that the percentage of workers and unions is half of what was in the 1980s because corporations engage in so many sophisticated tactics to prevent workers from getting unions that would fire people that support unions and they would spy on workers to support unions and threaten to close their plants as i explained in detail if workers would form a union so the number each year has fallen to the low level in more than half a century but last year something happened. I turned in the manuscript of my book on february 19, 2018 and it was a quiet time for unions and it was the only major thing going on and then three days later as i explained in the book there was this volcanic explosion in West Virginia where thousands and tens of thousands of teachers wearing red shirts went on strike in West Virginia and crowded into charleston. Explain how these two teachers, english teacher named, hispanic teacher named emily and they those two people got the ball rolling for this huge strike and without the leadership of the union. Yeah, they thought West Virginia teachers unions are not allowed to bargain collectively with their districts. They had to beg the state legislator for laws. [inaudible conversations] guest there was a very conservative red tape legislator that was cutting corporate taxes, cutting taxes for the rich and that created a freeze in the education budget statewide and a freeze on teacher salaries and these teachers saw the governor of West Virginia who was the richest man in western, only billionaire and western virginia set i will give you a raise of 1 a year for five years and the teachers were upset about that because they had the 48 worst pay levels of any state and worse their Health Care Premiums often went up 300, 500, 700 a year so the governors offered a race of about 100 a year while the Health Premiums would often go up more than that and jay oneill and emily comber, two teachers that started a Facebook Page which started slowly but the governor said will give you this tiny raise and the Facebook Page exploded with tens of thousands of teachers joining it on sudden they had this big movement and people were like that up and its like they were fed up and we will not take it anymore. Host and it spread across the country. Guest like the frog in the fish tank. The heat turned up and up and got worse and got worse and they cannot afford and moving back economically because they were not getting raises and their Healthcare Payments were going up and they saw tax cuts for the rich and they said we call we will not tolerate this and they went on strike and they won a raise and they won the ability to have healthcare premiums going up and they forced the governor and force the state legislator to pay more attention after years of starting the education budget. Host and teachers follow suit and multiple other state and that would surprise many of our viewers where unions are supposed to be weak. Guest and oklahoma, one of the brightest states in the union i spoke with a High School Social studies teacher there and saw with the teachers were doing and they said we could do that here in oklahoma and theres a huge back in oklahoma and they want double digit raises and in arizona the teachers got on the phone with the teachers who led the strike in West Virginia and learned lessons had their and it was an effort by the this happened in los angeles and in chicago in the system is broken and the government is not spending enough on our schools and they are tired of disparity in our schools. Our crests eyes are bigger we have obsolete textbooks in the teachers really went on strike to not just fight for wages but for a Better School system and they sell say were fighting not just for ourselves but fighting for the community. The gm strike there was one very interesting aspects that the day strike began the unions chief negotiator with the gm said the strike is not just for us but for all americans and he explained that you are concerned about factories moving overseas and so are we. We the uaw was unhappy about this huge factory in ohio closing and thousands of workers losing their jobs and gm said we have to close the plant because demand for the chevy cruze is declining and the gms close the plant but it open and close the plant in mexico and one of the purposes of the strike was to say we dont want to tolerate this anymore and we want to try to stop jobs moving overseas. The uaw also said i will be the year not so are we and they said General Motors, one of the biggest most iconic companies, corporations of the United States, 70 of the workers were temps, they made 15 an hour and said weve got to fix this. It was so unjust that they were working next to somebody making half of what they were and it was corrosive to the culture in the workplace and they wanted to end the whole idea of the wages and temp workers who really had very few rights and they succeeded tremendously. So it really was a fight for the whole working class of the country and not just for themselves. And it was inspirational. I could tell you something you know, i dont know if this got enough attention not one person cross the picket line. 49,000 workers, just think about our society where people are thinking our society is so divided and abc Political Parties race, age, people, everybody is on their smartphone not paying attention, here are 50,000 workers who stuck together for over a month and one change and i dont think we appreciate that kind of human solidarity anymore, but thats what it takes to change. Host that is a great point, and you know, i think a lot of workers are frustrated and tired of the wage stagnation and other companies where they hire younger workers working next to all those that make far more and i think a lot of people feel the system is rigged and that is one reason a lot of the workers voted for donald trump. The unfortunately donald trump had done many things against the workers interest, nothing to raise the minimum wage and has rolled back over the time protection for the workers and hispanic safety protection. And if president obama took an important step to acquire the wall street firms to act in the workers disinterest in handling the 401 k . The policy was i think just as many of the workers turned to donald trump looking for a way to raise themselves from under the system for the same reason a blogger looking to the unions. Thats why the General Motors strikers have support and the annual poll found public approval of the union is at its nearest highest level, 64 of the American Workers approve of unions and the highest is among the young americans, 67 of them and basically gone into say that they would vote to join the union tomorrow if they could wear as just one in 16 privatesector workers so theres a crazy disconnect 50 of the workers want to join that only 6 of privatesector workers are in a unions, and i argue how the corporations fight so hard to prevent them from forming unions because corporations fear the unions are going to make them share more of the profits and more of the prosperity and for years the overwhelming idea and profit maximization and unions are saying thats wrong. Theres too much income equality. The labor unions are the most important effective vehicle to try to reduce income equality and i think that is a big reason why the public approval for the unions is increasing. And i say that even though, i just finished the movie the irishman yesterday and this corruption has been a problem and for too many years the unions were against africanamericans and didnt encourage women workers enough, but that has changed. There is still too much and the legacy of discrimination against blacks and asianamericans but is way behind. The unions see that a key part of the future American Workforce is one in and workers of color and unions saying we battle for every one. Latino workers and women workers, and i explained in the book that unions probably have done more than any other society except perhaps a wonderful military to bring workers of different races and religions together. I am eager to spend enough time to talk about policy, but i just, people who want to read this book are going to want to read it for the stories not just the earlier ones but the more recent and i want to ask you this to pick out a few of those because it was fun to me to racist because i left some of them in my years at the aflcio and so forth and so for example, you could sort of take your pick but some unions collectively helped the workers at the lax airport in los angeles organizing and we used the Community Benefits agreement structure that was pioneered and you talk about that story. I got to march on the picket line on the frontier strike, the longest strike where nobody crossed the picket line in over six years or Something Like that in las vegas and you explain in some effective detail how the Culinary Union and what is now called united here union has an incredible model of the cowering and organizing workers, many immigrant workers and hotel house worker middleclass life. Its about the importance of young people organizing and i mention my son and the graduate organizing a different university. Its been an area of growth for the Labor Movement. So, talk about one or two of the stories of the innovation that you have seen the workers appreciating through the unions you think could be promising models to gain more power in the economy going forward. Guest i will try not to take too much time. I devoted a chapter to in las vegas and i write about them because in many ways they are a model union that has done a great job with people that are lowwage workers lifting them into the middle class and had done a ton of politics. She makes 19. 51 per hour and get 41 a week. That makes about 40,000 a year and i visited her apartment. A nice three bedroom apartment with her three kids. Shes raised them on her own. She doesnt need medicaid or food stamps or welfare. And i described the example to show what the good Effective Union can do to lift people up to the middle class and in comparison, the typical nonunion hotel worker in the nation, they stripped 11 per hour for the bureau of labor statistics and they often dont work 40 hour weeks. They often work 30 hour weeks, sold 330 a week, 17,000 a year. You cant raise a family, three hits and 17,000 a year. You can hardly resource off on that. So, the union is a great example of what the unions can achieve. Also, so into 2006 election, the Union Stronghold went from blue to red and i explained in the chapter about how a very powerful Effective Union did a great job communicating with its members and mobilizing them to get involved to make some calls and knock on the doors, that union played a key role in the flipping nevada from red to blue and i quote the president saying the labor unions are strong in ohio. If they do what we do, communicate with workers, educate them about the economy and whats going on in politics, unions in those states can do what we did in nevada. Francis garcia, you know, she fled honduras because of the hurricane there. She moved to the United States and is fighting very hard for lifting up their workers and lifting herself and raising her children. And i think that its a great example. Host so, it seems to me the story has these incredible implications, both for policy under the Labor Movement itself because, you know, if we didnt have to subsidize workers, say and other Hotel Company also help the country where the workers on makin of making wager walmart or many other sectors where there is a vast majority of workers that are nonunion and we, the taxpayers are paying for food stamps or temporary assistance for families or so many other forms of public assistance if the workers just were able to form their own unions they could take care of themselves and then theres the implication that you talk about in the book for the Labor Movement where you think that they need to devote more money for organizing. Well, theres a union that did that. They need to empower their own workers to take care of themselves instead of picking up the phone and calling the union staff person. It sounds like the story about you telling about its implications really broadly in for policy. Guest is. So, these elaborate studies show a High Percentage of walmart workers at Amazon Warehouse workers on food stamps and those studies pressured amazon to adopt the minimum wage at the warehouse, so it is true of these workers that worked really hard still unfortunately need several food stamps and other assistance. The Culinary Union, and i wrote about this, if there it does ab in improving and increasing wages and benefits it does a great job in politics. Unfortunately many of them dont do a good enough job involving a member and localizing and communicating the members. One of the points i make is that it does an exemplary job in my profile this housekeeper Francis Garcia not only does she work fulltime cleaning rooms and raised kids on her own but also volunteers and finish cleaning the 14 rooms in their allotted hours. This union did a lot of organizing. Theyve gone from having a team thousand members in the 1980s to 60,000 members now its more than tripled in size. Overall the Union Membership has declined by nearly one third so this is a model union that i think i recommend folks read my chapter that shows what it can achieve when it does everything right. I need to mention one other aspect because i think im the only member of congress that used to run a state workforce system. In the book you talk about one innovation might be having states administer Unemployment Insurance but also possibly be involved in job Training Programs and helping the workers with access. Talk about how this union has gone far beyond helping them access job training, but the employers and the union have created one of the most inspiring in america so that you can come in as somebody with no training and start cleaning up little rooms and they are making 90,000 a year or so. Talk about the training because its about a worthwhile purpose of the story . Guest somme do a great job training because they have wonderful precious. To become a plumbing apprentice and people who dont go to college and who pursue these partnerships they can get 70, 80, 90,000 a year. The Culinary Union working with the Hotel Casinos had a wonderful Training Academy that someone clearing tables and making 25, 30,000 a year they can take the course is to become waiters or bartenders and doubled her salary into the courses are for free and then if they want they can take them to become chefs into trouble to 90,000 a year and this is all free and its a total winwin. The hotels need a talented, loyal, knowledgeable workforce end of the workers are eager to climb up and make more money and work in more skilled jobs. The training economy, this wonderful Industry Union cooperative effort trained several thousand a year to give them more skills and enable them to raise their pay and so these workers who started this Hotel Housekeepers were boxers making not much more than the minimum wage and no they are making 50 to 60 to 70,000, suddenly 90,000 a year. I attended some classes teaching these people dont whine and teaching them how to become pastry chefs. Its great for the workers and the society when there are these cooperative efforts to provide industries with the skilled workers they need and lift up the workers that are eager to move up in the world. Lets talk more broadly about this because you mentioned about policy and how we can help more workers access this kind of life. You mentioned the building trade and they have incredible apprenticeships. There is no economist has the bs the model of the future economy where they can show that we need more than 50 or 60 of the workforce to go to for your college. And they are always going to need what you might call these little skilled jobs or jobs that require more than High School Less than a four year degree and its a ticket to the middle class were certainly it could be if more or industries were organized like this. I dont think that most people know that if you sign on to become an iron worker or labor or operating engineer electrician, plumber, all of this, you get education and work, you earn while you learn and become a master at your craft. You are offered lifelong education and go back to learn about this installing solar panels and vehicle charging stations and the benefits are affordable because if you are a construction worker you are going to build one building for six weeks or Six Months Ended than yothen you get to go to anr one and each employer contributes to your health care and retirement. So, the question is how can we get this kind of a middleclass life for more americans because they think they look at the low Unemployment Rate and say why isnt everybody happy. But you have told the story in your fight for 15 chapter because all those people have a job and the thing is they had two or three jobs and still didnt have a middleclass life. So, lets kick off the policy discussion. What are your top picks for policy changes that you think we ought to make so that more American Workers can have a real middleclass life which i think is all we really want. Guest so, i was a reporter for the New York Times for five years i was based in paris as the nation European Economic correspondent. And i wrote about companies and workers and in germany and italy and france, spain, the netherlands and england, and unfortunately a lot of the folks i spoke to in europe would say they make fun of the United States. They say they have this term many jobs of the unite that thes would pay minimum wage without benefits, without vacation. And if they would sneer at the low level of jobs in the United States but says it is the low road economy and i wrote the story of the great benefits over anorany of its vacation each ye, whereas mcdonalds workers in the u. S. Often didnt have Health Coverage and often didnt get vacation. So, i think something was broken in the United States. That is one of the main points in the book is that too often they have a lower economy with lower wages and benefits and it makes it very hard for the workers to make ends meet to support their families and it makes it hard for the families work balance. So, we have to figure out ways to improve things for workers. So in the book, i look at the various models and strategies to make things better and i think that one way is our Campaign Finance system is very broken as i said the corporations far outspend unions and workers groups and that is why the minimum wage is stuck and why there is a huge attack on Health Coverage for all, and i think that we have to fix the campaignfinance system so that its not so dominated by the rich and buy diet coke Brothers Network and by corporations. I think it is something really wrong when someone could give 100 million to have his voice and the campaign and have much more say than a schoolteacher or nurse or steelworker. Thats something we need to do. Host im going to push you into a rapidfire here. In the house, we passed hr one which would, for example, have Public Financing for campaigns if people gave up to 200 but it would be matched 61. Some states and cities have done that, so thats one. Let me ask you, i counted 17 proposals i think. I thought it was terrific. I say four or five of them are covered by what they are working through in the house right now protecting the right to organize were the acts that we passed through the education and Labor Committee which im the vice chair of. Talk about briefly what happens when they try to form a union if you had to name just quickly three or four things that need to change so the workers could actually form the union today, what would they be lax is a disconnect where one in to say they would like to join the union but only one and 16 are in the union and i explained the main reason for that. I have a line in the book that has been picked up saying the United States is probably harder to beat back then the corporations in any other country, yet you know, the fire workers. They spy on workers, and one of the things under federal law, corporations that break the law to keep out in ends, they cant be fined. They see no punishment whatsoever. It often takes years to win back the jobs of the workers that are fired for supporting a union. And by arguing that something is broken when corporations can flagrantly and reportedly break the law and only have their wrists slapped. I think we need much stricter penalties to discourage companies from doing that. And i think another problem is that workers only bargain one workplace at a time whereas in europe there is industrywide bargaining that gets them more clout than they bargain with ann industry. I think we have to figure out a way to because corporations dominate the worker power so we have to find a way to give the workers more power in bargaini bargaining. Here in new york city where i am, there are tens of thousands and they cant unionize but 95 less than the minimum wage sometimes falling asleep at the wheel doing dangerous things, so the city enacted a law that predates at a minimum compensation for drivers 17. 22 an hour. They Say Something is really broken for tens of thousands of workers, and we want to do what we think is fair for both the industry and the drivers to help ensure they can make a decent living host one of the thing things your butt does an effective job of doing is showing there is an agency of the individual and solidarity of them coming together often thousands or teachers across the state, whatever the samples lawyer, and then there is a a role of policy and we are not different from europe because god ordained it. So what is your do you think there is hope for the workers in america and if so, why, because we have about a minute left and i want to let you leave us on an up note because i feel hopeful myself. Theres more hope than a few years ago, we are fed up and want better, public approve of the of the unions, even donald trump is something republicans have opposed for years and years and the Young Workers were standing up and graduate student unions in my profession and journalism i think the teachers are feeling emboldened so there is a sense that something is broken in the workplace and that collective action unions giving up strike working together even 20,000 went on strike to protest how the company is mishandling so they really see that there are benefits to the collective action host it lays out how we can have a future if we enact policies that can unleash all of this energy we see around the country so that workers can come up with their own solution to organize and have a voice at work again. Thank you so much for your buck and your work and thank you for the conversation. I appreciate it. Guest thanks for doing this with me. Great talking with you. Compares the economic debate of the 1960s to those that are happening today