While most red city on the coast. To find out which others made the list look for the article on business wire. Com. On after words, the buck Sleeping Giant on the changing face of americas working class. Shes interviewed by the host of democracy now. Its great to be with you. What an amazing read. The book is so critical and timely. Explain the title. Guest the definition is something that hasnt reached its full potential so its really to delete and political power of the new working class and i think that if you are seeing the Sleeping Giant is starting to wake up and rise in the fight for the 15 movement and black lives matter into the Immigration Movement so i think we are just beginning to see the potential of this new working class into the and the political power they have. Before we get the new working class would start where you did, the old working class. Start with your data. Guest i grew up in a workingclass household. None of my parents went to college, my dad worked at the factory his entire life ultimately becoming a machinist in middletown ohio is the quintessential factory town there were many in the town was built with the support of the factories. They both the schools and the hospitals and all that stuff. Heres the thing for those that worked in a major manufacturing space like my dad did. We were working class by education and occupation and lifestyle. We always had Health Insurance. We were never hungry. I wanted to begin looking at what happened to the idea of the working class and the title had been sort of script from our lexicon and we dont really refer to our janitors and Home Health Aides and fast food workers as working class but as lowwage workers so i wanted to bring back the idea that we have this debate and its more racially diverse and we need to think of them as a Political Force that we need to Pay Attention to. Guest used or two after the bankruptcy and why that matters. Im glad my dad wasnt around to see. It would have been painful for him. I think its important because symbolically it was like a nail in the coffin of the. Its sort it sort of put a pin in the finale and what that meant unproductivity went up into the workers saw that in their paychecks and we had a period of time income grew at the bottom faster than the top of which has never happened in my lifetime. Its kind of hard to wrap your mind around that concept if youve only known this inequality were in today so it was a really blonde symbol of the passing of the torch from an industrial working class with Service Sector working class. So theres workingclass and middleclass. Talk about that continuum and where they divide. Academics love to debate how to measure class and theres several different ways but a common one is by College Education and thats how i defined workingclass throughout the book. Its whether you have a fouryear degree or higher or nothing less than a four year degree. It could be High School Graduates from High School Dropouts come an associates degree. And in reality its a pretty good marker because what has happened in the last two or three decades is that the quality of life afforded to people in this country has diverged sharply. Guest you write about how money was tight. Especially before your mom went back to work. But you never went hungry, and you did feel the security of housing, food. Explain that and the role of unions as you were growing up. Guest i grew up with two brothers and one sister. Thats a big family its a big family to feed on one salary and times were tough. I was teased as a kid for my handmedown clothes. In. In what came from rummage sales of church and stuff like that. But i never was hungry. I never experienced what is so common today for kids in workingclass households which is hunger. I never have to worry about not having a place to live. My parents owned their home. It was a twostory home with three or four bedrooms at the first home i grew up in so there was a level of security that was afforded by my dads job largely because it was a union job said he saw his income go up as if the company did well. He got Vacation Time and got paid time and a half if he worked on a sunday or did a double that was working a shift back to back. So there were ways when money was tight, he could work more and sign up for work doubled and he often did do that. Host how have unions come to be so vilified . And also how have they lost so much power . Guest it co it is a long story and i think host what to do you do so well as telling stories. Guest it begins with part of the new deal package president roosevelt signed into law the wagner act and essentially set up procedures for the workers to vote in the a union and workplace can have economic democracy. As soon as it passed, guess what happened, the workers took advantage of it and started unionizing workplaces than we had world war ii and labor peace because all of the big unions agreed not to strike during the war but after the war we have a huge outbreak on the agreement that they wouldnt strike during a certain amount of time in exchange the Company Supports the union. So that we have this huge outbreak of the unionization and strikes and they got really worried and thought we have to temper this down a little bit. This unionizing is a little more powerful than we expected so the conservatives in congress with a law basically written by the National Association of manufacturing passed with tafthartley and its so relevant to what is happening today in america because it did a lot of things to make it harder to unionize but the two big ones that are important today one is that it allows the states to pass the right to work law and we are seeing an emergency and of the new states passing the right to work law. Host explain it. Guest it is such a misnomer. It means if you are in a state that has a quote on quote rate work law, if you are represented by a union voted him in your workplace and you dont want to be part of a union, you dont have to pay any fair share fees. You dont have to pay for the cost of the negotiations of contracts that happen. You dont have to pay for the administrative cost of maintaining economic democracy in the workplace including negotiating for Better Benefits and pay. So what that does is it greatly weakens the unions because people like the free ride. You still get the same paycheck as the person next to you who is paying the union dues but you dont have to pay them if you dont want to. Its a great irony and the conservatives tend to look down on what they see as people that are freeloaders in our society, thats what they call them. But that was the idea and one of the reasons was the jim crow south. Southern states wanted to protect the very rigid hierarchy in the right to work as a was a way to ensure they couldnt amend and Start Building solidarity among white and africanamerican working class people. Host so you talk about the power of the union then. How did those jobs get lost over time . Guest thats another story that is starting to be the center of the political debate right now. We had an air of the free trade and we made all of these trade agreements that we are now i think empirical evidence is in that it hadnt been in the game for manufacturing workers in the country. Weve lost millions of jobs as a result of these contracts and it hasnt really been a game for mexico either were farmers for example now competing with our major big businesses and actually the squashing of the Small Farmers in mexico is one of the drivers of immigration to the country. The population that integrated during the 90s and in 2000 came from these areas because they could no longer sustain a living farming so they came to america to find a new livelihood for themselves and their family. Host i went when the revolution happened which is the day that nafta went into effect, rising up and understanding this wasnt going to help working people. We have a good save from the 70s to now is a takeover by that belief in this the elites in this country, whether it is political, media, cultural of our governing system where the power has been so consolidated and used to translate into political power so the people writing the rules for the economy whether its the trade agreement or the minimum wage or regulations that protect people from predatory lenders, they are now the titans of finance industry and the Restaurant Industry into the retail industry. Unions used to be part of that ended up as a good thing because they came to the table with workingclass interest. Now that that may have been shoved out by an aggressive assault last 30 years, they dont have any countervailing force to. One of the threats and i think this is important to understand the case that corporations make often center on the workforce or prices because the wages will go up. The biggest threat is the political power that comes with the unionization. The idea that you have now an institution whose educating its members about what is going on in the world around them and how they can have power and influence over the decisions that frankly impact their lives very deeply. Host so you talk about the free trade under president bill clinton and first lady hillary clinton. How much did you pay in half the time . Guest thats a good question. I wrote the book before we knew that trade has been the epicenter of the debate which i think is fabulous and its time we had a conversation about the tradeoff. Its so easy for the corporate elite and the political elites to say overall its been good and this is what is disturbing about the argument. I just read this in the New York Times and its made all the time telling people that globalization has been good because its raised their Living Standards by allowing them to consume and buy more stuff cheaply. Weve been told that now because everybody can afford a microwave and a cell phone and a television weve seen an increase in Living Standards for the working class in this country. I dont think most people define their quality of life by the gadgets that they can fill their home with. They define it by defined by whether they can send their kids to college, whether they have Health Insurance that is meaningful and protect them when somebody gets sick, whether they have a nest egg for retirement and whether they have a house safe that they can live in. Those are the Living Standards that matter to people and all of those things have been chipped away at it until they are thread that is left in the social contract in the country. Host talk about how the jobs changed over time. Guest id like to say we went to the working class that made stuff and servicepeople and i think that distinction and shift in addition to is doing that work is one of the reasons we have seen a working class that has been so marginalized in the political process. As a todays working class is employed in retail, food and leisure, home healthcare. Those are the really big ones as well as the warehouse workers and janitors. Thats where the working class men are so its completely shifted and i think that we have a deep and long history in this country of undervaluing work that involves serving people and especially caring for people. So we now have a working class that is much of a female and much more people of color than the industrial working class was and that the very definition of who is the working class is one reason we have seen a disappearance in the idea of the working class in this country. Host you talk about and animate the trend that we see into the changes to the new working class. Guest they work on a Warehouse Distribution center and their jobs are what they call internally order builders. They have these gigantic pellets and they move over to where they need to go to be shipped out. So at the time when i interviewed him he was trying to organize the warehouse with the help of the team. He was starting to get a lot of support and the reason why is the working conditions that they were under is insane and dangerous. They are paid by the cases the move. Lets say they have to move a thousand cases during their shift if it takes them six hours, they are done. If it takes them ten hours, they are done. They cant leave until they finish but if it takes ten hours, your wage is a lot lower than if it takes you six hours a. So what does that mean . That means that they are running around in a warehouse with a big machines, forklifts, what have you, running around with these shrinkwrapped guns. He sent me a video, they are getting hurt and their bodies are wearing out. Hes 32yearsold and he was on medical leave when i interviewed him. His knees and his back or shot and cocacola has been one of the most aggressive antiunion companies in the country and this was always going to be a longshot battle. But you speak to him and calling he feels to do the work to help workers find their voice and find the cover and you cant help but to be inspired and hopeful that they are taking big risks to try to help build solidarity and to bring economic democracy back into the workplace in the country its contagious and im optimistic they are going to win. But they were some of the first people i met and talked to when i started writing the book and what they chronicled into the words they used to describe the treatment by their bosses ended up being a through line for all the workers i talked to a. A gentleman at the commercial truck driver said its like the working class of the society needed to to power the economy and make it a strong but completely disregarding our needs. I talked to people that work in retail and fast food in warehouses and more than one of them referenced they can almost relate to slavery or cold at the new plantation. A truck driver said its likely your sharecroppers on wheels. That is deeply disturbing to say in america we have workers who see the way they are treated equally good but with the nations original thats a reflection of how far weve like the Worker Protection fault and how far weve let the dignity of work this country. Host you write that cubicle jobs. Guest think of your administrative assistants, the people on the other line when you call the bank and you need someone to help you with your statement or or you see a charge you dont understand. Customer service representatives, bank tellers actually fall into this category. I had a great conversation with a woman whos a bank teller and it was a surprise to me that a big actually become salespeople and have quotas themselves that they need to push new products. For example why dont you check out this new line of credit or think about getting a new cd open or things like that and they are evaluated on how many new products they can get a. How about a savings account. The cubicle jobs are a big part of the new working class. We have a lot of Customer Service representatives and youre a very consumption oriented economy and undergirding that theres a lot of people that answer phones and file papers and keep the offices and workplaces running a. To caring economy from the assistance of the registered nurses is going to be a sector that continues to grow and its going to explode a particularly in what is some of the lowest paying occupations in the country and that his home health. So if you look at who does the work, its overwhelmingly women and its overwhelmingly women of color. These jobs usually pay around minimum wage in that they involve hard work. The involving of manual labor. They are often lifting patients did a much bigger than they are and this is work that for so long was expected to be done for free. Now its done for pay davis and people throughout history, women and particularly africanamerican women and without College Degrees. Most get six weeks of training. That isnt always the case. But these are lowpaying jobs often without Health Insurance. Often 9 an hour. These are individuals caring for people in the most vulnerable states of the people who just got discharged from hospital after a surgery or Something Like that or someone whos disabled to someone who is disabled and need help on a daily basis and we see the value that works so deeply that we are willing to only pay nine or 12 an hour for it. Host talk about with the unions like the sci you are doing. The remarkable Domestic Workers alliance. Guest they really brought to the forefront the needs of the Domestic Workers, people who work in other peoples homes for pay and finally have undone some of the exclusions that have been way back when the fair labor standards act was negotiated. The act basically puts out guidelines for the minimum wage and overtime pay. When those guidelines were adopted, they excluded deliberately Domestic Workers. At the time all Domestic Workers by and large were africanamerican into so these shops throughout history have been denied the right to minimum wage and the right to overtime so that the national Domestic Workers accomplished is giving those passed in states and now finally a real breakthrough at the federal level where we are finally come in 2016 going to ensure that the Home Health Workers get paid minimum wage and overtime pay for the work they do. This is unbelievable that we are still having this fight today but that is as a whole book about the lingering effect of racism and sexism on the work, but hey, the the pagan of job quality of the working class. Host talk about what happened in new york around the changing laws and the pressure brought on by the legislature to this is ingenious and collective organizing. Guest its alongside with unions and also outside unions. So what you have and what has been so brilliant in the strategy of the Domestic Workers alliance is that theyve build coalitions that include the caregivers and the people being cared for. We passed a Domestic Workers bill of rights it is the second state i think california was first. But they basically set up protections for people that are employed in the service of somebody else into somebody elses home. Whether it is of keepers and it was watershed. Those really set up the ability for president obama to mandate the department of labor to finally update these guidelines and include all Domestic Workers in minimumwage protections and overtime protections. Host how does it work. Do the Domestic Workers make minimum wage and we will talk that this in the push for 15th place for them as well. Guest i chronicle marlowe in the book. This is someone that has a Home Health Worker very active in the the fight to become an activist as well as a caregiver. She would often have to spend the night at her clients house. She would work all those hours even if shes sleeping shes still at work. She might have to get up in the middle of the night to help her clients go to the restroom. At the end of the day when you decided her hours, she was making less than minimum wage because she wasnt getting paid for the sleeping time that she had to be there for. Thats no longer its going to be the case. We will create a roster families can go to match their needs to the Home Health Aide isnt we will create that system that we can ensure that workers are paid and protected and one of the largest in the country and i think they are looking ahead to realize the working class is the Service Sector and that the voting in the union is one part of the of battle but raising the stakes to put in equality on the table that is enormously successful in terms of men wage laws in the public debate. When the first workers said new york city they were laughed at. Host so talk about that is part of the Sleeping Giant you have the images of the people fighting for that right with various images per. But talk about how that to a cold and it seemed like the impossible and now from los angeles to seattle to do york where they said this is not going to be possible and now it is a champion again. I give seiu a lot of credit they have been financially supporting this effort but they have not succeeded to get the union but that said they have made huge gains in peoples lives and they think their reason it happened is because people said enough and they were willing to go out into the streets to stand up to make a demand see that they deserve the dignity wage. It is not a flash in the pan i finish the book three years ago and i said something is happening if you looked at cities and states there is a bubbling up of the working class organizing this and they said the cabinet this is a movement think of occupied it happened in a short time but did not go on as a movement but this success the workers were still doing it are still going and protesting and you also see a Real Movement collaboration and so add collaboration and so add john to faculty members standing in solidarity with fastfood workers to say we are with you and Home Health Aides to say we are with you and it just kept bond now with more and more workers deciding that they had common cause and there would help to make that fight a and then you have walmart. [laughter] talk about the power first of all, how large it is. Nothing epitomizes more today than walmart gm was the largest privatesector employer today it is walmart and that difference is pretty much the deficit between the old between the old workingclass and the new workingclass. Walmart is extremely powerful not just in terms of scale but because it exerts pressure to the higher supply chain it negotiates with the suppliers to drive down cost then they drive down cost in their warehouses for those to packaged goods so every step in the supply chain walmart has the ability to drive down wages to the who are not getting paid all their hours clocked out but expected to clock back on that mentality i think is the real innovation of walmart the really that innovation they have brought is the relentless focus on costcutting and a complete paradigm shift where their workers and their employees are viewed as a cost to be minimized does help pay costs view them at every possible chance so if you join as an associate watch the antiunion video. It is deeply antiunion and not willing to negotiate or come to the bargaining table talk about how the public subsidizes walmart particularly walmart workers. We had really great we had really Great Research in the reality is and other big barks retailers failed to pay a decent wage that means they cannot feed their families families, dont have health care so they have to get it through the safety net thank goodness we still have some left so what you have is billions and billions of taxpayer dollars providing food stamps and Health Care Coverage to a walmart workers. There were expos days how you could call line and they would direct you basically how to get welfare or public subsidy at the same time they are all ford deregulation and not interfering with the private sector they rely on the government and taxpayer money to subsidize their workers. It is commonplace for them to have the tory drivein food drive for their employees during the holidays. Mcdonalds had huge embarrassing p. R. For having a web site for their workers to help them learn how to stretch their paycheck that included jews slower so you dont feel so hungry and these are American Companies who have full acknowledgement that the people they employ a cannot feed their families or buy toys for their children at christmas they worked at the stores everybody shops out shops that in their own workers cannot shop there or feed their families. Taco the workers have brought pressure and the victories from mcdonalds to walmart. I love when the Companies Put out these press releases they refuse to say any pressure is from workers protesting so gap ben mcdonald and walmart all have volunteered to raise the wages of the lowest paid employee. It is a star 10 is much better than 7. 25. What remains to be seen. Talk about mcdonalds. [laughter] mcdonalds agreed to raise the minimum weight with the giant disclaimer only disclosed if you dont know this and mcdonalds here in new york city or Cincinnati Ohio are owned by different people so that means mcdonalds only owns and operates a very small percentage those of the only people that will get a raise but interestingly now basically been made the claim that mcdonalds with the nlrb really does employ all of these workers because in the context they are a franchisee is so minute for the cost incurred they may not directly hire or fire how they operate that they need to be considered a joint employer to have responsibility over the working conditions and this is playing out right now and has all the big business lobbies up in arms on capitol hill doing everything they can because of Big Companies like mcdonalds and burger king are now responsible for what happens for their franchises that will end the industry as we know it but what they are saying is you do have a responsibility if they wear a uniform with your logo to make sure they are treated fairly. And like the coalition. They recognized early that if they just went to the former owners we cant give you that many because we get it from talk about so they went writeup the chain was very significant. This is great actually spend all whole chapter meeting the new leaders who are innovating but in texas people are trying to improve the working conditions and the safety and instead of going after the companys theyre going after the builders and then you can see the same watershed innovation really happen with the justice for Janitors Campaign instead of going after those companies they went after the others so those of are exerting leverage and have that power has been a brilliant strategy playing out time and time again. We talk about low wage workers and workingclass people the when you begin your chapter and immigration because people dared to come out of the shadows. But what was so great for example, unionized corps workers in california and los angeles shutting down the courts talk about hitting business where it counts that is significant and then to have the unionized workers sitting in solidarity for those who are walking off the job was amazing in we have seen more of that showing up for black lives matter. We are witnessing the beginnings of multiracial solidarity it is very difficult to maintain but it is beginning to happen. Your referring to dreamers and young people. The dreamers i think all of these are fueled by those who have a level of bravery that i dont thank you sestet the corporate ceo level but it would be great if it did but they are lacking for people who are willing to be brave into what is right. I met john carlo he actually came into the office he found out he was on documented and his mom told a maya something to tell you. As he got older to apply for colleges when he first heard he was undocumented the full implications did not hit him he thought he could get around but then he started to apply for college and it was a serious problem the Community College had to pay the International Student rate so he could not get instate tuition this is the first demand of the dreamers for the right to pay instate tuition and he became an activist and showed up for a meeting and disclose to whom he was and went all in he was awarded after a couple of years a full scholarship to records in large part due to his activism and his fight for real human rights for his family and friends. You have all whole chapter on the new populism and it goes back to the free trade discussion but today you have a president ial candidate Bernie Sanders and interestingly donald trump opposing free trade and say thats not fair they join together and Bernie Sanders has enormous pressure on clinton to shift the position everything from the Transpacific Partnership because he has laid down the case. Absolutely. Absolutely. The fact that we are finally having one issue that really matters for workingclass people for this political debate is fantastic. The working class has long been written off and on most Economic Issues theyre more progressive and more like the to believe that government should do everything it can to make sure everybody has food and housing and college is affordable but where it breaks down is issues of race theyre more likely to believe they are the victims than africanamericans and it is greater than everybody elses. And that is fuelling Donald Trumps presidency i cannot believe they offered a full package and really created a workingclass platform to took that back they could kill off a significant percentage of those working class voters voting for trump and get a much higher turnout and with that Enthusiasm Gap from the color and women. You end your book with the blueprint. Cry ama policy person the heart i dont just want to diagnose the give solutions and in reality be have not updated our social contract. So i say it is time for a better deal it is a comprehensive plan so it is about democracy that we need to join the rest with paid family leave for everybody who. And finally having a degree has kept the country from achieving its full potential and individuals of all races. There has ben a strategy from the government from going to africanamerican. And which i highly recommend people read. So people an internalized and consciously of those people getting benefits. But that ripped into high gear with ronald reagan. To be brilliant. But we cant agree on things like funding were affordable child care but to be so convinced in to take advantage and this is very racially coded and in peoples minds to be a person of color with the antiimmigrant sentiment is of hussein. And from those are working together and racism has undercut solidarity and to really interrupt business as usual. They are not letting these candidates go without saying what has happened as they address mass incarceration to tremendous inequality. Does with his powerful about does with his powerful about the black lives matter in the way that no other one has. The lack of investment that has been happening for decades. In this talking about howard democracy has been hijacked and to be in a coherent analysis ended is high time we have that conversation and it is brilliant that is one of the greatest challenges. Dash as we begin to wrap up you begin the book with your dad with the old workingclass. And to end by talking about your own personal experience with the trajectory of a downward mobility and how it relates to race. Some of my parents got divorced when i was in college and i had paid to find benefit pension that what happened my siblings did not finish college. And i have a sheep seen that shift to provide for your family with a College Degree to be a the poor working class in absence of a College Degree so there have been three bankruptcys a foreclosed home mom was laid off and lost her Health Insurance for her first time over three years until she turned old enough to get medicare. So i have watched the downward spiral that is not unique to my family but unlike many other families of asset accumulation to be white and couldnt buy a home and then enjoyed the proceeds these are bluecollar families and procter and gamble of all places top the disparity between your family and a family of color. The wealth gap is the enormous and it grew. Saw all these households out were sold at toxic mortgages but unlike income there is a wage premium and also an aspiration to protect yourself or your family when somebody loses a job and that is something we have excluded africanamericans from accumulating wealth. Host so looking at your subtitle, how . If you want a more secure Economic Future it will not happen without reclaiming authority in this country and we need to stand up and make demands. Host what a read. Thanks so much. Host we have a government professor George Thomas whose book is called
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