Power At Work

Episode #7 of the Power Half-Hour has arrived!The Power Half-Hour is a livestreamed, fast-paced, bi-weekly roundtable with a rotating group of regular guests. Our guests discuss the biggest labor story of the preceding week and the labor story everyone should be talking about over the next two weeks. Joining Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris for this episode are: Ruben Garcia - Ralph Denton Professor of Law at the University of Las Vegas, NevadaMatt Alley - Creator of BlueCollarWriterBill Samuel - Pro-union consultant, former AFL-CIO Director of AdvocacyCatch our next episode live on Power At Work's LinkedIn page on September 4th and soon after on poweratwork.us.Connect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-work

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Lorena Gonzalez and Chrissy Lynch to discuss the new effort by the AFL-CIO’s state federations of labor to study, plan, organize, and bargain around artificial intelligence in the workplace and our society.Watch now to learn more about this initiative from the presidents of two of our country’s largest state federations of labor, who will be the national co-chairs of a new AFL-CIO task force about AI and worker power. They will discuss how artificial intelligence will affect workers and unions, the labor movement’s efforts to force government to put public policy guardrails in place that protect workers’ right and jobs, the lessons they hope to learn from unions’ experience bargaining over artificial intelligence, and how the labor movement might be able to use artificial intelligence to build worker power.Connect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-workLorena Gonzalez is an American union leader and former politician, serving as the president of the California Labor Federation since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the California State Assembly from 2013 to 2022, representing the 80th Assembly district. In January 2022, Gonzalez resigned from the state assembly to assume a leadership position in the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.Chrissy Lynch is President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. She previously served as the Secretary-Treasurer and Chief of Staff of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and spent 15 years running the political and legislative departments of the MA AFL-CIO. Before working for organized labor in Massachusetts, she worked on union-led electoral campaigns in California and Massachusetts.

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Raj Nayak, Candace Archer, and Rebecca Reindel, three policy experts who are closely monitoring and actively opposing the Labor Department’s deregulatory agenda.Watch now to learn more about some of the labor standards and protections that are slated for elimination across the Labor Department. Seth and guests will discuss what happens next, and how the labor movement and members of the Power At Work community can make themselves heard inside the Francis Perkins Building, which is the Labor Department’s national headquarters.Connect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-workRajesh D. Nayak is a fellow at the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School and a consultant on labor policy and organizational transitions. Most recently, Raj served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the United States Department of Labor, overseeing the Department’s regulatory agenda, forward-looking policy development, and evaluation offices.Candace Archer is the policy director for the AFL-CIO. She previously worked for Americans for Financial Reform, the American Federation of Government Employees, and National Labor College. Candace has a Ph.D in Political Economy and was an associate professor for more than 15 years.Rebecca Reindel is the director of occupational safety and health for the AFL-CIO, where she advocates for improved workplace safety and health policies at federal, state, and international levels. She facilitates collaboration among stakeholders to address workplace hazards, testifies before policymakers, and bridges the gap between shop-floor realities and legislative decision-making.

Episode #6 of the Power Half-Hour has arrived!The Power Half-Hour is a livestreamed, fast-paced, bi-weekly roundtable with a rotating group of regular guests. Our guests discuss the biggest labor story of the preceding week and the labor story everyone should be talking about over the next two weeks. Joining Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris for this episode are: Claudia Irizarry Aponte - Senior Reporter at THE CITYHarold Phillips - Host of Working to Live in Southwest Washington and Principal Director of the Labor Radio Podcast NetworkDavid Madland - Senior Fellow and the Senior Adviser to the American Worker Project at American ProgressCatch our next episode live on Power At Work's LinkedIn page on August 14th and soon after on poweratwork.us.Connect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-work

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Victor Mineros and Kathy Torres to discuss the nationwide strike by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters against Republic Services, which is a solid waste management company that collects and disposes of garbage and recycling in cities across the U.S.Watch now to learn more about the status of the strike, the kind of work the Teamsters members at Republic Services perform, the biggest issues in the negotiations, and how we can expect this strike to be resolved. Also discussed are some of the strategies the Teamsters have used in this strike to bring pressure on Republic Services to agree to their members’ bargaining demands, and how the public’s reaction to a long-lasting garbage strike had influenced those strategies.Connect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-workVictor Mineros is the Director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' Solid Waste and Recycling Division. He got his start with the Teamsters as a rank-and-file UPS package car driver in Los Angeles. He served as a business agent and organizer for Teamsters Local 396 and was appointed an International Representative for the Teamsters Solid Waste and Recycling Division, which is the Teamsters Division he now leads as the Director.Kathy Torres is a Teamsters Local 179 member who has been employed by Republic Services in Ottawa, Illinois, for a year. She is a Class A Driver who has been on strike for three weeks. Kathy is originally from the South Side of Chicago and currently resides in Joliet, Illinois.

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Javier Ramirez to discuss the future of labor mediation after President Trump shut down the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). Ramirez takes you inside the negotiating room and explains the critical role labor mediators play.Watch now to learn about what happens next and why labor mediation is important. Also, learn from one of the nation's foremost mediators how the process works, and more broadly, why collective bargaining can be a model for dispute resolution in American society. Connect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-workJavier Ramirez is the Executive Manager of the National Conflict Resolution Service at the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations. Previously, Javier served as Deputy Director of Field Operations at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).

Episode #5 of the Power Half-Hour has arrived!The Power Half-Hour is a livestreamed, fast-paced, bi-weekly roundtable with a rotating group of regular guests. Our guests discuss the biggest labor story of the preceding week and the labor story everyone should be talking about over the next two weeks. Joining Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris for our fifth episode are:Alex Jacquez - Chief of Policy and Advocacy at Groundwork CollaborativeMel Buer - Multimedia freelance journalist; Words About WorkMcKenna Schueler - News reporter for Orlando WeeklyConnect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerAtWorkBlogFacebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-workCatch our next episode live on Power At Work's LinkedIn page on July 31st and soon after on PowerAtWork.US.

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Mark Lauritsen, Veronica Cruz-Velandia, and Leehanyi Baptista to discuss the important and impressive collective bargaining victory by the meatpacking workers at JBS Foods and their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers.Listen now to learn about a historic collective bargaining win by the UFCW’s members in negotiations with JBS Foods and some of the specifics of what is included in that contract. Discussed are the members’ experience of sitting across the table from a large multi-national corporation and demanding what the workers needed to live good-quality lives, as well as the strategies they used to win a great contract.Mark Lauritsen is a UFCW International Vice President and Director of the UFCW’s Food Processing, Packing, and Manufacturing Division. Mark is a third-generation packinghouse worker who began his union career as a shop steward in the Wilson Foods meatpacking plant in Cherokee, Iowa. He is also the President of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF).Veronica Cruz-Velandia is a UFCW shop steward and bargaining committee member who works in the fabrication department for JBS Regional Beef in Souderton, PA. She has worked for JBS for 6 years.Leehanyi Baptista is a UFCW shop steward and a member of the UFCW’s bargaining committee. He works in the maintenance department at JBS Regional Beef in Souderton, Pennsylvania.

In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Michael Sainato and Josh Eidelson to discuss the latest stories involving unions, worker power, and worker collective action.Watch now to learn about President Trump’s effort to bust federal employee unions, the future of the National Labor Relations Board, the labor movement’s involvement in protests against the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, and workers with disabilities in the workplace and in public policy.Michael Sainato is a labor reporter for The Guardian US. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Huffington Post, LiveScience, Buffalo News, the Plain Dealer, the Hill, Gainesville Sun, Tallahassee Democrat, Knoxville News Sentinel, and the Troy Record.Josh Eidelson is a labor reporter for Bloomberg News and Businessweek. His work is frequently cited by lawmakers and scholars, and has been honored by groups including UCLA Anderson’s Loeb Foundation; the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW); the Sidney Hillman Foundation; the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA); the New York Labor History Association; the San Francisco Press Club; and the Northern California, Western Washington, and New York chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Episode #4 of the Power Half-Hour has arrived!The Power Half-Hour is a livestreamed, fast-paced, bi-weekly roundtable with a rotating group of regular guests. Our guests discuss the biggest labor story of the preceding week and the labor story everyone should be talking about over the next two weeks. Joining Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris for our second episode are:Ali Bustamante - Professor of Practice at the University of New OrleansChris Garlock - Executive Director of the Labor Heritage Foundation and founder-coordinator of the Labor Radio Podcast NetworkSharon Block - Executive Director at Harvard Law School’s Center for Labor and a Just EconomyConnect with Power At Work: Website: poweratwork.usTikTok: @poweratworkblog Instagram: @poweratworkblog Twitter: / poweratworkblog Facebook: poweratworkblog LinkedIn: power-at-workCatch our next episode live on Power At Work's LinkedIn page on July 17th and soon after on PowerAtWork.US.