Power At Work

Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. In this special blogcast, recorded a week before Labor Day, Abruzzo talks candidly about her long history with the NLRB, the organization’s mission and workers’ rights, and some of the most important labor issues in our country today. If you care about worker power, collective action, and unions, this is one interview you should not miss.

In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Maida Rosenstein, the organizing director for the UAW local 2110, and three museum employees she worked with-- Jordan Barnes, Karissa Francis, and Erika Wentworth. Listen to what they have to say about their experiences working to ratify their unions' first contracts with their employers.

Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Harry Holzer, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and Aaron Sojourner, Senior Researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for July 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 8:45 AM ET on Friday, August 4—just 15 minutes after the release of the report.

In this special National Whistleblower Day blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Siri Nelson and Stephen Kohn, the executive director and the founding director of the National Whistleblower Center, and whistleblowers Dr. Toni Savage, a former contracting officer with the Army Corps of Engineers, and Jane Turner, a former FBI Special Agent.

In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Josh Eidelson and Dave Jamieson -- two of the biggest hitters in the world of labor reporting. The conversation covered the UPS-Teamsters negotiations, the role of the Supreme Court in advancing corporate attacks on worker power, and several other stories impacting labor and worker power today. Josh Eidelson covers the workplace for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek, where his work has exposed government choices that narrowed workers’ rights, corporate practices that exacerbated the Covid-19 pandemic, and labor leaders’ sexual misconduct.  Dave Jamieson is the labor reporter for HuffPost, where he writes about low-wage work, workplace safety, subcontracting, organizing campaigns, and the intersection of politics and work. 

Watch Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, and Elise Gould, Director of Health Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for June 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 8:45 AM ET on Friday, July 7—just 15 minutes after the release of the report.

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Cathy Nolan, former New York State Assemblywoman for District 37, and Jessica García, Assistant to the President of the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union (RWDSU), as they discuss agricultural workers' rights, the barriers and triumphs organizing under the 2019 New York Farm Workers Bill, the fight to get it passed, and much more.

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with John O'Malley, legislative coordinator for the Communications Workers of America Local 1180, as they discuss his history organizing in the workplace, the legislative goals of local 1180, organizing not-for-profit workers, and much more.

Listen to Burnes Center for Social Change senior fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Portia Wu, Secretary of Labor for the state of Maryland, Laura Fortman, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Labor, and Robert Asaro-Angelo, Commissioner at New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, as they discuss the the role and responsibilities of a labor secretary, the big issues each state faces, and much more.

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Charlotte Garden, Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, and Anne Marie Lofaso, Professor of Law at West Virginia University, as they discuss the recently decided Glacier Northwest Inc. V. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Supreme Court Decision.