
Power At Work
Sustained and effective worker power arises out of collective action. Our goal at Power At Work is to advance actions that build power to confront power — contributing to a discourse in the United States that puts workers at the center of the conversation.
Latest episodes

Jan 13, 2025 • 1h 9min
Power At Work Blogcast #76: What Could Happen Under Trump?: Department of Labor
In the third blogcast of the new Power At Work series "What Could Happen Under Trump?", Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by three of his former colleagues in the U.S. Department of Labor: Patricia Shiu, the current Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the Department of Labor, David Michaels, a professor at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and former Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, and David Weil, a Professor at Heller and the Department of Economics at Brandeis University and former Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Watch now to learn more about how the Department of Labor will react to the leadership of Secretary-designate Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Also hear Shiu, Michaels, and Weil’s insights on how this next administration will impact their respective branches of the Department of Labor.
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Patricia Shiu is currently the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the Department of Labor by President Obama. Prior to this appointment, Shiu served as the Vice President for Programs at the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center in San Francisco. Ms. Shiu joined the Employment Law Center in 1983 as a staff attorney where she focused primarily on employment discrimination, including sex, LGBT, national origin, disability, and race-based discrimination and harassment in individual and class action cases.
David Michaels is an epidemiologist and professor at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. He has held high-level, Senate-confirmed public health positions in the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and President Bill Clinton. He joined the GW faculty in 2001. Nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the US Senate, Dr. Michaels served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA from 2009 - January 2017 and was the longest-serving administrator in OSHA's history.
David Weil is a Professor at Heller and the Department of Economics at Brandeis University; he previously served as the Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Prior to joining the Brandeis faculty in 2017, he was the Peter and Deborah Wexler Professor of Management at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business (1991-2014). He was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor and was nominated again to serve in that role by President Joe Biden.

Jan 7, 2025 • 1h 12min
Power At Work Blogcast #75: What Could Happen Under Trump?: A Labor Law Analysis
In the second blogcast of the new Power At Work series "What Could Happen Under Trump?", Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by two top labor law academics Ben Sachs, the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School, and Charlotte Garden, a Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. Watch now to learn about what to expect in labor law under the second Trump administration alongside controversies that we should be prepared for.
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Ben Sachs is the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School and a leading expert in the field of labor law and labor relations. He is also the faculty director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy. Professor Sachs teaches courses in labor law, employment law, and law and social change, and his writing focuses on union organizing and unions in American politics. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2008, Professor Sachs was the Joseph Goldstein Fellow at Yale Law School. From 2002-2006, he served as Assistant General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Washington, D.C., and from 1999-2002 he was an attorney at Make the Road by Walking, a membership-based community organization in Brooklyn, NY.
Charlotte Garden is a Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. She joined the faculty in Fall 2022 and specializes in labor law, employment law, and constitutional law. Her interests include the intersection of workers' rights and the Constitution, and how law supports (or undermines) worker voice and power. Professor Garden's scholarship has appeared in several leading law reviews alongside publishing her edited volume The Cambridge Handbook of U.S. Labor Law For the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with Rick Bales) in 2019 by Cambridge University Press. Professor Garden is active in national policy efforts to strengthen workers' rights shown through her involvement in projects such as the Economic Policy Institute's Unequal Power Project and the Clean Slate for Worker Power project. Before coming to the University of Minnesota, Professor Garden was a professor at Seattle University School of Law.

Dec 16, 2024 • 1h 5min
Power At Work Blogcast #74: 2024: A Year in Review
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Saba Waheed, the Research Director at the UCLA Labor Center, and Rebecca Givan, an associate professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University. Watch now to learn about the most significant worker power stories over the past year. Also hear Givan and Waheed's perspectives on employer backlash as well as their takes on the overall current state of labor heading into 2025.
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Rebecca Givan is an associate professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She has published widely on employment relations in health care, comparative welfare states and labor studies in journals such as Social Forces, ILR Review, and British Journal of Industrial Relations. Her book The Challenge to Change: Reforming Health Care on the Front Line in the United States and the United Kingdom was published in 2016 by Cornell University Press.
Saba Waheed is Research Director at the UCLA Labor Center. She has nearly twenty years of research experience developing projects with strong community participation. With her team at the UCLA Labor Center, she coordinated the first-ever study of domestic work employers, launched a multi-year study of workers and learners, and conducted research on the impact of the pandemic on nail salon workers and owners. She has also conducted research related to gig workers, young workers, Black workers, LGBTQ+ grocery workers and retail workers. Saba teaches the Labor Summer Research Program, guiding students through an applied research project.

Dec 11, 2024 • 1h 1min
Power At Work Blogcast #73: A Worker Power Overview for the Trump Administration
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris lays out a worker power overivew for the Trump administration. Harris also answers questions from the live audience during this blogcast, as well as discuss the implications of a Trump presidency on unions, the NLRB, federal employees, and much more.
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Seth D. Harris is a Distinguished Professor of Practice at Northeastern University and Affiliated Faculty and a Senior Fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change (and its partner project The GovLab) where he runs the Initiative on Labor and Economic Justice. Prior to joining Northeastern University, Professor Harris was the Deputy Assistant to the President for Labor and the Economy and Deputy Director of the Biden White House’s National Economic Council. Building on almost seven years of service in the Labor Department during an earlier administration, Professor Harris was Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor (and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet) and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2014. Between the Obama and Biden Administrations, he was an attorney in Washington, D.C., a Visiting Professor at Cornell University’s Institute for Public Affairs and School of Industrial & Labor Relations, and one of the nation’s most sought-after analysts, speakers, and commentators on work, workers, workplaces, the economy and labor market issues, government leadership, and governmentperformance.

Dec 2, 2024 • 1h 2min
Power At Work Blogcast #72: A Deep Dive Into the International Labour Organization
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Celeste Drake, the Deputy Director-General at the International Labour Organization. Watch now to learn about the International Labour Organization and their global impact. Also hear Drake's opinions on current labor issues and the global picture for worker power.
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Celeste Drake is the Deputy Director-General at the International Labour Organization. Drake served in the Biden Administration as the deputy director for Labor & Economy of the National Economic Council from July 2022 to August 2023. Drake was also the trade and globalization policy specialist at the AFL-CIO until 2019. She advocated for reforms to U.S. trade policy to create shared gains from trade on behalf of working families. She has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, various House subcommittees and the U.S. International Trade Commission, and made presentations before the European Union’s Economic and Social Committee.

Nov 25, 2024 • 1h 7min
Power At Work Blogcast #71: Labor Reporters React to the 2024 Election and Predict Labor's Future
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Noam Scheiber, a reporter for The New York Times, Lauren Kaori Gurley, a reporter for The Washington Post, and Dave Jamieson, a reporter for the HuffPost. Listen now to hear their predictions for the future of worker power under a second Trump administration, as well as their views on the NLRB, state level victories for workers, and much more.
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Noam Scheiber is a reporter for The New York Times who covers workplace issues like pay, gig work, inequality and discrimination, as well as labor unions and labor organizing. He has closely covered the union organizing campaigns at companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Apple and Microsoft. He has also written a lot about the transition to clean energy and what it means for workers. Before his work at The Times, he covered the Obama administration for The New Republic magazine in Washington, and three presidential elections.
Lauren Kaori Gurley is the labor reporter for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she covered labor and tech at Vice for three years. She has also written for The New Republic, The American Prospect, In These Times, and The New York Review of Books.
Dave Jamieson has been HuffPost's labor reporter since 2011. Before joining the D.C. bureau, he was a staff writer at Washington City Paper and a freelancer contributing to Slate, the New Republic, the Washington Post and Outside magazine, among other outlets. He's won the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, the Hillman Foundation's Sidney Award, and the Deadline Club Award for best business feature.

Nov 18, 2024 • 56min
Power At Work Blogcast #70: IUPAT President Jimmy Williams Jr. Shares His Insights on the Election, the Democratic Party, and the Path Forward for Labor
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Jimmy Williams Jr., the General President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Listen now to learn about how President Williams views the Presidential election results, as well as his opinion on why the Democratic party failed to successfully nominate Vice-President Kamala Harris as the next president. Also hear his views on the current state of labor and how he envisions the future of the labor movement.
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Jimmy Williams Jr. took office as General President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades on September 1, 2021, ushering in a new generation of leadership and a reinvigorated vision for the IUPAT. Williams is a fourth-generation glazier from District Council 21/Local Union 252 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). He began his career with the IUPAT in 1998, was appointed Assistant to the General President in 2002, and served as the Regional Organizing Coordinator for the IUPAT Eastern Region. In 2011, he was appointed to the position of Organizing Director and remained in that role after being elected as General Vice President At Large in 2014.

Nov 12, 2024 • 1h 1min
Power At Work Blogcast #69: Worker Power in the Next Economy
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Martha Gimbel, the Executive Director of the Budget Lab at Yale University, and Ernie Tedeschi, the Director of Economics at the Budget Lab. Listen now to learn how they view the current economy and how they expect Trump's presidency will impact it. Also hear their perspective on how worker power will change in the next economy.
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Martha Gimbel is the Executive Director of the Budget Lab. She has worked in economic policy and research in the executive branch, the legislative branch, the private-sector, and in philanthropy. Previously she was a Senior Advisor at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Director of Economic Research at Indeed.com, Senior Manager of Economic Research at Schmidt Futures, Senior Economist and Research Director at Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, and a Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Labor. She has commented widely on the economy, including in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, and other news outlets.
Ernie Tedeschi is the Director of Economics at the Yale Budget Lab. Until March 2024, Ernie was the Chief Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to CEA, he was Managing Director and Head of Fiscal Analysis at Evercore ISI, a macro advisory firm. He was also previously an economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Ernie completed his undergraduate studies at Stanford University and graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley.

Nov 4, 2024 • 52min
Power At Work Blogcast #68: From Classroom to Career: Inside Illinois’ New Workplace Readiness Week
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Gregg Johnson, a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, and Robert Bruno, a Director of the Labor Education Program and a Professor of Labor and Employment at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Listen now to learn about Illinois' groundbreaking new bill for students in high schools to learn about the workforce, unions, and the labor movement. Hear the perspective from both the sponsor of the bill Rep. Gregg Johnson, and a labor expert in the state, Robert Bruno.
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Learn more about Workplace Readiness Week here. And learn more about the University of Illinois' Labor Education Program here.
Gregg Johnson is a member of the Illinois House of Representatives representing the 72nd district. Prior to his time in the House of Representatives, Johnson worked with the Illinois Department of Corrections, first as a corrections officer and eventually as a supervisor, where he spent thirty-two years working to keep his coworkers and our community safe. Johnson went on to become president of his AFSCME local, where he served his fellow coworkers.
Robert Bruno is Director of the Labor Education Program and a Professor of Labor and Employment, as well as the director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois, Urban-Champaign. In addition to publishing numerous scholarly articles on a diverse range of labor relations subjects, Professor Bruno has also co-authored numerous research reports on labor unions, workplace practices and labor and employment policy topics.

Oct 30, 2024 • 46min
Power At Work Blogcast #67: BREAKING NEWS Blogcast: An Inside Look at the Ongoing Machinists Strike at Boeing
In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Jenny Brown, an assistant editor at Labor Notes and Mylo Lang, a machinist apprentice at Boeing and a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Listen now to to get an inside perspective on the strike and contract negotiations from a Boeing worker currently on strike. Also learn about the history of Boeing and unionization, and what the union members are demanding in their next contract.
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Jenny Brown is an assistant editor at Labor Notes, where she covers the airline industry. She is the author of Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women's Work.
Mylo Lang is a machinist apprentice at Boeing. He has been a part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union for six years.