Power At Work

During this blogcast moderated by Seth Harris, Former top Biden White House labor advisor, former Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor, and a Senior Fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, our guest labor experts will react to and analyze the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2023 Union Member Survey, which reports on how many American workers are union members as well as America’s union density rate --- in other words, the percentage of workers in unions. This blogcast was aired and recorded live on January 23. This blogcast features ⁠Vonda McDaniel⁠, President of the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and AFL-CIO Executive Council member, and ⁠Heidi Shierholz⁠, President of the Economic Policy Institute as they analyze BLS's 2023 Union Members Survey results. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Overcast. Follow us on social media: ⁠TikTok⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠Twitter⁠ ⁠Facebook⁠ ⁠LinkedIn Vonda McDaniel joined the United Rubber Workers (URW) in 1992 at the Bridgestone-Firestone Lavergne Plant, where she has worked for the last 26 years. Shortly after joining the Union, she became a Shop Steward which began her Union journey. In 1995, URW merged with the United Steelworkers (USW), opening up new opportunities for her as a young activist. Vonda was trained in the USW’s Women of Steel initiative, which equipped her with vital tools to become a leader in her Union and community. She went on to become a trainer in the program herself. After 10 years as a local Union Pension and Insurance Representative, Vonda was elected President of the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee in 2013.Heidi Shierholz, who served the Obama administration as chief economist at the Department of Labor, has been a consistent and leading voice for a worker-centered policy agenda that prioritizes economic and racial justice. Taking the helm at EPI after former President Thea Lee departed to work for the Biden administration, Shierholz is strengthening EPI’s ability to deliver economic analysis that challenges and transforms the mainstream narrative about the economy. Under her leadership, EPI is focused on fighting for and winning federal, state, and local legislative and regulatory reforms that support collective bargaining; increase worker power; improve wages, benefits, and working conditions; and reduce racial and gender inequities.

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation about podcasting in the labor movement with Judy Ancel, executive producer of the "Heartland Labor Forum;" Max Alvarez, host of "Working People" and Editor-In-Chief of the Real News Network; and Mel Buer, staff reporter at the Real News Network and host of the "Real News Network Podcast." Seth and guests discuss why they started their podcasts and some of the biggest current issues in the labor movement like union reform, the strengths and weaknesses of American labor law, and the importance of labor leadership. **This blogcast is brought to you by Union Built PC: ⁠https://unionbuiltpc.com/⁠ ** Listen on ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, and ⁠Google Podcasts.⁠ Follow us on social media: TikTok Instagram Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InThe​se​Times​.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke. Judy Ancel produces the Heartland Labor Forum and coordinates the team of volunteers who do the show. She is a labor educator, recently retired from UMKC, and prides herself on teaching people to question authority, especially at work and stand up for their rights. Judy is also active in Missouri Jobs with Justice and the Cross Border Network. Mel Buer is a staff labor reporter for The Real News Network and host of the Weekly Real News Network Podcast. Prior to joining TRNN, she worked as a freelance reporter covering Midwest labor struggles, including reporting on the 2021 Kellogg's strike and the 2022 railroad workers struggle. In the past she has reported extensively on Midwest protests and movements during the 2020 uprising and is currently researching and writing a book on radical media for Or Books.

Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Kate Bahn and Harry Holzer as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for December 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 12:00 PM ET on Friday, January 5 You don't want to miss this Numbers Day blogcast! Don't forget to subscribe to the blog: https://poweratwork.us/

Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Cynthia Estlund, author and Professor at NYU School of Law, and Steven Greenhouse, Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation. Listen to their conversation on the importance of collective bargaining in 2023, the trends leading into 2024, and the future of worker power.

Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Elise Gould and Rick McGahey as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for November 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 12:00 PM ET on Friday, December 8. You don't want to miss this Numbers Day blogcast! Don't forget to subscribe to the Power At Work Blog: https://poweratwork.us/

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Bill Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining, Joseph van der Naald, PhD candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, and Scott Phillipson, president of SEIU Local 200. Seth and guests discuss trends in organizing among higher education workers, including graduate and undergraduate students, Ruth Milkman's union density report, and current organizing efforts at Universities like Emory, Syracuse, and California State. **This blogcast is brought to you by Union Built PC: https://unionbuiltpc.com/ **

In this month's Power Hour blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Ruben Garcia, professor of law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Mark Gaston Pearce, the executive director of the Workers’ Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. Listen to their conversation on the politics of labor and labor in politics, the unfinished business of pro-worker legislation, the unfinished business at the NLRB, bargaining over new technologies, and much more. Subscribe to the Power At Work Blog here: https://poweratwork.us/

In this very special Veterans Day Blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by William Attig of the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council and Martin Helms from Helmets to Hardhats to discuss veterans in the labor movement. Learn about the role unions play in the lives of veterans, the role veterans play in unions, the best programs in the movement for veterans, and much more. Don't forget to subscribe to the Power At Work Blog: https://poweratwork.us/

In this podcast, we hosted a roundtable of labor reporters who discussed and reacted to some of the biggest stories about the labor movement today. Their conversation covered the covered recent collective bargaining stories, including the negotiations between the UAW and the “Big Three; the ongoing wave of strikes, pickets, and other forms of collective action that workers and unions are using to confront corporate power; the state of worker worker power within the news business; and much more.    Kim Kelly is an independent journalist and author of Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. Kim has been a regular labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018, and her work has also appeared in numerous publications, including In These Times, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times.  Michael Sainato is a labor reporter for The Guardian US. His writing has been published by The New York Times, the Guardian, Gizmodo, the Nation, HuffPost, and many other outlets. Jordan Zakarin is a reporter and producer for More Perfect Union. He writes, reports, produces, directs, and edits stories about politics, policy, and the revived workers' rights movement.

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with three political directors exactly a year before the 2024 presidential election. Seth is joined by Susan Valentine from Unite Here!, Russ Breckenride from the International Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, and Katrina Mendiola from National Education Association. This blogcast is a treat for any political junkie. Pay close attention, you don't want to miss this one. Subscribe to the Blog! https://poweratwork.us/