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America’s Work Force Union Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered
by BMA Media Group
America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides a clear and unfiltered voice for the working people of America. Radio veteran Ed “Flash” Ferenc leads the discussion with a focus on topics that include the impact of labor unions in America, workers’ rights, legislative actions and labor-management relations. Featured guests include various labor leaders, politicians, journalists and more. America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides updates and information from sources around the United States and continues to be the trusted voice for workers across the country.
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- Today31 min
BCBS NLO on the 988 Coin Campaign and Mental Health in the Trades
A union worker hands a coin to a colleague. On it: someone cares about you. Call or text 988. That act — started in the construction trades with poker chips, now at 150,000 coins distributed in the industry and heading into schools nationwide — is what the BCBS National Labor Office is building into a nationwide youth mental health campaign. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, BCBS National Labor Office Executive Director Merrilee Logue and consultant Catherine Raley join during Suicide Prevention Month to discuss the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, how the construction trades' poker chip program became the NLO's 988 Coin Campaign, why the act of handing someone a coin matters beyond the number on it and what BCBS has done to expand behavioral health access — including a 55% increase in in-network providers since 2020. They also address the 70% of employers who believe mental health coverage costs too much and why Logue says the country cannot afford not to address this. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Follow @BlueLabor on LinkedIn and X for more.
- 3 days ago35 min
American Legion and Alliance for Retired Americans on November Voting
Two conversations connecting veteran service and senior advocacy to the November election — one previewing the October issue of The American Legion Magazine and one with an urgent message for every voter: check your registration now. American Legion Director of Media and Communications Henry Howard previews the October issue, including the cover story by Alan Dowd tracing America's centuries-long commitment to freedom of the seas and why the Navy's current 293-ship fleet falls dangerously short of the 500 ships the DOD says it needs. He introduces new National Commander Jay Bowen, an Army Patriot missile veteran whose theme for his year of service is BPOTS — Be Part of the Solution — a message connecting individual action to veteran services and specifically to the Be the One veteran suicide prevention initiative. Training is free and open to everyone at betheone.org. He also discusses the American Legion Humvee sweepstakes, with entries open through December 19 at legion.org/sweepstakes. Then, Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Director Rich Fiesta delivers a time-sensitive message: states are already sending mail-in ballots, the Supreme Court has kept injunctions in place against the Trump administration's executive order that would have directed the Postal Service to withhold ballots from voters not on a White House list and the window to fix a registration problem is closing. Go to vote.org now to confirm your status and polling location. Forty percent of voters over 65 voted by mail in 2024, the highest rate of any age group, which is why this fight mattered most for older Americans. Resources including the Alliance's congressional voting record going back to 2001 are available at retiredamericans.org. If you or a veteran you know is struggling, call or text 988 or visit betheone.org. Visit legion.org and retiredamericans.org for more.
- 3 days ago44 min
QPR's Shayna Klassen on Suicide Prevention with the Iron Workers
She walked into a conference room full of ironworkers for a one-hour presentation on suicide prevention. The room was packed beyond fire code. When she finished, no one left. Union brothers and sisters stood up and said: “We are dying. We are losing our colleagues. We don't know what to do.” People handed her their phones showing text messages from apprentices in active crisis. The presentation stretched into hours. Her phone did not stop ringing after she reached the airport. That day marked the birth of QPR for Ironworkers. On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, QPR Institute National Training Director Shayna Klassen discusses the QPR for Ironworkers program, built in partnership with IMPACT and the International Association of Iron Workers, and the principle behind it: the mental health field had to change its approach, not ask ironworkers to change their culture. Ironworkers training ironworkers in their own words is the model. It is now reaching locals across the United States and Canada. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Visit qprinstitute.com and impact-net.org for more.
- 4 days ago43 min
Ohio Teachers in Crisis and CWA on the Union Wave Into November
Two conversations that connect the stress of the classroom to the energy on the shop floor — one on a national survey showing the teaching profession is in crisis and what Ohio educators are facing in the November governor's race, and one on a wave of recent union wins and how CWA is mobilizing members to make their voices heard on November 3rd. Ohio Federation of Teachers President and AFT Vice President Melissa Cropper discusses the AFT national survey finding two-thirds of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers rate their stress at a 7 or higher, 31% are considering leaving the profession and only 36% would recommend teaching to their children. Teachers are spending their own money on food and school supplies because school budgets and family budgets are both stretched to the limit. She discusses the Ohio University faculty contract fight now past 400 days, the book ban and AI pressures compounding classroom stress and the Ohio governor's race — contrasting Vivek Ramaswamy's stated goal of eliminating teachers unions, his $30 million-plus from a private school choice donor and his plan to eliminate state income taxes with Dr. Amy Acton's two-and-a-half-year ground game and commitment to bringing educators to the policy table. Then, CWA District 4 Director Frank Mathews discusses a wave of recent organizing wins — Wikimedia Foundation workers joining CWA Local 9415, Daily Herald newsroom workers in Chicago announcing a union after wages were cut 15% over a decade, Unwired Broadband fiber technicians winning in California's Central Valley and NCR ATM technicians winning in the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor — and connects them to the 71% public approval rating for unions now driven by the affordability crisis, the widening wealth gap and the organizing energy of Gen Z and millennial workers. He walks through CWA's three-prong voter mobilization approach of texting, phone banking and handwritten postcards and directs listeners to the endorsements by state and congressional scorecard at cwa-union.org. Visit oft-aft.org for more from the Ohio Federation of Teachers and cwa-union.org for more from CWA.
- 6 days ago23 min
Steven Ruggles on the Coming Labor Shortage and What It Means
Wages for young workers peaked in 1973. Real wages for young men did not fully recover until after 2015, reaching a low of approximately 25% below the 1973 peak — a 42-year stagnation caused not just by the baby boom entering the labor force but by that cohort continuing to occupy jobs for decades afterward, suppressing demand for new workers. Now the boomers are retiring. Births fell 17% between 2007 and 2024. And a University of Minnesota demographer projects that net entry into the labor force will drop below zero in the 2030s for the first time in American history. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, MacArthur Fellow and University of Minnesota Regents Professor Steven Ruggles discusses his paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — The Pig in the Python: US Decennial Labor Flows and Economic Opportunity, 1910–2040 — and what the coming demographic transformation means for wages, union organizing and the workers who will enter the labor force over the next 15 years.
- 6 days ago36 min
AGMA's Opera Colorado Win and Ohio AFL-CIO on November's Stakes
Two conversations connecting the ground-level work of organizing to the political moment that makes it possible — one tracing the first wall-to-wall unionization of an American opera company in more than 40 years and one taking the temperature of Ohio workers heading into a November election that could determine whether any of it gets easier. Adam Da Ros, a member of both the organizing and negotiating committees for the American Guild of Musical Artists, discusses the Opera Colorado campaign from its first conversations in April 2023, through management's refusal to voluntarily recognize the union, through an NLRB hearing where management argued the chorus were volunteers rather than employees, to a November 2023 election that came back 91 to 8 in favor of AGMA. The new collective bargaining agreement raises the chorus minimum from approximately $500 per production for schedules of 100-plus hours to $21.50 per hour, establishes new minimum compensation with a 5% increase in year two and 3% in year three, brings previously unpaid preparation time and costume fittings into compensated hours and includes the artist-in-residence program under the AGMA umbrella. Da Ros said it is the first wall-to-wall opera company unionization in more than 40 years, and he hopes it inspires other performing arts groups to do the same. Then, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga reports on Labor Day events from Lorain to Portsmouth and Youngstown to Cincinnati, where he found consistent energy and political frustration among workers who are not seeing their elected leaders address wages, childcare, rent, groceries or utilities. He previews the Ohio AFL-CIO biennial convention September 21 through 23 in Columbus — 140 years after the AFL was founded in that city — featuring guest speakers Dr. Amy Acton, Sherrod Brown and IUPAT International President Jimmy Williams Jr. and serving as the launch point for the Labor 2026 voter mobilization program. He addresses the Policy Matters Ohio report finding that lawmakers have allowed and in some ways created an economy where working people cannot get ahead and frames November as a choice between validating that direction or starting a new day. Visit musicalartists.org for more from AGMA and ohioaflcio.org for more from the Ohio AFL-CIO.
- 1 weeks ago40 min
EPI's Heidi Shierholz on Tripling Union Density and the Policy Roadmap
If typical worker pay had kept pace with productivity over the past 45 years, today's typical paycheck would be roughly 40% larger. That income went to shareholders and corporate executives. A new Economic Policy Institute report finds that tripling union density to 30% — where Canada sits today, where the United States was before decades of attacks on collective bargaining — would shift $1.2 trillion annually back to working people, raise the median worker's pay by 14.5%, close racial wage gaps by more than one-third and produce annual wage increases ranging from $1,900 to $10,600 by state. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, EPI President Heidi Shierholz discusses the full report: what tripling union density would mean for worker pay, health insurance coverage and racial equity, two new EPI policy proposals including automatic bargaining rights at companies where CEO pay exceeds 100 times the median worker, the Faster Labor Contracts Act's bipartisan momentum in Congress and what states can do right now — including a finding that ensuring collective bargaining rights for all public sector workers alone would raise national union density from 9.9% to 14.4%. Visit epi.org for the full report.
- 1 weeks ago34 min
BRS's Tim Tarrant on Ludlow, Blair Mountain and Railroad Safety Today
On Easter Sunday morning, April 19, 1914, the National Guard and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency set up a machine gun overlooking a Colorado miners' tent colony, murdered union leader Louis Tikas and two lieutenants who came out to negotiate a truce and burned the camp. Eleven children and two women died in one tent alone. They wanted an eight-hour workday and a safe workplace. The word redneck comes from striking West Virginia miners in 1921 who tied red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves against strikebreakers. It is a labor word. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen National VP Tim Tarrant joins the Labor 132 series to trace those moments in labor history and connect them to the fights happening right now: fall protection still missing at Metra Chicago, clean air fought for in Port Authority of New Jersey tunnels and the May 2026 Long Island Rail Road strike that shut down New York commuter service east of Manhattan for three days. His message on AI and technology: it is a worker's tool and must be used responsibly with workers, not as a replacement for them. Visit brs.org for more.
About America’s Work Force Union Podcast
America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides a clear and unfiltered voice for the working people of America. Radio veteran Ed “Flash” Ferenc leads the discussion with a focus on topics that include the impact of labor unions in America, workers’ rights, legislative actions and labor-management relations. Featured guests include various labor leaders, politicians, journalists and more. America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides updates and information from sources around the United States and continues to be the trusted voice for workers across the country.
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