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Hear the Bern

10 - But the Union Makes Us Strong (w/ Lane Windham & Ryan Grim)

Hear the Bern

Bernie 2020

News Commentary, News, , Politics

4.81.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why do American workers face some of the weakest labor protections - and consequently some of the highest inequality - in the developed world? To find out, Briahna turns to Dr. Lane Windham, a Georgetown professor and author of Knocking on Labor’s Door, and Ryan Grim, DC Bureau Chief at the Intercept and author of the new book We’ve Got People. Dr. Windham tells a story of workers, including women and people of color, fighting for access to union rights on the eve of the country’s turn toward neoliberalism. On the political side, Ryan describes the Democratic Party’s fateful pivot away from labor power and toward big money politics in the early 1980s. Ryan’s book We’ve Got People: https://strongarmpress.com/catalog/weve-got-people Lane’s book Knocking on Labor’s Door: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469632070/knocking-on-labors-door “28 Ghosts IV” by Nine Inch Nails is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License. “Glueworm Evening Blues” by Lobo Loco is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Working at Walmart has been mentally and physically draining.

0:03.0

Many of my colleagues rely on public assistance

0:06.4

just to survive and some are homeless.

0:09.2

I feel like management sometimes puts aside safety

0:12.3

in order to be more productive.

0:14.0

We couldn't miss too many days even if it was a family emergency.

0:17.0

We barely had time for our family.

0:19.0

Favoritism and picking up on a lot of heavy stuff.

0:22.0

I'm constantly having to worry about whether or not

0:24.0

my hours are going to get cut.

0:29.0

Walmart is the largest company on the planet.

0:32.0

In 2018, it pulled in 500 billion dollars in

0:36.6

revenue. Its owners, the Waltons, are the richest family in the United States worth around $175 billion.

0:47.0

And it employs 2.2 million people.

0:50.0

That's about a million more than the entire US military.

0:54.0

And yet, as you just heard, Walmart's workers, you know, the people who make the entire thing possible,

1:01.0

are scraping by on some of the lowest wages in the country.

1:06.2

Many work multiple jobs or rely on food aid from the federal government.

1:11.0

They deal with unpredictable schedules, almost zero job security, and bad bosses.

1:17.0

And they're far from alone.

1:20.0

How in the richest country on earth did we let this happen?

1:25.0

Well, it's a story that stretches back to the early 20th century

...

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