Bernie’s Pro-Union Push

City Journal Audio

Manhattan Institute

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.8 • 615 Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Labor unions have dramatically declined as a percentage of the American workforce over the last 30 years. A new proposal from presidential candidate Bernie Sanders seeks to double union ranks, City Journal senior editor Steven Malanga reports, which would mean adding nearly 15 million new members.

Malanga joins associate editor Seth Barron to discuss Senator Sanders's proposal, which would put new restraints on employers, limit workers' rights to opt-out of union membership, and make other changes to U.S. labor law. The Sanders plan would also give federal workers the right to strike and force states to allow government workers to unionize.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.
0:05.7	Coming up on today's show, two of my colleagues, Seth Barron and Steve Malanga,
0:10.2	will discuss a new plan by Senator Bernie Sanders that would effectively double America's union membership.
0:17.4	As Steve notes in a recent piece for the City Journal website, it's a bold agenda with recommendations to roll back portions of the labor law dating back six decades, including state right to work laws, to impose new restraints on employers, and to limit workers' ability to opt out of union membership.
0:41.9	We thought it would be an engaging topic for our first post-Labor Day podcast.
0:48.7	We've also got some exciting episodes coming up with Chris Rufo discussing the new urban left,
0:53.9	economist Ed Glazer delivering his annual James Q. Wilson lecture, and Howard Hussock talking about his new book,
0:57.5	Who Killed Civil Society, among other exciting themes coming up. Lastly, make sure you're
1:04.6	subscribed to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you haven't
1:10.7	already, follow us on Twitter
1:12.3	at CityJournal and on Instagram at CityJournal underscore MI. That's it for me. The conversation
1:20.0	between Seth Barron and Steve Malanga begins after this. Welcome back to 10 blocks, the podcast of City Journal. This is your host for today,
1:39.6	Seth Barron, associate editor of City Journal. I'm joined by Steve Malanga, senior editor of City Journal
1:46.0	and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He's here to talk about his latest piece
1:51.2	about Bernie Sanders' proposals regarding unions and organized labor. The piece is called
1:57.7	Knight of Forced Labor. Steve, thanks for joining us. So what is it that
2:03.8	Senator Sanders proposed that you found so noteworthy or odd? Or all of those things? So first of all,
2:13.1	you know, it's important, I think, to remember that Bernie Sanders has kind of pitched himself
2:17.4	as the friend of labor. He, in think, to remember that Bernie Sanders has kind of pitched himself as the friend of
2:18.3	labor. He, in fact, began by touting the fact that he's allowing his campaign workers to organize,
2:26.4	to be organized by a union. They claim, and I don't have anything to dispute this, that this is the
2:32.2	first time a presidential campaign in either party has been organized.
	...

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