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Freakonomics Radio

Do Unions Still Work?

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.632K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Organized labor hasn’t had this much public support in 50 years, and yet the percentage of Americans in a union is near a record low. A.F.L-C.I.O. president Liz Shuler tries to explain this gap — and persuade Stephen Dubner that “the folks who brought you the weekend” still have the leverage to fix a broken economy.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You've probably been hearing about the many places where American workers are trying to unionize.

0:09.5

What are we want?

0:10.9

Justice!

0:11.9

Now!

0:12.9

It's been happening at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, at Starbucks stores across the country.

0:20.7

Workers of the world unite.

0:22.9

One struggle, one fight.

0:24.8

It's been happening among ride share drivers, among graduate students in the Ivy League and the

0:30.6

University of California system.

0:32.3

It's been happening at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan and at the New

0:36.6

York Times, where most of the journalists were already in a labor union,

0:40.9

but the tech workers weren't.

0:43.0

And you might remember what happened in October.

0:45.6

Thousands of American workers are on strike,

0:48.1

and thousands more are preparing to walk out

0:50.7

and what some have dubbed strike tober.

0:52.8

Hollywood, John Deere, Kellogg's, even nurses

0:55.9

are among the thousands on strike. According to a strike tracker developed by researchers at Cornell,

1:02.0

last year was unusually busy with 370 strikes and nearly 700 labor protests. Perhaps we shouldn't

1:10.5

be surprised.

1:11.6

For all the recent talk about labor shortages

1:14.5

and desperate firms offering employee bonuses,

...

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