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I'm your host, Elise Hugh. The weekend,

Social Security, health insurance. What do these things have in common in the U.S.?

They all exist thanks to the work of labor unions. In this archive talk from 2021,

political economist Margaret Levy explains how these organizations forge equality and

protect worker rights, but that it's time to reimagine unions for today's work culture if we are

to truly build towards a more equitable future.

It's easy to imagine a world without labor unions. We're essentially living in that world now,

and we are worse off as a result. Few of you probably belong to unions, but almost all of you benefit from them. It was unions that brought us the weekend.

More importantly, unions built the middle class

by ensuring that workers had the incomes to support families,

to buy homes and cars, and to dream that their children could do better than they could.

It was union power and advocacy that helped us win Social Security and health insurance,

...