Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Mike Goldfield & Gabriel Winant
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2021
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mike Goldfield, whose recent book is The Southern Key, discusses the unionization drive underway at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer Alabama. Mike’s book analyzed the history of efforts to unionize the South in the 1930s and 40s, and that history is the context for the struggle to unionize Amazon today, in the same area as the fight that failed in the 1940s. The current unionization drive is widely recognized as pivotally important, and is being extensively covered. A new Brookings Institution report says Amazon’s union battle in Bessemer is about dignity, racial justice, and the future of the American worker. If successful, this will become the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the country and will also mark one of the biggest union victories in the South in decades, potentially galvanizing the labor movement and inspiring workers far beyond Alabama. We get Mike Goldfield’s view.
Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Manufacturing and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America, joins us to talk about the expanding care economy. Gabe's op-ed in the New York Times on March 18, Manufacturing Isn’t Coming Back, Let’s Improve These Jobs Instead, looks at the underpaid and overworked health care workers whose jobs are critical to our society. Using the example of Pittsburgh, where the care industry arose on the ruins of the industrial economy, this sector has come to dominate employment across American cities, and is the face of the 21st C workforce. We get his insights on how to translate the recognition of the essential nature of the work they do caring for society into getting this sector paid their economic value, which requires more political power.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman. On today's program, we look at the unionization |
| 0:15.6 | drive under way at the Amazon warehouse in Bessener, Alabama, with labor historian Mike |
| 0:21.6 | Goldfield, whose recent book, The Southern Key, analyzed the history of efforts to unionize |
| 0:26.5 | the south in the 1930s and 40s. That history is the context for the struggle to unionize |
| 0:32.6 | Amazon in the same area as that fight failed in the 1940s. The current unionization drive |
| 0:39.0 | is almost universally recognized as pivotally important and is being widely covered. |
| 0:45.5 | The New Brookings Institution report says Amazon's union battle in Bessener, Alabama |
| 0:50.4 | is about dignity, racial justice, and the future of the American worker. If successful, |
| 0:56.1 | this will be the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the country and will also mark one of the |
| 1:02.0 | biggest union victories in the south in decades, potentially galvanizing the labor movement |
| 1:07.3 | and inspiring workers far beyond Alabama. We get Mike Goldfield's view. We then talk to Gabriel |
| 1:14.4 | Wynton about the expanding care economy. Gabriel and Op Ed in the New York Times on March 18th |
| 1:20.1 | about the underpaid and overworked health care workers whose jobs are critical and crucial to |
| 1:26.2 | our society. The Op Ed is titled Manufacturing Isn't Coming Back. Let's improve these jobs instead |
| 1:32.8 | and Gabe looks at how the care industry arose in Pittsburgh on the runes of the industrial economy |
| 1:38.4 | and how this sector dominates employment across American cities and it is the face of the 21st |
| 1:45.1 | century workforce. We'll get his insights on how to translate the recognition of the essential |
| 1:50.6 | nature of the work they do caring for society into getting this sector paid their economic value |
| 1:57.1 | and that requires more political power. All this when our program returns in just a moment. |
| 2:06.5 | This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman and very pleased to have Mike Goldfield back with us. |
| 2:20.4 | We're going to be talking about a historic unionization drive at the Amazon plant in Bessemer, |
| 2:27.2 | Alabama. Now people have probably noticed that this drive is going on and it is historic. |
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