Labor Day Best-of: How Unions Win; Book Bans; School Refusal; Ultra-Processed Foods; Guide to LED Lights
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2023
⏱️ 108 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For this Labor Day holiday, we've put together some of our favorite recent interviews, including:
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Jane McAlevey, organizer, senior policy fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, The Nation's strikes correspondent and co-author of Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations (Oxford University Press, 2023), draws on case histories of successful negotiations to offer blueprints for other unions.
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In a March 13 op-ed for the Daily Beast, bestselling author Jodi Picoult condemned the removal of several books, including 20 of her own, from a school district in Florida. Many of these challenges were filed by a single person. Jodi Picoult and Suzanne Nossel, PEN America chief executive officer, explain what's at stake as states and local governments continue to ban books.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report in February that showed an increase in teenagers struggling with their mental health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has declared mental health challenges for teens a "national emergency." Ari Fox, psychotherapist and founder and director of Cope With School NYC, discusses one of the more troubling manifestations of youth mental distress: an exponential rise of kids refusing to attend school.
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Chris van Tulleken, associate professor at University College London and a practicing infectious diseases doctor and the author of Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food (W. W. Norton & Company, 2023), talks about the health effects of eating diets heavy in highly processed foods - which he researched and experimented with on himself.
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Thom Dunn, staff writer at Wirecutter reporting on home improvement topics, breaks down Wirecutter's recommendations for the best LED bulbs.
These interviews were polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here:
Unions that Won (Mar 20, 2023)
Bestselling Author Jodi Picoult Warns Against Book Bans (Mar 27, 2023)
The Teenagers Are Not Alright: Post-Pandemic School Refusal (May 11, 2023)
The Dangers of 'Ultra-Processed Foods' (Jul 26, 2023)
The Best LED Recommendations (Apr 11, 2023)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Bryan Lair Show on WNYC, good morning everyone, and happy Labor Day. |
| 0:16.1 | To celebrate this Labor Day holiday, we're taking a day away from work, but we put together |
| 0:21.0 | some interviews from earlier this year, spiffed up a bit, and edited for time. |
| 0:26.2 | And in March, best-selling author, Jodie Pico, was joined by Suzanne Nassel of Pan America |
| 0:31.6 | to talk about books, including some of Jodie's own, being removed from the school district |
| 0:36.4 | in Florida, and the larger issues around politically-driven book bands right now. |
| 0:41.6 | With school starting up later this week, we're also re-earing an interview with psychotherapist |
| 0:46.4 | Ari Fox about the problems some kids are facing of school refusal, as it's being called, |
| 0:52.0 | that is, they don't actually go very often, and we'll hear from a physician who's written |
| 0:56.6 | a book on the dangers of what he calls ultra-processed foods, and the results of his experiment |
| 1:02.4 | with only eating that type of food himself for a period of time. |
| 1:06.7 | I'll allow the movie supersize me. |
| 1:08.6 | Plus, now that incandescent light bulbs are no longer on shelves. |
| 1:12.7 | We have a guide to how to find LED bulbs that best mimic the familiar kinds of light the |
| 1:18.5 | incandescence produced. |
| 1:20.7 | But we'll start here. |
| 1:22.0 | On this Labor Day, with an interview I did with Jane McAlevy, when her book rules to |
| 1:27.0 | win by power and participation in union negotiations came out in March. |
| 1:33.0 | Now that was before the writers guild and SAG after strike started, and before UPS negotiated, |
| 1:39.6 | but already in 2023 the nurses at Mount Sinai and Mount Afior had ended a successful three-day |
| 1:45.6 | walk out, which, among other things, ratified contracts with enforceable nurse-to-patient |
| 1:50.7 | staffing ratios. |
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