The History Of America's Fight For Fair Labor
1A
NPR
4.3 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One considerable shift? Workers telling bosses they're not gonna take it anymore. The so-called Great Resignation hasn't slowed so far in 2022. In February, over 4 million people quit their jobs. About 74,000 of those who left worked in retail.
In addition to quitting, workers are also taking back control via unions. In two recent high-profile moves, employees at Starbucks and Amazon voted to organize despite their respective employers' best efforts.
We discuss the movement and what's next.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Mark from Say the War can Tom, a small business owner with nine employees. |
| 0:13.0 | I do my best to make sure that every employee has a living wage as we should. |
| 0:20.2 | I simply respect that charge back to the customer and I draw a modest salary and a profit |
| 0:27.5 | share phone company. I own my name is Justin and I'm calling from Asheville, North Carolina. |
| 0:34.3 | I was a cook for a very long time and actually recently I got a phone call offering me one of my jobs back. |
| 0:40.5 | They are paying better, but the job itself is exactly what I used to do and there was a reason why I left that job. |
| 0:47.0 | Even though the pay would be better, I was tired of being very stressed out and having to work nights and weekends and holidays. |
| 0:53.2 | So my comment would just be that sure there's a lot of jobs available, but it's the quality of those jobs. |
| 0:58.7 | The pandemic has prompted a lot of change within the workforce. |
| 1:02.4 | One considerable shift is workers telling their boss they're not going to take it anymore. |
| 1:07.1 | The so-called great resignation hasn't let up since it started in 2021. |
| 1:11.9 | In February of this year, over 4 million people quit their jobs, about 74,000 of those who left worked in retail. |
| 1:20.1 | The big quit is part of a movement of workers demanding change, safety and respect during a global pandemic. |
| 1:26.6 | Faith, they're grounded, move your job out, union musters. |
| 1:30.6 | You've got trouble. |
| 1:31.6 | We don't get it. |
| 1:32.6 | Shut it down. |
| 1:34.1 | We don't get it. |
| 1:35.1 | Shut it down. |
| 1:36.6 | We don't get it. |
| 1:37.6 | We work. |
| 1:39.1 | We work. |
... |
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