Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic

dimensions of our lives. Jobs, debts, incomes, our own, and those of our children. I'm your host, Richard

Wolf. In today's program, we're going to be talking about unionization, unions, labor actions

across the country because they are heating up and changing the face of how we live our lives.

And I'm also going to be talking about tax injustice,

two different kinds. And then we're going to have an interview with a very important writer,

Professor David Ruchio. So let's jump right in. The first little factoid to set the tone is

what has happened to Starbucks workers across

the United States. At the beginning of 2022, roughly a year ago, no Starbucks workers

were unionized. As I'm speaking to you, the number has crossed 7,000 across hundreds of Starbucks stores, workers who had needed and

wanted a union for a long time, but were unable to overcome the opposition of the company

or their own anxieties and worries made the change. They became leaders of a unionization movement and a strike movement

sweeping that corporation, as indeed it is sweeping the whole country. Let me give you another

example. For the first time in the history of the state of Texas, a newspaper in Texas had its journalists, its workers, form a union.

They did that two years ago.

They struggled to get a contract with their employer.

He didn't come across.

They had a strike over recent weeks, and guess what? That did it.

The employer signed a contract and gave the workers an enormous wage increase.

For those of you that are interested, I'm talking about the 117-year-old Fort Worth Star Telegram, which is now a unionized

newspaper for the first time in the state of Texas. But right on its heels, there are two more efforts

pretty much going through the same experience, one in Dallas and one in Austin.

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