July 16, 2025 • 27 mins
This week’s “How She Finds Purpose” insight comes from Dr. Debbie Goldman. She says –
“If it's only about yourself going to the next rung, getting a higher pay, getting a higher title—that's not ultimately what gives you purpose. But if you're joining with others to make things better, that’s what gives you a sense of purpose.”
Here are 3 reasons why you should listen to this episode:
-
You’ll hear how one woman reshaped her career around service and advocacy—without giving up her ambition
-
You’ll be reminded why collective purpose often feels more meaningful than personal success
-
You’ll learn how to keep learning and growing at every stage of life—including earning a PhD at 69
Dr. Debbie Goldman is a longtime labor researcher, policy advocate, and author of Disconnected: Call Center Workers Fight for Good Jobs in the Digital Age. With decades of experience inside one of the nation’s largest labor unions, she shares her lifelong commitment to justice, equity, and meaningful work.
Connect with Debbie at:
Email: dgoldman1872@gmail.com
Purchase Debbie’s book here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Disconnected-Workers-Digital-Working-American/dp/0252088158
Would you prefer to watch or listen to the podcast on YouTube?
Head on over to https://www.youtube.com/@leadershippurposepodcast
Want to connect? Connect with Dr. Robin on
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinlowensphd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robinlowensphd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinlowensphd/
Email: Robin@LeadershipPurposePodcast.com
Thank you for listening! Rate, review, & follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. Talk to you soon!
This episode was produced by Lynda, Podcast Manager for GenX Creative Entrepreneurs at https://www.ljscreativeservices.co.nz
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Leadership Purpose with Doctor Robin podcast.
I'm your host, Robin l Owens, PhD. I'm a college
professor. And when I'm not doing that, I am teaching others
how to find and stay in alignment with their true purpose.
And this is where we talk with women who've made bold career
transitions in search for more meaning and purpose in
(00:24):
their work. So if you're feeling that pull toward more meaning and purpose in
your work or just curious about what's possible when you
pursue purpose over position, then these
conversations are here to encourage, inspire,
and guide you. Okay. Let's get started.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Leadership
(00:47):
Purpose with Doctor. Robin podcast. I'm so glad you're
here and listen to the podcast. I say it all the time, and I will
continue to say it because I really do appreciate you for listening
in. And because you've been such faithful listeners,
you helped us get ranked in the top 5% of all
podcasts globally according to Listen Notes. So thank you so much
(01:09):
for listening. And if you would continue to help us out,
go ahead and submit a review to the podcast. It would
really be appreciated. All right. So now today,
I'm talking with Debbie j Goldman PhD.
Now let me tell you a little bit about doctor Debbie. She's a labor
researcher and advocate with decades of
(01:31):
experience in telecommunications policy and
workers' rights, And she's the author of the book
Disconnected, Call Center Workers
Fight for Good Jobs in the Digital Age. And
for those who are on YouTube, you could see her putting the book up for
us. And she has worked with the Communications Workers
(01:53):
of America and has been at the forefront of efforts
to protect workers from the negative impacts of
corporate restructuring and digital surveillance.
And I'm gonna leave a teaser here to say
she's demonstrating a lifelong commitment to learning.
Now you have to stay tuned to hear more about how that plays
(02:16):
out. Welcome Doctor. Debbie
Coleman. Oh, it's so wonderful to be here. Thank you so much.
I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. All right, so now you heard me
read your introduction, I wanted you to tell us in your own
words two things, a little or whatever you wanna say about
yourself and then about the work you do. Okay.
(02:38):
Well, I worked most of my
professional life in the labor movement. I
worked at the Communication Workers of America. It's a very
major union. We represent over half a million
workers. Comes out of the telephone industry when,
AT and T was the monopoly phone company and then was
(03:01):
broken up in 1984. But now it's a very diverse
union. Not only is it people who work in the wireless
industry, in the video industry, in the
Internet industry, but, also, we have members who
work at newspapers, the LA Times, the New York
Times, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post.
(03:22):
We have members who are flight attendants on United
Airlines. We have people who work in customer service
at American Airlines and others. We have
manufacturing, people who work at General Electric, and we
have government workers. Out in California, we have, folks
who work for the University of California system as
(03:45):
researchers and other state and local government employees. So
it's a very varied union. I would say it's people who work
what I would call professional and technical jobs,
skilled jobs. And I worked for almost thirty
years in the national headquarters of the union, Washington,
DC. It was a fabulous job,
(04:07):
and part of, I worked in the research department.
A large union research department has basically
three roles. One is to assist our elected
leaders as they go into collective bargaining with the employers.
So we need to help them understand what's the financial condition
of the company that they're bargaining with, what are their
(04:29):
strategies, what's the future. So that when you're
bargaining about not just wages and benefits, but
also jobs and job security, what is the strategy of
the company? What's the future? We also would help
when, people who don't have a union would want a union
and would come to CWA and say, can you help
(04:52):
us? We wanna have a union in our workplace. We wanna have a
collective voice. As just individuals, we're powerless,
really, to change what's happening. So we would help
them. Therefore, the research department's role is, again, to
help understand the company. What are their strategies? What are
leverage points so that you can help the people who want
(05:14):
to organize a union in their workplace? And then the third
thing that was our responsibility had to do with legislation and
public policy. Union also cares about the big
picture. What are the regulations and the laws that shape
what peep what we're doing in this society? And so we would
help also research there. So my background
(05:36):
is that I love to learn. I love to
learn new things, and I love to figure out
how to take what I've learned, the information I've gathered,
and provide it to people who can use it to make their
lives better. That's really what a union research department
is about, and that's my background. Yes. You
(05:58):
really educated me, and I'm imagining others because it's not
every day that we get to talk to someone that has the background that you
have. So that's really fascinating. So tell me,
what prompted you to go into this type of work? I just mentioned it's
something that we don't hear about every day. Right? And so
what prompted you to do this kind of work? What
(06:21):
prompted me is that I care about the fact that working
people should have power to determine their work
lives. They should not be automatons at
work. We get our meaning. We spend a lot of our waking
time at work, and therefore, we wanna get meaning
from that work. And how do you get meaning from the work? It includes
(06:44):
having some control over how you do that work.
So I was very interested to
work in an union that is all about
helping working people get power. Now we look in
our society today. We have these huge gaps
between most of us and the few
(07:06):
multimillionaires and billionaires who now are
the top 10 billionaires in this country may have as
much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans.
This is not a good situation. And part of the
reason we have that is because the companies that
where many of us work have launched
(07:29):
over the past forty years a major attack
on trying to take away the power of working people.
Wages for working people have been flat for
almost fifty years while we've seen CEO pay
and the top people who are making the big bucks
skyrocket in their wealth. This is not good for a democracy.
(07:54):
It's not good for an economy. And my view is
one of the biggest ways that we can have equity
and fairness in our society is to empower
people at work so that they can come together collectively,
and that's what a union's all about. Now when you said we don't hear
it often, unfortunately, that's too much the
(08:16):
case nowadays. Now if we went back to the nineteen
fifties, nineteen sixties, almost everybody would know
somebody who was in a union. A third of the workforce was in
a union. And at that point, we didn't even have union very
many unions for government workers. So we're talking about if you worked
in a company, you were in a union. Well,
(08:38):
beginning in the nineteen seventies, there was a big attack by
employers. They wanted to minimize the
power of working people in our society in the workplace.
And today, only about 12% or 11% of
Americans are represented by a union. And in the
private sector, it's down to 6%. And that's part of the
(09:01):
reason why despite the great wealth of our country,
which is huge, we're the richest country in the world,
so much flows just to the top because we don't have the
mechanisms to ensure that the people who actually do the work
and create the value are getting their fair
share. Yes. I hear your passion about
(09:23):
this as you're educating us on this and you're educating me.
I hear your passion come through. So now let's focus on your career journey
for a while to see where what what kind of brought this passion to where
we are today. So let's go back. Is there anything
in your early life like now if what I'm hearing from you is
it's important to make sure the workers are treated fairly and that
(09:46):
they have everything they need and so was there anything about
little Debbie who wanted to fight for the rights of
people or just stand up or had you know, some
real commitment to helping others. Was there any any hints of that
in little Debbie growing up? Question. I
think so much of our values are shaped by both
(10:08):
our family, our community, and if we're fortunate enough
to have some kind of religious community. My
parents grew up in the depression, and they became big
supporters of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic
Party. Seeing that at that point, we had a quarter of a million
Americans out of a job. Excuse me. A quarter
(10:31):
of the population was out of a job. Tens
of millions of people. Our economy was really in trouble,
and incomes FDR, and he
adopts all kinds of policies, Social Security,
unemployment insurance, child labor laws,
minimum wage laws, putting people to work,
(10:52):
all kinds of policies that were really helping people. And that was
the environment my parents grew up in, and they taught me as
I was growing up in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties
that we needed to be thinking about our community
and everybody and the policies so that we had
good communities. So my mother was on the school board. My
(11:16):
father ran to be a delegate at the Democratic Convention.
And then the other thing is I grew as I said, I grew up in
the sixties. This was a period of great upheaval in our
country. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, the
anti Vietnam War movement, all of these kinds
of movements were part of what I
(11:37):
was growing up in and seeing that people coming together
could change things. We could let me just tell you
one story. My book, Disconnected, is
about, the telecommunications industry because that was the
union I worked for. Would you believe that in
1970, if you were a woman and went to
(11:59):
apply for a job at the telephone company, First of all, they would
slot you to be either an operator or a customer service
rep. You could not be a technician. There were a quarter of a
million male technicians and five women.
Similarly, there were half quarter of a million operators,
(12:19):
five were men. If you went to apply at the
phone company in 1970, literally,
the HR office, the employment office, If you were
still living at home, they would go to talk to your parents. If you were
married, they would go to talk to your husband. Is it okay for
this sweet young thing to work for the phone company? We'll take
(12:42):
care of her. The paternalism and the
sexism was extraordinary. That's only
fifty years ago, fortunately. So my passions
came out of seeing what we could do in a fight for
justice. And as I've learned more, that fight for
justice was not just about women's rights. It was
(13:04):
not just about civil rights. It was really about
having the rights of those people who are working.
And I do wanna add one more thing. The union I worked for
CWA is majority women. And so
what we helped our members with was for
women to get better wages, to get
(13:26):
family supporting jobs, to get opportunities
if they wanted to go into those traditionally male jobs that they
would be able to do that. So I've seen we call
ourselves labor feminists, that we are
feminists working for women's rights within the
labor union movement. That makes a lot of sense, especially as you
(13:49):
talk about your family in the era, you know, what was happening
politically and socially at that time. So it makes a lot of sense that that
sort of infused that passion in you to do this kind of work.
And now that you're still continuing to get this message out through your
book. Okay. So now with all that coming from, from
little Debbie, up through the years of doing that work,
(14:11):
would you say you have a sense of purpose in your work? Do you feel
like this is a part of your purpose or your purpose? Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. I've been blessed to be
able to use the talents that I have to
help people through my work. And that's what gives meaning and
purpose. Yes. Yes. Now would you
(14:33):
say you deliberately set out to do that?
So you are like, I wanna have meaning and purpose, and this is what I'm
gonna do. Or did you start doing the work and suddenly realize,
oh, this is very I have meaning and purpose from this work. How did it
happen? My career was not linear. When
I finished college, I decide I had
(14:56):
always loved history, and I decided I wanted to be a high
school social studies teacher. And so when I finished
college, I went and got education certification
and then began as a high school social studies teacher, which I
loved. And so that was the first purpose that I
had. Unfortunately, when I went into that, it
(15:17):
was just at a time when there was a taxpayer revolt
against property taxes, and so there were cuts in
the budgets available for schools. And I had been
teaching for two, three years. I was low on the totem pole, and I
lost the job. And then I tried to figure out, well, what am I going
to do? And I was fortunate to
(15:40):
actually get a writing job where I worked as a
ghostwriter for two wonderful, wonderful labor
leaders. One, John Sweeney, who became later became the head of the
National Federation, the AFL CIO, and the other, Karen
Nussbaum. Some of your listeners may be aware of her. She was the
founder of a wonderful organization called nine
(16:02):
to five. Some of you may have seen the movie, the Jane
Fonda movie, and heard the Dolly Parton song.
Well, all of that really comes out of a social movement that Karen
Nussbaum and we wrote a book called solutions for the new
workforce. And the argument there was
working people, we've we're no longer an industrial economy. We're
(16:24):
a service economy. And who are the workers?
Women, people of color, immigrants.
And that means we have to have both public
policies and workplace policies that recognize the need to
balance work and family, that recognize the need
for training, recognize the need for pay
(16:46):
equity, recognized the need for, dare
I use the word, opportunities, I guess, is now the
way we say it rather than saying affirmative action.
And as I worked writing that book, I
realized, yes. This is what I want to do. I wanna work in
the labor movement. And my skills are research and
(17:09):
writing, and, fortunately, I was able to get a job in a
research department of a major, national
union. Yes. It sounds like you really did
have the ideal way to put your talents to work
in a way that was meaningful and, help others.
Sounds like you made sure you were intentional about do that doing that
(17:31):
too. One is fortunate. I was fortunate to
have an education that would give me that
opportunity, but I also continued my education.
I realized, yes, I knew how to be a researcher
in with words, But in order to work in a
union research department, you really have to be good at numbers. You have to
(17:53):
be able to read financial statements, public budgets. So I went
back to school, and my first well, actually, my second
master's was in public policy from the University of Maryland.
And then, eventually, I I raised two sons,
and, I now have five grandchildren, and I'm so
very blessed. If you talk about meaning in life, that is
(18:16):
the best. And when my sons went off to
college, I realized, well, I got some more time on my hands. I'm
working full time, but what am I gonna do with this extra time? So I
went back again for a PhD in labor
history, US labor history at the University of Maryland, a
wonderful, wonderful school. And
(18:38):
it took quite a number of years, but I
finally got the PhD at age 69. So I
want all your listeners to know that you can keep going. And
then after I wrote the dissertation, I got a book
contract, and that's what disconnected call center workers fight for
good jobs is really a rewrite of my
(18:59):
dissertation. Congratulations on all of that
or making a decision to go back and do it, and
then no matter how long it took, you just stayed the course and finished
the program and got your PhD. Congratulations.
I I can relate to that in some ways because I went back
later in life to get my PhD, and it took quite some time because I
(19:21):
was also working. And I know the effort that it takes to do that.
So good for you. It does take a lot. And I think
one of the things you have to learn is how you can
maintain your focus. When I was started writing the
dissertation, I would wake up at six in the morning and say, I'm gonna
write a page or a paragraph. It didn't work.
(19:44):
My head was really around the challenges I was thinking about in
my paid employment. And so I had to it
I took I I went on a part time
schedule where I did one week a month where I would
write, and three weeks a month, I would do my job. But
that still was a problem. So finally, when I retired, I was
(20:06):
able to focus full time on completing that dissertation.
Yes. People are different. You know? You hear the novelists who
have a house full of kids, and they say, well, I wake up at five
in the morning, and I write. And I think I couldn't do that didn't work
for me. Yeah. I can understand that. And especially from
my perspective with the dissertation, you have to carry
(20:29):
a thought over a long period of time
and a long series of research
segments within this one book, if you wanna call it that.
So it's a it really requires a particular focus and
concentration. So bravo. Thank
you. Alright. So now you know the podcast is Leadership Purpose
(20:53):
and the podcast is for what I call high achieving women. And
here's my definition of high achieving women. Women who
are ambitious, responsible, they're good at a
few things, they're the ones that people come to. And by the way,
they couldany number of these could make up a high achieving woman, not all of
them necessarily. All right, so they're the ones that people come to in their
(21:15):
professional lives. You know, they just kind of want to get advice for them or
like they're the kind of wisdom keeper, and in
their personal life, whether it's family, neighbors, community,
whatever they're involved in, people kind of come and rely on them to hear what
they have to say about it. So this is the woman we're speaking
to, and she's at a point in her business or
(21:37):
career where she's everything looks good
on paper, nothing to really complain about. But now she's at
the point where it seems like it feels like something's missing, not in terms of
material goods, but in terms of the sense of meaning that
you and I were talking about and purpose, she feels like
that's missing, and she can't quite put her finger on
(21:59):
what's happening. And she's not she's kind
of nervous about if she thinks about it too much or if she goes
in that direction, she might have to sacrifice everything she's worked
for. So she's the woman that, we're speaking to
in this moment. Now with her in mind,
she's trying to get to meaning and purpose. What's something from your
(22:21):
experience personally or professionally,
something you can say to encourage her or lift her up while
she's on this pursuit? I really believe that you need to
be involved with other people and have a collective
purpose. That if it's only about yourself,
going to the next rung, getting a higher pay,
(22:44):
getting a higher title, that's not ultimately what gives you
purpose. But if you're joining with others
to try and make things better, not just for yourself,
but for others as well, that's what gives you a sense of
purpose. Okay. Well said. Well
said. And now we could, pass that on to them. Alright.
(23:06):
So now you've given us so much. I mean, for me, I've learned a lot
from all that you've talked about here. But now is there
anything that I didn't get a chance to ask you that you feel like
well you know I'd like to say one more thing, before we can tell people
how they can reach you if they're interested in that. So is there something
I didn't ask or one more thought before we go?
(23:29):
Well, I think we're in a really challenging time right now, and I
think we do need to come together, not be overwhelmed
by the challenges in front of us, whether it's the the
politics that we see, the economic challenges,
the political challenges. But I think if we join together
with other people, then we can see how
(23:51):
we can use our power, and we do
as individuals, we have some power. But when
we come together, whether it's in our community or in our
workplace, then we have more power.
And I think we have to recognize too that we
live within a particular political and economic
(24:14):
environment, and what we can achieve and the
meaning we can find from it is influenced by
that larger environment. And we have to think about
what is it that is our barriers
toward everybody having opportunity to find
meaning and purpose, and how can we use our skills
(24:36):
to expand that. And that's the challenge
right now. It's a very, very challenging time in our country
and around our world. Not only do we have
climate change, which is such a challenge, but we also have
deep threats to our democracy, and we all have to be out there
fighting for our democracy with other people. And we can
(24:59):
tell by your story that you've been doing this for
years. You've been committed to it and in various ways, shapes, and forms. You've
been following this commitment and doing it with passion and purpose.
So thank you for doing that, and thank you for being here. Thank you.
I really appreciate it. Now if someone's trying to reach you, if they
wanna hear more, is there a way they can be in touch with you? Or...
(25:21):
I'm happy to have them reach out to me. I can give my email
address,
dgoldman1872@gmail.com.
And I also wanna encourage people, if you wanna hear more about
what I've written about disconnected call center
workers fight for good jobs in the digital age, gives you
(25:42):
a really, really broad view of
what's going on both in the communications industry and in our
larger society. You can find the book anywhere
that you order your books online or at a retail bookstore. Thank
you. Okay. We'll be sure to put that in the show notes. Dr. Debbie
Goldman, thank you so much for sharing your your insights and
(26:04):
your education with us here today. Thank you. Okay,
everyone. I'd love for you to stay in touch and I'd love
to hear from you. Go ahead and follow me on LinkedIn and,
I'm on all the social media channels, but I've spent most of my time on
LinkedIn. I'd love for you to connect and follow, get more information
about what we're doing here, and you can reach me at
(26:26):
Robin L. Owens PhD, Robin L.
Owens PhD. And until next time,
this is Dr. Robin. Thank you for tuning into
this episode of the Leadership Purpose with Dr. Robin podcast.
If you enjoyed it, head on over and rate and
subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes
(26:49):
drop every week, and I can't wait to hang out with you
again soon. Meanwhile, this
is Dr Robin signing off. See you next
time.
Welcome to the Leadership Purpose with Doctor Robin podcast.
I'm your host, Robin l Owens, PhD. I'm a college
professor. And when I'm not doing that, I am teaching others
how to find and stay in alignment with their true purpose.
And this is where we talk with women who've made bold career
transitions in search for more meaning and purpose in
(00:24):
their work. So if you're feeling that pull toward more meaning and purpose in
your work or just curious about what's possible when you
pursue purpose over position, then these
conversations are here to encourage, inspire,
and guide you. Okay. Let's get started.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Leadership
(00:47):
Purpose with Doctor. Robin podcast. I'm so glad you're
here and listen to the podcast. I say it all the time, and I will
continue to say it because I really do appreciate you for listening
in. And because you've been such faithful listeners,
you helped us get ranked in the top 5% of all
podcasts globally according to Listen Notes. So thank you so much
(01:09):
for listening. And if you would continue to help us out,
go ahead and submit a review to the podcast. It would
really be appreciated. All right. So now today,
I'm talking with Debbie j Goldman PhD.
Now let me tell you a little bit about doctor Debbie. She's a labor
researcher and advocate with decades of
(01:31):
experience in telecommunications policy and
workers' rights, And she's the author of the book
Disconnected, Call Center Workers
Fight for Good Jobs in the Digital Age. And
for those who are on YouTube, you could see her putting the book up for
us. And she has worked with the Communications Workers
(01:53):
of America and has been at the forefront of efforts
to protect workers from the negative impacts of
corporate restructuring and digital surveillance.
And I'm gonna leave a teaser here to say
she's demonstrating a lifelong commitment to learning.
Now you have to stay tuned to hear more about how that plays
(02:16):
out. Welcome Doctor. Debbie
Coleman. Oh, it's so wonderful to be here. Thank you so much.
I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. All right, so now you heard me
read your introduction, I wanted you to tell us in your own
words two things, a little or whatever you wanna say about
yourself and then about the work you do. Okay.
(02:38):
Well, I worked most of my
professional life in the labor movement. I
worked at the Communication Workers of America. It's a very
major union. We represent over half a million
workers. Comes out of the telephone industry when,
AT and T was the monopoly phone company and then was
(03:01):
broken up in 1984. But now it's a very diverse
union. Not only is it people who work in the wireless
industry, in the video industry, in the
Internet industry, but, also, we have members who
work at newspapers, the LA Times, the New York
Times, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post.
(03:22):
We have members who are flight attendants on United
Airlines. We have people who work in customer service
at American Airlines and others. We have
manufacturing, people who work at General Electric, and we
have government workers. Out in California, we have, folks
who work for the University of California system as
(03:45):
researchers and other state and local government employees. So
it's a very varied union. I would say it's people who work
what I would call professional and technical jobs,
skilled jobs. And I worked for almost thirty
years in the national headquarters of the union, Washington,
DC. It was a fabulous job,
(04:07):
and part of, I worked in the research department.
A large union research department has basically
three roles. One is to assist our elected
leaders as they go into collective bargaining with the employers.
So we need to help them understand what's the financial condition
of the company that they're bargaining with, what are their
(04:29):
strategies, what's the future. So that when you're
bargaining about not just wages and benefits, but
also jobs and job security, what is the strategy of
the company? What's the future? We also would help
when, people who don't have a union would want a union
and would come to CWA and say, can you help
(04:52):
us? We wanna have a union in our workplace. We wanna have a
collective voice. As just individuals, we're powerless,
really, to change what's happening. So we would help
them. Therefore, the research department's role is, again, to
help understand the company. What are their strategies? What are
leverage points so that you can help the people who want
(05:14):
to organize a union in their workplace? And then the third
thing that was our responsibility had to do with legislation and
public policy. Union also cares about the big
picture. What are the regulations and the laws that shape
what peep what we're doing in this society? And so we would
help also research there. So my background
(05:36):
is that I love to learn. I love to
learn new things, and I love to figure out
how to take what I've learned, the information I've gathered,
and provide it to people who can use it to make their
lives better. That's really what a union research department
is about, and that's my background. Yes. You
(05:58):
really educated me, and I'm imagining others because it's not
every day that we get to talk to someone that has the background that you
have. So that's really fascinating. So tell me,
what prompted you to go into this type of work? I just mentioned it's
something that we don't hear about every day. Right? And so
what prompted you to do this kind of work? What
(06:21):
prompted me is that I care about the fact that working
people should have power to determine their work
lives. They should not be automatons at
work. We get our meaning. We spend a lot of our waking
time at work, and therefore, we wanna get meaning
from that work. And how do you get meaning from the work? It includes
(06:44):
having some control over how you do that work.
So I was very interested to
work in an union that is all about
helping working people get power. Now we look in
our society today. We have these huge gaps
between most of us and the few
(07:06):
multimillionaires and billionaires who now are
the top 10 billionaires in this country may have as
much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans.
This is not a good situation. And part of the
reason we have that is because the companies that
where many of us work have launched
(07:29):
over the past forty years a major attack
on trying to take away the power of working people.
Wages for working people have been flat for
almost fifty years while we've seen CEO pay
and the top people who are making the big bucks
skyrocket in their wealth. This is not good for a democracy.
(07:54):
It's not good for an economy. And my view is
one of the biggest ways that we can have equity
and fairness in our society is to empower
people at work so that they can come together collectively,
and that's what a union's all about. Now when you said we don't hear
it often, unfortunately, that's too much the
(08:16):
case nowadays. Now if we went back to the nineteen
fifties, nineteen sixties, almost everybody would know
somebody who was in a union. A third of the workforce was in
a union. And at that point, we didn't even have union very
many unions for government workers. So we're talking about if you worked
in a company, you were in a union. Well,
(08:38):
beginning in the nineteen seventies, there was a big attack by
employers. They wanted to minimize the
power of working people in our society in the workplace.
And today, only about 12% or 11% of
Americans are represented by a union. And in the
private sector, it's down to 6%. And that's part of the
(09:01):
reason why despite the great wealth of our country,
which is huge, we're the richest country in the world,
so much flows just to the top because we don't have the
mechanisms to ensure that the people who actually do the work
and create the value are getting their fair
share. Yes. I hear your passion about
(09:23):
this as you're educating us on this and you're educating me.
I hear your passion come through. So now let's focus on your career journey
for a while to see where what what kind of brought this passion to where
we are today. So let's go back. Is there anything
in your early life like now if what I'm hearing from you is
it's important to make sure the workers are treated fairly and that
(09:46):
they have everything they need and so was there anything about
little Debbie who wanted to fight for the rights of
people or just stand up or had you know, some
real commitment to helping others. Was there any any hints of that
in little Debbie growing up? Question. I
think so much of our values are shaped by both
(10:08):
our family, our community, and if we're fortunate enough
to have some kind of religious community. My
parents grew up in the depression, and they became big
supporters of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic
Party. Seeing that at that point, we had a quarter of a million
Americans out of a job. Excuse me. A quarter
(10:31):
of the population was out of a job. Tens
of millions of people. Our economy was really in trouble,
and incomes FDR, and he
adopts all kinds of policies, Social Security,
unemployment insurance, child labor laws,
minimum wage laws, putting people to work,
(10:52):
all kinds of policies that were really helping people. And that was
the environment my parents grew up in, and they taught me as
I was growing up in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties
that we needed to be thinking about our community
and everybody and the policies so that we had
good communities. So my mother was on the school board. My
(11:16):
father ran to be a delegate at the Democratic Convention.
And then the other thing is I grew as I said, I grew up in
the sixties. This was a period of great upheaval in our
country. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, the
anti Vietnam War movement, all of these kinds
of movements were part of what I
(11:37):
was growing up in and seeing that people coming together
could change things. We could let me just tell you
one story. My book, Disconnected, is
about, the telecommunications industry because that was the
union I worked for. Would you believe that in
1970, if you were a woman and went to
(11:59):
apply for a job at the telephone company, First of all, they would
slot you to be either an operator or a customer service
rep. You could not be a technician. There were a quarter of a
million male technicians and five women.
Similarly, there were half quarter of a million operators,
(12:19):
five were men. If you went to apply at the
phone company in 1970, literally,
the HR office, the employment office, If you were
still living at home, they would go to talk to your parents. If you were
married, they would go to talk to your husband. Is it okay for
this sweet young thing to work for the phone company? We'll take
(12:42):
care of her. The paternalism and the
sexism was extraordinary. That's only
fifty years ago, fortunately. So my passions
came out of seeing what we could do in a fight for
justice. And as I've learned more, that fight for
justice was not just about women's rights. It was
(13:04):
not just about civil rights. It was really about
having the rights of those people who are working.
And I do wanna add one more thing. The union I worked for
CWA is majority women. And so
what we helped our members with was for
women to get better wages, to get
(13:26):
family supporting jobs, to get opportunities
if they wanted to go into those traditionally male jobs that they
would be able to do that. So I've seen we call
ourselves labor feminists, that we are
feminists working for women's rights within the
labor union movement. That makes a lot of sense, especially as you
(13:49):
talk about your family in the era, you know, what was happening
politically and socially at that time. So it makes a lot of sense that that
sort of infused that passion in you to do this kind of work.
And now that you're still continuing to get this message out through your
book. Okay. So now with all that coming from, from
little Debbie, up through the years of doing that work,
(14:11):
would you say you have a sense of purpose in your work? Do you feel
like this is a part of your purpose or your purpose? Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. I've been blessed to be
able to use the talents that I have to
help people through my work. And that's what gives meaning and
purpose. Yes. Yes. Now would you
(14:33):
say you deliberately set out to do that?
So you are like, I wanna have meaning and purpose, and this is what I'm
gonna do. Or did you start doing the work and suddenly realize,
oh, this is very I have meaning and purpose from this work. How did it
happen? My career was not linear. When
I finished college, I decide I had
(14:56):
always loved history, and I decided I wanted to be a high
school social studies teacher. And so when I finished
college, I went and got education certification
and then began as a high school social studies teacher, which I
loved. And so that was the first purpose that I
had. Unfortunately, when I went into that, it
(15:17):
was just at a time when there was a taxpayer revolt
against property taxes, and so there were cuts in
the budgets available for schools. And I had been
teaching for two, three years. I was low on the totem pole, and I
lost the job. And then I tried to figure out, well, what am I going
to do? And I was fortunate to
(15:40):
actually get a writing job where I worked as a
ghostwriter for two wonderful, wonderful labor
leaders. One, John Sweeney, who became later became the head of the
National Federation, the AFL CIO, and the other, Karen
Nussbaum. Some of your listeners may be aware of her. She was the
founder of a wonderful organization called nine
(16:02):
to five. Some of you may have seen the movie, the Jane
Fonda movie, and heard the Dolly Parton song.
Well, all of that really comes out of a social movement that Karen
Nussbaum and we wrote a book called solutions for the new
workforce. And the argument there was
working people, we've we're no longer an industrial economy. We're
(16:24):
a service economy. And who are the workers?
Women, people of color, immigrants.
And that means we have to have both public
policies and workplace policies that recognize the need to
balance work and family, that recognize the need
for training, recognize the need for pay
(16:46):
equity, recognized the need for, dare
I use the word, opportunities, I guess, is now the
way we say it rather than saying affirmative action.
And as I worked writing that book, I
realized, yes. This is what I want to do. I wanna work in
the labor movement. And my skills are research and
(17:09):
writing, and, fortunately, I was able to get a job in a
research department of a major, national
union. Yes. It sounds like you really did
have the ideal way to put your talents to work
in a way that was meaningful and, help others.
Sounds like you made sure you were intentional about do that doing that
(17:31):
too. One is fortunate. I was fortunate to
have an education that would give me that
opportunity, but I also continued my education.
I realized, yes, I knew how to be a researcher
in with words, But in order to work in a
union research department, you really have to be good at numbers. You have to
(17:53):
be able to read financial statements, public budgets. So I went
back to school, and my first well, actually, my second
master's was in public policy from the University of Maryland.
And then, eventually, I I raised two sons,
and, I now have five grandchildren, and I'm so
very blessed. If you talk about meaning in life, that is
(18:16):
the best. And when my sons went off to
college, I realized, well, I got some more time on my hands. I'm
working full time, but what am I gonna do with this extra time? So I
went back again for a PhD in labor
history, US labor history at the University of Maryland, a
wonderful, wonderful school. And
(18:38):
it took quite a number of years, but I
finally got the PhD at age 69. So I
want all your listeners to know that you can keep going. And
then after I wrote the dissertation, I got a book
contract, and that's what disconnected call center workers fight for
good jobs is really a rewrite of my
(18:59):
dissertation. Congratulations on all of that
or making a decision to go back and do it, and
then no matter how long it took, you just stayed the course and finished
the program and got your PhD. Congratulations.
I I can relate to that in some ways because I went back
later in life to get my PhD, and it took quite some time because I
(19:21):
was also working. And I know the effort that it takes to do that.
So good for you. It does take a lot. And I think
one of the things you have to learn is how you can
maintain your focus. When I was started writing the
dissertation, I would wake up at six in the morning and say, I'm gonna
write a page or a paragraph. It didn't work.
(19:44):
My head was really around the challenges I was thinking about in
my paid employment. And so I had to it
I took I I went on a part time
schedule where I did one week a month where I would
write, and three weeks a month, I would do my job. But
that still was a problem. So finally, when I retired, I was
(20:06):
able to focus full time on completing that dissertation.
Yes. People are different. You know? You hear the novelists who
have a house full of kids, and they say, well, I wake up at five
in the morning, and I write. And I think I couldn't do that didn't work
for me. Yeah. I can understand that. And especially from
my perspective with the dissertation, you have to carry
(20:29):
a thought over a long period of time
and a long series of research
segments within this one book, if you wanna call it that.
So it's a it really requires a particular focus and
concentration. So bravo. Thank
you. Alright. So now you know the podcast is Leadership Purpose
(20:53):
and the podcast is for what I call high achieving women. And
here's my definition of high achieving women. Women who
are ambitious, responsible, they're good at a
few things, they're the ones that people come to. And by the way,
they couldany number of these could make up a high achieving woman, not all of
them necessarily. All right, so they're the ones that people come to in their
(21:15):
professional lives. You know, they just kind of want to get advice for them or
like they're the kind of wisdom keeper, and in
their personal life, whether it's family, neighbors, community,
whatever they're involved in, people kind of come and rely on them to hear what
they have to say about it. So this is the woman we're speaking
to, and she's at a point in her business or
(21:37):
career where she's everything looks good
on paper, nothing to really complain about. But now she's at
the point where it seems like it feels like something's missing, not in terms of
material goods, but in terms of the sense of meaning that
you and I were talking about and purpose, she feels like
that's missing, and she can't quite put her finger on
(21:59):
what's happening. And she's not she's kind
of nervous about if she thinks about it too much or if she goes
in that direction, she might have to sacrifice everything she's worked
for. So she's the woman that, we're speaking to
in this moment. Now with her in mind,
she's trying to get to meaning and purpose. What's something from your
(22:21):
experience personally or professionally,
something you can say to encourage her or lift her up while
she's on this pursuit? I really believe that you need to
be involved with other people and have a collective
purpose. That if it's only about yourself,
going to the next rung, getting a higher pay,
(22:44):
getting a higher title, that's not ultimately what gives you
purpose. But if you're joining with others
to try and make things better, not just for yourself,
but for others as well, that's what gives you a sense of
purpose. Okay. Well said. Well
said. And now we could, pass that on to them. Alright.
(23:06):
So now you've given us so much. I mean, for me, I've learned a lot
from all that you've talked about here. But now is there
anything that I didn't get a chance to ask you that you feel like
well you know I'd like to say one more thing, before we can tell people
how they can reach you if they're interested in that. So is there something
I didn't ask or one more thought before we go?
(23:29):
Well, I think we're in a really challenging time right now, and I
think we do need to come together, not be overwhelmed
by the challenges in front of us, whether it's the the
politics that we see, the economic challenges,
the political challenges. But I think if we join together
with other people, then we can see how
(23:51):
we can use our power, and we do
as individuals, we have some power. But when
we come together, whether it's in our community or in our
workplace, then we have more power.
And I think we have to recognize too that we
live within a particular political and economic
(24:14):
environment, and what we can achieve and the
meaning we can find from it is influenced by
that larger environment. And we have to think about
what is it that is our barriers
toward everybody having opportunity to find
meaning and purpose, and how can we use our skills
(24:36):
to expand that. And that's the challenge
right now. It's a very, very challenging time in our country
and around our world. Not only do we have
climate change, which is such a challenge, but we also have
deep threats to our democracy, and we all have to be out there
fighting for our democracy with other people. And we can
(24:59):
tell by your story that you've been doing this for
years. You've been committed to it and in various ways, shapes, and forms. You've
been following this commitment and doing it with passion and purpose.
So thank you for doing that, and thank you for being here. Thank you.
I really appreciate it. Now if someone's trying to reach you, if they
wanna hear more, is there a way they can be in touch with you? Or...
(25:21):
I'm happy to have them reach out to me. I can give my email
address,
dgoldman1872@gmail.com.
And I also wanna encourage people, if you wanna hear more about
what I've written about disconnected call center
workers fight for good jobs in the digital age, gives you
(25:42):
a really, really broad view of
what's going on both in the communications industry and in our
larger society. You can find the book anywhere
that you order your books online or at a retail bookstore. Thank
you. Okay. We'll be sure to put that in the show notes. Dr. Debbie
Goldman, thank you so much for sharing your your insights and
(26:04):
your education with us here today. Thank you. Okay,
everyone. I'd love for you to stay in touch and I'd love
to hear from you. Go ahead and follow me on LinkedIn and,
I'm on all the social media channels, but I've spent most of my time on
LinkedIn. I'd love for you to connect and follow, get more information
about what we're doing here, and you can reach me at
(26:26):
Robin L. Owens PhD, Robin L.
Owens PhD. And until next time,
this is Dr. Robin. Thank you for tuning into
this episode of the Leadership Purpose with Dr. Robin podcast.
If you enjoyed it, head on over and rate and
subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes
(26:49):
drop every week, and I can't wait to hang out with you
again soon. Meanwhile, this
is Dr Robin signing off. See you next
time.
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