Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Jobs

Episode 3-1 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

A New Year and new season on the podcast!

Long-time friends of the show, labor leader Rosemary Trump and labor historian Dr. Charles McCollester join host Nathan Ruggles for a Year in Review/Year in Preview on a range of issues facing workers on the job and in society today. 

• Film: Don't Look U...

Episode 2-5 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

A bonus previously unreleased excerpt from our interview with entrepreneur and author Jeff Wald., in which he talks about his $10 Million “Future of Work” Prize with host Nathan Ruggles. In the last episode, they had an in-depth conversation of Jeff’s book The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Worker...

Episode 2-4 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Host Nathan Ruggles discusses the book The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations with author Jeff Wald. A best-selling writer, tech entrepreneur, angel investor, founder of WorkMarket and Spinback, Jeff examines how companies and workers reacted to the last three industrial...

This is Episode 2-3 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Nathan Ruggles hosts our feature interview Dr. Joe Trotter is the Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Social Justice and past History Department Chair at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is also the Director and Founder of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Afri...

Season 2, Episode 2 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Nathan Ruggles hosts our feature interview with the co-founders of ASA Social Fund for Hidden Peoples: Dr. Louis Picard and Pauline Greenlick.  They discuss microloans, and how they provide financial resources and support to qualified individuals and groups -- particularly to vulnerable and fr...

This is Season 2, Episode 1 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

The start of a new season!

Host Nathan Ruggles talks with Battle of Homestead Foundation Communications Manager and music guru Larry McCullough.  After a quick check-in and look back on the organization, Larry kicks off this season with a selection from the cannon of presidential campai...

This is Episode 11 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Including:

1. Patricia DeMarco (https://patriciademarco.com) hosts our feature interview with Rayden Sorock, Director of Community Projects for Grow Pittsburgh, who has worked to support the growth and sustainability of more than 100 community gardens in Allegheny County over 9 years.  They disc...

This is Episode 10 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

"Investing in Communities to Build a New Economy: A Marshall Plan for Middle America"

Includes:

1.  A feature interview from host Patricia DeMarco (https://patriciademarco.com), this time with Tom Croft, Managing Director of Heartland Capital Strategies (www.heartlandnetwork.o...

This is Episode 9 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Working Over Time: What’s at Stake in Election 2020

Includes:

1. Commentators Rosemary Trump and Charlie McCollester return just in time for Election Day with their regular feature Working Over Time.  They discuss what’s at stake for working people , with host Nathan Ruggles, the origins of curre...

Episode 8 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation:

A 21st Century WPA: Back from Halimuhfack

Taking a look at the most impactful and ambitious employment program in American history: the Works Progress Administration, or WPA

Includes:

1. Nathan Ruggles talks with Max Page of the University of Massachusetts Amherst about his recent piece in Labor Notes enti...

Episode 7 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation:

Pathways to a New Economy that Works for Us

Includes:

1. Patty DeMarco returns with Pathways to a New Economy.  Her feature interview is with teacher, activist and organizer Michael Bagdes-Canning.  They talk dirty jobs and clean ones, failing industry and green, along with fracking and climate change.

Episode 6 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Includes:

A feature interview about the issues facing immigrant workers from Latin America in the United States, and in particular those who are undocumented, with Guillermo Perez from theLabor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA).  Topics also include Puerto Rico, baseball, and the annual even...

Episode 5 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Final episode in the series featuring the struggles of food service workers.  Representatives of the nonprofit organization The Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) Pittsburgh talk with Nathan Ruggles about their experiences.  Organizer and former server Bobbit Linskens, and local barista and member of...

Episode 4 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Includes:

A feature interview continuing the focus on the struggles of food service workers with Part 2 of a conversation with the nonprofit organization The Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) PA and their work fighting to improve wages and working conditions.  This part covers the issue of wages and...

Episode 3 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Includes:

• A feature examining the struggles of food service workers through a conversation with Pittsburgh representatives of the nonprofit organization The Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC).  Nathan Ruggles talks with organizer and former server Bobbit Linskens, and local barista and member of ...

This is Episode 2 of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

Episode 2 includes:

The start of a new monthly feature called Working Over Time, with regular expert commentators Rosemary Trump and Charlie McCollester.  Host Nathan Ruggles engages with them on the issue of worker health and safety in the time of a pandemic, with a historic perspective and atte...

This is the premiere episode of Essential Work: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Jobs, brought to you by the Battle of Homestead Foundation.

The episode features:

1. Discussion between host Nathan Ruggles and John Haer, current President of the Battle of Homestead Foundation, about the organization, it’s mission, and why it’s starting a podcast.
2. As part of her regular segment Pathways to a New Economy, looking at labor, env...