America’s Work Force Union Podcast

Columbus just landed Electra's $850 million EL9 Ultra Short hybrid-electric aircraft manufacturing plant at AirPark Ohio, is building a $100 million early childhood learning center on a former jail site and generated 6.5 million union building trades work hours at Google facilities alone last year. And the American Federation of Labor was founded downtown in 1886.

On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast,...

The Screen Actors Guild was founded in 1933. AFTRA was founded around the same time. For nearly 80 years, they tried to become a single union and kept falling short of the 80% supermajority required by both constitutions. Then, in 2008, employers used the gap between them to restructure primetime scripted television in ways that stripped members of their health insurance. By 2012, the two unions were one.

On today's episode of Amer...

He joined the laborers in 2014, has been sober since 2009 and spent years working in addiction treatment before the trades. Now he is one of three recovery specialists covering approximately 22 LIUNA locals and up to 12,000 members across Massachusetts through the LEAN program — Laborers Escaping Adversity Now — the first program of its kind in the Laborers union when it launched in 2018.

On today's episode of America's...

In 2003, the Teamsters celebrated their 100th anniversary and discovered they had almost no institutional record of their own history. Previous administrations had discarded materials that should have been preserved. That realization launched a 20-year effort that has now produced teamsterhistory.org — more than 27 unfiltered, unedited oral history interviews with the people who lived through one of the most turbulent and con...

Two conversations that cut to the heart of what workers and retirees are navigating right now — one about what happens when an employer decides union members are expendable, and one about finding the right healthcare coverage when the landscape keeps shifting.

The University of Maryland, College Park, laid off more than 80 workers earlier this summer. More than 80% were union members. The university's nearly billion-dollar en...

She did not grow up thinking about roofing. She spent years in other work before deciding she wanted real pay, real benefits and a real career path. A woman she knew had gone through Hire360 and told her to look into it. She did. Now she is an apprentice with Roofers Local 11 in Chicago, and she is not going back.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Donetta Thomas tells her story of entering the building trade...

Today's episode of the America's Work Force Union Podcast brings together two conversations that cut to the heart of what it means to be a worker in America right now — one focused on who keeps people safe and one on who makes the decisions that shape their lives.

First, Nat...

The conventional wisdom says union contractors cost taxpayers more on public projects. A peer-reviewed study of 128 Sacramento County public works projects completed between 2018 and 2022 found the opposite: union contractors were associated with 5 to 6 percent lower costs and 14 to 22 percent faster completion times than non-union contractors.

On today's trades day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, NorCal CIC Policy a...

Over one million federal workers lost collective bargaining rights by executive order. For the second year in a row, a union member in Congress has added bipartisan language to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act to start reversing that for 770,000 Department of Defense employees. And IFPTE just organized approximately 200 NOAA fisheries workers in Hawaii.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, IFPTE...

Two sheriff's deputies in Union County, South Dakota, had a yard sign for the losing candidate on their property. Three weeks after their sheriff won his election, they were fired in a letter citing the at-will employment law and no stated cause. They were in the middle of negotiating their first union contract when it happened. The county's lawyer had argued against including just cause language in that contract just weeks before ...

70 percent of Boston's greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings. Boston hospitals consume four times as much energy as other city buildings. And a technology that already exists, installed by trained workers already on the job, could dramatically reduce both figures. It's called mechanical insulation.

On today's trades day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Mechanical Insulators LMCT Executive Director Pete Ielmini ...

Columbus Metropolitan Library workers filed for their union election in December 2025, waited six months and faced weekly anti-union emails from administration the entire time. On July 7, they voted yes with 86 percent approval. OFT filed a demand to bargain the same day.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper joins us fresh from the AFT convention in Washingt...

An organizer showed up for a first meeting at a sawmill in rural Mississippi and was handed 40 signed union authorization cards before taking a seat. Workers at Big River Sawmill in Gloster, Miss., had already organized themselves. The Van Devender family's ownership fired four workers, held captive-audience meetings, and turned the mayor against them. On June 25 and 26, the workers won anyway.

On today's episode of America's Work ...

The Cleveland Orchestra contract expires at the end of August. Active bargaining is underway, with Local 4 having already exchanged financial presentations and delivered its first proposal. A key priority this round is relief weeks for string players whose instrument positions create real risk of repetitive stress injury over time. And four of the country's most storied orchestras are at the table simultaneously, setting benchmarks...

America's Work Force Union Podcast brings together two conversations spanning American history, retirement security and a fight over who controls your Medicare coverage.

American Legion Media and Communications Director Henry Howard opens with a recap of how the Legion marked America's 250th anniversary, including a reenactment of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Lansing, Michigan on July 8, the date C...

OSHA inspections are down. Penalties are down. The workers most at risk are afraid to speak up. And two preventable crises are claiming lives that should not be lost: the extreme heat epidemic that kills workers at dramatically higher rates if they are Latino or Black, and a growing wave of accelerated silicosis among young countertop fabricators exposed to engineered stone products so high in silica that they have been banned in A...

America's Work Force Union Podcast brings together two conversations that capture the labor movement's momentum heading into a consequential fall election season.

First, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga joins fresh from the AFL-CIO's 30th Constitutional Convention in Minneapolis, where delegates voted to set a new organizing target of 2 million new union members by 2032 after surpassing the previous goal of 1 million. Burga reports...

In the most recent year with available data, roughly 1,000 construction workers died from workplace accidents. In the same year, approximately 5,000 died by suicide and 11,000 died from overdose. Construction workers are approximately 16 times more likely to die by suicide or overdose than from a conventional workplace injury. And the industry is not yet treating mental health with the same intensity it brings to fall prevention.

O...

More than 335 organizations have signed an open letter to every member of Congress calling for Medicare for All. A national day of action is planned for July 30 to mark the 61st anniversary of Medicare's original passage. And nurses say people are arriving at hospitals too sick to be saved because they put off care they could not afford.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, National Nurses United President Jami...