Heartland Labor Forum
KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community RadioHeartland Labor Forum
This podcast tracks the audio archives for the “Heartland Labor Forum” radio show. The Heartland Labor Forum is Kansas City’s only program about the workplace. It’s radio that talks back to the boss! Whether you’re a union member or your workplace isn’t organized, Heartland Labor Forum (HLF) has stories for you, guaranteed to inspire, educate, or enrage you.
KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
This podcast tracks the audio archives for the “Heartland Labor Forum” radio show. The Heartland Labor Forum is Kansas City’s only program about the workplace. It’s radio that talks back to the boss! Whether you’re a union member or your workplace isn’t organized, Heartland Labor Forum (HLF) has stories for you, guaranteed to inspire, educate, or enrage you.
KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
This week the Missouri legislature will once again meet to undermine the will of the voters. On the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Benjamin Singer of Respect Missouri Voters about their strategy to protect voters’ rights to pass initiatives.
Jennifer Abruzzo was General Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board during the Biden administration. She pioneered changes to help restore the right to organize unions to American workers. Trump fired her.
Washburn University students from Topeka joined a Witness for Peace delegation to Cuba to learn about race, environment and the U.S. economic blockade aimed at undoing the Cuban revolution. They talked to healthcare workers, farmers,
The Trump administration has attacked the federal workforce with firings, union busting, weakened job protections, reduced telework, and speedups. This week in our continuing labor leader series on the Heartland Labor Forum,
In an age of Amazon, Starbucks and Google it may seem impossible for workers to win a union. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk with Olivia Geho, one of the authors of "What the Boss Doesn't Want Us to Know: Discovering Power and Winnin...
Economist Richard Wolff – podcaster, professor, Marxist and strong advocate for worker-owned cooperatives is more relevant today than ever. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll ask Rick Wolff his predictions on Trumpism’s effect on the economy ...
Unions that haven’t gone on strike in years are facing doing so as an increasing number of bosses refuse to bargain in good faith. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out how to have a successful strike against unfair labor practices.
Two women started Boots on the Ground Midwest on a whim and full of despair. It’s evolved quickly mobilizing and motivating citizens to protest creeping fascism. We’ll hear their experiences this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then,
We are thrilled to welcome back award-winning novelist Rachel Kushner for a second in-depth interview—this time about her gripping new corporate-surveillance, bad guy spy-thriller, Creation Lake. This is a twisted tale of big agribusiness espionage,
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine workers is a union that’s much more than just those occupations. UE as it’s called, has organized thirty thousand graduate workers in the last few years while still representing the huge locomotive shops in Buff...
KU Labor Historian David Roediger is a scholar of white working-class studies. His new memoir, An Ordinary White; My Anti-Racist Education chronicles growing up in a sundown town and then unlearning racism in the labor and socialist movements.
There’s a lot of controversy about Trump’s tariffs for auto. Is it just spectacle, or could they actually lead to more domestic auto production and at what cost? We’ll talk to Bill Fletcher about it. Then, how about some good and doable ideas on how to...
Trump dumped NIOSH - the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health? We’ll ask if we can save it and why it’s important to workers. Then many unions in the U.S. and around the world have taken a stand against genocide in Palestine.
Last November Missouri citizens made their voices heard at the ballot box in favor of abortion access and paid sick leave for workers. Then during the last week of the MO legislative session, the legislature overruled the voices of the voters.
Americans have many questions these days about government services like the postal service that are under attack. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll visit with Darcy Wood, President of American Postal Workers Union Local 67 and ask about thre...
UAW founder Walter Reuther was famous, his brother Roy wasn’t, but he made important contributions to both the labor and civil rights movements. Roy’s son, Alan joins us this week on the Heartland Labor Forum to talk about his new book Roy Reuther and ...
Former Commissioner Martin O’Malley says Social Security could collapse within just a few months. Social Security workers report bedlam at work, and their union leader Everett Kelley says Elon Musk doesn’t just want to cut the SSA workforce - He wants ...
It’s May Day and this week the Heartland Labor Forum is celebrating International Workers Day with songs to raise the spirit, an interview from 1997 with Studs Terkel on the history of May Day, a tribute to black folk and labor singer John Handcox and ...
What do you do when the head of state comes after your union with 6,000 cops and a license to kill? We’ll get advice from John Dunne who had his head bashed in by cops during the British Miners’ Strike of 1984.
We see their work everywhere: big cities, small towns, schools, tall and short buildings. These craftsmen are bricklayers and masons. Many can be called artists. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum find out more from Dustin Himes of the Bricklayers ...
The surest way to defeat a union is to create division within it. Many in management excel at pitting workers against each other, but this week we’ll talk with organizers about how they help workers answer the question: “Which Side Are You On”. Then,
Right after he became President Trump marked another milestone on the trail of broken promises when he cut funding for Haskell Indian Nation’s University in Lawrence, crippling its teaching capacity and leaving students without instruction.
We’ll interview labor historian Jeff Stilley about Kansas City’s greatest labor champion you never heard of -- Frank Walsh, labor lawyer, defender of radicals and visionary for future labor law. Then, are you curious about the Kansas City Public School...
The MO Legislature is at it again – trying to subvert the will of the people. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Missouri State Reps. Pattie Mansur and Tiffany Price who oppose reversing the popular will. Then,
With President Trump’s dismantling of the federal bureaucracy in full swing, led by Elon Musk's DOGE, federal workers are under siege. But unionized federal workers are fighting back. We'll talk with leaders from the American Federation of Government E...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll get a report from last weekend’s Workers Strike Back Conference organizing to win a $25 minimum wage and healthcare for all. Then, Trump wants the Panama Canal back claiming it’s our right. Really?
Union organizer and photojournalist David Bacon joins us to discuss cross-border labor solidarity, the fight for immigrant and domestic workers’ rights, and how grassroots organizing is reshaping the future of labor movement. Then,
Have Trump’s tariffs got you confused? How will they affect jobs and prices? We’ll talk to trade expert Lori Wallach, of Rethink Trade. She’s a 30-year veteran of international and US Congressional trade battles. Then,
In Auburn New York in 1840 William Freeman, an imprisoned Black teenager, demanded pay for forced labor, l leading to violence. We’ll talk to author Robin Bernstein about the first for-profit prison and a murder.
It’s all about chickens and those nuggets that are presumably made from them. We’ll talk to Patrick Dixon about his new book, Nuggets of Gold and then to Alice Driver who spent four years interviewing workers in chicken processing plants in the south a...
Kansas City building trades unions want area towns to pass Responsible Bidder Ordinances requiring public works contractors to provide good jobs with apprenticeship training and opportunities for continuous employment for the tradesmen and women who do...
We’ll have two remarkable union leaders. Laura Kelly (no it isn’t the governor of Kansas) from UFCW Local 655 where she’s assistant to the president. She says, “the union changed my life” and has a compelling story of how union and LGBTQ activism inter...
The union of bus drivers in Kansas City local 1287 of the Amalgamated Transit Union or ATU is bogged down in negotiations with the Area Transportation Authority or ATA amidst threatened and actual cuts to service and funding from Kansas City and suburb...
As we begin the new year, we look back at highlights from the Heartland Labor Forum in 2024. We’ll hear clips of some of the most interesting interviews, features, and songs that we aired last year. Also, our feature is Safety First,
Starting in the 1940s US labor officials worked with the CIA to split militant unions overseas and overthrow neutral governments in an obsessive anti-communist crusade that helped make poor countries safe for the export of American jobs.
Anticipation or dread, what’s YOUR prediction for 2025? Will the current upsurge in support for unions and worker organizing continue, or will the next administration squash labor rights? Will threats of firing thousands of federal workers turn to real...
Do feel assaulted and confused by the abundance of Medicare Advantage ads filled with endorsements by celebrities? Tune into the Heartland Labor Forum Thursday as we clear up deceptions and explain the Medicare Advantage rip-off. Then,
In the 1930s American workers responded to the greatest economic crisis in our history, with an upsurge of organizing, and they forced government to respond. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we talk to historian Dana Frank about her new book,
Workers have been singing while working and singing about working since antiquity. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we give thanks for labor and work songs that they’ve written. Work songs alleviate boredom and synchronize the work.
We’ll look at two ballot measures that won: Prop A will increase the Missouri minimum wage to $15 and mandate paid sick leave for most workers and Amendment 3 removes Missouri’s almost total ban on abortion.
It’s been a year since veteran labor strategists Rand Wilson and Pete Olney discussed the chances of a “labor movement moment” on the Heartland Labor Forum. This week we’ll ask them about the triumphs of this year and the obstacles labor faces in the n...
Pension expert Teresa Ghilarducci returns to the Heartland Labor Forum this week to explain how some corporations are selling off workers’ pension plans and putting them at risk. Find out if your employer is selling your pension. Then,
For Halloween, we feature two books about blood-thirsty bosses. First book is called Not All Fun and Games about the super-profitable North American video game industry which squeezes the sweat from its workers.
Do you still read the paper? Is it even made of paper? Is the newspaper industry changing or dying? We’ll see what Jon Schluess, President of the CWA News Guild has to say about that and how the Guild protects its journalist members. Then,
We’ll look at the race for control of the Missouri legislature. The results of the election could mean that for the first time in years the legislature would operate without a super-majority party. We’ve invited all candidates for the House 16th,
We’ll look at a couple of Missouri Senate races that are up for grabs. They’re the 11th District in Independence and the 17th in Clay County. Candidates will get the HLF litmus test on labor issues. Then politicians and pundits alike have called Joe Bi...
Coming of age is hard, especially for impoverished undocumented youth who come here to work. We’ll hear about the lives and work of unaccompanied minors from Dr. Stephanie Canizales, author of Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied migrant youth coming...
Does work make you feel productive and proud? If you’re a member of the working class, your job may not give you the warm and fuzzies. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Emily Guendelsberger,
It’s all about rights. First, we’ll talk to Trini Murguia from the US Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division about the many laws they enforce from child labor to overtime to FMLA and breastfeeding at work.
Many candidates call for less government regulation, nursing homes need more. Workers complain of unsafe staffing, and poverty wages and owners who view patient bodies only as profit centers. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to David K...
We celebrate the 80th birthday of Si Kahn, singer, songwriter, author, organizer, and activist. We’ll hear a few tracks from his new album, Labor Day: A Tribute to Hardworking People Everywhere, and talk with Si and his collaborator/producer George Man...
We will feature two Books. First, in Disconnected: Call Center Workers Fight for Good Jobs in the Digital Age author Debbie Goldman shows how workers struggle for good jobs against technology, capitalism and corporate governance.
Immigration polls as a top issue for voters this Fall. We’ll talk about the candidates’ positions on the border, asylum, and jobs and also ask where’s the invasion. Then, we’ll find out how our schools are integrating immigrant children through the Kan...
Will you get a pension when you retire? Pensions have been disappearing for decades, and now companies like AT&T are selling off their pensions to insurance companies. Find out why that’s a bad idea from pension expert Dr. Teresa Ghilarducci. Then,
Ever wonder why every system we deal with is on the verge of overload? In the 1980’s management adopted “Lean Production” to keep workers and consumers constantly under stress and our global supply chain perpetually on the brink of collapse.
On the last day of its 2024 session, the Missouri legislature put ranked choice voting on the August ballot. Already ten states outlaw it. Will Missouri voters do the same? Find out how ranked choice voting works. Also,
The show is all about worker and citizen frustration with unresponsive public institutions. First the Post Office. We’ll ask American Postal Workers President MARK DIMONDSTEIN what the hell is wrong with the postal service?
Asset managers today like Blackstone and BlackRock own our roads, our water, schools, homes, farmland and hospitals. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Brett Christophers, author of Why Asset Managers Own the World. Then,
The Supreme Court has shown once again that it’s no friend of labor. In fact, recent decisions hurt unions. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll speak with law Professor Matthew T. Bodie about those cases,
The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee is helping workers organize. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to a Trader Joes worker from New York City and a social worker from St. Louis about how EWOC trains them to organize.
Trade policy is very political. Find out this week on the Heartland Labor Forum what happens when workers are ignored. Author James Benton will talk about his book Fraying Fabric: How Trade Policy & Industrial Decline Transformed America. Then,
We’ll interview Michael Zweig whose new book Class Race & Gender; Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism explains how our capitalist economy is the root of many of our urgent problems like inequality, war and racism. Then,
Ever wonder how workers move mountains of dirt or lift tons of steel to the tops of buildings? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Aaron Brown, Business Manager of Operating Engineers local 101 in our labor leader series. Then,
In a landslide victory, faculty and academic staff at the University of Kansas voted to unionize with the American Federation of Teachers. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we'll talk to organizers about the issues staff are facing and their eff...
If we could grade them, this year’s Missouri and Kansas legislatures both flunked. Missouri gets an F minus with less than 30 non-appropriation bills passed, but Kansas bombed out on taxes and, of course, Medicaid Expansion,
Ken Grossinger, author of Art Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together believes activism needs art to imbue social struggles with purpose and solidarity. We’ll hear examples from Ken and ask him how to use art strategical...
The Labor Notes Conference last month was chock full of almost 8,000 union troublemakers. A highlight was UAW President Shawn Fain and dozens of members who are rebuilding a more militant auto union capable of organizing the South.
Ron Carey was the first Teamster President elected directly by the members. A new book gives us the inside scoop on the enormous challenges this union reformer faced. Author Ken Reiman will be on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, it’s an election year,
Across the country proponents of school vouchers promise choice, freedom and upward mobility. Nicole Abshire of Mothers for Democracy Institute says vouchers are a scam on students, teachers, unions and communities.
Heartland Labor Forum listeners know that U.S. labor law sucks. Are there places in the world where workers have real rights and employers can’t violate the law with impunity? This week we'll compare labor laws of the U.S. and other countries.
Libertarians and fans of Ayn Rand would like to dismantle our labor laws and any regulations that interfere with the rights of corporations. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll look at a scary example of this,
Third parties are busting out all over this Spring and on this week’s Heartland Labor Forum. Do 3rd parties "spoil" our elections or strengthen democracy? Labor leader and Socialist candidate for president Eugene Debs once said,
A year ago, a Norfolk Southern train derailed and blanketed East Palestine Ohio with vinyl chloride? We’ll talk to a union rep about the lives impacted, the cleanup and threats to communities like ours. Then author Brian Merchant says there’s Blood in ...
The debate is raging between labor and activist groups on whether or not to support the 40-year ½ cent sales tax for the Royals to build a new stadium in the Crossroads and to improve Arrowhead Stadium. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll hear...
Two years ago, Missouri lawmakers passed a law to criminalize librarians for giving students books that the legislators think are obscene. As a result, public school libraries have purged science books and art books among others.
It’s women’s history month and time for some feminist labor history on the Heartland Labor Forum. We’ll ask Mary Ellen Miller how stewardesses at TWA became flight attendants and split from their male-dominated union to form IFFA,
Longtime labor activist and writer Les Leopold has a new book: Wall Street’s War on Workers, which delves into how mass layoffs and stock buybacks enrich shareholders at the expense of workers, their families, and communities.
What’s the Missouri legislature cookin’ up this session? Bills are being proposed that would assault people’s rights and attack public education. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask Missouri Representatives Ashley Aune and Aaron Crossle...
Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez goes on trial this month in New York for drug trafficking. Honduran workers faced repression, corruption and forced migration during his reign. We’ll ask whether the US and Canada should be held accountable for...
We all remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for his legacy in the civil rights movement. Maybe you know he was shot while supporting a strike of garbage collectors in Memphis. But we bet you don’t know about the broad role many labor unions played in s...
We’ll find out what it’s like to work and support your family as refugees in your own land. We’ll talk to two Palestinians about jobs, wages, and the war. Then On December 1st, the UAW was among the first major unions to join the call for a ceasefire a...
We’ll have a tribute to music, labor and musicians. The Kansas City Latin Jazz Orchestra is a tuition free cultural immersion education and performance non-profit orchestra. We talk with bandleader Pablo Sanhueza about the integral relationship between...
Is Trump a Fascist? More and more experts are saying “yes he is.” So, what’s a fascist? And how, if Trump wins in November, could working people be hurt by a fascist takeover of our government”? That’s our first topic this week. Then,
We'll talk to journalist Lawrence Tabak, author of Foxconned, on how the Taiwanese company conned former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and how corporations transfer taxpayer money to themselves benefitting consultants, politicians, and contractors.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ve got a rerun of our Thanksgiving show, which we’re betting you missed. Tune in and appreciate the work of our volunteer programmers throughout 2023 as we play clips of some of our best shows highlighting lab...
Last January the Heartland Labor Forum volunteers and labor programmers from as far away as England looked in their crystal balls to predict what would happen to workers in 2023. This week we’re inviting them back to tell us how prescient they were and...
Despite a number of attempts by the UAW to organize foreign-owned Southern auto plants, there’s been stiff resistance from the foreign companies, politicians, community, and workers themselves. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we interview Steph...
From the Gilded Age to the 1920s, employers and allies used terrorism to control workplaces and communities. We’ll talk to Chad Pearson, author of Capital’s Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen & Employers and find out how terrorism disempowered the working c...
We’ll talk about organizing and labor’s future with New Yorker writer Eleni Schirmer who thinks labor guru Jane McAlevey has transformed the labor movement and then with former ILWU organizing director Pete Olney who in April with Rand Wilson wrote a p...
Kansas City’s Alise Martiny is one of the highest ranking women in building trades union history. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to her and find out how she rose from Cement Mason apprentice to VP of the Operative Plasterers’ & Cem...
It’s Thanksgiving and we thought it would give us an opportunity to appreciate the work of our volunteer programmers on the Heartland Labor Forum throughout 2023 by playing clips of some of our best shows and as a kind of review of labor highlights fro...
Teamsters for a Democratic Union or TDU has for almost half a century led the fight for rank-and-file union democracy and been a leader fighting back against increasingly greedy corporations. Earlier this month two Heartland Labor Forum volunteers atte...
In May 2022, the Heartland Labor Forum reported on censorship in public schools. We’ll follow up with KCMO school librarian, Rebecca Parker about the escalation of book bans and the chilling effects its having on our local libraries. Than,
Amazon is a serial labor law violator. In fact, there is a veritable river of decisions holding the company guilty of violating its workers rights, but last we checked Amazon is getting away with it. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll look at...
First they were essential, then they were exhausted, then they were enraged. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Jamie McCallum about his new book Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice then it’s ano...
Did you see the film Oppenheimer? If so, did you wonder who built the buildings where the Manhattan Project did its work or who cleaned up the radioactive waste or who lived downwind from the Trinity Test? This week’s Heartland Labor Forum will look at...
Reggie Thomas leads Laborers local 264. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum as part of our Labor Leader Series we’ll ask him about the work members of the Laborers union do in construction and elsewhere. Then,
We used to call them sailors. Now they’re seafarers who work the ships that transport goods around the world. From the days of mutinies and striking the sails to today they’ve faced brutal working conditions.
When we talk about labor organizing these days, we rarely talk about farm workers, who have been left in the dust in wages working conditions and rights. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Farmworker Justice and Missouri Legal Aid abo...
What’s the matter with Kansas Workers Compensation Law? Well, it’s possibly the worst program in the country. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we'll talk to labor lawyer Keith Mark about his years-long efforts to overhaul an unfair and broken wo...
On June 27th, the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act went into effect with new protections for women workers. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum learn who is covered and what new rights new and expecting mothers in the workforce will have.
In July an undocumented laborer working at night without lights fell 12 floors to his death when the elevator malfunctioned. Ever wonder what other immigrant construction workers face each day or night on the job?
Is there such a thing as philosophy of labor? Find out this week on the Heartland Labor Forum for a lively discussion with retired AFSCME member Richard Mellor. Then, Harry Bridges was a labor legend all along the West Coast docks.
The United Autoworkers, in its first direct election, threw out the caucus that ran the union for decades and elected Shawn Fain President. Now Fain is riding a wave of member demands to end forced overtime and the divisive tier system.
When there’s a life-threatening emergency at your house who sends help? It’s a dispatcher. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we present a day in the life of a dispatcher. It’s not dull. Then, Machinist Local 778 represents people who make parts fo...
Two books for your summer reading. First long-time labor guru Bill Fletcher Jr’s second novel: The Man Who Changed Colors is a mystery where a shipyard worker falls to his death. Was it an accident? Cape and Islands Gazette Journalist David Gomes risks...
Should the labor movement endorse reproductive justice, including abortion rights, as a working families’ issue? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask union women who are leading a campaign for labor to endorse women’s reproductive rights....
There’s a growing chorus of workers demanding more democracy in their unions. We talk to leaders of Essential Workers for Democracy - EW4D who have formed the rank & file reform group. Then who is teaching artificial intelligence to replace us?
What do Starbucks, and Trader Joes have in common? Right their workers are organizing unions and some with great success. What else do they all have in common? They both profess to have progressive values but they are union busters.
Union busting has been around since the Pharaohs. Today’s “union avoidance” methods may be more sophisticated, but they’re still union busting, and the busters are getting rich off it. We’ll talk with journalist Tyler Walicek about 21st century union b...
As Red State Governors and legislatures ban books and dictate to schools and colleges what they can’t teach, we’ll take a look at the damage to young minds from the whitewashing of American History including our labor history and how teacher unions are...
The Industrial Workers of the World or IWW is remembered as militant and creative. Its vision was one big union where workers decide what to produce, working conditions, and pay. We’ll talk to Ahmed White, author of Under the Iron Heel which chronicles...
State legislatures including Iowa and Arkansas are rolling back child labor law protections. Ultra conservative groups, including the National Restaurant Association, are pushing bills that allow 14-year-olds to work the night shift cleaning meat packi...
IT'S PLEDGE DRIVE. PLEASE CALL OR GO ONLINE TO MAKE A PLEDGE - Should the slogan "Good Jobs for All" include the disabled? In Missouri it's not so clear. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll hear from Representative Bridget Walsh Moore on the...
The Kansas City Labor Beacon is under new ownership - the Kansas City AFL-CIO. We’ll hear from Labor Beacon editor Tristen Amezcua- Hogan and publisher Abril Negrete about the past, present, and future of the paper. Then,
As the largest collective bargaining unit in North America, the National UPS agreement with the Teamsters Union is a classic Labor vs Capital stand-off. Both sides are heavily dug-in and well-fortified, the clock is ticking toward the July 31,
Wage theft is more common than we think, especially against immigrant workers whose employers often skip out without paying them for their work. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Rebecca Berke Galemba about her new book Laboring for Ju...
We’ll delve into two hot Kansas City - City Council races – the 5th district at-large featuring Darrell Curls and Mike Kelley and in the 1st district Chris Gahagan. We’ve invited his opponent Nathan Willett, but have had no response.
Robert Pollin what it will cost as we phase out the fossil fuel industry to provide a just transition for fossil fuel workers into other jobs without major losses in their standard of living? He argues that the choice is not unemployment or extinction....
“We don’t trust teachers to teach, we’re banning books, we’re doing educational gag orders, but now because of the politics, we trust them to carry a loaded firearm.” So says the American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.
There’s an apprenticeship program for people who want to find work in the industrial sewing and garment trades. Indeed, Kansas City's Sewing Labs offers the only apprenticeship program in sewing in the United States.
We take a ride on the bad bills clown car through Kansas and Missouri. Get on board to find out what’s happening in the legislatures. Bills are being proposed that would assault people’s rights, attack public education, defund public libraries,
We’ll be riding the bad bills clown car through Kansas and Missouri. Get on board to find out what’s happening in the legislatures. Bills are being proposed that would assault people’s rights, attack public education, defund public libraries,
Meet Saul Schniderman American labor’s culture maven, founder of the Great labor Arts Exchange, assembler of the national inventory of American labor landmarks, author of the Friday Labor Folklore newsletter,
Did any of you listeners wonder whether the Ohio rail derailment could happen here? Do we have bomb trains coming through KC? On the show we’ll find out from the experts: the rail workers who strive to keep us safe.
The Kansas City Building Trades – the union of construction unions - has a new leader: Ralph Oropeza. We’ll ask Ralph about himself and whether he’s expecting a building boom in KC. Then do you know who put the roof on the Kauffman Center for the Perfo...
There’s a new book out on how organized labor can build its power to take on corporate America and win. It asks how we get the leverage necessary to force an Amazon or a Railroad Carrier to truly value their workers.
The National Nurses United represents the RNs at Menorah and Research Hospitals. Does HCA want to bust their union? Find out this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, one of the most common labor law violations is worker misclassification.
Between attacks on our public schools and what LGBTQ folk called “hate week” the Kansas legislature is full of bizarre agendas. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum well ask Sherman Smith from the Kansas Reflector to reflect on extremism in Topeka.
Many workers today work in teams. That sounds great because workers know how to run things, but more often than not their knowledge is used against them by management. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Richard Mellor,
Do rural working-class people vote against their economic interests because of cultural issues, or could something else be pushing them to vote conservative? Shane Hamilton’s book, Trucking Country: The Road to America’s Walmart Economy,
Despite a Democratic majority for 18 months, the National Labor Relations Board has moved at a glacial pace. Recently though, there’s been a flurry of new decisions. Is it too little, too late? We’ll ask Robert Iafolla,
Tonight, on the Heartland Labor Forum: Last November, AFT and AAUP announced they were organizing 1500 faculty and staff at the Un iversity of Kansas. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we'll check in with worker leaders to learn the issues and ...
Are you one of those people who thinks that the kids are lazy? That they can’t get to work on time? No work ethic. Are going to make the U.S. […]
The post Busting the Myth of Lazy Youth appeared first on KKFI.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond and retired AFSCME and civil rights leader Bill Lucy on labor and Martin Luther King. Then we’ll ask Missouri’s freshman legislator Jaime Johnson about the new dress code for women and other threatening bills.
We have an inspiring story of retirement. After 31-years at the post office Willa Robinson turned her passion for reading into a gem of a bookstore uplifting black history, music and culture: Willa’s Books and Vinyl.
Labor radio programmers and podcasters from around the country, from Kansas City and from as far away as England will get out their union made crystal balls and tell us what 2023 will bring for those who work and for the labor movement.
Justin Akers Chacon author of The Border Crossed Us argues that our polices of open borders for goods and closed borders for people hurt all American workers. He makes the case for opening the U.S.-Mexico border.
Y’all know the story of Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. What if it were a musical put on by the San Francisco Mime Troupe? Huh? Mime on the radio? Well, this one has words and song, and some great politics,
Tonight, on the Heartland Labor Forum: Has your metropolitan newspaper turned into a zombie? Is local news coverage just a fading memory? We’ll look at the corporatization of the media and the rise of nonprofits with the Kansas Reflector and the KC De...
Do you ever think about the fact that just about everything you buy passes first through a warehouse? Then it gets delivered in a truck to a store or your house? The people who make that happen are often members of the Teamsters Union.
Ellen Cassidy was a founder of 9 to 5 the working women’s organization that became a union and and a movie with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. We’ll ask Ellen about her new memoir on this week’s Heartland Labor Forum.
The Kansas City labor community lost Herb Johnson over a year ago on October 18th 2021. On this Thanksgiving the Heartland Labor Forum will remember Herb’s life and honor him by replaying the memorial we did after he died.
Have you dreamt of a world where your job gives you fulfillment and respect? Where income inequality and discrimination have disappeared? Where we have health care for all? We will interview Michael Yates who dreams of such a world in his new book,
The US Supreme Court is about to hear a case that could have devastating consequences for unions. The issue is whether unions can be sued in state court for economic damage to a company because of a strike. Then,
We’ll find out why zookeepers in Salina Kansas (yes there’s a zoo there) just voted to be represented by a union. Then, railway track workers in the BMWE voted against the contract recommended by the federal emergency board.
School librarians weigh in on recent book banning, how students are affected, and the recently proposed rule by the Missouri Secretary of State to ban books at public libraries. Are we losing our freedom to read?
The Kansas City Missouri School District just announced its Blueprint 2030, an ambitious plan of transformation including the closing of ten schools. We’ll talk to Jason Roberts, president of the Kansas City Federation of Teachers and get his reaction....
On Labor Day ROC United introduced the Restaurant Worker Bill of Rights, with model local, state, and federal legislation. Find out how they want to add some rights to your working or dining experience. Then,
We talk with Daisy Pitkin, organizer, about her book On the Line which takes us into a union organizing drive in an industrial laundry in Arizona. You’ll see joys, obstacles and politics on the way to winning a union. Then,
As outrage at oppressive and exhausting working conditions grows among rail workers, they’re pushing for a showdown with the carriers, but the Biden administration has switched the track for that til after the elections. What will happen next?
Do you get lost in all the mumbo jumbo of incentives for developers and wonder what they cost taxpayers, local government, school districts and even the public library? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll explain the basics of TIFS and Star Bo...
The Alliance for Retired Americans, a grassroots labor organization with 4.4 million members in 39 states, has just expanded to Kansas. We’ll talk to its leader Rich Fiesta. Then labor historian Eric Blanc has a new provocative essay: Liberals Get the ...
If you’re working class, and you’re wondering if the political class has done anything for you lately, tune in to this week’s Heartland Labor Forum where Rep. Sharice Davids and the Kansas AFL-CIO’s John Nave will explain what’s in it for you in recent...
Large classrooms and too few teachers are nothing new to education, but this year as shortages pile up, we’re asking, “Where have all the teachers gone? We’ll try to answer this week on the Heartland Labor Forum with Jason Roberts president of the Kan...
School shootings have us all on edge, but as school starts up again this month, our educators are speaking out strongly against guns in schools. Should teachers be armed? Should conceal carry be allowed on our campuses? We’ll talk to Jason Roberts,
When the economy goes south, or there’s a war or pandemic, rather than hunker down, American workers organize. Former NLRB Chairman William Gould has written a book called For Labor to Build Upon: Wars, Depression, Pandemic. He’ll be on the show.
Why is it so hard for workers to win unions? CWA organizer Jeff Hayes will debunk many of the antiunion lies that bosses tell their workers and explain what’s in it for workers to unionize. Then, the Area Transportation Authority is facing many post-CO...
Last month over 4,000 rank and file labor activists met in Chicago for the biannual Labor Notes Conference. There were 250 workshops teaching how to make good trouble, plenaries with luminaries like Amazon’s Chris Smalls,
The Federal Reserve is trying to slow inflation by raising interest rates. At the same time corporate profits are at an all-time high. We'll ask UMKC economists if our monopolized economy is really what’s driving inflation. Then,
Max Alvarez of the Real News has a new book, The Work of Living. In it, he dives deep into the lives of essential workers and how they survived being essential. He’ll be here this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, in 1969,
When a Heartland Labor Forum programmer became pregnant, she began investigating maternity and family leave to find out how her pregnancy would impact her financial health. Turns out pregnancy in Missouri can be downright harmful to a family’s financia...
We interview 9 to 5’s Ellen Bravo and Rethinking Schools' Larry Miller about their new novel based on their lives as labor activists. Then after years of inaction to expand Medicaid by the Missouri Legislature,
President Biden signed The Postal Service Reform Act April 6th. It will provide much needed financial and operational changes to the US Postal Service. Learn what improvements to your service may result as well as to the quality of life of our postal w...
The leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court tells us that overturning women’s right to abortion is likely, and soon. Meanwhile anti-abortion politicians in Kansas put an amendment on the August 2nd ballot aimed at ending the Kansas Constitution’s p...
What would happen if a global social media empire merged with the world’s largest online retailer? Would everything become company business? Join award-winning author Dave Eggers, author of Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,
The National Labor Relations Board’s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo wants to bust the union busters. She’s moving to outlaw anti-union captive audience meetings where employers push workers to vote against union organizing drive.
We ask a teacher why unions matter in public schools. We’ll talk to AFT Local 691 member Jennifer Gwinner and ask how do we stop privatization of schools and what solidarity has to do with it. Next we’ll get the latest on Starbucks organizing in area....
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ve asked educators to comment on and slam the suppression of teaching about race and gender and book banning. As politicians direct curriculum supposedly in the name of parents,
The Kansas Legislature isn’t done yet, but there’s plenty to talk about, like workers compensation, food sales tax, redistricting, voter suppression, sports gambling, and how to spend a $3 billion budget. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
Thinking about a career as a skilled trades person? Need some prep to qualify? We’ll talk to Rudy Chavez about the new Missouri Apprentice Ready Program. Then Kim Kelly, labor columnist for Teen Vogue has new book: Fight Like Hell!
In the early 1990s, just before NAFTA was rammed through Congress, two unions – one in Mexico and one in the U.S. formed a solidarity partnership to organize workers on the jobs that were fleeing to low wage havens south of the border.
In 1922 Railway shopworkers went on strike against wage cuts and union busting in the largest and most violent rail strike of the 20th Century. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll mark the centennial of the Railway Shopmen’s Strike then talk ...
In January 1990 a gang of assassins invaded a Ford assembly plant in Mexico City and opened fire on the assembly line workers killing one and injuring several. The workers had been organizing an independent union.
United Autoworkers Local 249 is the largest local union in KC. It represents Ford workers. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we interview Jason Starr, President of Local 249 and find out the challenges and joys of representing almost 8000 autowork...
Nora Guthrie, daughter of America’s great folk singer, Woody Guthrie, has released a book called Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art, Words and Wisdom. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Nora about her father’s genius. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we will talk to the authors of two new books: first is Joe Burns with Class Struggle Unionism. He asks if the labor movement is losing ground or gaining traction. He clearly wants more movement in the labor movem...
This week on The Heartland Labor Forum, we look into the explosion of bills attacking teachers and dumbing-down education across Missouri. We'll cover bills expanding charter schools, banning critical race theory in favor of teaching fairy tales,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, it’s New York Times reporter Peter Goodman on his new book Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World. Goodman lampoons ultra-rich guys as a voracious uber-species preying on all of us.
In recent years, Missouri voters have bypassed a recalcitrant legislature to take burning issues directly to the voters through the initiative process. That’s how Missourians defeated right to work, raised the minimum wage, and expanded Medicaid.
Warrior Met Coal: How to Survive a Strike and Coal Miner Songs
Who are the good people who do the bad jobs no one wants, and at what cost? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to the author of Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America. Then,
We recognize and honor the life of Bill Onasch who died last year. Son of a KC meat packing worker, Bill cut his teeth on radical unionism and grew up to be a member, leader and organizer in several unions.
Irish immigrant silver miners in Colorado died penniless and were buried in pauper's graves. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to an historian who dug up their stories. Then-did you think that working from home would protect you from y...
Ever notice that the mainstream media rarely put the voices of workers on the air? Well, the Heartland Labor Forum does, and this week in our new union leaders series we’ll talk to Todd Howerton, President of Electrical Workers Local 124.
As the mainstream media swells fears of inflation, blaming Biden, greedy workers, the supply chain and COVID, on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll ask economist Richard Wolff what’s the real cause. He says none of the above. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, it’s Johnnie Kallas from Cornell University about his new Labor Action Tracker strike map of the US. It will help you see who needs your solidarity. Then, since Ronald Reagan busted the air traffic controllers,
If you’re a wage earner in Kansas City, it’s very likely that you have been a victim of wage theft during your work life. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, learn how wage theft impacts all of us and how the new KC Wage Theft Ordinance can benefit...
“Racism in our politics and in our policy making is why all of us can’t have nice things. And by we who can’t have nice things, I mean the white folks, the largest share of the impoverished and the uninsured,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have another in our new union leaders series. We’ll talk to Kevin Gard, business manager of Cement Masons Local 518. His members do lots of stuff from tilt-up cement walls to the ornamental plastering of th...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk about two victories for working people. First, pro-worker leftist Gabriel Boric won Sunday’s presidential election in Chile and may finally exorcize the ghost of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile’s ext...
Will Santa be late for Christmas? Will his supply chain deficiencies leave your stocking empty? Some want to blame workers who don’t want to work or a global pandemic. On this week’s Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll explore the truth about "Supply Chain Bl...
It’s a hundred years since The Battle of Blair Mountain, the only union organizing attempt where the US government threatened to bomb workers. Hear about it, and find out where the term “red neck” comes from this week on the Heartland Labor Forum.
The Kansas City labor community lost Herb Johnson on October 18th. Herb’s life was a non-stop fight for the rights of working people from his early days with the Machinists at TWA to his last role building the Alliance for Retired Americans.
Twenty years ago, Transworld Airlines ceased operations, driven into bankruptcy by corporate raider Carl Icahn. The union that represented the thousands of Kansas City TWA maintenance base workers was Machinists Local 1650.
Vaccine mandates. Biden and OSHA are for them. Your company may be too, but what about unions and what about you? We’ll ask leaders of the Postal Workers and CWA what’s happening where they work. Then, the education privatizers are using the phony thre...
Can toxic workplace culture contribute to deadly mass shootings? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll discuss this year’s deadliest workplace shooting and what unions can do to stop them. Then, when coal miners, factory workers,
There’s a new gang of labor reporters online. They want more justice, more accountability, more power for the people. They’re called More Perfect Union, and this week they’ll be on the Heartland Labor Forum. Also,
How safe is your vote? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Sara Zorich of the Jackson County Election Board about your ballot’s journey from the voting booth to the counting room, rule changes for absentee voting, and other issues.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is facing a new era of leadership and perhaps some sweeping changes. Longtime President James P. Hoffa is retiring and the election for his successor is hotly contested.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we mark Indigenous People’s day and pay tribute to our First Nations. Then, we’ll ask why many progressive organizations resist unionization. We’ll get examples around the country,
We’ve heard a lot from the media about the new KC Airport: its design, its cost, its food choices, but little has been said lately about the workers – more than 900 of them – who are building it. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, meet Bo Moreno, the new Business Manager of IBEW Local 124 whose highly skilled members wire Kansas City. Then, we’ll talk to Tom Gebken, Heartland Labor Forum volunteer and new president of CWA Local 6360.
Workers of the World Unite! Let’s go to the movies. It’s the Workers Unite Film Festival, and this week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll hear all about it. Then eleven hundred coal miners have been on strike against Warrior Met since April 1.
The AFL-CIO has a new president, the first woman – Liz Shuler, who got the job after the death of Richard Trumka. But elections are scheduled for next year, and already there are competing visions. So, it’s a great time to discuss the future of the US ...
Last year, under pressure from citizens, the city of Kansas City, Missouri conducted a Pay Equity Analysis Report. Did it find that women city workers have equal pay to men? Did it even ask the right questions?
Ed Asner died on August 29th. He was Kansas City born and raised, and he made it big in Hollywood, winning a bundle of Emmys for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and it's sequel, Lou Grant. Ed was also a union leader.
It's almost Labor Day, and the volunteers of the Heartland Labor Forum are celebrating by sharing our recommendations of our favorite books about working people. We’ll also share some favorite labor songs and reveal the origins of our theme song,
For years, New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse was one of only a couple left in the US: then, he retired. Turns out, he’s still covering labor, and this week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to him about his book,
As the workplace changes, so does resistance by workers to increased exploitation. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll interview Robert Ovetz on his book on Global Class Struggle: its strategies, tactics and goals. Then, Jesus Chuy Negrete,
They don’t get much notice, but union officers are important leaders of Kansas City’s working class. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’re catching them coming and going. We’ll talk to Michael Bell,
The KC Tenants Union fights to keep people housed amidst the pandemic and end of the eviction moratorium. They expose mega corporate slum lords and defend renters from being displaced. They’ll be on the Heartland Labor Forum this week to talk about the...
Last week, the Missouri Supreme Court gave a resounding YES to Medicaid Expansion. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask the lawyers about the decision and when uninsured Missourians can expect to get coverage.
Wyandotte County is electing a new mayor and there are a lot of contenders for the job. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have highlights from this week’s candidate forum. Then, we’ll have voices from the picket line at Frito Lay in Topeka....
Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas, Listen Liberal, and Pity the Billionaire is in town this month visiting his Dad. He’ll be on the Heartland Labor Forum this week and we’ll ask him, “What’s the matter now, Tom?
In the past 6 months, Critical Race Theory has been at the front of a media storm of fear and misinformation about the role of racism in our history. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll clear up these misconceptions and ask education expert ...
First it was five, then it was three, then two, and now the railroad companies want only one worker running an entire train. If they get their way, those one-man trains will be barreling through Kansas City’s numerous rail lines and yards and on across...
Jeremy Brecher has written fifteen books on labor and social movements. His best seller, Strike, originally written in 1972, was just updated for its 50th anniversary. We’ll interview him this week on the Heartland Labor Forum.
When you think of labor leaders, think women. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll profile two local women leaders. Alise Martiny leads the KC Building Trades. She’s making sure the airport gets done right.
Once upon a time, you could work for one company your whole adult life, you could make a decent living, and you could buy your piece of the American Dream. Not any more, says Dan McCrory, who started at the phone company in 1973 and has written Capital...
As we reopen after a year of COVID, what’s happening to the so-called heroes who do essential work? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look at how we failed essential workers, whether we’re still failing them,
The attack on public education is nothing new, but recent legislation coming out of the Missouri Legislature has public school teachers fighting back. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we will talk to Jess Piper, a teacher,
After over a year of the pandemic and its resulting economic ruin, and as politicians now debate when to kick people off unemployment, isn’t it time to revisit the idea of full employment? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
Scabby the Rat, the iconic supersized symbol of anti-union employers across America, has been under attack by Trumpers in the NLRB. Find out on this week’s Heartland Labor Forum whether this defender of workers’ rights can escape the trap and continue ...
KKFI has been discouraging the use of words that dehumanize people in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. So what about words like “illegal” and “alien?” This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we discuss the book A is for Asylum: How We Talk ...
Is organized labor up for the fight against climate change? Do climate activists get the importance of transitions to good clean jobs? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we celebrate May Day – International Labor Day - and Earth Day with intervie...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we spend the show with longtime successful organizer Jane McAlevey. We ask her what happened at Amazon, how to defeat the union busters, and what’s the first step a worker here in Kansas City should take if they’...
It’s the last month of this year’s legislative session in Missouri. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Minority Leader Crystal Quade and Senator Barbara Washington about Medicaid Expansion, charter school growth, infrastructure,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll focus on radical unions. First, we’ll talk to Toni Gilpin about her new book The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland. Then,
Reporters at the Lawrence Journal-World have formed a union. In response, the bosses have hired one of the most expensive anti-labor law firms in the country to handle negotiations. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
As the legislature considers expanding charter schools, The Heartland Labor Forum will look at the pros and cons of charters. Will they expand beyond St. Louis and Kansas City? What’s their record in academic achievement?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, Judy Morgan interviews Tammy Queen, the Kansas City Missouri Finance Director about the KCMO earnings tax renewal. She ask how much our sales and property taxes will rise if it’s defeated in the April 6th vote.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we ask “What difference does a union make?” Prof. Mark Anner talked to union and non-union banana workers in Guatemala, we’ll talk to him. Then - is it David against Goliath?
Anne Feeney was the most celebrated singer song writer of the labor movement for the last forty years. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll celebrate her life with stories about Anne and her music. Tune in Thursday at 6pm,
There’s a lot going on in Congress. This week, the Heartland Labor Forum asks Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver where it’s all going. Then, tens of thousands of Indian farmers driving tractors and on foot have converged on New Delhi to reverse new agricultural pol...
Tune in to the Heartland Labor Forum this week to find out what’s cookin’ in the Missouri and Kansas legislatures. Missouri Representative Wes Rogers and Kansas Senator Tom Holland will provide a menu of good bills and bad affecting working people,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: The not-yet-confirmed new Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh, will be the first in decades to actually come from organized labor. What could that mean for America's workers?. . . And,
One would think that during a pandemic workers who stock the grocery shelves, cook our take-out orders, and process our meat would at least get paid sick leave to get well or care for a sick family member. But most don’t, and many come to work sick.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, Steelworker Mike Stout chronicles the closing of the famous Homestead Steel Mill in a new book which is a manual for fighting plant closings. Martin Luther King called the Reverend James Lawson “The leading theor...
“History isn't made by kings and politicians, it is made by us.” So say the people who wrote Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance and Rebellion. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll hear untold stories of working class people who...
Exhausted hospital and healthcare workers continue to be in the front lines fighting COVID-19. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, join healthcare workers and Tim Sheard, a nurse turned mystery novelist,
This week’s Heartland Labor Forum is on New Year's Eve. Our volunteer producers are picking short clips of our favorite interviews to air as we bid good riddance to the hardest year for working people since 1933.
It’s almost Christmas Eve, and Santa is loading the sled with toys. But, hark! The elves are on strike and will tell all on the Heartland Labor Forum about what really goes on in Santa’s workshop. Tune in to find out the naughty and nice about toy make...
After all the alarm about votes lost in the mail, we’ll ask Andy Tuttle, Kansas State President of the union of Letter Carriers, if all the votes got delivered and what’s the next crisis for the US Postal Service.
First, he was an electrician. Next, he served in the Missouri House and Senate. Now Jake Hummel is President of the Missouri AFL-CIO. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out what’s in store for Missouri’s working people in 2021.
Who were the Europeans at the first Thanksgiving? Were they Pilgrims or colonizers? Were they religious Freedom Riders or Religious Tyrants? And what about the myth of the welcoming soon-to-be dead Indians?
While labor is celebrating Joe Biden’s win, the election results in Kansas and Missouri are a disaster for the working class. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll do some analysis of the results in our two states and then ask what role unions ...
Almost a decade ago, Democracy Now!’s Juan Gonzalez published his path breaking book, Harvest of Empire. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll update it on how US imperialism continues to uproot people,
As companies downsize in a bad economy, workers on temporary furloughs are being fired. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Jim Kolve, coordinator of the Missouri AFL-CIO Dislocated Worker Program about options for new employment.
Wine and aspirin sales are skyrocketing for parents. What's to blame? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll sing the "Virtual School Blues". Then, what? A political party based on worker rights and fair wages for all?
#LaborRadioPod
What’s the world going to look like after the pandemic? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have a roundtable panel discussion with economists, labor and business leaders and we’ll imagine a post-COVID future. And,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll hear from candidates in seven races for the Missouri General Assembly. We’ll ask them how they stand on key issues for working people like minimum wage, unemployment, health care, gerrymandering,
How did politicians get obsessed with saving the middle class, and when did middle class become just white guys while the economy increasingly failed to work for the diverse working class? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
When workers at nonprofit organizations unionize, they often get grudging acceptance from their bosses, and sometimes they face union busting. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to two organizers of unions that represent non-profits and...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we welcome back John Boyd, a leading attorney for labor. We'll talk about what’s at stake for working people in this election year. Then, KC Tenants and its leader, Tara Raghuveer,
Since the pandemic began, Cuba has had only 88 deaths from COVID-19. Their doctors have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask Missouri author Don Fitz about Cuba’s international medical solidarity.
The new head of the post office, Louis DeJoy, told Congress last week that despite the predicted dramatic increase in mail voting, elections won’t be a problem for the starved and crisis-ridden USPS. Mail delays, however,
Shut up and dribble. Shut up and play! Millionaires don't have the right to speak! Do we believe in the "I'm not black, I'm O.J." sentiment when it comes to the professional athlete? Are professional athletes hurting or helping social justice movements...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’re celebrating a hundred years since some women won the right to vote. What can we learn from that struggle for today’s fights, what it's going to take to get women into the Constitution by passing the Equal R...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Communications Workers Union District 6 VP Claude Cummins, who also heads the union’s nationwide Human Rights department. We’ll find out how you do all that during a pandemic with large scale unemploym...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Are we going back to school? How? Will it be virtual or in person? What are teachers saying about how safe it is? We’ll talk to Kansas City Federation of Teachers’ union president Andrea Flinders,
Planning a road trip? Want to learn if your travels may take you near some of Labor’s Sacred Places? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Saul Schneiderman, who has assembled a guide to America’s labor landmarks. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll profile a hero, a woman who fought for indigenous rights, the environment and democracy. We talk to Guardian reporter Nina Lakhani about her new book Who Killed Berta Caceres; Dams,
If our local healthcare workers are essential, why are their bosses trampling on their rights as workers? Find out this week on the Heartland Labor Forum when we talk to workers from Truman, Research and Menorah Hospitals who are members of SEIU Health...
Cuba is world famous for its healthcare system and for sending doctors to poor countries around the world. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Missouri author and journalist Don Fitz about his new book on Cuban healthcare and how its ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we ask an organizer and a lawyer: are Smithfield and other meat and poultry plants a danger to their workers and the public? Then, as debate in the labor movement rises over the power of police unions,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have "The CORONA Report" - news and analysis from comedian and host of RT America’s Redacted Tonight - Lee Camp. Then, in case he hasn’t explained to you who or what caused COVID-19,
Join us Thursday, June 18, at 6:00 PM on the Heartland Labor Forum as we learn if the state budget cuts imposed by the COVID-19 virus shortfalls in Missouri and Kansas will return us to the soup lines of the 1930’s. Our show No Money, Not Funny,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Ray Brescia, author of The Future of Change; How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions. We’ll ask him about how communications technology is shaping the Black Lives Matter movement. Then,
The federal deficit has shot up like a SpaceX rocket because of Trump’s tax cuts and the COVID-19 Recession. Does it matter? And what happened to all the Deficit Hawks who used to predict doom? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: As COVID-19 cases go up in the U.S., we’ll look at Cuba with journalist Reed Lindsay for a different take on how to fight a pandemic. Then, when and how did the working class drop out of mainstream news coverage?...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we explore a new book called Politics of the Pantry which tells the history of protest of the high cost of food by working- and middle-class American housewives. Now that our food chain is in danger,
Who is tending our crops during the pandemic? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Baldemar Velazquez of FLOC, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Then, what happens when you lock down a country where most people earn their living day-by...
We’re celebrating May Day from Quarantine by remembering labor’s struggle and the extraordinary contributions of some ordinary folks who led us. Then, we’ll do a primer on the FFCRA – the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
How do you rig an election? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we investigate the playbook for voter suppression with activist William Waheed and Mac Heller, producer of the new documentary Rigged about the 2016 election. Tune in Thursday at 6pm,
Since she retired as a union rep for the teachers union, Pat Jones Maclin has built bridges between organized labor in Kansas City and the Black community, working to overcome years of racism. She’ll tell her story this week on the Heartland Labor Foru...
Opponents of Medicare for All say it would be inferior to union negotiated health care plans. Tune in to the Heartland Labor Forum this week to find out if Medicare for All is actually a Cadillac health care plan,
Giving corporate developers your tax dollars has long been a controversial issue in the Metro. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk with members of the League of Women Voters, which has just released a comprehensive study of property tax...
It’s 55 years since 600 voting rights marchers attempted to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma Alabama on their way to Montgomery 50 miles away. They were brutally beaten by state troopers. Heartland Labor Forum and thousands of people went to t...
A private for profit company named Vision Quest is seeking a zoning change to set up a jail for immigrant youth whose only crime is coming to America, and immigrant rights groups say, “Not in our town.” Hear about it this week on the Heartland Labor Fo...
The federal government is investigating TEH Realty, but it’s the organized KC Tenants who exposed the foreign company and its infested apartments. Hear the story this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then,
Kansas City Mayor Lucas and the City Council want to make KC the first large city with free buses. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out how much it will cost, how it will be implemented and some of the hopes and fears for the project....
It’s one of the most common crimes in the U.S. today. Its victims lose more to this kind of theft than robbery, burglary, auto theft, and larceny combined, yet government spends less to protect us from it than all other crimes. What’s the crime?
Work teams, team concept, employee involvement are now over 30 years old and not as controversial as they were initially. But despite this, workers still ask, “Are we all on the same team?” “Do teams undercut the union, the grievance procedure?
The Employee Benefits Security Administration, or EBSA enforces your pension rights and employer-based health plans under ERISA - the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. They do a lot more, too, that can help protect you.
Very few newspapers have labor reporters any more, but these days there’s a proliferation of podcasts and blogs on the internet. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out about a website called organizing dot work. Then,
Last year saw a record number of strikes in this century. Are American workers experiencing an inspired new militancy, or have even the most timid reached a breaking point? Tune in to the Heartland Labor Forum to find out if the strike weapon is back.
Recently, workers in France and Colombia have shut down their economies when confronted with pension reforms, which attacked their livelihoods. Tune in Thursday to the Heartland Labor Forum to hear from union leaders in both countries about why they’re...
The Missouri and Kansas legislative sessions begin this week and next. The Heartland Labor Forum usually anticipates them with dread. Thursday, we’ll find out from Rep. Judy Morgan for Missouri, and for Kansas,
You hear a lot of critiques of the economic system we live in on the Heartland Labor Forum. Well, this week we’ll talk about alternatives with Ted Howard, coauthor of The Making of a Democratic Economy. How do we get to economic justice? Then,
The word neoliberalism gets tossed around, but do you really know where it comes from and what it means? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to UMKC economist Sirisha Naidu on neoliberalism. What she has to say may surprise you. Then,
Roofing is a tough, dangerous job that takes skill. If you don’t have a union, it’s brutal. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll talk to Kevin King, Business Manager of Roofers Union Local 20. They’re celebrating 100 years as a union.
The Chicago Teachers Union is a leader in today’s labor movement, not just in bargaining for the common good in education, but also showing the country that unions play a key role in fighting back against cuts in public services and in countering the a...
Do you think the Supreme Court’s 2018 anti-worker Janus Decision killed public sector unions? Nope. Think again. They have survived, and this week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we give thanks to our unions for fighting back. Also,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look at what happens to American workers when the company is owned by foreigners. We’ll talk to filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar and to UMKC economist Zhongjin Li about the film American Factory ...
Last month, the Heartland Labor Forum looked into the Trump administration’s disappearing act on poor people. This week on the show, we’ll explain the statistical trick they want to use to erase them from programs like food stamps. And,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look at current contract fights. First, it’s auto – what did GM workers get? Will Ford workers take less? Then, the Metropolitan Community College Board is imposing a wage settlement that the faculty union ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll do a primer on Medicare for All. We’ll ask Dr. Anand Bhat how it would work, whether taxes will go up, if there are hidden costs, and if, as a number of candidates for President say,
The Trump Administration wants to redefine who is poor. Experts say they want to disappear the poor. Find out about it this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, Mark Muro of the Brookings Institute will talk to us about wealth work - that’s the gro...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: trucking safety impacts all of America’s motoring public. Will the Department of Transportation’s new proposed changes in hours of service rules improve safety or is it to improve trucking company profits?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask what’s Trump is up to with his apprenticeship proposal. We’ll find out from a union leader who knows what a real apprenticeship looks like. Then, we ask if the U.S.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk about impeachment. Prof. Max Skidmore will explain the constitution and law on it and we’ll take your call-ins and questions. Two unions have endorsed impeachment, should more do so?
What would happen to a school teacher who thinks she has the answer to the world’s problems and starts teaching in parks and on street corners, and people stop to listen and like what they hear? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
Thinking of taking a cruise? Ever wonder about the hours the staff works or their pay? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out from the International Transport Federation about the good ships and the bad. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, it’s 38 days and counting that the Blackjewell coal miners of Harlan County Kentucky are occupying the tracks saying “No Pay, We Stay!” We’ll get their story. Then, It’s almost 40 years since Ronald Reagan fired ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’re going to cover some labor news – most of it local that you hear little about anywhere else. Then, we preview Kansas’s first Troublemakers School, training worker activists in how to be effective hell raiser...
Before he was a socialist, Eugene Debs was an avid railroad unionist with a dream of one union for all rail workers. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we talk to David Walters coeditor of a new collection of Debs’ early writing.
Hear Maine Iron Workers Local 7 business agent Grant Provost tell why the Maine AFL-CIO adopted their own Green New Deal to avert climate catastrophe. Then author and labor historian Jeremy Brecher reports about a recent labor convergence on the Green ...
Missouri’s motto is “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law,” but the legislature still hasn’t passed Medicaid Expansion. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Jobs with Justice’s Richard Von Glahn on a new coalition to use th...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we interview Jim Kolve about Missouri Labor’s Rapid Response Program to help laid off workers. Then, why can’t Kansas school bus drivers collect unemployment while they’re laid off during summer vacation?
Every three years, the Big 3 auto companies – Ford, Chrysler and GM - negotiate a new contract with the United Auto Workers. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have a conversation with UAW workers about working conditions,
Affordable housing was a major issue in the mayor’s race. That’s due in part to a new group in town – KC Tenants. We’ll hear from them this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Also, some people think that Congress is morally bankrupt,
It’s a July 4th special on the Heartland Labor Forum this week. We’ll ask an ACLU attorney who worked on the Supreme Court census case, who should count in the U.S. Then, as outrage mounts against the child concentration camps and threats of mass depor...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to David Van Arsdale about his book on temp work. It’s a chilling look and argues that temp agencies should have been abolished with slavery, or at the very least, put under strict government control.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we feature a mystery writer, Tim Sheard, whose hero is a hospital union shop steward who tracks down a killer at work in the midst of a Zika outbreak. Then, did you know there’s a company in the US that produces ...
Earlier this month, the Cross Border Network organized a delegation to Honduras to investigate why so many families were leaving on a risky journey to Trump’s America. What we found was a society in rebellion: doctors, nurses and teachers on strike,
Trump wants to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask some postal workers why that’s a really bad idea. Then, comedian Lee Camp of RT’s Redacted Tonight is back with a hilarious conversation about who will ...
Herb Johnson led the fight against Carl Icahn at TWA, then went on to a leadership position in the Missouri AFL-CIO. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, Herb reflects on labor leadership. Then, author Eric Blanc says last year working-class rebelli...
The Green New Deal promises environmental transformation and jobs, but the AFL-CIO and energy unions fear lost jobs and only empty promises of a just transition. We’ll explore these issues this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then,
The Missouri Legislative has wrapped-up its work for the year. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask legislators what happened for the working people of the state. Then, we talk to David Sickler,
What do you know about bananas? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, listen to author Peter Chapman peel the layers of corruption and ruthlessness to reveal the origins of Chiquita, the infamous United Fruit Company. Then,
Kansas has a new Secretary of Labor. She’s Delia Garcia, the first Latina to serve in a Cabinet post. We’ll get to know her this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, the city of Kansas City, Missouri is about to embark on a study to assess Gender P...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we explore our radical and socialist roots. Eugene Debs: American Socialist is a new movie-we’ll talk to the film maker. Then, Herb and Jane March came to Kansas City as young communists during the depression to ...
Much has been written about the Trump tax cuts and their effects on the federal budget, as well as the economy, but what is less known is how those tax changes have affected the budgets of States, whose tax laws are expected to stay in sync with the Fe...
One-man trains are not a dystopian nightmare; they’re the near future. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we interview Bruce Campbell on his new book on a one-man train disaster: The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we will bring you another interview with a candidate for mayor. This time it is Henry Klein. He’s a banker who chairs Habitat for Humanity and thinks KC needs a new kind of leadership. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Medea Benjamin is speaking February 16th for KKFI, we’ll give you a preview and ask her why the U.S. has made Iran one of its primary antagonists, and also, why now Venezuela? Also,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have another in our series of talks with candidates for Mayor of Kansas City. We want to ask each of them their plan to make KC a city that works for its working people, where they can find employment,
It’s called NAFTA 2.0. Is it much of a change over the old NAFTA, which was a disaster for most working, people in North America? Will it stop the bleeding of jobs to Mexico? What do workers really need in trade and investment policy?
An answer to budget-strapped school districts? Listen to education activists talk about public schools called community schools this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Tune in Thursday at 6pm, rebroadcast Friday at 5am.
Earlier this year, the Missouri legislature passed a bill aimed at gagging and crippling the unions that represent public employees at the state and local level. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to attorney John Boyd on the court case...
All we ever hear from the corporate media since 2000 is negative about the government of Venezuela. This week on the Heartland labor Forum, we’ll get the other side of the story from an American professor who teaches there. Then,
Your Thanksgiving turkey may have had no rights, but thanks to Missouri voters last August, workers didn’t get served up for dinner. The Thanksgiving edition of Heartland Labor Forum will give thanks for the defeat of Proposition A – so-called right to...
If there was a blue wave in last week’s elections, it missed Missouri’s Democratic candidates. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we talk to Rep. DaRon McGee about prospects for working people in the Missouri legislature in 2019.
If there was a blue wave in last week’s elections, it missed Missouri’s Democratic candidates. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we talk to Rep. DaRon McGee about prospects for working people in the Missouri legislature in 2019.
It’s over a month now that Marriott workers from Boston to Honolulu have been on strike. They say “one job should be enough,” but many have to work more because of low wages. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll cover the strike.
Two ballot initiatives in the November 6th election in Missouri affect our democracy and economy. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll explore Amendment 1 CLEAN Missouri, which limits campaign and lobbying donations to the state legislature an...
We’ll ask economist Richard Wolff how the economy is doing. Is it blowing bubbles? Then railway workers belong to a bunch of different unions. Their disunity costs them at the bargaining table. Now there’s a movement of rank and filers to coordinate.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll do two different takes on the undoing of the American working class. First, Sweat: a play about rustbelt America which opens this week at the Unicorn; then, The Fall of Wisconsin,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask: Is work as we know it disappearing as the middle class gets squeezed, and then gigged? We talk to two authors about two books Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America and Gigged: The End of the ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll hear local Kansas City Missouri Middle School students discuss the history of child labor and what it means for students today. Then, longtime labor guru Bill Fletcher Jr.
The workplace depends on the willingness of the worker to follow the rules and comply with orders. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll explore the Psychology of Obedience. - Then a hundred thirteen years after its founding,
Last month, Missouri labor and its allies shocked the nation with a 2-1 vote on Proposition A, repealing the right to work law passed by the legislature. How did they do it, and what lessons does this victory teach us?
Have you seen the movie BlacKKKlansman, about a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan forty years ago? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll take a look under the hood, talk about the true story and get reactions from viewers.
Cities around the country are befuddled by what to do with a flood of electronic scooters in the streets. Are they safe? Do they create good jobs? Tune in to the Heartland Labor Forum this week to find out. T Find out Thursday at 6pm,
Think the Supreme Court’s anti-worker Janus decision will kill public sector unions? Think again. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll air voices of resistance from the American Federation of Teachers national convention and others.
We’re celebrating Women’s Equality Week on the Heartland Labor Forum with an interview with National Organization for Women’s president Toni Van Pelt. We’ll ask her about how the ongoing conspiracy to suppress our right to vote particularly impacts wom...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, it’s Trump’s Federal Remix: A New Department of Child Labor and a Private Postal Service? We’ll talk to union leaders from the departments of labor and education to learn about their shotgun wedding; then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, frequent guest, Professor Chuck Ross joins the show again as the football season nears. Will the anthem policy hold? Will Trump’s fight with black athletes boil over? Then, Kansas City,
This week on The Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll preview KKFI’s upcoming conference Kicking the Koch Habit and Expanding Democracy for All. We’ll be joined by Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains; The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth At...
Missourians go to the polls August 7th to vote on two initiatives that are important to working people. Question 1 for Kansas City about rental property inspections and Question A for Missourians, also known as Right to work.
Many people think that getting young workers to think or care about retirement is impossible. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll do a pension primer for young workers. Then, we talk to Communications Workers Local 6450 President Sarah Harreu...
Buster Brown - alias UPS - and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have a tentative agreement on the biggest contract since the ’97 strike. Will they end two tier? Will they convert more part timers into full time?
Candidate Trump said NAFTA was the worst trade agreement ever and promised to fix it and bring the jobs back to the USA. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out from the Citizen’s Trade Campaign just what Trump Gets Wrong about Trade.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we explore our disappearing right to vote with Kansas ACLU Executive Director Micah Kubic. Then we ask, “Would you knowingly break a law if you thought it was unjust?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to two authors. First, what are choke points and how can logistics workers use them to build global worker power? We’ll find out from Choke Points co-author Jake Alimahomed-Wilson. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we take a look at Trumpism in Latin America. Has our policy changed much since Obama? How are workers faring? We’ll look at Mexico and Honduras and ask about elections, whether they were or will be stolen,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll take you to Quindaro, which made Kansas City Kansas a gateway to freedom. It was the next to last stop on the underground railroad. Then, meet the Heartland Labor Forum feature writers: Angie Williams,
There’s a hot race for State Senate in the Northland. It’s Lauren Arthur vs Kevin Corlew, and they’ll be with us this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Also, in Raytown there’s a tiff over TIF – that’s the Wal-Mart TIF and the number of police calls t...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look at Missouri lawmakers’ relentless attempts to assassinate our labor rights and our battle to save them. Representative Judy Morgan will detail the assaults in the legislative session. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we look at upcoming changes in how people in Kansas City get around. What's the latest on naming something after Martin Luther King? What is bus rapid transit? Will streetcar expansion be good for Westport?
The Inaugural Workers Revival Fest kicks off May 11 and 12 at the recordBar - two days of music, art and workshops celebrating working people. On this week's Heartland Labor Forum, we'll ask the organizers how the fest came to be and what role music c...
We’ve heard that unemployment is really low, but where are the pockets of jobless workers? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk with Jacqueline Midkiff from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Then, in his latest book,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we hear about an amazing labor hero from the past from author Jacqueline Jones, talking about her book Goddess of Anarchy -- The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical. Then,
Two weeks ago more than 2,500 grassroots labor activists, “worker center” leaders, union members, union officers, and community activists gathered in Chicago for the semi-annual Labor Notes Conference. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll bring...
We’ll ask if the new airport is ready for lift off after it’s bumpy start. What are the challenges, obstacles and opportunities that come with such a complicated and expensive project, from finance to construction? Then,
Don’t miss a very special Heartland Labor Forum this week called “Lives on the Line – Stories of Survival, Grit and Determination” as told by low wage workers about their lives. Excerpts of this co-production of Standup KC and the Heartland Center for ...
When Harley Davidson announced the shutdown of its Kansas City plant, they blamed declining motorcycle sales. Is that it? We’ll ask the two union presidents if there’s more to the story this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then,
We’ve heard a lot lately about arming teachers to protect our schools. Is this a good idea or a really bad idea? On this week’s Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask a panel of teachers from the Kansas City area what they think about guns in schools and o...
Some Missouri GOP officials want to gut prevailing wage laws. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask why they’re important for contractors, workers and the economy. Then, we talk to Brandon Weber about his new book,
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that cutting state university budgets is bad for faculty, staff and students, but this week on the Heartland Labor Forum, a rocket scientist from KU will give his simple answer to how to stop guttin...
Is it Charter Smarter or Charter Schmarter? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we ask: shouldn’t we give charter schools more scrutiny before we expand them in Missouri? Then, Summit Theatre Group is performing the Triangle Fire Project with eyewi...
When you watch TV or go to a play, or the symphony or to Starlight, do you ever wonder what the working conditions are for the people who put on the show? Who has a union and who doesn’t, and what difference does it make?
Today's analysts and commentators describe Britain as being nearly in a state of civil war over Brexit. Will Britain be able to hold it together in these turbulent times, and what will be the impact on British workers?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll take a look at Dollar General. Its CEO is betting on increased income inequality to make him billions. During the last year of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to authors of two books: Black Detroit A History of Self-Determination by Herb Boyd, who will discuss the impact the labor movement had on the rise of the black middle class. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we will explore the term “going postal.” But violence at work is not limited to postal workers. We’ll interview Jeremy Milloy about his new book Blood, Sweat and Fear: Violence in the Auto Industry. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll explore the secret history and moral cost of the iPhone, its global supply chain and why it’s called the one device. Then: after too many instances of sexual attack and harassment, Chicago hotel workers,
Join us this week on the Heartland Labor Forum for revolutionary poet, musician and citizen journalist Eleanor Goldfield, who will discuss NAFTA, worker’s rights, fighting the man and the power of art to change the world. Then--Missouri,
Before you click on Amazon.com to find the perfect gifts this holiday season, tune in to the Heartland Labor Forum to find out how poor working conditions, unfair competition and billions in tax incentives have made Amazon the "Wal-Mart of the Internet...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we ask: what exactly is a "green job" and how do we move our economies and our workers into an environmentally sustainable world? Find out when we talk to author Peter Poschen about his book,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to two authors about books on working class women. Emily Twarog’s new book, Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food and Consumer Activism in the 20th Century,
David Roediger teaches American Studies at KU. He’s an expert on the history of the working class in the U.S. and its peculiar race relations. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll spend the hour with Roediger and ask him what American manageme...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Thomas Kochen about his new book, Shaping the Future of Work. We’ll ask him what became of the postwar social contract, and if there is a new one on the horizon. Then,
Most labor experts predict that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to deal a death blow to America’s public sector unions causing them to go bankrupt. The case is Janus versus AFSCME. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
Uber wants its drivers to pay to work on Halloween. Does this make it harder to get a ride home after a night out? Is it fair to the drivers? Alex Rosenblat joins us on the Heartland Labor Forum to discuss. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we ask about Japanese workers: Do they have unions? What are their rights?" How do they try to make a difference? We’ll find out from a former Teachers Union chairman. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we interview Greg Leroy of Good Jobs First about their new database of corporate tax giveaways and a clever accounting rule that could rein in abuses. We’ll talk about the KC Public Library,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Remember when we couldn't bring signs to demonstrations because they could be used as weapons? Since Charlottesville, people are bringing weapons!! What happens to freedom of speech?
ADAPT took hundreds to DC twice to break the back of Trumpcare. They succeeded. Hear about it this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, isn’t it about time to bring all the railroad craft unions together to work on common issues?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Lane Windham, whose new book, Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of the New Economic Divide, overturns widely held myths about labor’s decline,
When Trump cuts the federal budget, he’s cutting pensions for federal workers including postal employees. How bad are they, and what are federal worker unions doing to push back? We’ll find out this week on Heartland Labor Forum. Then,
Missouri Labor faces an existential crisis in the passage of a so-called Right to Work bill, but they’re fighting back with teams of determined volunteers, armed with petitions aimed at repeal. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Carl Icahn is an old foe in Kansas City, but he’s back in national news. As an investigation of his conflict of interest proceeds we’ll talk to former Machinist union leaders Herb Johnson and Keith Nelson about h...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, our guest is Micah Kubic, executive director of the Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He tells us, “We exist for one reason and one reason only, and that is to defend the Constitution.
The post Women’s Equality Week: Why Can’t Women TV Anchors Reach Retirement on the Job? And What Does Roe v. Wade Have To Do with Women’s Equality? appeared first on KKFI.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, comedian and social commentator Lee Camp asks not if robots will get your job but who will benefit when they do. Then, with football kicking off this month, we’ll have historian Chuck Ross explain how matters of ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, the topic is workers across borders and workers who cross borders. We’ll ask David Wilson, who has just updated The Politics of Immigration, “Do immigrants really take jobs from the rest of us and lower wages?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask, “Is vocational education disappearing or coming back?” Have we made a false choice between college and skills training? Later, we go to the streets and find out about Street Medicine KC,
Why do we have extreme economic inequality in the richest country in the world? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Les Leopold about his new book, Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice.
Taxi Drivers on Strike! Tune to the Heartland Labor Forum for a special broadcast of Waiting for Lefty, a play by Cliff Odets performed by UMKC Theatre students and faculty. And then stay for the second half for an interview with Lefty's director,
Amid budget shortfalls, so-called "non-core" programs are under attack from UMKC administrators, but faculty, staff, students and community members are fighting back. Tune in to the Heartland Labor Forum for an interview with Judy Ancel,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we take another look at how the Labour party is reshaping politics across the pond in the UK. What does the rise of Jeremy Corbyn mean for the trade union movement? Then, we head down to swampeast Missouri,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: How can we grow and improve our cities without the threat of gentrification? This week, we talk to Peter Moskowitz about his book How to Kill a City. Peter will tell us what gentrification is, how it happens,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll interview Gordon Lafer about his new book which asks what elites are doing with all their new-found power. We’ll review with him The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask about Detroit: Are the Engines Restarting? We start with a history tour of Detroit labor from its heyday in auto and the bloody struggle to organize, and in music with the union that represented the Mot...
Who is protecting our pensions and what’s fiduciary responsibility, anyway? We’ll find out on this week’s Heartland Labor Forum when we talk to the Employee Benefits Security Administration. Then, the Disabilities Community will not let 40 years of pro...
Should college be affordable for All? Join us this week on The Heartland Labor Forum for an in-depth analysis of two high-profile state and federal initiatives to make college tuition-free. Then, Andy Fisher’s new book on the Hunger Industrial Complex...
On May Day 2017, workers filled the streets all over the world for international workers day. In the US, many immigrants protested and struck. Here in Missouri, no one was surprised by the protests of workers and immigrants in Kansas City and St.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, our show is called “Hate Has No Home Here.” We’ll cover reaction to the Olathe shooting at the Solidarity In Community meeting there against anti-immigrant terrorism and to honor the Indian engineer who died and ...
Does your zip code determine how long you’ll live? Find out this week on the Heartland Labor Forum about a new health report on Wyandotte County. Then, some local history: Before it was KCK, there was a diverse community of Indians,
Why Is Donald Trump President? What did union members have to do with him winning the electoral college? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum three labor educators from Michigan, Iowa and Pennsylvania analyze the union vote.
Why Boycott Driscolls & An Economy Without Immigrants. It’s strawberry season, but before you bake that pie, look for the Driscoll label and don’t. There’s a boycott by workers in Mexico who are paid $6-12 a day.
Ben Tulchin, Bernie Sanders' pollster, and head of Tulchin Research, will join us on this week’s Heartland Labor Forum to discuss whether millennials who voted progressive in 2016 will continue to do so as they get older. Then,
In India, 40% of construction workers are women. Last January, a delegation of American tradeswomen traveled to India to build bridges and fight for the rights of women in the construction workforce both there and here.
Last month, a diverse group of workers at Challenge Manufacturing near the airport showed Kansas City that even in the era of Trump, you can win a strike. Find out about it this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: In her new book Chow Chop Suey, food historian Anne Mendelson traces the history of the Chinese in America through food in Chinese restaurants. It’s a story of how xenophobia stunted the enrichment of both our so...
Unless Missouri unions develop a way to block it, Missouri will become the 28th right to work state on August 28th. How can our unions – and workers - survive it? Or is there a strategy to reverse it? Tune into the Heartland Labor Forum this week to fi...
Republicans in Jefferson City are gunning for unions. Now that right-to-work has passed, they’re going after the standard of living of construction workers and the rights to representation of public employees.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to AFT union leader Scott Ciafullo about how a group of school bus drivers organized and about some of the challenges facing teachers and their unions in Missouri. Then,
“And then this magical amazing policy came around that we started talking about. We started talking about the ACA, where they decided that, 'hey, maybe being born is not something you should be punished for.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we bring you the hidden history of women workers in the 1800s. In Gunpowder Girls of the Civil War, poor immigrant girls and widows – made bullets and literally went up in smoke because of industrial carelessness...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum—“Women Rising Up To Put Hatred and Oppression Down". We’ll hear from women at the Washington, DC march Jan. 21st and find out how many people turned out in KC and why they came. Then,
President Trump was elected largely on the promise to bring good jobs back to the US, but do his nominees for the Departments of Labor, Commerce, and Education reflect that goal, or are they just the typical anti-worker Capitalists every Republican adm...
Kansas City workers: do you have a boss at your job making your daily life a living hell? Never fear. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, tune in for “Bad Bosses and How to Deal with Them.” This special hour-long class will give you the tools you n...
Did you know that almost 45 percent of charges received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are for retaliation for filing a complaint? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk with Attorney Andrea G. Baran about it.
Missouri Republicans are poised to deliver a body blow to the state’s private sector unions. It’s called right to work although it has little to do with either rights or jobs. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
The Heartland Labor Forum, in its first show of 2017, asks, how stacked is U.S. labor law against workers? We’ll talk to author and attorney Julius Getman about his new book: The Supreme Court on Unions. Then are you skeptical oft the Tweets from Trump...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll have a condensed version of the musical Pray for the Dead: A Musical Tale of Morgues, Moguls, and Mutiny, in which workers in a funeral home and morgue take on the greedy 1 percenters who run things and com...
Campus workers from dining halls to grad students are organizing. On this week's Heartland Labor Forum, we'll look into how they're Serving Up Justice On Campus.
Last September, inmates in prisons across the nation went on strike against exploitative work, saying it’s a lot like slavery. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out what’s next. Also, we’ll talk to labor historian Priscilla Murollo abo...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, our show is "Oil vs Water: The Dakota Access Pipeline Debate". Is this another Blue-Green standoff of jobs versus the environment? We’ll look at the issue from both sides as well as how the recent denial of a per...
Women are now the majority of the workforce. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we ask how money, work, marriage and divorce mix these days. Then, you’ve probably seen the shiny new BRIDJ vans around town.
Are you exempt from overtime pay on your job? New rules going into effect December 1st may entitle you to extra pay if you work more than forty hours in a week. This week’s Heartland Labor Forum explains the new rule. Then,
Are you looking at a lifetime of debt slavery to pay off your college education? Tune in this week to the Heartland Labor Forum as economist Hossein Bahmaie and researcher Allyson Fredericksen explore the explosion of student debt and its implications ...
Our schools are under attack. Recently the Kansas City Call asked whether the KCMO School District, with its low test scores, should even have partial accreditation. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, KCMO Public School Teachers push back.
College teachers are organizing unions in St. Louis. In an age where over half of college teachers are part-timers, they’re organizing and winning representation elections. They’ve won recognition with SEIU at four St.
Join us for this week's Heartland Labor Forum as we focus on some of the earliest victims of the US War on Terror - Italian-Americans. We will talk with a leading authority on the contributions of Italians to the Industrial Revolution in early 1900's A...
On August 16th 2012, thirty-four platinum mineworkers were gunned down by the police under the auspices of South Africa's African National Congress. The ensuing outrage became a turning point in South African history.
Four Generations: Life On The East Side, Family, Work and The Police - Host David Bell talks with four Generations of the same family that have lived on the east Side of KCMO. This week's broadcast will be with the two older generations and give a hi...
There’s a real estate bubble in Kansas City and it’s swelling rents to supersize, especially for the working poor. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out why and what are the prospects for more affordable housing. Then,
Are we developing a global working class? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Immanuel Ness about his new book, Southern Insurgency. Then, Chiluba Musonda came to Kansas City from Zambia as a student.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: as ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft encroach on services provided by public transit systems, the KC Area Transportation Authority has contracted with Bridj, an on demand rideshare company that provides tr...
In his new book,The Making of Donald Trump, David Cay Johnston would wager that Trump actually has less money than the volunteers on the Heartland Labor Forum. While that may not quite be the case, Johnston will have you liking your odds if you bet aga...
Across the country there’s a full-scale attack on voting rights. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk to Rev. Rodney Williams about why the issue of voting rights is a moral issue that needs to be revived. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we discuss Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Without a Home Everything Else Falls Apart. Then, why did Mexican police fire on unarmed teachers and community members in June, killing 9 people?
There’s a new group in Kansas City and nationally of white people in support of racial justice, but first they’re working on understanding their own white privilege. Find out about SURJ: Showing Up for Racial Justice this week on the Heartland Labor Fo...
Kamala Lopez has just released the film Equal Means Equal which will be shown Friday as part of Women’s Equality Week. On this week’s Heartland Labor Forum, we interview her and find out why we still need the Equal Rights Amendment.
All the attention to police violence lately has prompted questions about the role of police unions and benevolent associations in a code of silence that blocks accountability. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask Kristian Williams,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we have North American Teachers fighting back. This summer there’s been growing unrest in public education. We will hear about the struggle of teachers against corporatization of the schools in Oaxaca,
How would you survive on $2 a day? Find out this week on the Heartland Labor Forum how some people do survive - just barely. We’ll talk to Luke Shafer, author of $2 a Day; Living on Almost Nothing. Then, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump c...
Rosie does a lot more than riveting these days. Join us on the Heartland Labor Forum for "We Can Do It! Women in the Trades". We’ll talk with a local Ironworker apprentice, then hear from tradeswomen from all over the continent at the May,
Last month, Kansas City based union Operating Engineers Local 101 opened its own healthcare facility, the Union Health and Wellness Center for union members and their families. The union says it’s a groundbreaking concept.
Harley-Davidson used to be famous for its cooperative labor relations. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we'll ask union leaders if Harley's dreams of personal freedoms still extend to its workers. Thursday at 6pm, rebroadcast Friday at 5am.
The UAW now has 30,000 members who work at universities. They don’t think like autoworkers. This week on The Heartland Labor Forum we’ll ask if the UAW is headed for an identity crisis. Then, Green Party presidential Candidate Jill Stein came to town ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Five reasons you should go to the People’s March for public education and social justice in Washington DC July 8-10. Then, what’s management expertise good for? Author Matthew Stewart,
After the Civil War until World War II, one of the few good jobs open to African American men and a few women as Pullman Porter or Maid. To be sure, they weren't treated as equals and had to hustle for every nickel, but in a world of segregation,
KC area native Thomas Frank has written about why Kansans vote against their self-interest and about how the right wing took over America. Now he looks at the Democrats in his new book Listen Liberal: Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, it’s two authors with two books. We’ll talk to Gerald Horne about his book on the great singer and activist Paul Robeson. The book is called The Artist as Revolutionary. Then it’s noted St.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, hear about the new partnership between UMKC’s Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design and the community to address the challenges facing neighborhoods in Kansas City, MO.
Will Verizon never settle?. . . with its unions? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk about the strike and the stakes for workers in the communications industry. Then, what’s happening to jobs in the coal industry?
Standardized testing. Why are students and teachers around the country so critical of it? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, two teachers will discuss how testing strips important protections from teachers and vital experiences from students.
Thursday on the Heartland Labor Forum: Did Senators go hungry today alongside the workers who feed them? We’ll hear about the strike in the Senate Cafeteria. It’s part of the fight for $15. And then, is the practice of tipping a vestige of slavery?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Hear about the remarkable march last week of Longfellow Elementary students with banners declaring “One Race -Human Race. Kids are learning to build a better community. Then,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: The Electoral College – that obstacle to direct election of the President put into the Constitution by the framers. Did they have a point? We’ll talk to UMKC Professor Max Skidmore about it.
On April 14th Teamsters will be in Washington protesting pension cuts. On April 17th and 18th labor, civil rights, environmental and student organizations will surround the Capitol with a Democracy Awakening protesting the attack on voting rights and m...
Will jobs on the new KC streetcars be good jobs? We’ll find out from the union that represents the Area Transportation Authority bus drivers, ATU Local 1287 this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. It’s called "A Streetcar Named Non-Union". Then,
The exit of manufacturing jobs from Michigan in recent decades turned it into a rust belt, and now the rust is more than a metaphor. It’s in the poisoned water and the dilapidated schools. Even representative government is corroding.
Add one more black eye for The University of Missouri-Columbia: Refusal to bargain or recognize a union. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk with graduate teaching assistants from MU who have organized and want to know why the university re...
The passing of Father John Wandless late last year left his What U Can Do program to politically empower minority youth in limbo. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look at The Legacy of Father Lefty and his Empowering Youth program.
In the past few years the Chicago Teachers Union has won a reputation as one of the most innovative and participative unions in the U.S. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out What’s New from the Chicago Teachers?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we look at two successful grassroots citizen campaigns in Kansas City. First in the wake of BNIM’s withdrawal from the Crossroads project, we will take a look at the pros and cons of tax increment financing.
Curious about Presidential candidate positions on labor issues? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we feature spokespeople and info about Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and the Donald and we ask who’s a friend of labor?
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: In the 1950’s St. Louis labor leaders Harold Gibbons and Ernest Calloway championed a new kind of labor movement embracing workers as “total persons” fighting for justice as workers and citizens.
It was a take-no-prisoners kind of a fight. That’s the battle between US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa which filled the headlines and the courtrooms in the 1960s. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll talk about the Junior Rat-race in our schools known as testing. According to our guest, it’s over-testing and the harm it does to kids, teachers and education. Then,
New Year's Eve is one of the biggest cab hailing nights of the year, so on this week's Heartland Labor Forum, it's a good time to revisit one of the biggest labor stories of the year, the rise of the so-called "sharing economy" and booming start-ups li...
On Christmas Eve, on the Heartland Labor Forum, two union maids will bring you our annual Peace on Earth show. It’s not your typical peace on earth show though. It’s called A Holiday Wish For You: No War but the Class War. Tune in Thursday at 6pm,
Suddenly TIF is back in the news with the hotel and Crossroads projects. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll find out why citizens are once again mad about TIF. Then we ask economist Richard Wolff who thinks worker co-ops are an answer to our...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we interview David Cay Johnston, tax expert and investigative journalist. We’ll ask him about offshore tax loopholes, record breaking inequality, out of control white collar crime,
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we explore the conditions for child care workers and for Kansas teachers. Tune in to "Rock-a-bye Baby The Wages Is Crazy"; and then we ask, why are Kansas teachers fleeing?
A community health worker is a bridge between traditionally underserved populations and needed health information, support and care, as well as important basic and social services. It’s a new job here in Kansas City, but a much-needed one.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Sheet Metal Workers and Sierra Club Team Up to Demand Missouri Move toward Energy Efficiency - "Missourians are paying too much on our monthly energy bills. We're putting additional air pollution in the air.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we interview Steven Hill about his new book Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers.Then, Adia Wingfield tells us how employers screen out minorities by names and res...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we talk to labor radio producer Rick Smith about his new book Daddy, What’s the Middle Class? It’s about a cross country trip with kids to find out who built America. Then we take a trip with a worker into Amazon ...
Ai-Jen Poo, leader of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, has a new book: The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. We’ll talk to her this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then we go to Bellingham,
Some want to kick them out; others want to welcome them in: what are the candidates’ positions on immigration? And on Pioneer Women, we interview Cindy Longaker, woman of steel and organizer. The Heartland Labor Forum: Thursdays at 6pm,
Some unions have already endorsed in the 2016 presidential race. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll ask why unions are endorsing now? Should the members be polled? And which candidate represents workers’ interests? Tune in Thursday at 6pm,
Our Walmart is relaunching for the holiday season. Find out how this union buster could be affected this week on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, some union members are asking: Should police unions be in the House of Labor? Thursday at 6pm,
In the 1970s, there was a huge effort to pass an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. It narrowly failed, and Equality Now’s Jessica Neuwirth says it’s time to bring back the ERA. Find out why this week on the Heartland Labor Forum.
Like the Democrats in the U.S., the British Labour Party has been moving to the right. Now British unions are backing an outspoken socialist for leader of the Labour Party. This week, the Heartland Labor Forum goes to England to ask a leader of the loc...
It’s Women’s Equality Week on the Heartland Labor Forum. We’ll interview two Pioneer Working Women. First, Janet Smith organized and became President of the Faculty Union at University of Illinois Chicago. When the administration split the non-tenured ...
Reverend William Barber has inspired thousands in the Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina and across the nation. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we’ll hear why he says: America Lacks Heart. Then,
Bullies. They’re on the playground, in our homes, in the workplace and government. Is bullying on the rise or are we just more willing to name it and stand up against it? This week’s Heartland Labor Forum looks at workplace bullying and how to fight ba...
With a Socialist running for President as a Democrat, the Heartland Labor Forum decided to look at socialists from the past who ran. Join us for trip back to the first part of the 20th century and the campaigns of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas.
Every week since late May, thousands of Hondurans take to the streets in torch marches to protest the theft of millions of dollars of their health care funds by government officials, including the President. The U.S. media barely mentions it.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we get some good news from Bangladesh about compensation for the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013, then talk to Erik Loomis, whose book, Out of Sight, follows the thread that runs from the Triangle Shirtwaist...
Where does the idea behind Right to Work come from? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum we interview Cedric deLeon whose new book, The Origins of Right to Work, traces it back to Chicago in the 1880s and claims that it was always about dividing work...
As Kansas City debates raising the minimum wage, this week’s Heartland Labor Forum asks the question: by how much? Should it go to $15 by 2020? We’ll get the views from UMKC economist Peter Eaton, Jobs with Justice’s Justin Stein,
The European migrant crisis is all over the news. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look into the crises behind the crisis including: war, imperialism, and poverty. Why are so many from Africa and the Middle East trying to break into fortre...
Last Fall Congress passed and President Obama signed a so-called Pension Reform Act allowing employers to reduce or suspend pension payments to retirees if a pension plan is "deeply troubled." Teamster retirees face cuts.
Labor History in two minutes a day? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Stephanie Sewell of the Illinois Labor History society about the new radio show Labor History in Two. Then, the government of Venezuela regularly gets bad press in ...
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we interview journalist Matt Kennard, author of The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs. the Masters of the Universe. Then, UC Berkeley's Ian Perry explains what wage corporations should pay so taxpayers can quit subsidi...
Does the World Bank Work for Working People? Not according to a new study about how poor people are chased off their land to make way for shiny new projects and on Pioneer Women, Susan interviews a woman welder. All this on the Heartland Labor Forum.
A hundred years ago, Kansas and Missouri were a hotbed of socialism. Rabble rousers like Mother Jones and Kate Richards O’Hare drew large crowds. There’s a new history of the Socialist Party. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum,
Why do so-called education reforms keep proposing the same failed strategies for education: blaming teachers, attacking tenure, proposing testing or charters or outright privatization? What are the strategies based on best-practices by teachers that ar...
Last week AT&T reported massive profits, but 17,000 workers in the Midwest who helped make them rich are working without a contract and facing demands for slashed healthcare, pensions, and job security protections.
It's a hundred years since IWW organizer and songwriter Joe Hill was executed by the State of Utah. Hear his story and his music this week on the Heartland Labor Forum.
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum: Meet Vicky Hale – the new President at UAW Local 31. As their first ever woman Prez, she’s a Pioneer Woman. Last week, adjunct professors raised hell along with fast food and other low wage workers.
The attack on public education has become an onslaught starting from the heights of the American Legislative Exchange Council and subverting institutions from Kindergarten through higher education with the myth that public is bad and a failure.
Some big union contracts are up this year. Will they begin a turnaround in labor’s fortunes? There was a near strike on the West Coast docks by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; The Oil Workers had an unprecedented strike over safety at ...