Belabored Podcast #120: Meet the New Boss, with Andrew Stettner

Belabored Podcast #120: Meet the New Boss, with Andrew Stettner

Andrew Stettner of the Century Foundation joins us to talk about Trump’s cabinet picks, and what they mean for labor.

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Not surprisingly, in his first week in the White House Trump has not only failed spectacularly to “drain the swamp” but seems determined to flood it with a fresh assortment of Wall Street cronies, corporate behemoths, and giants of Big Philanthropy. To help us wade through the president’s goldplated cesspool, we speak with Andrew Stettner of the Century Foundation, who has been tracking the nominations, to gauge how Trump’s picks to head education (Betsy DeVos), financial regulation (Steven Mnuchin), labor (Andrew Puzder), and other policy areas could shape the federal agenda in the coming years, and what advocates should look out for to hold the new administration accountable.

We also examine Trump’s latest trade policy gambit, local anti-Trump protests in the Twin Cities and Boston, and a union drive at a southern Boeing plant. With recommended reading from veteran radicals Frances Fox Piven and Yanis Varoufakis, on how Trump could reinvigorate dissent and spark a new insurgency against neoliberalism.

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News

Sarah: Striking against Trump, with Luciano Balbuena and Veronica Mendez Moore

Michelle: Yes, Trump’s Against Free Trade. That Doesn’t Mean He’s For Good Jobs.

A Left Vision for Trade (Dissent)

Boeing’s North Charleston workers to vote on union representation (The Post and Courier)

Michelle: Immigrant Workers Are Already Fighting Back Against Trump (The Nation)

Conversation

Andrew Stettner, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation

Andrew Stettner: GOP Secretaries of Labor: Puzder Is a Break from the Past

Argh, I Wish I’d Written That!

Sarah: Frances Fox Piven, Throw Sand in the Gears of Everything (The Nation)

Michelle: Yanis Varoufakis, We need an alternative to Trump’s nationalism. It isn’t the status quo (Guardian)