Belabored Podcast #22: Resolutions

In this week’s Belabored podcast, Josh and Sarah talk about a judge’s ruling against Indiana’s “Right to Work,” a living wage law vetoed in DC, Chicago schools without air conditioning, and steps towards UAW union recognition in the South. Plus a report back on the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles.

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The twenty-second episode of Dissent’s Belabored podcast opens with a round-up of good and bad news for labor: a judge’s ruling against Indiana’s “Right to Work,” a living wage law vetoed in DC, Chicago schools without air conditioning, and steps towards UAW union recognition in the South. Then Sarah and Josh discuss his trip to the AFL-CIO convention this week in Los Angeles. What was behind the controversy over tightening the federation’s ties to progressive groups? What brought a union representing prison guards to join a resolution against mass incarceration? How much leverage does the AFL-CIO have over the fifty-seven unions that make it up?

Links for those following along at home:

Josh’s dispatches from the AFL-CIO convention for The Nation: Preview, Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four

The Chicago Sun-Times on schools without A/C

Kenzo Shibata on the anniversary of the Chicago Teachers Union strike

NUVO on the Indiana ruling

Sarah’s interviews with NYC Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio and Public Advocate candidate Tish James

Josh on retaliation at Walmart for the Washington Post

Josh on “Right to Work” rhetoric in Indiana

Pieces we wish we’d written:

Mike Elk, “For Union Members, Defeat at Crystal Sugar Anything But Sweet,” In These Times

Douglas Williams and Cato Uticensis, “A Call for a Second Operation Dixie,” The South Lawn