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America’s Work Force Union Podcast

BMA Media Group

America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides a clear and unfiltered voice for the working people of America. Radio veteran Ed “Flash” Ferenc leads the discussion with a focus on topics that include the impact of labor unions in America, workers’ rights, legislative actions and labor-management relations. Featured guests include various labor leaders, politicians, journalists and more. America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides updates and information from sources around the United States and continues to be the trusted voice for workers across the country.

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S7 · E174
Yesterday · 41 min
NABTU's Dr. Tom Kriger on Apprenticeship, AI and The Wizard of Oz
The tornado is the high interest rates. The Scarecrow is the caricature of the uneducated farmer. The Tin Woodsman is the industrial worker who lost his humanity as wages fell. The Yellow Brick Road is the gold standard. The Emerald City is Washington. And behind the curtain at the end, a few powerful people are pulling strings. L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz as a populist labor parable. NABTU's Dr. Tom Kriger says it is the most important thing you can watch this Labor Day weekend. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, NABTU Director of Education and Research Dr. Tom Kriger discusses the Fitzgerald Act of 1937 and how registered apprenticeship was created, why the union model of training workers in the full range of an occupation is the gold standard, how NABTU's 300,000 apprentices represent roughly half of all registered apprentices in the United States, why the tech industry has badly failed to explain why data centers are necessary and what happens if the US stops building them and why L. Frank Baum's populist parable from the 1890s is more relevant today than most people realize. Visit nabtu.org for more.
S7 · E173
Monday · 32 min
Tom Buffenbarger on ‘Wimpy’ Winpisinger and the Origins of Labor Day
A machinist named Matthew Maguire proposed Labor Day in 1882. When Grover Cleveland signed it into law in 1894, he gave the ceremonial pen to a carpenter with a similar name and told Maguire's wife he was sorry. The machinist never got proper credit. The debate starts every Labor Day again. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast — the final episode of the Labor 132 series, one week before Labor Day — IAM retired International President Tom Buffenbarger discusses the life and career of William ‘Wimpy’ Winpisinger, the IAM general president from 1977 to 1989 who wheeled a wheelchair into his first AFL-CIO executive board meeting to tell George Meany it was time to go, led a walkout of the 1980 Democratic National Convention, put IAM-sponsored race cars on national television with drivers including Roger Mears and Josele Garza to showcase union craftsmen and made trade unionism a religion. Buffenbarger also settles — for another year at least — the debate over who really created Labor Day. Visit goiam.org for more.
S7 · E172
Friday · 36 min
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell on Trade, Social Security and Fighting for Workers
Her father-in-law was fired for union activity, contracted tuberculosis and was sent west to die. He came back to Detroit, won a congressional seat and helped write the Social Security Act — standing in the room when Roosevelt signed it in 1935. That history is what Congresswoman Debbie Dingell carries into Congress every day. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Dingell joins the Labor 132 series as co-chair of the 129-member Congressional Labor Caucus. She discusses why USMCA has not created a level playing field with Mexico, the national security threat posed by Chinese autonomous vehicles collecting data on American streets, why the chaotic application of tariffs has cost average households approximately $3,500, the need to scrap the Social Security earnings cap before the 2033 funding cliff and why she is one of the lead House sponsors of Medicare for All — a bill that now has more than 100 co-sponsors. Visit debbiedingell.house.gov and laborcaucus.house.gov for more.
S7 · E171
Thursday · 36 min
Insulators Local 6's Jeff Saliba on Energy, Recovery and Union Power
Without the union, he says, he would qualify for Medicaid and food stamps doing the same insulation work. He has been sober for more than 20 years. He holds a Massachusetts license in addiction counseling. And he watches his members vote against their own economic interests every election cycle and cannot figure out how to get through to them. On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Heat and Frost Insulators Local 6 Business Manager Jeff Saliba joins on behalf of Pete Ielmini and the Mechanical Insulators LMCT. He discusses why the Boston hospital energy report is a call to action for mechanical insulation, how Local 6's MAP-based recovery program gives apprentices a structured path through addiction and a genuine door back into the program, and why the drift toward individualism — workers thinking me instead of we — is the most significant internal challenge unions face heading into this Labor Day. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Visit insulators6.org and follow @InsulatorsLMCT for more.
S7 · E170
August 26 · 45 min
Food Is Medicine, Aviation Safety and 49 Years of the Labor Fight
Two conversations that connect the health of workers to the history of the movement that fights for them — one looking at what union members eat and how it affects their long-term health, and one tracing 49 years of a union that keeps the aviation system safe and has been fighting for the right to do that work well since 1977. Blue Cross Blue Shield National Labor Office Executive Director Merrilee Logue discusses the Food Is Medicine movement and what it means for the 18 million union members covered through BCBS plans. She outlines updated USDA dietary guidelines emphasizing protein, healthy fats and minimally processed foods, the specific nutritional challenges facing union members doing shift work and physically demanding jobs and a range of programs now available through union insurance plans — from registered dietitians and medically tailored meals to produce prescription programs in which healthcare providers can literally prescribe fruits and vegetables as part of a treatment plan. She also discusses the American Psychiatric Association's documented connection between nutrition and mental health and Blue Cross Blue Shield's investment of millions in nutrition programs, food banks and educational initiatives in every zip code across the country. Then, Professional Aviation Safety Specialists President Dave Spero traces the 49-year history of PASS National — from Howard Johnnssen's decision to start a union after being suspended for kicking in a door to put out a fire, through founders sleeping in their cars and burning through their leave by Memorial Day every year to sign up members, to the eight-year fight for the first contract. He discusses what PASS did on September 11, 2001, when the president suspended the collective bargaining agreement in the first hours so members could focus entirely on securing the aviation system, current FAA workforce shortfalls and the threat of a government shutdown at the end of September 30. Follow @BlueLabor on LinkedIn and X for BCBS NLO updates and visit passnational.org for more from PASS National.
S7 · E169
August 25 · 29 min
USW's John Lepley on Homestead, Carnegie and the Fight That Built Labor
Carnegie's name is on libraries, museums, endowments and an entire town in Pennsylvania. His 1889 essay, The Gospel of Wealth, said the wealthy should give away their fortunes for the public good. After Homestead broke the union in 1892, workers who had eight-hour shifts went to 12-hour shifts and eventually to 24-hour shifts every two weeks. A worker killed in a blast furnace left his family $75, including burial. That is the other side of the Carnegie story. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, United Steelworkers Director of Education John Lepley traces the full arc of the 1892 Battle of Homestead — Carnegie's castle in Scotland, Frick's Fort, the Pinkerton detectives on the Monongahela, the day-long battle and the militia that broke the union — through the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre and the long, costly fight to build the collective bargaining agreements that changed workers' lives. He also recommends Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell as essential reading on what steelworker life actually looked like from the inside. Visit usw.org for more.
S7 · E168
August 24 · 32 min
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan on the Labor Caucus, PRO Act and Clean Energy Jobs
The federal minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009. The Congressional Labor Caucus has 128 members — and everyone must actually support the PRO Act to join. Clean energy projects that were creating union jobs across the Midwest have been canceled by the Big Beautiful Bill. And 50 million Americans would join a union today if the barriers were lower. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Wisconsin Congressman and 30-plus-year IUPAT member Mark Pocan discusses what worker power looks like from inside the House of Representatives. He covers the Labor Caucus membership requirement and why virtually no Republicans qualify, the 17-year freeze on the federal minimum wage and the $2.13 subminimum wage for tipped workers, what the Big Beautiful Bill did to clean energy job creation in Wisconsin and the Midwest and why organizing at Starbucks, Amazon and REI is some of the most exciting labor movement news he has seen in years. Visit pocan.house.gov and laborcaucus.house.gov for more.
S7 · E167
August 21 · 36 min
9/11 at 25, US Shipbuilding and the 2032 Social Security Cliff
Two conversations that connect the service of the past to the policy fights of the present — one honoring those who answered the call after September 11, and one sounding the alarm about a Social Security funding cliff that Congress has the tools to prevent but has not yet used. American Legion Media and Communications Director Henry Howard joins with the September update as the 25th anniversary of September 11 approaches. The September cover story of the American Legion Magazine, Sacred Honor, was written by Ben King — a Radio Shack worker in Washington who decided within hours of the attacks that if it was war he would go, signed up for the Army Reserves within days, was deployed to Baghdad in 2006 and survived an IED strike that pushed the engine block of his Humvee into him, receiving a Purple Heart before going on to serve as operations director of the Virginia War Memorial. Howard also previews a new Tango Alpha Lima podcast episode publishing September 8 featuring military pilot Heather Penney, whose September 11 mission was to intercept Flight 93 and bring it down with her own aircraft if necessary — a mission from which she would not have returned. He then discusses a September magazine feature on America's shipbuilding decline, from 180,000 shipyard jobs in 1980 to roughly 105,000 by 2010, with current capacity estimated at more than 200 times China's. Then, Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Director Rich Fiesta discusses a 2032 Social Security funding cliff that would trigger a 22% across-the-board benefit cut if Congress does not act, where the Warren-Moreno scrap-the-cap bill stands and the Alliance's primary fight for the remainder of the 119th Congress: defeating a fiscal commission bill sponsored by outgoing senators that would fast-track Social Security recommendations to a vote while bypassing hearings, testimony and amendments. Visit legion.org for American Legion updates, listen to the Tango Alpha Lima podcast episode on September 8 and visit retiredamericans.org for the full congressional voting record on seniors' issues.
S7 · E166
August 20 · 44 min
Bill McCamley on Wage Theft, Labor History and the Trades Crisis
In 1806, members of America's first labor union were found guilty of criminal conspiracy for demanding higher wages. In 2017, wage theft cost 2.4 million workers more than $8 billion. Today, construction workers die by overdose at approximately 16 times the rate of conventional workplace accidents. The fight for a fair day's wage is 232 years old and still going. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, New Mexico Building Trades Wellness Coalition Director Bill McCamley joins the Labor 132 series for a conversation that runs from the 1794 Cordwainers through the Gilded Age robber barons, the Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting era and the FDR New Deal to the present-day crisis of 40 million men outside the American workforce and 11,000 construction workers dying by overdose each year. He also discusses what it will take to bring young men into the trades, cut the 40-60% apprentice dropout rate, and ensure that workers who do the essential work of building everything know they are valued for it. Call or text 988 if you need help. Visit nmbtwellness.org and billmccamley.net for more.
S7 · E165
August 19 · 34 min
Medicare for All History, Head Start Cuts and Ohio's Education Fight
Two conversations that connect the long arc of labor's fight for workers and their families to the battles happening right now — one tracing a century of organized labor's role in winning healthcare coverage for Americans and one reporting from the front lines of public education in Ohio as the school year begins. National Nurses United Medicare for All Campaign Director Jasmine Ruddy traces the labor movement's century-long fight for national health insurance, from the first push tied to the Social Security Act in 1935 through the AMA's repeated opposition campaigns, the AFL-CIO's landmark 1957 declaration of government health insurance as its top legislative priority, Walter Reuther's role in marshaling labor support and the July 1965 passage of Medicare and Medicaid. She then updates listeners on where the Medicare for All campaign stands today: more than half of House Democrats now co-sponsoring the Jayapal-Dingell bill, 16 or 17 Senate co-sponsors on Senator Sanders' bill and a coalition of more than 335 organizations on record in support. Then, Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper joins for her monthly update as the 2026-2027 school year opens across Ohio. She discusses the federal administration's death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to Head Start, first contract wins at Menlo Park Academy, KIPP Charter School and Columbus College of Art and Design, the Columbus Metropolitan Library's path toward a first contract following last month's organizing win and what Ohio's governor race means for public education and teachers unions — with one candidate calling for the elimination of teachers unions and the other actively engaging with OFT on education policy. Visit medicareforall.org and nationalnursesunited.org for more from National Nurses United and oft-aft.org for the OFT voter guide and updates.
S7 · E164
August 18 · 35 min
SMART Union and Union EAP on Mental Health Support That Actually Works
They audited the EAP numbers. They called them. One program — marketing comprehensive mental health services — told them it did not do mental health when faced with a complex case. That is when SMART's Chris Carlough and Union EAP's Ben Cort knew something had to be built from scratch. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, SMART Director of Wellness and Mental Health Support Chris Carlough and Union EAP CEO Ben Cort discuss 14-plus years of peer training inside the sheet metal trades, what the audit of existing EAPs actually revealed and how Union EAP was built specifically to meet union members where they are — with licensed therapists who answer the phone directly and who understand the culture of union construction work. Member locals using Union EAP are seeing utilization rates 300% to 1,000% higher than their previous providers. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Visit smohit.org for peer training resources and unioneap.com for more on Union EAP.
S7 · E163
August 17 · 39 min
Cleveland Teachers Fight Back and 100 Years of American Labor Law
Two conversations that connect the labor movement's past to its present — one showing what union solidarity looks like in action today and one tracing the legal history that explains why that solidarity is still so necessary. Cleveland Teachers Union President Errol Savage discusses his first day in office — the same day the district announced 310 teacher layoffs — and how he responded the only way he knew how: by organizing, showing up and fighting alongside his union brothers and sisters. More than 600 teachers and Cleveland community members showed up at a Board of Education meeting that typically drew a handful of people. The board engaged. The superintendent made different choices. Today fewer than 50 of the original 310 teachers are still not back in Cleveland classrooms in a full-time capacity, and most of those plan to return. Savage also discusses what the fight means for the broader attack on public education and how he is already supporting teachers in Fairview Park, Ohio facing their own contract battle. Then, labor lawyer and OnLabor contributor Andrew Strom traces 100 years of American labor law from the 1926 Railway Labor Act through the NLRA, Taft-Hartley, the birth of right-to-work through judicial interpretation and three Supreme Court decisions — Republic Aviation in 1945, Lechmere in 1992 and Epic Systems in 2018 — that illustrate how the same law that was once called the Magna Carta of workers' rights came to be described by the Supreme Court as a mouse hole, all without Congress changing a single word. Visit ctu279.org for more from the Cleveland Teachers Union and onlabor.org for more of Andrew Strom's writing on labor law.
S7 · E162
August 14 · 32 min
CA Building Trades on Proposition 45 and the November Fight
It is being marketed as a permitting reform and affordability act. But the 41 pages of California's Proposition 45 bypass the state's landmark environmental review law, strip local elected officials of meaningful discretion over what gets built in their communities, include no requirement that any savings reach the public and contain a provision that overrides any conflicting law — including environmental protections. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California President Chris Hannan explains what Proposition 45 actually does and why a coalition of more than 270 organizations — including the California building trades, the environmental movement, firefighters and educators — is working together to defeat it in November. He also discusses Climate Jobs California, the new labor-academia initiative the council is building to advance clean energy in California, the right way. Visit noprop45ca.com to get involved and cabuildingtrades.org for more.
S7 · E161
August 13 · 35 min
LHSFNA on Trench Safety, Work Zones and OSHA Under Pressure
About one construction worker dies in a trench collapse every week. Every death is preventable. Work zone run-over and back-over incidents are also preventable. And the federal agency responsible for enforcing the rules that would stop these deaths just had its already-thin resources cut further. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America Director Travis Parsons discusses the history of worker safety from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to the creation of OSHA in 1970, the three simple methods that prevent every trench collapse, why work zones need physical barriers rather than cones and barrels and what the current administration's anti-regulatory environment means for laborers on job sites right now. He also discusses the LHSFNA's founding in 1988 as a labor-management fund and why meaningful OSHA fines are the enforcement lever the industry needs most. Visit lhsfna.org for more.
S7 · E160
August 12 · 28 min
CWA's Frank Mathews on Union History and the Story of Red on Thursday
In August 1989, CWA chief steward Gerry Horgan was struck and killed by a replacement worker driving through a picket line during the NYNEX strike in New York. He was a Marine, a volunteer firefighter, a mountain rescue team member and a family man who gave everything for working people. Since that day, CWA members have worn red on Thursdays in his honor. August 15 marks the 37th anniversary of his death. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast — part of the Labor 132 series presented by the National Labor Office of Blue Cross Blue Shield — CWA District 4 Administrative Director Frank Mathews traces the history of the Communication Workers of America from its 1947 founding through landmark contract wins, barrier-breaking leadership elections and the member relief fund that removes one of management's most reliable bargaining weapons. He then tells the full story of Gerry Horgan and what wearing red on Thursdays has meant to the CWA family over the past 37 years. Visit cwad4.org for more.
S7 · E159
August 11 · 32 min
BAC's Tim Driscoll on Labor Law, AI, Immigration and Misclassification
More than 30% of union election wins never produce a first contract. Not because workers gave up. Because employers face no real punishment for running out the clock. The BAC has two active situations in California and Florida, where employers have been delaying for two years with zero consequences. On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers President Timothy J. Driscoll discusses the PRO Act, the Faster Labor Contracts Act and why the arbitration provision critics call government overreach is simply a necessary guardrail. He also addresses AI's growing impact on construction design and engineering, what responsible data center siting requires from developers, why the administration's immigration enforcement is a deliberate wedge strategy that has swept up BAC members with valid work authorization in ICE raids and why congressional efforts to expand independent contractor status are moving in exactly the wrong direction for workers. Visit bacweb.org for more.
S7 · E158
August 10 · 33 min
TSA Administrator Cummins, Transit Funding and Ohio's Labor History
Two conversations that connect the fights of the past to the fights happening right now — one tracking the policy battles shaping transportation workers today and one tracing the 200-year labor history that explains why those battles keep coming. Transportation Trades Department President Greg Regan discusses the TTD's concerns about newly confirmed TSA Administrator David Cummins, who has said collective bargaining inhibits airport security workers and plans to expand privatized screening from approximately 20 airports to 200. Regan also addresses a bipartisan bill to fix the Railroad Retirement Board's ability to pay out earned benefits to railroaders who have contributed to one of the world's healthiest pension systems and a September 30 surface transportation funding cliff that would simultaneously cut off roads, bridges, Amtrak, commuter rail and public transit funding — at a moment when Amtrak is posting record ridership and revenue as proof that infrastructure investment works. Then, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga traces Ohio's labor history through his own family story — a grandfather who survived the 1940 Willow Grove Mine explosion in Belmont County, a father who served as president of a United Steelworkers local in the 1960s and a debt he said his family owes entirely to the United Mine Workers of America and the United Steelworkers. He covers the 1890 founding of the UMWA in Columbus, William Green's authorship of Ohio's workers' compensation law and the defeat of Senate Bill 5 in 2011 by the same 62-to-38 margin that defeated right-to-work in Ohio in 1958. He closes with what the current organizing surge among young workers means for the movement's future and why getting from a successful union vote to a first contract remains the most urgent labor law reform priority. Visit ttd.org for more from the Transportation Trades Department and ohioaflcio.org for more from the Ohio AFL-CIO.
S7 · E156
August 7 · 21 min
Fred Redmond on Family, 50 Years With the Steelworkers and Organizing
His mother took three buses every morning to clean houses in the suburbs. His father worked every job he could find until he landed his first union contract at an aluminum mill on Chicago's southwest side. Then Fred Redmond's family started going to a doctor's office instead of the free clinic. That is why the labor movement is personal to him — and why he has given more than 50 years to it. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond joins for the first Friday with Fred of August as part of the Labor 132 series. He shares the story of his parents' journey from sharecropping in Mississippi to union membership in Chicago, reflects on his proudest moments with the United Steelworkers, including organizing rubber plantation workers in Liberia and surviving strikes at Reynolds and Alcoa, and explains why union popularity is now at its highest point in 70 years. Visit aflcio.org and explore the AFL-CIO's labor history timeline.
S7 · E156
August 6 · 30 min
C/COBCTC on Data Centers, a New Learning Center and Trades Outreach
Columbus just landed Electra's $850 million EL9 Ultra Short hybrid-electric aircraft manufacturing plant at AirPark Ohio, is building a $100 million early childhood learning center on a former jail site and generated 6.5 million union building trades work hours at Google facilities alone last year. And the American Federation of Labor was founded downtown in 1886. On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, C/COBCTC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Dorsey Hager delivers his monthly update covering Intel's continued ramp-up, upcoming public hearings for two major gas-powered energy centers that will supply data center campuses in Fairfield County and Asheville, a new project labor agreement for the $100 million Franklin County early childhood learning center, the state of Ohio's data center conversation at the local government level and what happened when building trades members brought brick walls and concrete finishing to the Ohio State Fair. Visit columbusconstruction.org for more.
S7 · E155
August 5 · 33 min
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland on the SAG-AFTRA Merger and Labor History
The Screen Actors Guild was founded in 1933. AFTRA was founded around the same time. For nearly 80 years, they tried to become a single union and kept falling short of the 80% supermajority required by both constitutions. Then, in 2008, employers used the gap between them to restructure primetime scripted television in ways that stripped members of their health insurance. By 2012, the two unions were one. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast — part of the Labor 132 series — SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland tells the full story, from the very different founding cultures of SAG and AFTRA in the 1930s through the McCarthy era, Ronald Reagan's complicated labor legacy, the 2008 employer maneuver that finally made the cost of disunity impossible to ignore and what the merged union has built in the 14 years since. He also addresses the AI fight, now the most urgent focus of SAG-AFTRA's resources, and explains why the strength of the merged union is exactly what that fight requires. Visit sagaftra.org for more.

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