America’s Work Force Union Podcast

The Yotta data center conference in Las Vegas started three years ago with 1,500 attendees. This year it drew 7,000. Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Dorsey Hager was there, meeting one-on-one with hyperscalers and developers — some looking at Ohio for the first time — while the Columbus building trades are on pace to eclipse 20 million work hours this year, up from 4 million a decade ago.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Hager joins from Las Vegas to discuss what the data center boom means for Ohio and Central Ohio workers, reports of a possible new Honda plant in Union County that would extend the C/COBCTC's 50-year partnership with Honda, why Columbus's projected population doubling by 2050 makes sustained infrastructure investment non-negotiable and why he calls the Ohio gas tax suspension — estimated by Governor DeWine to cost the state transportation budget approximately $750 million — very bad policy at exactly the wrong moment.

Visit columbusconstruction.org for more.

Two conversations capturing what the union movement looks like right now — one tracing how remote animation workers at DreamWorks won their first collective bargaining agreement and one showing what the national data says about where the labor movement is headed.

Animation Guild TAG Local 839 IATSE field rep Mairghread Scott and DreamWorks character rigger and negotiating committee member JJ Jay discuss the first collective bargaining agreement covering DreamWorks remote workers, ratified August 21, 2026 with 97% in favor and 83% turnout. The contract delivers free single healthcare coverage through the Motion Picture Industry plan with a family cap of $50 per month regardless of family size, a 52% wage increase for the lowest-paid workers, an end to the practice of paying remote workers less based on where they live and an automatic employer retirement contribution of 6% of union base wages requiring no employee contribution. Jay said his personal healthcare savings under the contract amount to approximately $6,900 annually compared to what DreamWorks was offering non-union employees. Scott said the key to getting it done was workers who knew their worth and were willing to stand together.

Then, Illinois Economic Policy Institute economist Frank Manzo discusses the 12th Annual State of the Union Study, produced in coordination with the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The study found that the United States added more than 411,000 union members last year, the largest one-year surge since 2008, with union membership growing three times faster in states that protect collective bargaining rights than in states with so-called "right-to-work" laws. Workers in so-called "right-to-work" states earn 8% less than their peers in collective bargaining states after adjusting for cost of living, a gap that has widened since 2019. The highest union membership rates nationally are among Black workers, military veterans and workers with advanced degrees. And the Trump administration's attempt to revoke collective bargaining rights from more than one million federal workers drove a surge in public sector organizing that helped push the national total to its highest point in nearly two decades.

Visit animationguild.org for more from the Animation Guild and illinoisepi.org for the full State of the Union Study.

At Ellis Island in the early 1900s, the Bricklayers' union was advertising to arriving immigrants. The biggest selling point beyond wages was the eight-hour workday, because the workers coming over had been working 12- and 14-hour days. That was a union promise. The eight-hour workday, the 40-hour workweek and OSHA all exist because unions fought for them. Every American worker has benefited, union member or not.

On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Mechanical Insulators LMCT Executive Director Pete Ielmini discusses the LMCT's presence at the Association of Energy Engineers World Energy Conference and Expo in Orlando, where a live bare-pipe demonstration showed $300 to $400 in annual energy loss per uncovered foot and a game show format packed the room. He also updates the Federal Mechanical Insulation Act — passed in the House on the suspension calendar, four Senate co-signers and a closing legislative clock — and reflects on what the labor movement built for every worker in this country.

Visit mechanicalinsulatorslmct.com for more.

He spent eight and a half years writing for Jimmy Kimmel, went on strike twice with the Writers Guild and watched a well-organized union deliver real results. Then he went to medical school, became an ER doctor at UCLA, and watched conditions worsen every year for 11 years. Now he is one of the organizers behind UC Doctors United — an effort to unionize nearly 10,000 attending physicians across the University of California system, the only group at UCLA Health currently without union protection.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, UC Doctors United organizer Dr. Jacob Lentz discusses the organizing drive, why it is about patient care and not physician pay, what his Writers Guild experience taught him about what unions actually do and how he is making the case to colleagues who have spent careers being told unions are the problem.

Visit ucdoctorsunited.org for more.

A McKinsey report argued that 95% of a firm's value is produced by 5% of its workforce. An MIT professor spent years finding out what that means for the other 95%. His answer: approximately 35% of the entire US workforce is now employed with no employer intention of retaining them — building cleaners, security guards, travel nurses, freelance journalists, adjunct faculty and millions of W-2 workers in jobs their employers never intend to keep.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman discusses his book Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment, published by Harvard University Press in August 2026. He discusses why companies are making this shift, what AI will do to the numbers and why the evidence that unions make workers better off is clear.

Book available through Harvard University Press at hup.harvard.edu.

CSX reported $3.94 billion in quarterly revenue and approximately $1 billion in quarterly net earnings. Then it notified the union it plans to cut its maintenance of way workforce by 29% and defer capital track maintenance at the same time. Nine hundred system production employees will be furloughed by November 15. Human track inspections have been reduced by 40% in the past 90 days. Workers who find defects are being pressured not to report them. Jason Graham, one of today's guests, lives near East Palestine, Ohio.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, BMWED General Chairmen Brian Thompson and Jason Graham discuss what is happening at CSX, why no other Class 1 railroad is doing this at the same scale, what deferred track maintenance actually means and what it will take to stop it.

Visit bmwe.org for more.

A refinery worker responds to an eight-hour fire and is later diagnosed with PTSD. ExxonMobil does not record it as a workplace illness. OSHA cites them. The case goes to the Fifth Circuit. Three judges rule that OSHA never had authority to require mental health injury reporting in the first place — because the word illnesses in the 1970 OSHA Act might not have meant mental illness. The regulation they just invalidated has been on the books for 25 years. Congress never objected. Republican and Democratic administrations left it in place.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, labor lawyer Andrew Strom discusses what the Fifth Circuit actually decided in the ExxonMobil case, why a 25-year-old regulation can apparently be rewritten by three unelected judges, how employers nationwide use the Fifth Circuit as a destination court for challenges to labor and employment law and why OSHA should appeal to the Supreme Court but probably will not.

Visit onlabor.org for more.

A union member stands before a construction crew and tells his story. Raw. Personal. The crew that did not want to be there goes completely silent. And the phone rings a dozen times the next day, with workers saying, "I think I need help." That is what a stand-down looks like. That is what the Massachusetts Building Trades Recovery Council has been building for five years — and what other states are now asking how to replicate.

On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Massachusetts Building Trades Recovery Council Director Dan McNulty discusses the model: how tying recovery to union membership and work changes who seeks help and when, what stand-downs and contractor roundtables look like in practice, how free Narcan is being distributed through apprenticeship programs without hesitation and what any state building trades council needs to start its own recovery council.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Visit massbuildingtrades.org/recovery for more.

A union worker hands a coin to a colleague. On it: someone cares about you. Call or text 988. That act — started in the construction trades with poker chips, now at 150,000 coins distributed in the industry and heading into schools nationwide — is what the BCBS National Labor Office is building into a nationwide youth mental health campaign.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, BCBS National Labor Office Executive Director Merrilee Logue and consultant Catherine Raley join during Suicide Prevention Month to discuss the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, how the construction trades' poker chip program became the NLO's 988 Coin Campaign, why the act of handing someone a coin matters beyond the number on it and what BCBS has done to expand behavioral health access — including a 55% increase in in-network providers since 2020. They also address the 70% of employers who believe mental health coverage costs too much and why Logue says the country cannot afford not to address this.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Follow @BlueLabor on LinkedIn and X for more.

Two conversations connecting veteran service and senior advocacy to the November election — one previewing the October issue of The American Legion Magazine and one with an urgent message for every voter: check your registration now.

American Legion Director of Media and Communications Henry Howard previews the October issue, including the cover story by Alan Dowd tracing America's centuries-long commitment to freedom of the seas and why the Navy's current 293-ship fleet falls dangerously short of the 500 ships the DOD says it needs. He introduces new National Commander Jay Bowen, an Army Patriot missile veteran whose theme for his year of service is BPOTS — Be Part of the Solution — a message connecting individual action to veteran services and specifically to the Be the One veteran suicide prevention initiative. Training is free and open to everyone at betheone.org. He also discusses the American Legion Humvee sweepstakes, with entries open through December 19 at legion.org/sweepstakes.

Then, Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Director Rich Fiesta delivers a time-sensitive message: states are already sending mail-in ballots, the Supreme Court has kept injunctions in place against the Trump administration's executive order that would have directed the Postal Service to withhold ballots from voters not on a White House list and the window to fix a registration problem is closing. Go to vote.org now to confirm your status and polling location. Forty percent of voters over 65 voted by mail in 2024, the highest rate of any age group, which is why this fight mattered most for older Americans. Resources including the Alliance's congressional voting record going back to 2001 are available at retiredamericans.org.

If you or a veteran you know is struggling, call or text 988 or visit betheone.org. Visit legion.org and retiredamericans.org for more.