America’s Work Force Union Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.