America’s Work Force Union Podcast

Two conversations connecting the ground-level work of organizing to the political moment that makes it possible — one tracing the first wall-to-wall unionization of an American opera company in more than 40 years and one taking the temperature of Ohio workers heading into a November election that could determine whether any of it gets easier.

Adam Da Ros, a member of both the organizing and negotiating committees for the American Guild of Musical Artists, discusses the Opera Colorado campaign from its first conversations in April 2023, through management's refusal to voluntarily recognize the union, through an NLRB hearing where management argued the chorus were volunteers rather than employees, to a November 2023 election that came back 91 to 8 in favor of AGMA. The new collective bargaining agreement raises the chorus minimum from approximately $500 per production for schedules of 100-plus hours to $21.50 per hour, establishes new minimum compensation with a 5% increase in year two and 3% in year three, brings previously unpaid preparation time and costume fittings into compensated hours and includes the artist-in-residence program under the AGMA umbrella. Da Ros said it is the first wall-to-wall opera company unionization in more than 40 years, and he hopes it inspires other performing arts groups to do the same.

Then, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga reports on Labor Day events from Lorain to Portsmouth and Youngstown to Cincinnati, where he found consistent energy and political frustration among workers who are not seeing their elected leaders address wages, childcare, rent, groceries or utilities. He previews the Ohio AFL-CIO biennial convention September 21 through 23 in Columbus — 140 years after the AFL was founded in that city — featuring guest speakers Dr. Amy Acton, Sherrod Brown and IUPAT International President Jimmy Williams Jr. and serving as the launch point for the Labor 2026 voter mobilization program. He addresses the Policy Matters Ohio report finding that lawmakers have allowed and in some ways created an economy where working people cannot get ahead and frames November as a choice between validating that direction or starting a new day.

Visit musicalartists.org for more from AGMA and ohioaflcio.org for more from the Ohio AFL-CIO.

If typical worker pay had kept pace with productivity over the past 45 years, today's typical paycheck would be roughly 40% larger. That income went to shareholders and corporate executives. A new Economic Policy Institute report finds that tripling union density to 30% — where Canada sits today, where the United States was before decades of attacks on collective bargaining — would shift $1.2 trillion annually back to working people, raise the median worker's pay by 14.5%, close racial wage gaps by more than one-third and produce annual wage increases ranging from $1,900 to $10,600 by state.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, EPI President Heidi Shierholz discusses the full report: what tripling union density would mean for worker pay, health insurance coverage and racial equity, two new EPI policy proposals including automatic bargaining rights at companies where CEO pay exceeds 100 times the median worker, the Faster Labor Contracts Act's bipartisan momentum in Congress and what states can do right now — including a finding that ensuring collective bargaining rights for all public sector workers alone would raise national union density from 9.9% to 14.4%.

Visit epi.org for the full report.

On Easter Sunday morning, April 19, 1914, the National Guard and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency set up a machine gun overlooking a Colorado miners' tent colony, murdered union leader Louis Tikas and two lieutenants who came out to negotiate a truce and burned the camp. Eleven children and two women died in one tent alone. They wanted an eight-hour workday and a safe workplace. The word redneck comes from striking West Virginia miners in 1921 who tied red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves against strikebreakers. It is a labor word.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen National VP Tim Tarrant joins the Labor 132 series to trace those moments in labor history and connect them to the fights happening right now: fall protection still missing at Metra Chicago, clean air fought for in Port Authority of New Jersey tunnels and the May 2026 Long Island Rail Road strike that shut down New York commuter service east of Manhattan for three days. His message on AI and technology: it is a worker's tool and must be used responsibly with workers, not as a replacement for them.

Visit brs.org for more.

They started organizing in 2019. COVID shut them down. They started again. Then again. Management took down their flyers, told nurses they could not discuss the union despite federal law protecting that right and threatened workers with suspension for wearing a badge reel that said Nurses United. In June 2026, more than 800 nurses at St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, voted 89% for SEIU Wisconsin.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, labor and delivery nurse Emily Berceau tells the full story of the multi-year organizing campaign at SSM Health, the management tactics nurses faced at every turn, what the first contract fight looks like now that the vote is won and what she would say to any worker going through their own organizing battle. Her answer: a union is made up of average workers pushing together for something better. Solidarity is power.

Visit seiuwi.org for more.

Her father came from Mexico as a teenager to work North San Diego County's strawberry fields, following her grandfather who was a bracero. Her mother spent 40 years as a nurse trying to organize her hospital, watched co-workers get retaliated against and voted for a union in her 40th year without ever working under that contract. Lorena Gonzalez became the first woman and first person of color to lead the California Federation of Labor Unions and authored three laws that changed conditions for every worker in the state.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, California Federation of Labor President Lorena Gonzalez joins as part of the Labor 132 series to discuss her personal story, the summer job handing out food to striking workers that shaped her view of labor courage, the landmark legislation she authored including statewide paid sick leave, farmworker overtime and criminal penalties for wage theft, California's 125th year as a labor federation, the growing presence of women in trades and labor leadership and why the current surge in public support for unions carries a special responsibility to stay earned.

Visit calaborfed.org for more.

Two Labor Day conversations that connect the fight for workers in Congress to the programs building the next generation of union construction workers — one making the legislative case for faster contracts, higher wages and union political power and one tracing a nationwide network of free apprenticeship readiness programs preparing people from every kind of background for union construction careers.

Congressional Labor Caucus co-founder and IBEW Local 351 member Don Norcross of New Jersey discusses the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which the House passed through a discharge petition, echoing Mary Norton's 1938 use of the same mechanism to advance the Fair Labor Standards Act almost 88 years earlier. He traces his path from a four-year IBEW apprenticeship to the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO presidency to the Public Officials with a Union Label initiative that placed more than 100 union members in public office across four New Jersey counties and spread nationally. He addresses Reagan's firing of the PATCO air traffic controllers as the turning point in modern labor history, what 70% public support for unions today actually reflects and why Amazon workers on Staten Island, who won their union election more than two years ago, still do not have a contract. His Labor Day message: labor creates all wealth, not the trillionaires.

Then, TradesFutures Executive Director Marina Zhavoronkova discusses the organization's network of more than 200 free apprenticeship readiness programs across 32 states, serving 7,700 participants last year, a threefold increase over five years. She covers the fastest-growing program segments including high schools and community colleges, a new statewide partnership launching the Multicraft Core Curriculum across all 15 Pennsylvania community colleges, women in construction and the Tradeswomen Built Nations conference, data center construction as a major driver of union job demand for program graduates and what the BLS AI exposure categories show about building trades occupations ranking among the lowest in relative AI exposure of all currently classified jobs.

Visit norcross.house.gov and laborcaucus.house.gov for more from Representative Norcross and tradesfutures.org for more from TradesFutures. Follow @NABTU for building trades updates.

The AFL-CIO had to add more digits to its Paywatch database this year just to fit one person's compensation package. S&P 500 CEOs averaged $22.8 million in 2025 without Elon Musk. His $158.3 billion Tesla package pushed the average to $340.1 million, approximately 1,700% higher than the prior year and the highest figure in Paywatch's 28-year history. The ratio of his pay to the median Tesla worker's pay: 2,522,203 to 1. Excluding Musk, the average CEO-to-worker ratio is 312-to-1. And workers' share of US national income fell to its lowest level since World War II.

On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond joins for the final First Friday with Fred before Labor Day 2026 to discuss what the 2025 Executive Paywatch report means for working people, why full-time employees at some of the country's largest employers are among the top recipients of Medicaid and SNAP and why the AFL-CIO is heading into this Labor Day genuinely optimistic, with a goal of 2 million new union members in the next five years described as a floor, not a ceiling.

Visit aflcio.org and paywatch.org for more.

A million people are projected to move to Central Ohio by 2050. Two Ohio Power Siting Board hearings drew nearly 100 speakers in one week. The outer belt needs more lanes. And the IBEW is preparing to blanket Columbus job sites with organizers and then sit workers down with contractors to place them on the same day.

On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Dorsey Hager delivers his monthly update covering the Fairfield and Asheville Ohio Power Siting Board hearings for two behind-the-meter energy centers serving data center campuses, Central Ohio's infrastructure gap as growth accelerates toward a million new residents by 2050, apprenticeship outreach to middle schools and high schools and the IBEW job blitz coming to Columbus that could be replicated across all building trades if it succeeds.

Visit columbusconstruction.org for more.

Two conversations that connect the fight for workers in the halls of Congress to the fight for workers on the streets of Cleveland — one making the legislative case for tipped wages, overtime pay and AI transparency and one tracing 55 years of a labor-rooted organization that has never stopped asking what workers need that nobody else is providing.

Congressional Labor Caucus co-chair and Culinary Workers Union Local 226 member Steve Horsford of Nevada discusses the Big Beautiful Bill's betrayal of tipped workers and his Tips Improvement Act to make tax relief permanent, the federal minimum wage frozen at $7.25 since 2009 and down 30% in purchasing power, the Double the Wage Act to require double pay after 40 hours, the PRO Act and Faster Labor Contracts Act and legislation requiring transparency on AI-related layoffs and hiring. He also shares the personal story behind his public service: an immigrant mother from Trinidad, a father shot and killed when he was 19 and a decade running the Culinary Training Academy before he ever ran for Congress. His Labor Day message: the problems workers face are not personal failures, and when workers fight, they win.

Then, United Labor Agency Executive Director Dave Megenhardt traces 55 years of worker-centered service in Cleveland, from a 1971 kidney dialysis program seeded by the Cleveland AFL-CIO, the UAW and the Teamsters through durable medical equipment, workforce development, housing rehabilitation and the placement of more than 2,000 workers across Northeast Ohio last year. He addresses what deindustrialization's legacy of abandoned communities without transition plans should teach us about AI-driven job displacement, the current federal grant landscape and the ULA's role in seeding Policy Matters Ohio. His Labor Day message: look back on a year of hard work, recognize your contribution to the economy and always fight for someone else.

Visit horsford.house.gov and laborcaucus.house.gov for more from Representative Horsford and ulagency.org for more from the United Labor Agency.

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.