America’s Work Force Union Podcast

BMA Media Group
  • 4.7 (55)
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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.

  1. 1d ago

    AFL-CIO's Fred Redmond on Election Protectors and the 2 Million Goal

    94% of workers say their paychecks are not keeping up with the cost of living. Four in five say politicians are not showing up for them. The AFL-CIO's response is 50,000 trained election protectors deployed in yellow vests at battleground-state polling locations, a worker-first endorsement standard that holds Democrats and Republicans equally accountable, and one of the largest political ground games the federation has mounted in many years. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond joins for the first installment of Friday with Fred to discuss the unanimous AFL-CIO Executive Council position on the November 3rd election, the election protection program running through at least seven days after the election, the 2 million new member organizing goal set at the June convention that Redmond describes as the floor not the ceiling and why seven in ten Americans have supported unions for five consecutive years. Visit aflcio.org for more and read Liz Shuler's State of the Workers address.

  2. 2d ago

    C/COBCTC's Dorsey Hager on Data Centers, Honda and Ohio's Gas Tax

    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.

  3. 3d ago

    Animation Guild on DreamWorks Win and ILEPI on the Union Membership Surge

    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.

  4. 4d ago

    Pete Ielmini on Energy Conservation and the Federal Mechanical Insulation Act

    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.

  5. 5d ago

    UC Doctors United's Jacob Lentz on Organizing Physicians at UC Health

    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.

  6. Sep 25

    MIT's Paul Osterman on Disposable Workers and a New Employment Crisis

    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.

  7. Sep 24

    BMWED on CSX Cutting Track Workers While Reporting Record Profits

    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.

  8. Sep 23

    Andrew Strom on the Fifth Circuit's OSHA Mental Health Ruling

    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.

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About

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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