Category: USA

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Canada Political Eh-conomy Radio Unions USA Workers

Labour’s fate and revival in the US and Canada

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This week, two labour historians talk about their new books on Canadian and US workers’ movements in the 20th century, books which offer important and practical lessons for unions today.

First up, I speak with Barry Eidlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University, about his just-published book, Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada. The book seeks to explain the divergence between the Canadian and US labour movements since the 1960s and we discuss everything from the recent Janus decision to how the US labour law regime obscures the fundamental power imbalances in the workplace to how Canadian unions still need internal revival despite their (somewhat) better position.

Next, I talk with Christo Aivalis, Postdoctoral Fellow in History at the University of Toronto, about his book, The Constant Liberal: Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Organized Labour and the Canadian Social Democratic Left. The title speaks for itself but the relationship between Trudeau and labour foreshadows how neoliberalism would be implemented in Canada in later decades and holds lessons for how labour should orient politically as well as fight Trudeau the younger today.

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Political Eh-conomy Radio Unions USA Workers

West Virginia teachers strike to win

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This episode is dedicated to the recent, inspiring and victorious teachers’ strike in West Virginia. West Virginia teachers went out on strike in late February over low pay and continued attacks on the health insurance plan they share with all other state workers. They stayed out despite an initial deal signed by the Governor and their leadership and ultimately won a 5% raise not just for themselves but for all public employees in West Virginia as well as promised reforms to their insurance plan, known as the PEIA. I spoke with two teacher leaders from West Virginia and an expert on teacher unionism to get some perspective on how this strike came about, how it won and what others can learn from its example.

My first guest is Emily Comer, a high school Spanish teacher in South Charleston, West Virginia; she is a rank-and-file activist in her local of the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers and co-author of this excellent piece on the strike. I next speak with Lois Weiner, professor in the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education at New Jersey City University and a specialist in urban teacher education and teacher unionism. Her research actively supports teachers who want to transform their unions; she wrote this piece on the strike that I reference in my interview. My final guest is Brandon Wolford, local president of the WVEA in Mingo Country. The WVEA is the West Virginia Education Association and alongside the AFT it is one of the two big teachers’ unions in West Virginia; Mingo County has a storied place in labour history as an epicentre in the Mine Wars and mining struggles throughout the 20th century.

As always, remember to subscribe above to get new episodes as they appear, rate the show on iTunes and donate to help keep this good thing going. Thanks!

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Canada Political Eh-conomy Radio Trade Unions USA

The problems with progressive free trade and a divided labour movement

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…And we’re back to regularly-scheduled programming. Apologies for the podcasting hiatus to (now really faithful) listeners; I hope to be back to regular episodes once again. I’m restarting the show this week with two great guests. First up, I speak with Angella MacEwen about the on-going NAFTA re-negotiations and whether Trudeau’s much-vaunted “progressive free trade” holds water. Angella has been a guest on the show before and is an economist at the Canadian Labour Congress. Speaking of the Labour Congress, my second guest, David Bush, looks at the turmoil that led up and has resulted from Unifor leaving Canada’s house of labour. Dave is an editor at Rankandfile.ca; he writes frequently and incisively on the Canadian labour movement.

As always, remember to subscribe above to get new episodes as they appear, rate the show on iTunes and donate to help keep this good thing going. Thanks!

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Minimum wage Ontario Political Eh-conomy Radio Unions USA Workers

What do we do when we Fight for $15

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On this episode, three guests provide some perspective on the politics and the economics of the Fight for $15. First, I speak with Jonathan Rosenblum, campaign director at the first Fight for $15 at SeaTac Airport, just outside Seattle, Washington. Workers there won an immediate raise to $15 via a municipal ordinance in 2015. Jon is also an author and has recently published Beyond 15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement. Next, I move closer to home and talk to Sheila Block, economist at the Ontario office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Sheila lays out the context for the $15 and Fairness campaign in Ontario, one of changing work and a weaker labour movement. Rounding out the show, economics writer and researcher Nathan Tankus returns to the podcast to discuss the economic arguments in favour of raising the minimum wage. We go beyond the narrow issue of  minimum wages to broader challenges to “textbook economics.”

As always, remember to subscribe above to get new episodes as they appear, rate the show on iTunes and donate to help keep this good thing going. Thanks!

 

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Poland Political Eh-conomy Radio USA Workers

Women on strike in the US and Poland

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For International Women’s Day, two interviews on women’s protests and strikes, in the USA and in Poland.

My first guest is Barbara Smith. Barbara is an icon of the US women’s movement, particularly it’s Black radical wing. She helped establish Black women’s studies as a discipline, was a founding member of the Combahee River Collective in the 1970s, helped establish Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and went on to run and win an insurgent campaign against the Democrats for a seat on Albany city council. She is presently on the National Planning Committee of the International Women’s Strike USA, which is bringing a much-needed radicalism to this year’s International Women’s Day in the US.

My second guest is Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska. Joanna is completing her PhD in psychology in Krakow and is a leading member of Razem, the new left-wing party in Poland that narrowly missed out on parliamentary representation in the 2015 elections that brought the reactionary PiS (or Law and Justice) party to power. She was among the organizers of last October’s women’s strike in Poland that brought a reinvigorated women’s movement out onto the streets and stopped a tightening of Poland’s already-barbaric anti-abortion law.

As always, remember to subscribe to get new episodes as they appear, rate the show on iTunes and donate to help keep this going. Thanks!

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Political Eh-conomy Radio USA

Don’t mourn, organize! Sarah Jaffe on organizing before and after Trump

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You could almost hear the whole world hold its breath as the night of November 8th dragged on and Donald Trump’s march towards the presidency became clearer. While it may be trite, Joe Hill’s famous dictum “Don’t mourn; organize!” rings true today. My guest, journalist and author Sarah Jaffe, is very well placed to help us start thinking about how to do this in the age of Trump.

Her book Necessary Trouble, released just a few months ago, catalogues in great journalistic detail the post-crisis rise of oppositional movements in the US from Occupy Wall Street to the Fight for 15 to Black Lives Matter. The necessary trouble she writes about just took on a new urgency. Sarah gives her account of the present and possible future for nascent left movements and organizations in the US.

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Europe Government Municipal Political Eh-conomy Radio USA

When the left takes the city

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This week, the focus is on experience of left parties and organizations at the municipal level. Although the left has still exercised only limited political power in many places since the financial crisis, some cities have seen left projects come to power or build new institutions in interesting ways. My two guests shed light on two examples of municipal socialism in Europe and North America.

First, Yusef Quadura describes the experience of Barcelona en Comu. In 2015, this new left coalition took control of the municipal government in Barcelona. Led by the housing activist Ada Colau, the party did what Podemos couldn’t do nationally and garnered enough support to govern with the intention of implementing a left program, at least at the municipal level. To get a sense of the plans, accomplishments and challenges faced by Barcelona en Comu just over a year into its mandate, I spoke with Yusef, a member Barcelona en Comu’s international group. Yusuf is also part of the party’s co-ordinating committee in the Gracia district, where we met and talked over coffee (excuse the ambient noise), and a substitute counsellor for the Gracia district council.

My second guest is Kali Akuno, a leader within Cooperation Jackson, a municipal organization far beyond just a political party in Jackson, Mississippi. Although the group elected the radical Chokwe Lumumba as mayor of Jackson in 2014 (before he died tragically only a year into his term), electoral politics is only a small, supporting part of Cooperation Jackson’s mission. Kali describes what this network of worker-run cooperatives, party and movement congealed into one is up to and some of challenges it faces.

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Economic theory USA

Beltway Bullshit, my interview with JW Mason on Bernie’s economics

My interview with JW Mason on how wonk critics of Sanders’ economic ideas reinforce low expectations was transcribed for Jacobin under the great title, “Beltway Bullshit.”

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Michal Rozworski: There’s been a big debate recently around Bernie Sanders’s economic ideas. It was precipitated by Gerald Friedman’s claim that Sanders’s plans would lead to 5 percent nominal economic growth over a certain period, substantial working- and middle-class income growth, and massive job creation. Pretty quickly, liberal economists like Paul Krugman or former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors attacked this paper as unrealistic. What is your argument here?

JW Mason: So far, until now I think in the campaign the core questions of macroeconomic policy — whether we can or should want to see a higher level of GDP and employment or faster growth going forward — haven’t really been central on the Democratic side and Jerry’s paper really raised those issues.

Now I don’t think we want to get caught up in the specific strengths or weaknesses of that paper or the plausibility of particular numbers. I think that there are some problems with the paper. If you were to do the same exercise more carefully you would probably come up with lower numbers.

I think it would be foolish to defend the specific estimates that Friedman put out there, but I also don’t think that there is any real need to do so because the fundamental issue, as you say, is not this number or that number. Obviously things evolve under the pressure of events.

Economic forecasting is a very imprecise science in the best case. The question is whether there is good reason to think there is space for a substantially more expansionary policy. Is there good reason to think that a big expansion of public spending could substantially boost GDP and employment?

And I think that there the answers are clearly yes. This paper and the debate that it has sparked has actually been very productive in getting people to engage that question and getting a number of more mainstream Democratic-associated economists to agree that there is actually space for substantial additional expansionary policy.

What does this debate say about the diminished expectations about the economy that we have? Is this what you’re saying that it’s fundamentally about?

That is what it’s about. The position on the other side, the CEA chairs and various other people who’ve been the most vocal critics of these estimates, has been implicitly or explicitly: “This is as good as we can do.”

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Economic theory Housing Political Eh-conomy Radio USA Welfare state

Defending Bernie-nomics and debunking the housing market

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This week, I interview two guests on fairly different topics linked by the fact that they both give very effective debunkings of some mainstream economic thinking. First, I speak with JW Mason, economics professor at John Jay College in New York City, about the debate that has erupted around Bernie Sanders’ economic program. JW argues convincingly that the criticism of Sanders from mainstream liberal economists is about managing and keeping a lid on regular people’s expectations for the economy. The critics are effectively saying “this is the best we can do” even when millions are condemnded to poverty and shitty jobs. Be sure to check out his posts (1, 2 and 3), which are among the best on this debate.

Second, I speak with Nathan Tankus, a writer also based in New York City, on why housing is so unaffordable in large cities even amidst massive condo building booms. Nathan goes through the history of his Chelsea neighbourhood in NYC and its long process of gentrification as a way of drawing some conclusions about why the housing market is so screwed up. It turns out this market doesn’t work like the model described in Economics 101 textbooks. For further reading on the topic, Nathan suggests Bob Fitch (especially The Assassination of New York), Doug Henwood and Michael Hudson.

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Canada Inequality USA

Will Sanders’ rise be felt in Canada?

Co-written with Derrick O’Keefe and originally published at Ricochet.

Even if he’s really only offering a pragmatic form of social democracy, Sanders has created a political space in the mainstream left that’s sorely missing in Canada. His insurgent campaign for the Democratic Party nomination has put inequality and systemic injustice front and centre in the United States.

Policy proposals aside, merely having the word “socialism” back on the agenda in the United States signals a massive shift. Compare Sanders’ unabashed use of the term to recent NDP history.

Canada’s traditional social democratic party has spent recent years downplaying and scrubbing away the last vestiges of socialism from its public presentation. Under pressure from party leaders and bureaucrats, the NDP removed all but one reference to it from its constitution in 2013. The s-word is now only mentioned in passing in the party preamble.

It’s useful to take a broader view than just the recent botched campaign and the party itself. For years, the NDP’s leadership and top advisors have taken their cues from their counterparts in control of the Democratic Party — an electoral machine that has been effectively captured by a small coterie of the rich and powerful.

Continue reading “Will Sanders’ rise be felt in Canada?”