September 7 - Labor and Left and Right Wing Populism in the Election Season; The Future of Labor and Capitalism; An Historical Perspective on Labor

Full Program

Part 1

On this Labor Day weekend we begin with an analysis of how American workers might be celebrating the end of summer on Labor Day with vacations, given that about 56% of American workers took weeklong vacations last year, an all-time low from the steady decline that began in the 1980’s when more than 80% took weeklong vacations. Harold Meyerson, an editor-at-large of The American Prospect and a weekly columnist for The Washington Post joins us to discuss his latest article at The American Prospect “A Happy Labor Day – Really” and examine how both left wing and rightwing populism are emerging in this election season as a result of stagnant wages and lack of economic opportunity.

Part 2

Then we speak with Dr. Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who studies labor, information technology, the organization of work, global economic integration and trade. We discuss the state of working America and the decline of wages and unions since the late 1970’s and whether manufacturing jobs could be returned as the service economy takes over from the manufacturing economy. We also examine the future of American capitalism as more and more wealth is extracted by the top 1% while less and less wealth trickles down to the bottom 99%.

Part 3

Then finally we get an historical perspective on labor, income disparity and race and gender in the workplace with Leon Fink, a professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He edits the journal “Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas” and we discuss whether growing income equality today is worse than it was in the previous Gilded Age and how much globalization has lowered wages while almost all of the benefits of increased productivity go to the top.