On this episode, President Obama raises the roof at the AFL-CIO annual convention, discussing his positions on issues like workers' rights, the environment, jobs, health care reform and education.

On this episode, we talk with People's World labor editor, John Wojcik, about the coverage of labor and working class issues in that publication. When the corporate media is full of hype, you can get the facts at PeoplesWorld.org.

When I found this story, it seemed almost the opposite of everything that my father had ever told me when I was growing up, and that in itself was compelling as well. It was the really the flip side, the hidden side of American history, especially of St. Louis history.

As the debate rages for President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care reform bill, Americans are gaining quite an education. The public now knows, for example, that health related industries, including insurance companies, do not operate for profit in other industrialized countries, and that accounts for the much higher cost of health care here.

On this episode, we play our recent interview with Teresa Albano, editor of the Peoples World, peoplesworld.org. Albano discussed the PW's editorial philosophy, it's role in reporting on labor and democratic struggles, and some of the big changes it is undergoing this fall.

It's September 7th, 2009. On this episode, we celebrate Labor Day by playing a portion of our recent interview with labor historian and activist Rosemary Feurer, author of the groundbreaking book Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950.

Atlanta City Council candidates, including incumbents, challengers, and candidates for open seats answered questions at a forum held by Georgia STAND-UP Alliance at the IBEW Auditorium on Tuesday, September 01, 2009.

Unveiling a new "American values agenda" this week, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union launched a new coalition of labor unions, worker advocacy groups, environmental groups, faith-based communities, and consumer protection organizations to "hold Walmart accountable to its workers, our communities and the planet."

Considering all of the political complexities of the new era we have entered, President Obama has done a remarkable job in his short time in office. Those of us on the left need to look ahead and refuse to let differences with some of the President’s decisions keep us from seeing the historic and positive changes that are happening.

Legislation to help the Postal Service solve its projected $7 billion deficit in the year ending Sept. 30, and a similar deficit in the following 12 months, hit a major problem caused by a Radical Right GOP senator and inattentive Democrats – a rock in the road which led the nation’s two biggest postal unions to say they may have to reverse course and oppose the measure.

For anyone who loves the labor movement, it's not unreasonable today to ask whether we've lost our way. California's huge healthcare local is in trusteeship, its leading organizing drive in a shambles. SEIU's international is at war with its own members, and now with UNITE HERE, whose merger of garment and hotel workers is unraveling.

The old craft union oriented conservative labor history taught in the first half of the 20th century was essentially narrow political history of trade unions separate from social struggles and the larger political context. Philip S. Foner and others pioneered in the 1930s and 1940s the development of an anti-capitalist history of American labor.

To little fanfare, the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25 per hour July 24th. It was the third scheduled raise in the minimum wage since 2007. A higher federal minimum wage is the best kind of economic stimulus for working families, say workers’ rights advocates and even some business owners.

According to Economic Policy Institute economist Josh Bivens, after a contraction of the Gross Domestic Product, the measure of all economic activity, over the past two quarters of an annualized rate of negative six percent, the GDP for this past quarter will come in at about negative 1.5 percent. Without the President's economic recovery act, the number would have been three times higher, he reports.

The legacy of the Bush Administration has been a perfect storm of economic devastation – in finance, housing and jobs. The challenge of fixing this economic mess is enormous – and urgent. Creating good jobs that cannot be outsourced is central to the solution.

On this episode, President Obama fires back against Republican obstructionism of health reform. The minimum wage goes up July 24th to $7.25 per hour. And we play excerpts of a recent interview with Dan Kovalik a United Steelworkers union staffer who traveled to Honduras earlier this month to observe pro-democracy protests against the military coup.

A disappointing unemployment report earlier this month that saw the loss of 467,000 jobs in the month of June and a rise in the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, has caused predictions of a nearing economic turnaround to fall flat in recent months.

To cheers from leaders of the labor movement, a public option as part of health reform cleared a major legislative hurdle, July 15, with passage of the Quality, Affordable Health Coverage for All Americans Act in the Senate HELP Committee.

Workers Uniting, representing 3.5 million workers in North America, the UK and Ireland, unequivocally condemns the military coup and kidnapping of the democratically elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya.