Steve greenhouse, thank you so much for coming in to talk about your new book, beaten down, worked up. It was a real pleasure to read it and i look forward to having time to talk to you about it. Guest thank you for your kind words, congressman. Great to speak with you. Host when i think about this book i think of it as having three major parts. After you introduce the situation now you do a really good job, i think, of talking about, through stories about how workers struggled, really they themselves built the middle class in this country to a great extent by organizing, by striking, by bargaining and through diversity and by demanding policy changes and then you go through a lot of the hard times of what i call the reagan era which i think we are still in where companies and starting with the president of the United States really have attacked workers all hot and their unions and then you tell hopeful stories about different creative and innovative ways that workers have been organizing and unions and other forms and make policy recommendations. One of the things i have to say is a lot of books like this are criticized because they come up short on the policy recommendations but i hope we get into that because you really made quite a view, i thought, interesting suggestions on what might be done to restore the voice and power of workers in this country. Why dont you start by laying out where you see things right now and what is the status of working people in this country and their ability to shape their own lives at work . Guest sure. I covered labor and race for 19 years at the New York Times in one of my concerns and interviewing people all over the nation is that so many people had no idea what unions are, what unions do and how unions helped bring us the 40 hour workweek and bring us pensions and theres a Bumper Sticker unions for folks that brought us the weekend. I wanted to explain to people unions have achieved a whole lot in American History that now they are in decline and have been taking on the chin and as a result things are considerably worse for workers, i believe, then was the case 30, 40 years ago. I think far too few americans realize that compared that the American Workers have it bad in many ways compared with workers and other industrial nations and im very basic things but we are the only industrial nation that does not have a law guaranteeing all workers paid parental leave, paid maternal leave and we are the only industrial nations that do not guarantee all workers paid vacation in a 28 nations of the European Union all work as a guarantee for four weeks paid vacation instead of the six weeks in france and for decades now workers have been suffering terrible weight, stagnation all corporate profits have reached record levels and wall street is again at record levels. A lot of workers get in your gut that something is broken and then they are frustrated and in my book i tried to explain why things have gone south for workers in many ways. Worker power in the United States is arguably the weakest its been in decades and the percentage of workers one in ten workers are in unions and thats down from one in three when unions were at their peak and unions and certainly unions have faults but despite those faults the unions have played a key role in building the middle class and helping give workers a voice whether on job safety or pensions or im stopping bullying by bosses and unions have played a key role in washington on an acting and making Social Security more generous but in recent years unions have been on the defensive and Corporate Power has really trumped union power in many ways so i think we, as a nation, have to figure out a way to give workers more power to help create a fair nation and end wage stagnation. For example, we have not raised the federal minimum wage in over a decade and thats the longest time in American History that the minimum wage has not been increased. I submit and argued that that is because workers have so worker power that we in congress are unable to pervade persuade members of congress to raise minimum wage and its hard for millions of americans to live on 7. 25 which is the minimum wage for one of the keys of the book is to educate leaders about the problems workers have and look at strategies to try to increase power for workers to help create a more prosperous nation for millions of americans and millions of workers. Host right. What i think to a certain extent a lot of people dont even realize how few rights they have paid for example, one of your suggestions is that we might go away from our Current System and almost all states, i think, except montana in which workers can be fired for as leonard hanh said, the judge many years ago, a good reason, batteries and or no reason at all. Basically you have no right to your job in this country and you suggest going towards a just cause system where workers could be fired if they did something wrong or not just because the boss doesnt like who you are going out with. They could fire you for that. Or anything like that. Most workers dont think that could happen to them until it does. Host sometimes after as a reporter i get a call for someone on the blue same my boyfriend got fired yesterday at work because he came in two minutes late or because his boss was angry about his attitude or that he wasnt smiling and they say isnt that illegal and i say, dont you understand the United States has at will employment mean your employer can fire you for any reason or no reason except specifically illegal race discrimination. People dont realize that their jobs can be precarious and very uncertain and to my mind one of the big problems is that workers dont have enough power and they are scared to exercise their voice at work and i write about the Upper Big Branch mining disaster were more than a dozen workers were killed on the workers knew about the dangers in the mind but they were so scared of speaking up that they didnt speak up about the dangerous gas that was filling the minds and the mine exploded and the workers died and worker voice is way too weak and workers are scared to speak out. Some people argue that we should move from an at will implement to just cause so that workers could only be fired for illegitimate reason and a just cause a system which certainly makes workers more willing to speak up and they safety problems or when there encountering Sexual Harassment on the job. Host the other issue you mention, raising minimum wage is unbelievable that weve gone this long in this country without a raise in the minimum wage. As you know, the house and the house we passed a raise wage act which would raise the minimum wage in the United States the 15 an hour by 2025 gradually over the next five years or so and we would end the practice of having sub minimum wages for tipped workers who are disproportionately women and people of color and they are taking advantage of and that would put millions and lines of dollars into poor peoples pockets working peoples pockets and workers that i think your point is not have had the power in our politics and in washington and state capitals to just get a decent shake in the United States and in recent years. Guest one think that always kills me is i look at the editorial pages the place about big labor that is supposedly powerful and who is powerful and big and i saw that in the 2016 Campaign Cycle business gave more than 3. 4 billion in their nations which is more than 16 as much [inaudible] according to a respected nonperson group, centers for responsive politics, each year in Washington Court prince spent just under three laying dollars on lobbying which is more than 60, which spent 48 million and that explains a lot of the problems we are seeing in washington so it was weird how congress rushed to enact a 1 trillion tax cut for business when corporations were making record profits [inaudible conversations] how extremely get before we get in a different direction . Guest absolutely. And congress will help explain why too many folks in congress, the senate for instance is a donothing minimum wage because they are listening to their corporate donors. Host i want to talk about these policy ideas but i just want to emphasize to our viewers that i at least got so much out of this book from your story and i think its a great part of the book, really that the bulk of the book is telling the story workers that today but also throughout American History and so i want to ask you, dont you think that a lot of the stories you tell from hundred years ago say have a lot of relevance to today so why dont you talk a little bit about the uprising of the 20000, for example, tell us about that story because i thought that one had a lot of relevance to a lot of the struggles that workers go through today and even a lot of the issues that people would think thats not just about work but issues about immigrant rights and the rights of people of color in society and minority groups. Guest happy to. Ive read a lot of labor histories and theres been a character who is fascinated me over the years and her name is clara and she was born in ukraine and was jewish and her father was very religious and she worked writing a lot of people and relatives have moved to new york and she would write letters to them and she was very illiterate and this horrible programs in the area and her family moved to new york from ukraine and shes a very bright young lady and hoping to be a doctor someday but when she arrived in new york she only spoke yiddish and did not have a High School Education so what did she do . She worked in a sweatshop. She was appalled at the conditions for it she said i often worked from 7 00 a. M. Until 7 00 p. M. When i go into work before the sun came up and i leave work after. Host and six or seven days a week. Guest right, right. And some of the bosses would sexually harass the women sometimes they would have to pay and they be rushed, not to use be in the bathroom for more than a minute or two and they often had to pay for their needle and thread at work and sometimes they had to pay five cents a week to use Drinking Water when they were just making five dollars a week and she thought this is appalling so she became an activist and said im not going to take this. This young woman in her late teens, early 20s became one of the most prominent worker activists and people got fed up and started going on strike and there were long strikes at one, two garment factories and there was a decision there was a huge meeting saying should we have a strike of garment workers to try to put pressure on the factories and there was a big debate in congress and the first [inaudible] was presiding over the meeting and he was temporizing and said i dont know if we should have a strike and i dont know if women workers are dedicated and off to their jobs and carl, 23 years old and said i think its time to call the general strike and im tired of being a pro working woman struggling they today and the place went bonkers and bananas and everyone stood up and that began what was the largest strike to date by women in American History to this day. They were not calling for a 40 hour workweek but a 52 hour workweek. One thing that gets me is people seem to think that the workweek was handed down by god and i explained in the book it was one by struggle by thousands and millions of workers in their unions and in the uprising of the strike that lasted two months in the dead of winter a lot of these women mainly jewish and italian immigrants their families went hungry for many weeks but after two months they won and the one the 50 hour work week down from 56 hours and one for right no longer to pay for needle and thread and most of the factories they won the right to join a union and have union recognition. One of the few factories the receive refuse to recognize wa was factory and two years later there was this horrendous tragedy there where one of 46 workers died in the fire. Host but here you have the story of a teenager and woman in her 20s and many of the workers were teenagers or very young and overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly immigrants and they did not speak english but spoke italian and yiddish and they were despised by the high society, even though some high Society Women ended up coming to their aid but in general you dont have time to suture the details but they were beaten up some of them were beaten up, physically by men goons sent in by their employers and so my question to you is today when we have these inspiring movements that we should stop mass incarceration and black lives matter that immigrants from immigrant lives matter and that the. [background noises] kids are saying by the way other undocumented people and the young people are out here in the movement about Climate Change but when i read your account i thought how inspiring for young people and activists today who are fighting for rights in this country but i dont think in their minds they are thinking i better look to the early 19th Century Labor Movement for inspiration so when you think of this . Guest one is solitary support and people working collectively or acting collectively to lift themselves up and to improve their wages and improve their climate and help fair treatment of africanamericans like black lives matter but also stress that agency is important. Individuals need to be willing to stick their neck out and stand up and try to demand justice. In the uprising of 20000 and what was crazy that it one point they broke 11 of her ribs and she was living how many ribs do we have . She did not even want to tell advance she thought they would not let her go out and speak on a soapboxes and alida strikes and then also there were incidents literally old papers like the new york trip explained that reporters got the thugs and the goons would be the jesus out of these young women and the police would calm and arrest these women and let the thugs go and the police were so onesided back then and it showed how the establishment and the police on the courts were so aligned against the workers but even despite that the workers are able to win the strike and in the book i write about modernday workers who use their agency to fight and i talked about the kansas city worker terrence who held to fulltime jobs and a little like clara he left for work at six in the morning and comes back at midnight and had three daughters and he would leave home in the morning before they woke up and he would return after the second job after he had gone to sleep and he complained and his daughter complained that he worked so hard trying to make ends meet that he did not see his daughters most of the week and for a while they became homeless when from the hours of his job were cut off and it was crazy that someone who is busting his bottom, can hardly make ends meet. He became an activist in the 515 and one of the leaders in the 515. As i explained in the book i was very first journalist in the United States to write about the 515 and when it began seven years ago and the workers were demanding 15 an hour i said that is super ambitious and thats pie in the sky and here we are seven years later and new york, california, illinois, maryland, massachusetts, district of columbia have all enacted the 50dollar minimum wage so it shows that when workers are willing to stand up and individuals are willing to stick their neck out they can achieve big change and a lot of lessons today are activists whether its climate activists for black lives matter or made to womens activists is that they learn from the Labor Movement of old and i write about how the Labor Movement of old whether in the uprising of the 20000 or the sitdown strike in michigan when workers stand up and come together they can achieve historical change and as i explained in my chapter on the teacher strikes in West Virginia and oklahoma and arizona and more recently in los angeles and chicago the teachers were tired of being beaten down and they said we need to do something not just to increase our pay but ensure the schools are getting the funding they need and the classsize does not balloon and that we have enough money to buy modern textbooks and the teacher strikes have sent a message to the nation about how worker power has affected trade unions and can help build a fairer nation. Host lets talk about strikes as a mechanism because they were very important in building the middle class in this country and they have fallen into disuse. Talk to us share both information and stories in the books about how many strikes there were in the 50s, 60s, 70s like that and how both because of the law and weakness in labor perhaps they have fallen into nearly complete disuse and tell us what your thoughts are about today when we are starting to see the teachers but also Hotel Workers and the autoworkers at gm recently, right now my kid is on strike as a graduate employee at harvard. Hes ata so tell us about the sweep and the strikes in the role in history and how you see it going forward. In the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s there were far more strength than there are today and in the 1970s there are 300 large strikes and a year and only about 13 far, far left and workers have become intimidated. A lot of that happen in the 1980s but in the 50s and 60s there were fairly good cooperation between employers and unions, employers were very prosperous after world war ii and the nations economy was growing and they gave contracts and come to 1980s the United States felt pressure from globalization with imports of german cars and Japanese Cars with imports of clothing and tvs and radios and there was a recession in the 1980s and those two things put unions under pressure and made employers folder about confronting unions and demanding concessions. Host but reagan there you go. In the 1980 tell that story. Guest so shortly after he became president in 1981 the air Traffic Control went on strike de