Listen: Sara Nelson Calls Out Air Traffic Chaos; Says There Needs to Be a General Strike

Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson.

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By Bob Hennelly

On this week’s edition of Pacifica Radio’s We Decide: America at the Crossroads with Jenna Flanagan we’re talking about how the Trump/Musk junta is doubling down on dismantling democracy, unions and due process.

Sara Nelson, head of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA argues workers should up the ante with a general strike. Indeed, the regime’s full-court press to eliminate collective bargaining for federal workers bodes poorly for all workers Nelson insists.

Nelson also observes that the widely-reported staffing and equipment issues plaguing the nation’s air travel sector can be traced back to President Reagan’s summary firing in 1981 of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers.

Moreover, Trump’s charge that the January mid-air collision over the Potomac between a passenger jet and military helicopter that killed 67 people was the fault of DEI was entirely baseless and undermined the nation’s internationally-respected crash investigation process. What Trump’s remarks did accomplish was distract attention from the chronic understaffing at the FAA that was made worse by the junta’s indiscriminate firing of civil servants including at the TSA and FAA.

We also have May Day protest audio postcards from Pacifica affiliates KCSB, Santa Barbara, CA. WPPM, Philadelphia; WEFT, Champaign-Urbana ILL; WGOT, Gainesville, FL; KAKU, Maui, HI; KGLP, Gallop, NM; KBOO, Portland, OR. 

Jenna also speaks with Dr. Roona Ray, a New York City physician, who spoke to a May Day rally that drew well over 10,000 protestors to lower Manhattan about how she was fired from her municipal hospital job when she was nine months pregnant even though she was in a union. She describes how speaking in front of such a massive crowd for the first time was validating. 

This week’s show also looks at how the deepening crisis of affordability for the tens of millions of households that were already struggling and may have voted for Trump because he repeatedly promised to beat back inflation—but are suffering mightily. 

As Washington DC investigative reporter Dave Levinthal sees it, Trump’s fixation on tariffs has eclipsed his interest in the price of eggs.

Dr. Stephanie Hoopes, the national director of the United Way’s ALICE project weighs in on how inadequate the  federal poverty measure is in a country where so many families forgo essentials regularly and the cost of living varies so greatly. 

Tal Frieden, with ALIGN Campaign for Rose Up New York, discusses a recent Columbia University study that found 65 percent of New Yorkers earning wages $16 to $25 an hour experienced material hardship in 2023— meaning on that income they sometimes, or even often, ran out of money or food between paychecks and fell behind on things  like rent and utilities or put off a visit to the doctor.

Listen to the entire show below: