Listen: D.C. On The Brink/Laborers Fight For $40, Focus On Freelancers
Labor fights for passage of the “Construction Justice Act.”
By Bob Hennelly
In Gaza, the Guardian is reporting that the Israeli military is pressing on with its siege of Gaza City even as Donald Trump floats what he claims is a breakthrough deal toward a ceasefire. Over the last 13 days, Israeli forces have intensified their strike of Gaza City systematically demolishing one residential apartment building after another to force Palestinians civilians to leave their homes.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have complied but many others are unable to flee either because they are ill, disabled, too frail or without the resources to leave the beleaguered city, reported the Guardian.
Our Monday morning panel with James Henry and Dr. Joe Wilson assess the global moment and the looming federal government shutdown as Congressional Democrats vow to press for concessions from the GOP over plans to cut out the federal subsidies that millions of Affordable Care Act participants rely upon.
Henry, a Yale Global Justice Fellow, attorney, economist and investigative journalist, and Wilson, labor historian, and biographer of A. Philip Randolph, discuss the candidacy of Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani with Mayor Eric Adams out of the race.
In our B Block, we hear from Oona Adams, director of organizing for Laborers Union Local 79 who updates us on her union's push to win passage of the Construction Justice Act. It requires any municipally subsidized affordable housing project to pay $40 an hour living wage that prices in health benefits.
Currently, non-union construction firms can exploit immigrants and formerly incarcerated individuals by paying them poverty wages with no healthcare in one of the most dangerous, yet profitable industries that relies heavily on taxpayer support.
In our second hour we catch up with Jonathan Wilson Hargrove, assistant director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale University who works with Rev. Dr. William Barber who leads that program. In several southern states on Monday the Poor People's Campaign and local clergy kicked off a Moral Monday campaign to highlight the deadly toll in that region from President Trump and the GOP's stripping of healthcare from 17 million Americans.
Hargrove notes that even before the COVID pandemic, a research study by Dr. David Brady, from the University of California, documented that poverty was the fourth leading cause of death, ahead of homicide, with an estimated 183,000 premature deaths in 2019 alone.
Hargrove asserts the shredding of the American social safety net, including cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, coincides with a US trillion dollar military budget and massive tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest families and corporations.
In our D Block we hear from Rafael Espinal, the president of the national Freelancers Union, which represents 700,000 freelancers about the union's advocacy for a non-profit and worker-led portable health care benefits program. He notes the GOP ending of the government subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, will hit this gig workforce particularly hard.
Espinal describes how freelancers can benefit from collectively organizing, just like workers can when they pursue union representation.
Listen to the entire show below: