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America’s Work Force Union Podcast

America’s Work Force Union Podcast

Hosted by BMA Media Group

BusinessCareersNewsPoliticsCommentaryInterviews guests
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Episodes

150

Latest episode

Aug 2026

Language

EN

About the show

America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides a clear and unfiltered voice for the working people of America. Radio veteran Ed “Flash” Ferenc leads the discussion with a focus on topics that include the impact of labor unions in America, workers’ rights, legislative actions and labor-management relations. Featured guests include various labor leaders, politicians, journalists and more. America’s Work Force Union Podcast provides updates and information from sources around the United States and continues to be the trusted voice for workers across the country.

Listen to episodes

60 recent
August 14, 2026Episode 16232 min

CA Building Trades on Proposition 45 and the November Fight

It is being marketed as a permitting reform and affordability act. But the 41 pages of California's Proposition 45 bypass the state's landmark environmental review law, strip local elected officials of meaningful discretion over what gets built in their communities, include no requirement that any savings reach the public and contain a provision that overrides any conflicting law — including environmental protections. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California President Chris Hannan explains what Proposition 45 actually does and why a coalition of more than 270 organizations — including the California building trades, the environmental movement, firefighters and educators — is working together to defeat it in November. He also discusses Climate Jobs California, the new labor-academia initiative the council is building to advance clean energy in California, the right way. Visit noprop45ca.com to get involved and cabuildingtrades.org for more.

August 13, 2026Episode 16135 min

LHSFNA on Trench Safety, Work Zones and OSHA Under Pressure

About one construction worker dies in a trench collapse every week. Every death is preventable. Work zone run-over and back-over incidents are also preventable. And the federal agency responsible for enforcing the rules that would stop these deaths just had its already-thin resources cut further. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America Director Travis Parsons discusses the history of worker safety from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to the creation of OSHA in 1970, the three simple methods that prevent every trench collapse, why work zones need physical barriers rather than cones and barrels and what the current administration's anti-regulatory environment means for laborers on job sites right now. He also discusses the LHSFNA's founding in 1988 as a labor-management fund and why meaningful OSHA fines are the enforcement lever the industry needs most. Visit lhsfna.org for more.

August 12, 2026Episode 16028 min

CWA's Frank Mathews on Union History and the Story of Red on Thursday

In August 1989, CWA chief steward Gerry Horgan was struck and killed by a replacement worker driving through a picket line during the NYNEX strike in New York. He was a Marine, a volunteer firefighter, a mountain rescue team member and a family man who gave everything for working people. Since that day, CWA members have worn red on Thursdays in his honor. August 15 marks the 37th anniversary of his death. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast — part of the Labor 132 series presented by the National Labor Office of Blue Cross Blue Shield — CWA District 4 Administrative Director Frank Mathews traces the history of the Communication Workers of America from its 1947 founding through landmark contract wins, barrier-breaking leadership elections and the member relief fund that removes one of management's most reliable bargaining weapons. He then tells the full story of Gerry Horgan and what wearing red on Thursdays has meant to the CWA family over the past 37 years. Visit cwad4.org for more.

August 11, 2026Episode 15932 min

BAC's Tim Driscoll on Labor Law, AI, Immigration and Misclassification

More than 30% of union election wins never produce a first contract. Not because workers gave up. Because employers face no real punishment for running out the clock. The BAC has two active situations in California and Florida, where employers have been delaying for two years with zero consequences. On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers President Timothy J. Driscoll discusses the PRO Act, the Faster Labor Contracts Act and why the arbitration provision critics call government overreach is simply a necessary guardrail. He also addresses AI's growing impact on construction design and engineering, what responsible data center siting requires from developers, why the administration's immigration enforcement is a deliberate wedge strategy that has swept up BAC members with valid work authorization in ICE raids and why congressional efforts to expand independent contractor status are moving in exactly the wrong direction for workers. Visit bacweb.org for more.

August 10, 2026Episode 15833 min

TSA Administrator Cummins, Transit Funding and Ohio's Labor History

Two conversations that connect the fights of the past to the fights happening right now — one tracking the policy battles shaping transportation workers today and one tracing the 200-year labor history that explains why those battles keep coming. Transportation Trades Department President Greg Regan discusses the TTD's concerns about newly confirmed TSA Administrator David Cummins, who has said collective bargaining inhibits airport security workers and plans to expand privatized screening from approximately 20 airports to 200. Regan also addresses a bipartisan bill to fix the Railroad Retirement Board's ability to pay out earned benefits to railroaders who have contributed to one of the world's healthiest pension systems and a September 30 surface transportation funding cliff that would simultaneously cut off roads, bridges, Amtrak, commuter rail and public transit funding — at a moment when Amtrak is posting record ridership and revenue as proof that infrastructure investment works. Then, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga traces Ohio's labor history through his own family story — a grandfather who survived the 1940 Willow Grove Mine explosion in Belmont County, a father who served as president of a United Steelworkers local in the 1960s and a debt he said his family owes entirely to the United Mine Workers of America and the United Steelworkers. He covers the 1890 founding of the UMWA in Columbus, William Green's authorship of Ohio's workers' compensation law and the defeat of Senate Bill 5 in 2011 by the same 62-to-38 margin that defeated right-to-work in Ohio in 1958. He closes with what the current organizing surge among young workers means for the movement's future and why getting from a successful union vote to a first contract remains the most urgent labor law reform priority. Visit ttd.org for more from the Transportation Trades Department and ohioaflcio.org for more from the Ohio AFL-CIO.

August 7, 2026Episode 15621 min

Fred Redmond on Family, 50 Years With the Steelworkers and Organizing

His mother took three buses every morning to clean houses in the suburbs. His father worked every job he could find until he landed his first union contract at an aluminum mill on Chicago's southwest side. Then Fred Redmond's family started going to a doctor's office instead of the free clinic. That is why the labor movement is personal to him — and why he has given more than 50 years to it. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond joins for the first Friday with Fred of August as part of the Labor 132 series. He shares the story of his parents' journey from sharecropping in Mississippi to union membership in Chicago, reflects on his proudest moments with the United Steelworkers, including organizing rubber plantation workers in Liberia and surviving strikes at Reynolds and Alcoa, and explains why union popularity is now at its highest point in 70 years. Visit aflcio.org and explore the AFL-CIO's labor history timeline.

August 6, 2026Episode 15630 min

C/COBCTC on Data Centers, a New Learning Center and Trades Outreach

Columbus just landed Electra's $850 million EL9 Ultra Short hybrid-electric aircraft manufacturing plant at AirPark Ohio, is building a $100 million early childhood learning center on a former jail site and generated 6.5 million union building trades work hours at Google facilities alone last year. And the American Federation of Labor was founded downtown in 1886. On today's Trades Day episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, C/COBCTC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Dorsey Hager delivers his monthly update covering Intel's continued ramp-up, upcoming public hearings for two major gas-powered energy centers that will supply data center campuses in Fairfield County and Asheville, a new project labor agreement for the $100 million Franklin County early childhood learning center, the state of Ohio's data center conversation at the local government level and what happened when building trades members brought brick walls and concrete finishing to the Ohio State Fair. Visit columbusconstruction.org for more.

August 5, 2026Episode 15533 min

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland on the SAG-AFTRA Merger and Labor History

The Screen Actors Guild was founded in 1933. AFTRA was founded around the same time. For nearly 80 years, they tried to become a single union and kept falling short of the 80% supermajority required by both constitutions. Then, in 2008, employers used the gap between them to restructure primetime scripted television in ways that stripped members of their health insurance. By 2012, the two unions were one. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast — part of the Labor 132 series — SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland tells the full story, from the very different founding cultures of SAG and AFTRA in the 1930s through the McCarthy era, Ronald Reagan's complicated labor legacy, the 2008 employer maneuver that finally made the cost of disunity impossible to ignore and what the merged union has built in the 14 years since. He also addresses the AI fight, now the most urgent focus of SAG-AFTRA's resources, and explains why the strength of the merged union is exactly what that fight requires. Visit sagaftra.org for more.

August 4, 2026Episode 15337 min

LEAN Program's Jonathan Ashwell on Recovery in the Building Trades

He joined the laborers in 2014, has been sober since 2009 and spent years working in addiction treatment before the trades. Now he is one of three recovery specialists covering approximately 22 LIUNA locals and up to 12,000 members across Massachusetts through the LEAN program — Laborers Escaping Adversity Now — the first program of its kind in the Laborers union when it launched in 2018. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, Massachusetts Laborers' Benefits Fund recovery specialist Jonathan Ashwell discusses how the LEAN program works: cold outreach to members with substance use claims, presentations at every apprenticeship class, a hotline, vetted treatment access that gets members into care quickly and personal in-person follow-up a week after placement. He also addresses the construction industry's suicide crisis, LIUNA General President Brent Booker and General Secretary-Treasurer Michael F. Sabitoni's national push to reduce stigma and why the peer support model — a union brother who has lived the same life reaching out to another — is the most effective tool available. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988. Visit mlbf.org for more.

August 3, 2026Episode 15343 min

Teamsters Launch Teamsters Digital Archivces With Unfiltered Union Oral Histories

In 2003, the Teamsters celebrated their 100th anniversary and discovered they had almost no institutional record of their own history. Previous administrations had discarded materials that should have been preserved. That realization launched a 20-year effort that has now produced teamsterhistory.org — more than 27 unfiltered, unedited oral history interviews with the people who lived through one of the most turbulent and consequential periods in American labor history, from 1975 to 1999. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast — the first episode of Labor 132, presented by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association National Labor Office — Teamsters veterans Bret Caldwell and Brian Rainville discuss the launch of teamsterhistory.org, the history of the Teamsters Archives at George Washington University and an interview project that captured participants from across the full political spectrum, from TDU founder Ken Paff to General President James P. Hoffa, all in their own unedited words. General President O'Brien's decision to let the unflattering material stay in, Rainville said, is what made the whole thing possible. Visit teamsterhistory.org to explore the interviews and download full transcripts.

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