Labor Day - once a lively celebration of both work and workers on the first Monday of September – is rapidly becoming a frighteningly clear symbol of where work and the economy have flown over the past many years - offshore. As almost every facet of the economy (except banking itself) is dropping to rock bottom with little hope of recovery except the wealth of investment bakers and corporate CEO's, etc. Two weeks ago, JobsNow Coalition director, Kris Jacobs, said it as simply as it can be said: "the jobs aren't coming back because employers no longer need workers to make money."
With Kris Jacobs on that TTT show was Steve Francisco of the Minnesota Budget Project, neither feeling at all sanguine about the future, but before our conversation, on that same program, we heard the first half of a great talk by DC Economist Dean Bakerthat sets the stage both for our later discussion and for his proposal for a special sort of revenue stream to feed the treasury and the deficit from the millions of stocks and bonds transactions occurring every day, despite the Great recession.
Join TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN as we listen to Baker's complete talk, then welcome once again political science Professor and labor historian Tom O'Connell of Metropolitan State University to talk about where we've been and where we might go as a people, given the state of economic affairs facing us for the foreseeable future. Then joining us to talk about his Clean Energy Jobs Forum and Resource Fair next Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 from 5:30-8:00PM at theIntermediate District 287 South Education Center, 7450 Penn Avenue South, Richfield (MAP) will be Congressman Keith Ellison; and we hear how fast food workers are organizing and protesting low wages and working conditions from an IWW organizer.
REP. KEITH ELLISON (D-MN 5th)
DEAN BAKER - Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research; Author, Beat the Press blog
TOM O'CONNELL – Metropolitan State University Political Science Professor and Labor Historian
DAVID BOEHNKE – Organizer, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
