On today's program Ralph welcomes Kshama Sawant—teacher, activist, organizer, socialist, and former Seattle City Council Member— to talk about the labor movement, her organization Workers Strike Back, and how she achieved so many victories for Seattle's working people.
"In Case you Haven't Heard" is a great addition to Mr. Nader's progressive agenda. The pro-capitalist, main-stream media will never touch this sort of information regarding how the American capitalist system has increasingly been rigged against the working class over the past 43 years.
Most people know something is very wrong in America but they can't quite put their finger on it. The information provided by "In Case you Haven't Heard" allows Americans paying attention to see just how the American system is rigged against them, the working-class.
Why did the Wash Post writer not also address how COVID work -from-home policies dramatically reduces air pollution and C02 emissions? Isn't the climate crisis an emergency?There is an amazing photo of Los Angeles metro before COVID contrasted with a photo during COVID (with work-from-home in place) which showed a dramatic reduction in air pollution. This is especially crucial since the government underfunds mass transit systems.
While there are undoubtedly some potential environmental benefits from telecommuting/work from home, I'm not sure how much what happened in 2020 can be applied to modern times. 2020 was truly a unique experience, and probably one which many wish not to replicate for mental health purposes. Not only were many people working from home, but many school/college students were forced to study from home as well. A large portion of the population was unemployed in 2020 and had nowhere to go other than to stay home. Those who worked from home could not go out and enjoy restaurants and night life because places were closed. The number of commercial flights was dramatically reduced.
If everything returns to normal except for the addition of work from home, I'm not sure if the net benefit would be nearly what it was in 2020. In addition to that, as we saw around 2020-21, work from home encouraged some people to seek housing in outer areas and they sought larger homes which have more room for home offices. If these people then commute back into town for the sake of shopping, entertainment, and taking their kids to school, some of those environmental benefits are somewhat negated.
There is also the rather hidden environmental costs of technology. Zoom and Microsoft Teams use a lot of Internet bandwidth and there is an environmental cost to that. Having said that, with a lot of organizations continuing to use Zoom, Teams, etc. even with a return to work, this can be seen as a worst of both worlds approach. I think regulatory pressure needs to be put on the software industry and on employers to try to streamline work from home type software.
As an anecdote, Microsoft Teams used so many system resources just sitting idle, which causes the CPU to run harder which has detrimental environmental impacts, that I refused to use it once I returned to in-person work. Obviously, I had the latitude to do that, but many others don't or just aren't aware of this problem.
On the potentially beneficial front environmentally, things like Zoom have reduced business air travel, perhaps even significantly, even as in-person work resumed. This could be a positive trend, though I'm sure the airline and hotel industries will be unhappy about it especially as the demand for leisure travel wanes as we get further removed from the pandemic.
Kshama Sawant is always spot on. I donated to her campaign ten years ago because I believe socialism is the cure for capitalism. She has an admirable command of English, with proper pronunciation of "the" (as thuh) and "a" (as uh). All while speaking at 100 words per minute (with gusts up to 180), and never an errr or ummm between words. Intelligent woman! Thanks for giving her the opportunity to present her platforms and activities to us listeners.
Glad to hear Sawant endorse Jill Stein!
Do the Harris Walz. One step back, one step forward, then spin in place. repeat until the music stops.
Vote against genocide and fascism!
Jill Stein 2024! Green Party for all other elected offices 2024!
Oh jeez. I hope we can do better than "one day". It's really not that hard to avoid Amazon. Did you catch the interview with Alec Macgillis on this program a few years back. He wrote a terrific book called "Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America" You might enjoy-though preaching to the choir :)
I really enjoyed the discussions in this episode. I find this episode to be one of the best of the year so far.
Although the two topics discussed in this show might seem quite different from one another, they are actually very similar in many ways. At many points in Mr. Nader’s discussion with Kshama Sawant, references were made to the labor movement-led progressive era of the 20th century. When assessing whether such a labor movement can have a similar impact in modern times, it is worth considering if labor is as monolithic as it was a century ago. I’m not so sure if that is the case. With advances in higher education offerings and technology, and perhaps with deregulation as well, we’re seeing more of a bifurcation of labor into what can be roughly described as the educated, generally white-collar section of labor and then the blue-, pink-, and whatever other collared groups of labor there are which tend to consist of less-educated workers (though some are quite educated, such as teachers, social workers, and those working in healthcare to name some examples) who are doing more hands-on type of work.
When we think of labor unions, even in current times, we generally think of people in the latter group. Maybe they exist, but I’m not aware of too many unions of middle managers, salesmen, lawyers, and so forth. Even if these unions exist, are they really united with the efforts of the more blue-collar type unions?
One thing we must remember is that not all of labor will be able to work from home. The labor who cannot work from home is often the most important labor and this labor is generally not the highest paid labor: those who teach our children, those who physically heal us, those who protect us, those who make our essential goods, those who transport our essential goods, those who keep the lights and Internet running, those who build/fix our dwellings, those who maintain public sanitation, those who make our food, those who grow our food, and so forth.
So, with this, some of the issues brought up as defenses of work-from-home need to be considered for all of labor and for all of the public. To Steve’s point about people getting Covid if they work in person, surely any people in close proximity to each other can share illnesses such as Covid. That’s just reality, but universal policies can be implemented to ensure sick people can stay home and are encouraged to stay home until they are healthy. Universal healthcare can help heal and prevent illnesses in the first place. Public transportation infrastructure should be implemented so that everyone in urban areas can get to where they need to be in an efficient manner that is as minimally environmentally destructive as possible. Policies should be set such that working parents can spend necessary time with their children regardless of where they work. Policies should be set which clearly separate work time from free time. Perhaps policies can be enacted to encourage offices to be built in more mid-sized cities in order to minimize commute times and possibly decrease costs of living.
I do believe there are some potential environmental benefits to work-from-home, but I’m not sure if that potential is truly met. It seems that working from home encourages people to buy larger homes since they need more space to work. It may also encourage people to seek houses in exurb areas where it is possible to build these larger homes. Of course, most people aren’t going to stay home all the time and so these people will drive into town (maybe not downtown, but at least the suburbs which can be a long drive from the exurbs) in order to enjoy socialization and to do daily non-work tasks. With that, how much less commuting are they really doing? How many people are going car-less because of work-from-home? I’m sure it does happen, but probably relatively infrequently.
Some other questions have to be asked. When we look at labor, and perhaps society in general, is it better for the capital, managers, and low-level labor in an organization to be close to one another? Ride the same elevators, mingle at the same water coolers, and so forth? Or is it better for these groups to be quite separate from one another?
Back to what Kshama Sawant said in the discussion for a moment. I am sympathetic towards much of what she said, but ultimately, I don’t believe there is much desire at all for a command economy here in the US. On the other hand, as she states, there is strong desire for certain progressive reforms such as achieving full employment and universal healthcare. The public often views these desires as being economically unfeasible even though those progressive reforms are entirely economically achievable, and even beneficial, within the existing mixed-economy paradigm. Given all of this, my usual strategy is to focus on progressive reform of the already-popular mixed-economy model, which naturally consists of reducing the political power of capital, and discussing how popular progressive reforms are economically achievable and beneficial rather than advocating for a much less popular command economy which will also need economic explanations as well. I suspect that some of Mr. Nader’s successes over the decades have come from a focus on achievable legislation rather than focusing and obsessing over broad economic ideology.
In talking with Kshama Sawant, Ralph pointed out that “human frailties” can corrupt even the most noble causes. I think the same can be said about the concept of allowing people to work from home. It sounds good on paper, but people are much more disciplined and productive when under face to face supervision at a workplace.
The human frailty is: “when the cat is away the mice will play. “
I’m therefore one of the taxpayers who is dismayed that our government workers are not showing up for work.
I noticed that many people do not respond to dares or make public their intentions although their opposition to technofeudalism i.e., Amazon, is evident… we talk about collective rising, but people do not engage… I am seemingly too novice to this democracy or opposition to a platform that abuses consumers by providing low prices yet undermining the idea of free markets..
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing the law journal article. I'll come back to you once I've had a read. Sorry for my slow response here. I don't get notified of posts as I'm no longer a paid subscriber. I keep trying to give Substack money so I can re-join, but it won't let me. (Apparently currency conversion issues, as I'm in New Zealand)
Kshama Sawant is correct that we need mass action independent of the Democrats and Republicans.
But it also has to be action independent of their bosses- the big money interests.
In my comment on Joe Steps Aside I suggested such an action as an alternative to Ralph's Buy Back Congress Cooperative and encouraged Ralph to send out an email asking which version people preferred. I have not yet received such an email.
As no action has been organized for Labor Day Ralph could send out this email for Labor Day and title it "A Union for Politics".
Just as workers can go on strike and withhold their labor to demand better wages, working conditions. etc., citizens can go on strike by withholding their votes from candidates that take big money (which means they work for the big money interests) and demand that candidates run small donor campaigns (which means they will work for ordinary citizens).
See my comment on Joe Steps Aside and many others episodes for more details.
It will be much easier and effective to influence legislators that work for ordinary citizens to do what we want than to spend time, treasure and effort to influence legislators that work for the big money interests to not do what the big money interests want.
Ralph has said that politicians want our votes more than they want big money.
Please Ralph, don't let this opportunity in 2024 slip away to provide the leadership that the 80% of citizens that want the big money out of politics need achieve this important goal that can open the door to solutions on almost every other issue crying out for solutions.
All "In Case you haven't Heard" points are accurate and welcome news. As for #10, that made me recall that many people say tRump, even though he denied knowing it was an Epstein plane, knew exactly where the salad bar is located.
Kshama Sawant endorsed Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein during the interview. It was edited out of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour broadcast to radio stations and only kept in the extended show clips on this website. In peace, environmental health, consumer advocacy, working class struggle against wall street powers Jill Stein and Green Party are nearly always on the right side. Green Party only endorses candidates who take only small campaign donations from non-corporate and non-excessively rich people.
I recommend for this radio show to highlight the better news sources each time they are inclined to gripe about the corrupt media hierarchy. Present the ethical elected officials and candidates on winning side of the debate in a 3 to 1 ratio over each time problem making officials are mentioned on the show. I recommend for the show to intersperse musical interludes between interviews. Our local radio show on KZYX in Mendocino County (jukebox.kzyx.org) has an excellent theme song they often open with "The Commons" by David Rovics for example.
Jill Stein was in a band years ago "Somebody's Sister" with some ethical themes in their album. She was in a couple of debates and was highlighted on Living On Earth radio show with PRI just this week. For every problem mentioned on Ralph Nader's Hour and Democracy Now, we need 2 to 3 solutions and solution makers to be presented. We look to Green Party, League of Conservation voters and other societies to give us elections recommendations and reasons for candidates and policies to support. Does public citizen have a similar resource to act as a tool for voters as they review their ballots across the nations?
Kia ora and greetings from Aotearoa New Zealand! Thank you for yet another thought-provoking program. The discussion around remote work got me thinking. As a union organizer, I've spent significant time advocating and bargaining for hybrid work arrangements and work-from-home language. However, Hannah's comment about "leverage to go on strike" compelled me to add another side to this. (Though Ralph later pointed this out with a Dept of Labor example in Boston) Organizing remote workers is bloody difficult! How do you build solidarity with workers you don't know? Are there examples of remote workers going on strike? Doing a work-to-rule action? Tough to march on the boss via Zoom! Here in New Zealand, I spent a few years organizing in the Local Government sector. The areas of Council with highest union density and workplace power were in Libraries and in the Customer Service Centre--the areas where all staff came in to work side by side, day in and day out. These were the same workers who could pull off a successful strike.
"In Case you Haven't Heard" is a great addition to Mr. Nader's progressive agenda. The pro-capitalist, main-stream media will never touch this sort of information regarding how the American capitalist system has increasingly been rigged against the working class over the past 43 years.
Most people know something is very wrong in America but they can't quite put their finger on it. The information provided by "In Case you Haven't Heard" allows Americans paying attention to see just how the American system is rigged against them, the working-class.
Why did the Wash Post writer not also address how COVID work -from-home policies dramatically reduces air pollution and C02 emissions? Isn't the climate crisis an emergency?There is an amazing photo of Los Angeles metro before COVID contrasted with a photo during COVID (with work-from-home in place) which showed a dramatic reduction in air pollution. This is especially crucial since the government underfunds mass transit systems.
While there are undoubtedly some potential environmental benefits from telecommuting/work from home, I'm not sure how much what happened in 2020 can be applied to modern times. 2020 was truly a unique experience, and probably one which many wish not to replicate for mental health purposes. Not only were many people working from home, but many school/college students were forced to study from home as well. A large portion of the population was unemployed in 2020 and had nowhere to go other than to stay home. Those who worked from home could not go out and enjoy restaurants and night life because places were closed. The number of commercial flights was dramatically reduced.
If everything returns to normal except for the addition of work from home, I'm not sure if the net benefit would be nearly what it was in 2020. In addition to that, as we saw around 2020-21, work from home encouraged some people to seek housing in outer areas and they sought larger homes which have more room for home offices. If these people then commute back into town for the sake of shopping, entertainment, and taking their kids to school, some of those environmental benefits are somewhat negated.
There is also the rather hidden environmental costs of technology. Zoom and Microsoft Teams use a lot of Internet bandwidth and there is an environmental cost to that. Having said that, with a lot of organizations continuing to use Zoom, Teams, etc. even with a return to work, this can be seen as a worst of both worlds approach. I think regulatory pressure needs to be put on the software industry and on employers to try to streamline work from home type software.
As an anecdote, Microsoft Teams used so many system resources just sitting idle, which causes the CPU to run harder which has detrimental environmental impacts, that I refused to use it once I returned to in-person work. Obviously, I had the latitude to do that, but many others don't or just aren't aware of this problem.
On the potentially beneficial front environmentally, things like Zoom have reduced business air travel, perhaps even significantly, even as in-person work resumed. This could be a positive trend, though I'm sure the airline and hotel industries will be unhappy about it especially as the demand for leisure travel wanes as we get further removed from the pandemic.
I agree and living in Upstate NY during my walks in the woods and seeing more Animals than I every saw before in my life.
Kshama Sawant is always spot on. I donated to her campaign ten years ago because I believe socialism is the cure for capitalism. She has an admirable command of English, with proper pronunciation of "the" (as thuh) and "a" (as uh). All while speaking at 100 words per minute (with gusts up to 180), and never an errr or ummm between words. Intelligent woman! Thanks for giving her the opportunity to present her platforms and activities to us listeners.
Glad to hear Sawant endorse Jill Stein!
Do the Harris Walz. One step back, one step forward, then spin in place. repeat until the music stops.
Vote against genocide and fascism!
Jill Stein 2024! Green Party for all other elected offices 2024!
What a powerhouse Sawant is! 👌🏽
👏🏽🙌🏽👏🏽🙌🏽
Hello,
I am daring to beg all of you to consider this.
Labor Day is approaching!! Let's give Amazon employees a break!! Let's not shop at Amazon for one day!!
Collective rising!!
Can you advertise on your posts a pledge that you won't shop at Amazon for one day? Labor Day!!
Oh jeez. I hope we can do better than "one day". It's really not that hard to avoid Amazon. Did you catch the interview with Alec Macgillis on this program a few years back. He wrote a terrific book called "Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America" You might enjoy-though preaching to the choir :)
I really enjoyed the discussions in this episode. I find this episode to be one of the best of the year so far.
Although the two topics discussed in this show might seem quite different from one another, they are actually very similar in many ways. At many points in Mr. Nader’s discussion with Kshama Sawant, references were made to the labor movement-led progressive era of the 20th century. When assessing whether such a labor movement can have a similar impact in modern times, it is worth considering if labor is as monolithic as it was a century ago. I’m not so sure if that is the case. With advances in higher education offerings and technology, and perhaps with deregulation as well, we’re seeing more of a bifurcation of labor into what can be roughly described as the educated, generally white-collar section of labor and then the blue-, pink-, and whatever other collared groups of labor there are which tend to consist of less-educated workers (though some are quite educated, such as teachers, social workers, and those working in healthcare to name some examples) who are doing more hands-on type of work.
When we think of labor unions, even in current times, we generally think of people in the latter group. Maybe they exist, but I’m not aware of too many unions of middle managers, salesmen, lawyers, and so forth. Even if these unions exist, are they really united with the efforts of the more blue-collar type unions?
One thing we must remember is that not all of labor will be able to work from home. The labor who cannot work from home is often the most important labor and this labor is generally not the highest paid labor: those who teach our children, those who physically heal us, those who protect us, those who make our essential goods, those who transport our essential goods, those who keep the lights and Internet running, those who build/fix our dwellings, those who maintain public sanitation, those who make our food, those who grow our food, and so forth.
So, with this, some of the issues brought up as defenses of work-from-home need to be considered for all of labor and for all of the public. To Steve’s point about people getting Covid if they work in person, surely any people in close proximity to each other can share illnesses such as Covid. That’s just reality, but universal policies can be implemented to ensure sick people can stay home and are encouraged to stay home until they are healthy. Universal healthcare can help heal and prevent illnesses in the first place. Public transportation infrastructure should be implemented so that everyone in urban areas can get to where they need to be in an efficient manner that is as minimally environmentally destructive as possible. Policies should be set such that working parents can spend necessary time with their children regardless of where they work. Policies should be set which clearly separate work time from free time. Perhaps policies can be enacted to encourage offices to be built in more mid-sized cities in order to minimize commute times and possibly decrease costs of living.
I do believe there are some potential environmental benefits to work-from-home, but I’m not sure if that potential is truly met. It seems that working from home encourages people to buy larger homes since they need more space to work. It may also encourage people to seek houses in exurb areas where it is possible to build these larger homes. Of course, most people aren’t going to stay home all the time and so these people will drive into town (maybe not downtown, but at least the suburbs which can be a long drive from the exurbs) in order to enjoy socialization and to do daily non-work tasks. With that, how much less commuting are they really doing? How many people are going car-less because of work-from-home? I’m sure it does happen, but probably relatively infrequently.
Some other questions have to be asked. When we look at labor, and perhaps society in general, is it better for the capital, managers, and low-level labor in an organization to be close to one another? Ride the same elevators, mingle at the same water coolers, and so forth? Or is it better for these groups to be quite separate from one another?
Back to what Kshama Sawant said in the discussion for a moment. I am sympathetic towards much of what she said, but ultimately, I don’t believe there is much desire at all for a command economy here in the US. On the other hand, as she states, there is strong desire for certain progressive reforms such as achieving full employment and universal healthcare. The public often views these desires as being economically unfeasible even though those progressive reforms are entirely economically achievable, and even beneficial, within the existing mixed-economy paradigm. Given all of this, my usual strategy is to focus on progressive reform of the already-popular mixed-economy model, which naturally consists of reducing the political power of capital, and discussing how popular progressive reforms are economically achievable and beneficial rather than advocating for a much less popular command economy which will also need economic explanations as well. I suspect that some of Mr. Nader’s successes over the decades have come from a focus on achievable legislation rather than focusing and obsessing over broad economic ideology.
In talking with Kshama Sawant, Ralph pointed out that “human frailties” can corrupt even the most noble causes. I think the same can be said about the concept of allowing people to work from home. It sounds good on paper, but people are much more disciplined and productive when under face to face supervision at a workplace.
The human frailty is: “when the cat is away the mice will play. “
I’m therefore one of the taxpayers who is dismayed that our government workers are not showing up for work.
Thank you all for your work.
Ian Hoffman, I read it. Thank you. Any suggestions/links that can guide my thirst for union establishment at Amazon?
I am sure that I do not have to bring this to your attention, but I will anyway:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf
Thank you!
I noticed that many people do not respond to dares or make public their intentions although their opposition to technofeudalism i.e., Amazon, is evident… we talk about collective rising, but people do not engage… I am seemingly too novice to this democracy or opposition to a platform that abuses consumers by providing low prices yet undermining the idea of free markets..
Thank you for your comments!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing the law journal article. I'll come back to you once I've had a read. Sorry for my slow response here. I don't get notified of posts as I'm no longer a paid subscriber. I keep trying to give Substack money so I can re-join, but it won't let me. (Apparently currency conversion issues, as I'm in New Zealand)
Oh, just to add https://labornotes.org/ is my go-to resource for all things grassroots labor organizing (including Amazon)
Hope all is well!!! And issue with subscription was resolved!!
Please continue being a subscriber. I appreciate our conversation. I am here to learn.
Ian Hoffmann, thank you for the suggestion! I will watch!
Kshama Sawant is correct that we need mass action independent of the Democrats and Republicans.
But it also has to be action independent of their bosses- the big money interests.
In my comment on Joe Steps Aside I suggested such an action as an alternative to Ralph's Buy Back Congress Cooperative and encouraged Ralph to send out an email asking which version people preferred. I have not yet received such an email.
As no action has been organized for Labor Day Ralph could send out this email for Labor Day and title it "A Union for Politics".
Just as workers can go on strike and withhold their labor to demand better wages, working conditions. etc., citizens can go on strike by withholding their votes from candidates that take big money (which means they work for the big money interests) and demand that candidates run small donor campaigns (which means they will work for ordinary citizens).
See my comment on Joe Steps Aside and many others episodes for more details.
It will be much easier and effective to influence legislators that work for ordinary citizens to do what we want than to spend time, treasure and effort to influence legislators that work for the big money interests to not do what the big money interests want.
Ralph has said that politicians want our votes more than they want big money.
Please Ralph, don't let this opportunity in 2024 slip away to provide the leadership that the 80% of citizens that want the big money out of politics need achieve this important goal that can open the door to solutions on almost every other issue crying out for solutions.
All "In Case you haven't Heard" points are accurate and welcome news. As for #10, that made me recall that many people say tRump, even though he denied knowing it was an Epstein plane, knew exactly where the salad bar is located.
Kshama Sawant endorsed Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein during the interview. It was edited out of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour broadcast to radio stations and only kept in the extended show clips on this website. In peace, environmental health, consumer advocacy, working class struggle against wall street powers Jill Stein and Green Party are nearly always on the right side. Green Party only endorses candidates who take only small campaign donations from non-corporate and non-excessively rich people.
I recommend for this radio show to highlight the better news sources each time they are inclined to gripe about the corrupt media hierarchy. Present the ethical elected officials and candidates on winning side of the debate in a 3 to 1 ratio over each time problem making officials are mentioned on the show. I recommend for the show to intersperse musical interludes between interviews. Our local radio show on KZYX in Mendocino County (jukebox.kzyx.org) has an excellent theme song they often open with "The Commons" by David Rovics for example.
Jill Stein was in a band years ago "Somebody's Sister" with some ethical themes in their album. She was in a couple of debates and was highlighted on Living On Earth radio show with PRI just this week. For every problem mentioned on Ralph Nader's Hour and Democracy Now, we need 2 to 3 solutions and solution makers to be presented. We look to Green Party, League of Conservation voters and other societies to give us elections recommendations and reasons for candidates and policies to support. Does public citizen have a similar resource to act as a tool for voters as they review their ballots across the nations?
Workers need a minimum wage that adjusts upward on a quarterly basis according to executive pay.
Kia ora and greetings from Aotearoa New Zealand! Thank you for yet another thought-provoking program. The discussion around remote work got me thinking. As a union organizer, I've spent significant time advocating and bargaining for hybrid work arrangements and work-from-home language. However, Hannah's comment about "leverage to go on strike" compelled me to add another side to this. (Though Ralph later pointed this out with a Dept of Labor example in Boston) Organizing remote workers is bloody difficult! How do you build solidarity with workers you don't know? Are there examples of remote workers going on strike? Doing a work-to-rule action? Tough to march on the boss via Zoom! Here in New Zealand, I spent a few years organizing in the Local Government sector. The areas of Council with highest union density and workplace power were in Libraries and in the Customer Service Centre--the areas where all staff came in to work side by side, day in and day out. These were the same workers who could pull off a successful strike.
Kshama Sawant's brand of progressivism was an absolute disaster on the Seattle city council.
Easy to say that, but how do you back that up? And a disaster for whom?
specially if you figure
employees don't Deserve
a Decent or Living Wage. the
Capitalists cannot Stand progressivism
.
Whattabout their
Profiteerings?!