Washington State Immigrant Farmworkers Unite!

Ramon Torres, President of a farmworkers’ union in Washington State, seeks higher wages, respect and better working conditions. The farmworkers want better chances for their kids. This takes a union contract. They do not want high-paid union officers negotiating for them. Now they can form farmworker cooperatives so that they don’t need bosses and can decide to go organic on their own berry farms. Recorded March 27, 2018 at a meeting organized by the Cornell Farmworker Program.

Labor Day Awards 2017

Rob Brown, Sam Mason, Pete Meyers, Ellen David Friedman, Megan Graham, Shoshe Cole, Rachel Gunderson, David Kornreich, Dave Marsh, Angela Cornell, Leni Hochman, Eric Evans and Lindsay Mercer tell us about unionizing baristas at Gimme!, the Ithaca College faculty fired three, help from the Cornell Labor Law Clinic, workers supporting the Robin Fund, unionbusting at Cornell, and bad building practices of Cayuga Medical Center. Recorded September 4, 2017.

Housing Myths

Housing in Ithaca and Tompkins County is notoriously expensive. Teresa Halpert and Tom Eisenberg explain that many erroneously assume that adding any new housing -- even luxury housing -- will make excess housing filter down to the bottom. This doesn't work. It's too slow. Landlord upscale rather than reduce rents. Worst of all, there are not enough middle-income people through whose hands housing units would have to pass to make filtering work. New projects must be required to include affordable units.

New York Health Campaign

Dr. Susan Soboroff discusses health insurance with Theresa Alt. Whether the ACA survives or is repealed, the much better way to go is single payer. A bill New York Health before both houses in Albany would provide for improved Medicare for all to cover everyone in New York State at lower cost. It has gained nearly enough cosponsors to pass. Recorded March 24, 2017.

Healthcare Check-Up

Dan Lamb, who used to be an aide to Congressman M. Hinchey, tells Deirdre Silverman about threats to the Affordable Care Act and how to counter them. Congressional Republicans want to use budget reconciliation to cut funding to the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare. Other aspects of the ACA that don't involve expenditures cannot be affected by reconciliation and are a separate fight. It might be better to seek single payer within New York State. Recorded February 10, 2017.

Red Vienna

Vienna after World War I faced devastating shortages of everything, especially housing. The City elected a socialist government, which built massive housing projects that provided not just places to live but laundries, clinics, day care, education and sports facilities. The buildings were solid and beautiful and established an ongoing tradition of quality public housing. Theresa Alt and Kathy Russell recently visited Vienna. Recorded December 9, 2016.

What Is Democratic Socialism?

Maria Svart, National Director of DSA, explains to Wayles Browne how under democratic socialism everybody would participate democratically in decisions about how we allocate our economic resources. This can be in the workplace through unions or cooperative ownership or at the national level. At present the 1% siphons off most of the wealth that the 99% create. DSA doesn't have a blueprint -- democratic decisions will determine the details. For sure, there will be space for entrepreneurship and creativity. Social democracy, the kind of program Sanders was talking about, is but a step in that direction. Recorded October 16, 2016.