ed ott

"It seems more like a class war to the folks that live in New Jersey," says Fran Ehret, President of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 194 in New Jersey. And GRITtv Labor Correspondent Ed Ott notes "First they shrink the private sector wage pool, then they turn to the public sector and say 'You're the rich ones.'"New Jersey governor Chris Christie is one of a flock of Republican state officials making a name for themselves with bluster about busting public employee unions, and the turnpike workers represented by Ehret's union are one of his targets. We start our conversation about public sector workers here, with Ehret and Ott, and will continue it in the future. Send us your thoughts for future segments here or at our Facebook page .

"The right to organize means that people are standing up for themselves, why are Republicans against that?" asks Sandy Pope, president of the Teamsters Union Local 805. ; Labor day is Monday and aside from marking the end of summer, few Americans take the time to think about what the holiday means. But the nation's unions are gearing up for an election season with some serious issues at stake: not just the Employee Free Choice Act, but the future of Social Security may be at risk.Pope joins guest host Ed Ott in studio to discuss what labor is fighting for this labor day, and what she'd like to say to the Tea Party movement about American values.To understand what America's workers go through, New York Assembly member Kevin De Leon spent a day in a hairnet, working in a school lunchroom with SEIU union member, cafeteria worker Blanca Ahmed.The news today that another explosion had rocked an offshore oil rig off Louisiana's coast prompted immediate comments about the conditions on the rigs.

Even though today is the most important primary election day of the year, a slough labor protestors has invaded K Street to protest lobbying efforts against the banks as detracting attention from the actual state of the American people. Despite continuing foreclosures and layoffs, federal and local initiatives do not seem to be catering to these circumstances. On the contrary, they are not divesting from essential economies such as transit, and other blue collar strongholds. Labor correspondent and executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council, Ed Ott, joins us in the studio to discuss why Americans are so angry, how the outcomes of the primaries could affect these issues, and ask where the power really lies. After abysmal coverage of the massive labor protests against the Washington Lobbyist stronghold on K Street one of the protestors tweeted, "maybe you have to serve tea to get noticed." In order to give these activists and their cause to call out lobbyists on their decisions to spend money on lobbying the bank rather than the American people, we are airing footage from the SEIU protest. Foreign development projects in Haiti: are they a necessary investment or part of long-standing trend of colonization? The idea may resonate poorly with a people who have suffered two centuries of foreign meddling and its devastating consequences but the track record of the current government and NGOs is nothing to celebrate either. Currently, Global Renewable Energy is proposing a project in La Gonave to use the land as a 'planned sustainable green community'. Blogger Pascal Robert wrote about this plan recently which he described as another step in the "wholesale sell-off of Haitian resources." Ray Laforest, member of the Steering Committee of the International Support Haiti Network and Fred E. Rice, CEO of Global Renewable Energy lay it all out on the table for us. And in today's F Word: the disturbing news of the recent deadly car bombing incident in Kabul, allegedly one of Afghanistan's safest cities. Don't forget, we are in pledge season! Help GRITtv meet its goal of $100,000 by giving now or spreading the word!

Get the money out of Washington. It's an ongoing refrain now, from the left and even from those in the Tea Party movement. Too much corruption, too little trust. Jack Abramoff, the superstar lobbyist whose spectacular fall brought down then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, was the very public face of the problem of lobbying when he headed off to jail, and he is the subject of Alex Gibney's newest documentary, Casino Jack and the United States of Money. Bob Ney was also brought down with Jack Abramoff. The only Congressman to do time over the scandal joins us in studio along with Gibney to discuss the film and the past, present and future of lobbyists and Congress. Wall Street is the butt of everyone's anger these days, and last week, while Goldman Sachs executives got a grilling in Congress, labor activists brought the fight to the street here in New York. GRITtv was there. Our labor correspondent Ed Ott spoke to participants from rank and file union members to AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. Finally, Ned Sublette, author of "The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans" and "The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square", gives us his thoughts on the new HBO series Treme.