working class

"This is a movement that is not going to stop," says filmmaker Michael Moore of the uprising in Madison, Wisconsin (and across the country--all 50 states held solidarity rallies this weekend). "I knew sooner or later people would say they've had enough." Michael joins Laura in studio for part one of a two-part conversation about the war on working people in America. He notes that it started in 1981 with Reagan's attack on the air traffic controllers, and it's mostly targeted the poor, as with Clinton's welfare reform. But the attacks on middle class families have finally reached a point where people aren't going to take it anymore. Watch out for part two tomorrow! Distributed by Tubemogul.

"People are still looking at and facing too much pain," says Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who joined Bernie Sanders for part of his eight and a half hour speech against giving tax breaks to millionaires. Brown notes that while the compromise which eventually passed gives some short-term help to American workers, but that the economy will not begin to really recover until Washington turns its focus to jobs--and not just any jobs, but reinvigorated manufacturing jobs. Senator Brown joins us from Washington via Skype to discuss what he sees as the most important priorities for a shrunken Democratic majority in the Senate in the next session of Congress, and particularly why a focus on our trade policy is long overdue.

None of the laborers cleaning up the gulf coast are even under a union contract in the first place, and despite the enormous growth under Andy Stern’s leadership, current president Mary Kay Henry says that the SEIU is still fighting for paid sick days. After the labor movement poured millions into a battle they ultimately lost in Arkansas, trying to remove Blanche Lincoln, one of the senators who helped kill the Employee Free Choice Act, is the long-term alliance with the Democratic party in trouble? Max Fraser of The Nation Magazine and Michael Whitney of Firedoglake join us in studio to deconstruct these present and potential future dilemmas of the labor movement in both their political and practical forms.

At the very time when the social safety net is most needed, investors the world over are calling it a drag on the world economy. Main Street is hurting, and cutting its support will cut growth, not stimulate it. Yet what to do? GRITtv with Laura Flanders brings participatory democracy onto your computer screen and into your living room, bridging the gap between audience and advocates. Watch any show, at any time: http://grittv.org Distributed by Tubemogul.