Episode 209:

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Soccer, football, whatever you call it—it’s not my thing at all. Give me baseball every day, 365 days a week. But, what is my thing is making sure workers in every sport aren’t exploited—and that has been a reality for years when it came to the rights of workers who worked on the staging of soccer’s quadrennial World Cup, including the upcoming one in 2022 in Qatar. A worldwide outcry put a brake on some of the worst abuses in Qatar and set the stage for even more workers’ protections for the 2026 World Cup, which will be staged in North America and Mexico. Cathy Feingold, the international affairs director of the AFL-CIO and the deputy president of the International Trade Union Confederation, joins me to outline the campaign already underway to keep the heat on the host countries and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

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High on the list of really bad outcomes in the recent election was the passage of California’s Proposition 22, which tore away rights from millions of so-called “gig” or “digital platform” workers, exempting companies like Uber And Lyft from a whole range of worker protections. This signals a new corporate assault on workers’ rights all across the nation.

Progressives in Europe took notice of what happened in California . And are moving as quickly as possible to make sure the Americanization of poverty of “gig” and digital platform workers is stopped at the shores of the continent. Leïla Chaibi, a French politician who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019, chats with me about her proposal to the European Parliament to pass legislation to inscribe in law, for every country in the European Union, employment and working conditions for “gig” and “digital platform” workers equal to that of more traditional workers.

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-- Jonathan Tasini

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