Episode 213:

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“Bi-partisanship” is an idea that should make everyone sick to their stomach. When someone is out to kill you, or your nation and community, making a deal for the sake of “bi-partisanship” or, its related political spineless copout “compromise”, makes no sense when the end result is injustice and a worsening of our lives. That’s what I start out with today—a topic I also wrote about in my new newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

Quick, who said just a couple of days ago: “We believe that $15-an-hour is the minimum that anyone in the U.S. should earn for an hour of labor” and, then, demanded that Congress raise the minimum wage to $15-an-hour. If you said Bernie Sanders, wrong! Though of course he does believe this. It was…wait for this…Amazon.

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That’s a direct result of union and community pressure on Amazon. Thousands of workers are trying to get a union at Amazon’s huge warehouse in Bessemer Alabama. The ballots have just been mailed and we get an update on the organizing campaign from a good friend of the show Dave Mertz, vice president at the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, which is seeking to represent the workers.

Since the coup in Myanmar on February 1st, the Myanmar trade union movement is taking a leading role in protest and strike actions against the military and is calling for international solidarity actions. There is a global solidarity day coming up Thursday, February 11th. So, to give everyone an update and what to do to support our sisters and brothers in Myanmar, I’m joined by Brian Finnegan, the Global Worker Rights Coordinator at the International Department of the AFL-CIO.

-- Jonathan Tasini

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