Episode 60: Why Go Mainstream When You Can Breakthrough?
We welcome Monica Cruz. She's a labor reporter with BreakThrough News and host of the weekly podcast, On the Picket Line. She's a 3rd generation Afro-Boricua raised in New Jersey and an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We discuss the PRO Act, a major labor legislation that could transform the lives of working class people and labor organizing, and what that means for Puerto Ricans, the wider BIPOC community and the working class as a whole.
We also talk about why it’s so hard to make a good Mofongo, where mainstream media is lacking in their reporting on labor and her labor reporting for BreakThrough news, especially what she experienced during the Amazon Warehouse unionization efforts in Alabama.
Episode 53: The Jones Act, Workers' Rights, & Unionizing Your Workplace
For this week’s episode, we welcome César Rosado Marzán. He’s a labor and employment law scholar and professor in the University of Iowa’s College of Law. We invited him on the show today because there’s been some big unionization news in the media recently. In case you haven’t seen it, there is a vital election going on to unionize an Amazon Warehouse in Alabama and a lot of eyes are paying attention to what will happen at this warehouse, including 1,000s of Amazon workers nationwide.
This story got us thinking about labor and employment law, but in addition to talking about the Amazon Warehouse story, we’ll also discuss the Jones Act and its impact on Puerto Rico, workers’ rights, and Joe Biden’s statement showing support for unionization efforts, which - btw - is not something you see often from a sitting president.