When I interviewed Rodrigo Toscano for the show we're re-airing this week, “Can Work Be Love?” we talked about his work – as a poet and as a labor organizer for the non-profit Labor Institute. His poetry is about the workers he knows, from the United Steelworkers to the telecom laborers of the Communication Workers of America. I’m not part of a union today, but like many of my colleagues, I was a member of the Communication Workers of America when I was a staff writer for The Washington Post. I’ve been thinking about those days as we air this episode in our series “Going for Broke.”
Talking with Toscano reminded me of the audio from the Studs Terkel archive that we used in another show, “What’s Wrong With Work.” "So many of us would not like to need the jobs we have," said Terkel, speaking on a Labor Day broadcast in 1960. "But we must get down to fundamentals. Certainly, it's a necessity that has sent so many men deep down into the bowels of the earth." And those of us who love what we do, well, we are very lucky.
Labor groups will likely play a role in the upcoming presidential election, which will be interesting to watch. Both sides, of course, want the labor vote. And now that so many of us are working remotely, I've been thinking about how unions can represent a different kind of workplace community.
– Shannon