Voice of the People: Radio by and for the 99% will look at some current worker issues. Our word of the week is “collective bargaining” which is the negotiation between workers and their employer, often about wages and working conditions, that results in a collective bargaining agreement or union contract. We look at how this process can help train workers to someday manage and democratically govern their workplace. In the first hour we also discuss items in the news, continuing to cover the pandemic and the economic catastrophe for the 99% allowed to happen by Congress, while billionaires grow even richer. We take a closer look at the catastrophic national unemployment figures, the huge number of small business closures, and the failure of Congress to effectively fix the pandemic-induced depression. We also look at the utter malfunction of the Federal Reserve Bank’s Main Street Lending Program. We also cover the NLRB victory of the Yellowstone National Park winter guides over their employer Delaware North’s illegal suppression of union organizing. We take a long look at how even 42,000 meatpacking workers testing positive for COVID-19 and with 200 worker deaths, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) charged and fined only two meatpacking plants – Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, SD and JBS in Greeley, CO - and fined them a total of $29,000. What’s more there is evidence that the Trump Administration intervened in the case by putting pressure on local public health officials. And we conclude the first hour by covering how overwhelmed public health workers in France are going on strike, and about how to support newly organized nurses at the Kalispell Regional Healthcare facility who are in tough negotiations over a first collective bargaining agreement (www.kalispellnurses.com).
In the third half hour we interview participants in a September 14th, 2020 protest at the Montana Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Montana Capital taking issue with the way the DOC has handled native inmate’s census information. The people interviewed also give harrowing accounts of inmate treatment in Montana’s prisons and jails.
Then for the last part of the show we have a great conversation with a Friend of the Show, Linda Gillison and our sound sound guy Jim Gillan. Jim reports on an effort to reinstate passenger rail service to the southern tier of Montana and what that could mean.
Join us in our social distancing by listening live in the Missoula Valley on Saturdays Noon to 2:00 pm (MT) 105.5 FM or worldwide streaming on 1055kfgm.org. And please join our Facebook Group (Voice of the People: Radio by and for the 99% on 1055KFGM.org Group) to access scripts of this and previous shows other contact information.
