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Union Talkin'

Union Talkin'

Written by: Ryan Pettengill
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 Union Talkin' is designed to provide listeners with a balanced and thorough understanding of the history of working people and organized labor in the United States.Ryan Pettengill World
Episodes
  • It's STILL the Economy, Stupid! Labor and the Working Class in the Twilight of the Twentieth Century

    It's STILL the Economy, Stupid! Labor and the Working Class in the Twilight of the Twentieth Century
    Jul 23 2022
    Episode 31, the series finale, takes up the matter of the back half of the 1990s. Pettengill begins with the culture wars of the 1990s. These wars exacerbated the broader divisions of Americans at the end of the twentieth century. The episode then moves on to explore the role of the renewal of immigration and its impact on the labor movement. Pettengill ends the episode with the Election of 2000. As he notes, the end of the century left labor and working-class American with more question than answers.
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    45 mins
  • "The New World Order": the End of the Cold War, Recession, and the Onset of Clintonian Centrism

    "The New World Order": the End of the Cold War, Recession, and the Onset of Clintonian Centrism
    Jul 17 2022
    Episode 30 covers the back half of the 1980s with the election George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush was ushered in on the wave of Reaganism. He promised not to raise taxes. But, as Pettengill notes, he went back on that promise and raised taxes two years into his term. Simultaneously, communism fell in Eastern Europe. Even still, there were hot spots of trouble across the world. In 1990 Sadam Huessien invaded the oil-rich nation of Kuwait, resulting in the Persian Gulf War. Bush emerged from this affair as a very popular president. But Pettengill points out that along with a cease fire came an economic recession that ultimately cost Bush and the Republicans the White House. The election of Bill Clinton was a referendum on the economy. Clinton won but not with a popular majority. Moreover, the ranks of organized labor labor remained suspicious of Clinton's neo-liberal approach to government. Their suspicions were well-founded as one of the first orders of business was the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The results were deeply troubling for American workers and organized labor.
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    47 mins
  • Voodoo Economics: Economic Recovery, Reaganomics, and the Widening Wealth Gap in America

    Voodoo Economics: Economic Recovery, Reaganomics, and the Widening Wealth Gap in America
    Jul 11 2022
    Episode 29 explores the early years of the Reagan presidency, especially with respect to the president's attempt to bring the economy back. What came to be known as Reaganomics involved cutting taxes at the top so that capital might "trickle down" to the grassroots of the American economy. Pettengill notes that, either directly or indirectly, Reaganomics was deeply problematic for the American working class. In ways it contributed to the continued erosion of blue-collar jobs. Organized labor's responded by resorting to economic nationalism. The idea of "buy American" ultimately failed to address the crisis for working Americans and contributed to the further divisions in the ranks of the labor movement.
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    44 mins
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