Episode 137: The Conspiracies to Rob Workers—at the VA and in Hollywood.
Episode 137: If you look hard enough, you can find conspiracies to defraud workers in every corner of the economy—and those conspiracies are usually dressed up as something entirely different. Take the people who work for the VA—there is a conspiracy to crush their union and cut wages, all dressed by in the cloak of “efficiency through privatization”. I talk with American Federation of Government Employees leaders Marilyn Park and Eric Gerken about the Orwellian-named “Mission Act”, which will cripple the VA, hurt the quality of care Vets receive and undermine the union. And in the glittering world of Hollywood, talent agencies are pocketing huge fees as essentially payoffs from studios, in a broad conspiracy that is taking away money from writers of movies, who are the people talent agencies are supposed to be representing. David Goodman, the president of the Writers Guild of America and a long-time, top-tier TV writer, chats with me about the fight that has already seen, in an eye-opening act of solidarity, thousands of writers fire their talent agencies. -- Jonathan Tasini Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini Sign up for The Working Life Podcast at: www.workinglife.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.tasini.3
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