Between The Lines - Glenda Jones: Wisconsin's GOP-backed anti-union legislation will disproportionately damage women workers (Week Ending April 1, 2011)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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Study: Wisconsin's GOP Anti-Union Legislation will Disproportionately Harm State's Women

RealAudio MP3

Posted March 23, 2011

Interview with Glenda Jones, assistant professor and director of Women and Gender Studies Program, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Legislation weakening public employee union collective bargaining rights rammed through the GOP- controlled Wisconsin legislature by Republican Gov. Scott Walker was put on hold by a county judge in Madison, who ruled that its passage may have violated the state's open meetings law, one of the strongest in the country. If the ruling is upheld, the legislature will have to vote on the bill again. Because one Republican legislator voted against the bill the first time, opponents hoped more Republicans will defect to defeat the measure, or that it may be modified in order to gain passage.

Meanwhile, a group of professors from the University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Consortium -- representing women's studies programs on the state's campuses -- published an open letter highlighting their concern that women will suffer disproportionately if the law goes into effect. While women make up just over half of the state's 175,000 public sector employees, they are concentrated in the lowest paying jobs. And they stand to lose the most if only wages are covered under collective bargaining -- and other issues such as family leave, health insurance and sick days are no longer negotiable. Also, Gov. Walker exempted police and firefighters -- who are overwhelmingly male -- from the law, thus skewing the gender imbalance even more. In addition to gutting collective bargaining, the law would also remove over 300,000 people from Badger Care, the state's health insurance program, mostly affecting young and elderly women.

Between The Lines's Melinda Tuhus spoke with Glenda Jones, an assistant professor at the University's Stout campus in Menominee, who originated the letter. She discusses the response the letter generated, and what's at stake, especially for women workers of color, if the anti-union law goes into effect.

GLENDA JONES: We originally published it on Facebook, and started sending it out to our friends and constituents, and different people sent it to local newspapers; they took it down to a few hundred words to publish it as op-ed pieces, so we just tried to get it out in every way that we could.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And what kind of response has it gotten?

GLENDA JONES: Well, the UW Women's Studies program said they've received more email trafficking on people that have read this and emailed them than anything in a long time, and they thought that was very positive. Mostly I think people are just interested in the fact that we're starting to talk about this. Honestly, we were a little hesitant as a group to sign it because many people felt if you start making this as an issue about women and take away the fact that it's an issue about people, then it would be easier for people to start saying...for men, maybe...to start saying, this is really going to affect women more than it's going to affect me. And so far people have been in solidarity and stood together on this. And there were even women within our group who said we really need to think about the implications of fracturing off before we start talking about how it will impact women specifically.

BETWEEN THE LINES: But you felt this was an important thing to raise, I guess.

GLENDA JONES: Well, I did, because I feel that often women are silenced, and I'm really for the fact that men are now talking about solidarity and what unions have done for them. It's picking up steam even in academic areas that formerly people were against unions. But it's workers without a voice and elderly people and young people and children that will be affected by Badger Care, so this is not just a union issue, it's not just about collective bargaining, it's not just about pay wages or increases in contributions to pensions. There are so many aspects to the bill that almost everyone is unilaterally hurt in some way that works for the public sector.

Right now, we're not sure exactly what rights are going to be lost. The bill itself is 144 pages, but as things start to get whittled away, I think it becomes more scary to people. Right now it seems to be changing. We know that many of the Republican legislators are saying, "You're not losing collective bargaining." But what they were meaning by that is you're not losing collective bargaining for wages. Many of the people that are going to be hurt the most are covered by collective bargaining now for many of these things, but there are other people that are not covered by collective bargaining...many people that work for universities, for example, are already not represented by unions, and they were just starting to get a lot of unionization and vote for unions here in Wisconsin, so that's been very demoralizing to many people.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Glenda Jones, are you a member of a union?

GLENDA JONES: UW-Stout just voted to be part of Wisconsin American Federation of Teachers, so Wisconsin AFT. We just had a union card vote about two weeks ago, and it was a landslide. I think 86 percent of the faculty and the majority voted to unionize. We were actually just a union for five or six hours because it was the same day the legislature had the vote and pushed the budget repair bill through.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And just say a word about one of the points in your letter that women of color will be even more disproportionately impacted than women overall.

GLENDA JONES: I think one of the most surprising things to me as I did research about this is that 30 percent of the women of color in this state live in poverty, and that's twice the national average. And Wisconsin is already 45th out of 50 for women's working wages -- they make 71 cents on the dollar, whereas the average is 77 cents throughout the rest of the U.S. Women of color make 63 cents to every dollar that a man makes, so they're going to be impacted even more. Obviously, as an advocate for women, we feel the workplace needs to be structured in a way where everyone -- regardless of race, ethnicity or gender -- can receive a fair wage. And collective bargaining is the only way that can be done. Joining a union can actually give women more benefits than perhaps getting a four-year degree. So there's some leverage and power that there is in a union to give women these economic benefits. And women of color are going to be disproportionately impacted by this.