Local • News & Public Affairs • Podcast
Heartland Labor Forum is Kansas City's only program about the workplace. It is produced by and for our working people. We have been agitating on the air since 1989. Find out who is busting unions and who is fighting back. We are a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network #laborradiopod
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The Team
Heartland Labor Forum Programmers
The Heartland Labor Forum is produced by a group of volunteers who are labor and community activists who believe in workplace democracy, workers rights, and economic justice. We're the only show in Kansas City that focuses on working people: who is fighting on their side and who is not, what they need to know about the economy. We seek to educate and inspire.
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The Heartland Labor Forum is Kansas City’s only program about the workplace. It’s radio that talks back to the boss! Whether you’re a union member or your workplace isn’t organized, Heartland Labor Forum (HLF) has stories for you, guaranteed to inspire, educate, or enrage you. HLF is produced by a diverse group of working people. We have been agitating for the rights of working people on the KKFI airwaves since 1989.
Find out about labor struggles and strikes, organizing in Kansas City, global sweatshops, and how the economy is working from the point of view of working people. Listen to our monthly features: Know Your Rights, Safety First, Remember Our Struggle, and Washington Window on Workers. Heartland Labor Forum has won the International Labor Communications Association first prize for radio several times. We are members of the Labor Radio Podcast Network #laborradiopod. Other media have plenty of business news of, by, and for the 1%; HLF is for the rest of us.
Find our schedule of upcoming shows and our archive at www.heartlandlaborforum.org.
Jen Zaman Dream of an engineer. She’s J Zed–presenter of Mind The Gap, Saturdays 12AM GMT/6PM CST. Music/art lover, proud wife and fur-mom, and aunt to a French teen.
Feature Editors
- Michael Amash does Know Your Rights once a month. He is with the Blake & Uhlig labor law firm.
- Mark Gruenberg is on once a month with Washington Window on Workers. He is a full-time labor journalist with PAI-Press Associates Inc. which provides news to unions and labor publications.
Upcoming Episodes
June 17, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Two Women Labor Leaders: Alise Martiny and Antoinette Robinson
When you think of labor leaders, think women. This week, we’ll profile two local women leaders. Alise Martiny leads the KC Building Trades. She’s making sure the airport gets done right. She also knows first-hand the challenges women in construction face on the job. We then flip to the president of the Postal Workers KCMO local, Toni Robinson. She has been guiding her members through the pandemic and the stresses of management speed-ups and cutbacks.
Read MoreRecent Episodes
June 10, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Dan McCrory, How Capitalism Killed the Middle Class and Rigged the System and New AFSCME Local 500 President Reginald Silvers
Once upon a time, you could work for one company your whole adult life, you could make a decent living, and you could buy your piece of the American Dream. Not any more, says Dan McCrory, who started at the phone company in 1973 and has written Capitalism Killed the Middle Class; 25 Ways the System is Rigged Against You. We’ll find out how Ma Bell killed Dan’s dream and which of the twenty-five is the worst for the working class. Then, AFSCME Local 500 which represents city workers in KCMO has a new president, Reginald Silvers. We’ll find out about him and his plans for city workers on tonight’s show.
ListenJune 3, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
How We Failed Essential Workers
As we reopen after a year of COVID, what’s happening to the so-called heroes who do essential work? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll look at how we failed essential workers, whether we’re still failing them, and what would have been a better approach.
ListenMay 27, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Missouri’s School Voucher Problem & Eric Lotke: Union Made
The attack on public education is nothing new, but recent legislation coming out of the Missouri Legislature has public school teachers fighting back. This week, we will talk to Jess Piper, a teacher, about the school voucher program and its impact on Missouri education. Then, novelist Eric Lotke tells us about his new book – Union Made. It’s a modern-day love story set during an organizing campaign in a big box store and the unlikely romance between a union organizer and an accountant who works for a sleazy corporate raider. Will love or money win?
ListenMay 20, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
The Jobs Guarantee: Is Full Employment Possible?
After over a year of the pandemic and its resulting economic ruin, and as politicians now debate when to kick people off unemployment, isn’t it time to revisit the idea of full employment? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we’ll air a forum on labor and a jobs guarantee and hear how the promise of a decent job for all could solve so many of our problems. Tune in Thursday at 6pm, rebroadcast Friday at 5am.
ListenMay 13, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Long Live Scabby the Rat! and Sarah Lloyd Green and the Kansas City General Strike
Scabby the Rat, the iconic supersized symbol of anti-union employers across America, has been under attack by Trumpers in the NLRB. Find out whether this defender of workers’ rights can escape the trap and continue to shame the union busters. Then, our two minute profile for labor history month of Sarah Lloyd Green may have whetted your appetite to know what KC was like for working people a century ago. We’ll find out more about her and the 1918 General Strike.
ListenMay 6, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
A is for Asylum: How We Talk about Immigration and Judy Ancel: The Heart of the Labor Forum
KKFI has been discouraging the use of words that dehumanize people in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. So what about words like “illegal” and “alien?” This week, we discuss the book A is for Asylum: How We Talk about Immigration. Then, volunteer Tom Gebken interviews our lead producer, Judy Ancel. He calls her “The Heart of the Labor Forum.”
ListenApril 29, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
May the Earth Have Another Day – Celebrating Earth Day and May Day
Is organized labor up for the fight against climate change? Do climate activists get the importance of transitions to good clean jobs? This week, we celebrate May Day – International Labor Day - and Earth Day with interviews on these key questions with labor and environmental leaders and scholars. We’ll have songs about good jobs and the survival of our planet.
ListenApril 22, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Jane McAlevey: A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy
We spend the show with longtime successful organizer Jane McAlevey. We ask her what happened at Amazon, how to defeat the union busters, and what’s the first step a worker here in Kansas City should take if they’re fed up and want a union where they work. McAlevey says, “I’ve spent my life teaching workers how to win.”
ListenApril 15, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Missouri Legislative Sum-up with Rep. Crystal Quade and Barbara Washington
It’s the last month of this year’s legislative session in Missouri. We’ll talk to Minority Leader Crystal Quade and Senator Barbara Washington about Medicaid Expansion, charter school growth, infrastructure, COVID relief funds, and, of course, the usual attacks on unions. Tune in Thursday at 6pm, rebroadcast Friday at 5am.
ListenApril 8, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Toni Gilpin, The Long Deep Grudge and Organizing Google
This week, we’ll focus on radical unions. First, we’ll talk to Toni Gilpin about her new book The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland. Then, workers at Google are forming the Alphabet Workers Union, or AWU, organizing regular and contract employees across Google’s vast empire. They say they will fight for better jobs and to make Google an ethical company.
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