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
December 3, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
A Labor Tribute to Herb Johnson (1943-2021)
The Kansas City labor community lost Herb Johnson on October 18th. Herb’s life was a non-stop fight for the rights of working people from his early days with the Machinists at TWA to his last role building the Alliance for Retired Americans. In between, he held the number two post with the Missouri AFL-CIO, fighting bills in the legislature aimed at fleecing workers. On this week’s Heartland Labor Forum, Herb’s union friends will pay tribute with lots of good stories.
Read MoreRecent Episodes
November 25, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Remembering Herb Johnson & Keith Nelson from the 2011 show on TWA
Twenty years ago, Transworld Airlines ceased operations, driven into bankruptcy by corporate raider Carl Icahn. The union that represented the thousands of Kansas City TWA maintenance base workers was Machinists Local 1650. Its president and vice president were Herb Johnson and Keith Nelson. Both died recently, and this week, we’ll remember their militant struggle against Carl Icahn to save the airline.
ListenNovember 18, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Unions and Vaccine Mandates and Is CRT: Turning Parents Against Teachers?
Vaccine mandates. Biden and OSHA are for them. Your company may be too, but what about unions and what about you? We’ll ask leaders of the Postal Workers and CWA what’s happening where they work. Then, the education privatizers are using the phony threat of Critical Race Theory to twist the teaching of history into a fairy tale. We’ll talk to KU’s David Roediger on why kids need to learn history as it really was.
ListenNovember 11, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Workplace Shootings: One ATU Leader’s Plea for Workplace Mental Health and Remember, Remember Striketober in November?
Can toxic workplace culture contribute to deadly mass shootings? This week, we’ll discuss this year’s deadliest workplace shooting and what unions can do to stop them. Then, when coal miners, factory workers, teachers and nurses all flex their muscles, you get Striketober. Are these strikes just a reaction to the global pandemic or a renewed sign of worker power? We’ll talk to Labor Notes’ Alexandra Bradbury.
ListenNovember 4, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
More Perfect Union: Labor News and Lessons for Labor from the Afghan War
There’s a new gang of labor reporters online. They want more justice, more accountability, more power for the people. They’re called More Perfect Union, and this week they’ll be on the Heartland Labor Forum. Also, we’ll ask: after 20 years of the Afghan war, what have we learned? Author, labor lawyer, and peace activist Dan Kovalik will tell us what are the lessons for the working class.
ListenOctober 28, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Voting in Missouri: The Old Rules Again to Limit Voting and Asylum for Sale – Adrienne Pine’s book on the Asylum Industrial Complex
How safe is your vote? This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we talk to Sara Zorich of the Jackson County Election Board about your ballot’s journey from the voting booth to the counting room, rule changes for absentee voting, and other issues. Then, we’ll talk to Adrienne Pine about the book Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry and how it profits from the monitored vulnerability of asylees.
ListenOctober 21, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Teamsters International: Is the Tide Changing? And Biden’s NLRB
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is facing a new era of leadership and perhaps some sweeping changes. Longtime President James P. Hoffa is retiring and the election for his successor is hotly contested. Find out more this Thursday on the Heartland Labor Forum. Then, the National Labor Relations Board sets the basic rules for union organizing and bargaining. Under Trump, it stripped rights from unions giving more power to big business. We’ll talk to former NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce to find out what Biden’s labor board is doing.
ListenOctober 14, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
CEOs Who “Love” Unions Everywhere but in Their Own Companies and Indigenous Peoples’ Day
This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we mark Indigenous People’s day and pay tribute to our First Nations. Then, we’ll ask why many progressive organizations resist unionization. We’ll get examples around the country, and talk to the United Media Guild’s Shannon Duffy about a situation closer to home.
ListenOctober 7, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
AIRPORT! Who Is Doing the Work?
We’ve heard a lot from the media about the new KC Airport: its design, its cost, its food choices, but little has been said lately about the workers – more than 900 of them – who are building it. This week, we go out to the airport to talk to workers and find out if they’re meeting the hiring goals for women and people of color.
ListenSeptember 30, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Two New Union Leaders in KC
This week, meet Bo Moreno, the new Business Manager of IBEW Local 124 whose highly skilled members wire Kansas City. Then, we’ll talk to Tom Gebken, Heartland Labor Forum volunteer and new president of CWA Local 6360. His members connect us in many ways from phones to 911. We’ll ask what made them decide to be union leaders in these chaotic times.
ListenSeptember 23, 2021 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Workers Unite Film Festival and The Alabama Coal Strike
Workers of the World Unite! Let’s go to the movies. It’s the Workers Unite Film Festival, and this week we’ll hear all about it. Then eleven hundred coal miners have been on strike against Warrior Met since April 1. That’s right – over 5 months. We’ll talk to them and find out what's at stake for the miners and their families.
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