American Legion Director of Media and Communications Henry Howard previews the October issue on the Strait of Hormuz, the Navy’s 293-ship gap against a DOD requirement of 500 and new National Commander Jay Bowen’s Be Part of the Solution theme tied to the Be the One veteran suicide prevention initiative at betheone.org. Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Director Rich Fiesta discusses checking voter registration at vote.org before registration deadlines close, the Supreme Court keeping mail ballot injunctions in place against the Trump executive order and why 40% of voters over 65 voted by mail in 2024 — the highest rate of any age group. Call or text 988 if you need help.

QPR Institute National Training Director Shayna Klassen, a person in long-term recovery since 2003, suicide attempt survivor and suicide loss survivor, discusses the QPR for Ironworkers suicide prevention program built in partnership with IMPACT and the International Association of Iron Workers — why the mental health field had to change its approach rather than asking ironworkers to change their culture, how four instructor certification cohorts are deploying certified trainers across locals in the US and Canada and the goal of making QPR training mandatory in every ironworker apprenticeship program. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988.

OFT President Melissa Cropper discusses the AFT national teacher stress survey, the Ohio University faculty contract fight past 400 days and the Ohio governor’s race — including Vivek Ramaswamy’s record on teachers unions and school funding versus Dr. Amy Acton’s education platform. CWA District 4 Director Frank Mathews discusses recent organizing wins including Wikimedia Foundation workers joining CWA Local 9415, the forces driving 71% public approval for unions and CWA’s three-prong voter mobilization program of texting, phone banking and handwritten postcards with state endorsements and a congressional scorecard available at cwa-union.org.

MacArthur Fellow and University of Minnesota Regents Professor Steven Ruggles discusses his PNAS paper projecting that net entry into the US labor force will drop below zero in the 2030s for the first time in American history, as baby boomers retire and smaller birth cohorts follow, creating strong upward wage pressure for young workers, the most favorable conditions for union organizing in half a century and a demographic shift large enough to partially offset even significant AI-driven job displacement.

AGMA organizer Adam Da Ros discusses the first wall-to-wall unionization of an American opera company in more than 40 years, tracing the Opera Colorado campaign from April 2023 through a 91-to-8 NLRB election win to a contract that raises the chorus minimum from approximately $500 per production to $21.50 per hour. Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga discusses Labor Day energy across Ohio, the biennial convention coming to Columbus September 21-23 featuring Amy Acton, Sherrod Brown and IUPAT President Jimmy Williams Jr. and the November choice Ohio voters face between the current policy direction and electing leaders who work for working people.

EPI President Heidi Shierholz discusses the Economic Policy Institute’s report on tripling union density to 30%, finding it would raise the median worker’s pay by 14.5% or approximately $7,700 annually, shift $1.2 trillion per year from shareholders and executives to working people, cut the nonelderly uninsured rate by 25%, close racial wage gaps by more than one-third and produce state-by-state annual wage increases of $1,900 to $10,600, alongside two new policy proposals and a finding that ensuring public sector collective bargaining rights alone would raise national union density from 9.9% to 14.4%.

Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen National VP Tim Tarrant discusses his terminal cancer diagnosis in 2007 and the union healthcare plan that saved his life, the Ludlow Massacre of Easter Sunday 1914 in which approximately 75 people including eleven children died in a burning tent colony after union leader Louis Tikas was murdered during a fake truce negotiation, the Battle of Blair Mountain and the labor origin of the word redneck, current BRS safety fights at Metra Chicago and the Port Authority of New Jersey and the May 2026 LIRR strike, the first in 42 years, that won a fair cost-of-living contract after three days that shut down New York commuter service east of Manhattan.

St. Mary’s labor and delivery nurse Emily Berceau discusses the seven-year organizing campaign at SSM Health in Madison, Wisconsin, from a 2019 push that reached 40% signed cards before COVID derailed it through multiple subsequent efforts to the June 2026 vote where more than 800 nurses chose SEIU Wisconsin 89% in favor, the management tactics along the way including threats of suspension for wearing a Nurses United badge reel and what safe staffing ratios, fair compensation and seniority protections mean for the first contract fight now underway.

California Federation of Labor President Lorena Gonzalez discusses her father’s journey from Mexico to San Diego County’s strawberry fields, her mother’s 40-year nursing career and the retaliation she witnessed trying to organize, the landmark California legislation Gonzalez authored including the nation’s first statewide paid sick leave, farmworker overtime protections and criminal penalties for wage theft rooted in a misclassification battle stretching back to Ives v. South Buffalo Railway Co. in 1911 and New York Central R.R. Co. v. White in 1917, and why sustaining the current surge in public support for unions requires the movement to stay front-facing and fight the big fights rather than cutting back-room deals.

Congressional Labor Caucus co-founder Don Norcross discusses the Faster Labor Contracts Act discharge petition, the Public Officials with a Union Label initiative that placed 100-plus union members in public office across four New Jersey counties, Reagan’s PATCO firing as the turning point in modern labor history and why labor creates all wealth. TradesFutures Executive Director Marina Zhavoronkova discusses the organization’s 200-plus free apprenticeship readiness programs across 32 states, data center construction driving union job demand and what BLS AI exposure categories show about building trades occupations ranking among the lowest in relative AI exposure of all currently classified jobs.