Tonight’s show features two stories close to home that affect the livelihoods of many Portlanders.

"How could you cut a Bureau in half?" Massive job cuts at the City of Portland

Maybe you or someone you know works for the City of Portland, or works in an industry like construction that depends on city permitting, or maybe you’re a tenant who’s ever called the city to report housing code violations when your landlord won’t make needed repairs.  All those functions are threatened as the City prepares to lay off half the staff of the Bureau of Development Services.  Our guest is Carol Justice, longtime City employee and member of AFSCME 189, working together with other unions to fight the cuts.  "This is a class war," she tells KBOO. "This is the middle class fighting to keep just what they have -- we're not even asking for more."  Reach her at carol.justice@comcast.net

 "This is my day job:" Fair Trade Music campaign

Despite the high profile of Portland’s music scene, professional musicians struggle to make ends meet in our town, on fees that often work out to even less than minimum wage.  Our guests -- musicians Sean Hudson, Graham Smith-White, and Jennifer Woodall, and publicist Matt Kalinowski -- are among those banding together with AFM 99 to ask venues and fans to support what they’re calling fair trade music.  

Host Peter Shapiro interviews legendary longshore activist, Leo Robinson of Oakland, California, a founder of the African American Longshore Coalition and Vice President of the internationally admired  ILWU local 10, about changes on the waterfront from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Why isn't the stimulus solving the economic crisis for working families?  Why is Wall Street so anxious to reassure us that things are looking up again?  Should working people be worried about deficit spending?  And what simple policy change could eliminate Social Security's funding problem?

Marty Hart-Landsberg, Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College and author of the blog Reports from the Economic Front, explains it all.  We had to cut this interview down to about ten minutes for live broadcast on Labor Radio's August 10th show, but here, in an online exclusive, is the full interview, facts and figures included!

Hosts Peter Shapiro and Jamie Partridge talk with Steve Early, author of EMBEDDED WITH ORGANIZED LABOR, Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home (Monthly Review Press).   Just retired from the national staff of the Communications Workers of America, Steve Early has been an organizer, strike strategist, labor educator and lawyer. For three decades, he has been in the forefront of the fight for worker power and union democracy