Letter Carriers and other postal workers are facing a barrage of scare tactics from the Postmaster General, including the threat of eliminating 30% of the workforce, half the post offices and three days of mail delivery.  Kevin Card, president of the Oregon State Association of Letter Carriers, tells host Jamie Partridge how the US Postal Service and their legislative allies are conspiring to gut workers wages, benefits and collective bargaining rights using a  phoney debt crisis created by Congressional mandates.

We start with the workers who made your IKEA bookshelf at a factory in Danville, Virginia.  Last month they formed a union with a sweeping 76% majority, after collecting twice as many signatures of support as there are people in the town of Danville!  How'd they do it?  We speak with organizer Bill Street of the Woodworkers' department of the Machinists' union.

Then, headlines over the last month have been dominated by theatrics in DC over the national budget.  The debate supposedly centered around a massive national deficit, but nothing is quite as it seems.  For more insight into this massively irritating manufactured crisis, and where we go from here, we spoke with Laurie King of Portland Jobs with Justice's Economic Crisis Committee.

Image credit: National Union of Public and General Employees, http://www.nupge.ca/content/4424/workers-unionize-us-ikea-manufcaturing-plant

Vancouver Hilton Hotel Workers, organized in UNITE HERE local 9, are struggling for a fair contract at the 5-year old convention center, which is owned by the City of Vancouver.  Negotiating team member, Lucas Fielder, talks with host Jamie Partridge about wage disparities and unaffordable family health coverage as well as the actions workers are taking to improve their conditions.

Portland Rising , a project of JOBS with JUSTICE, loaded 150 activists on three buses for a day of action in solidarity with seven different private & public sector unions whose contracts expired on that same day, June 30^th .  JwJ Director Margaret Butler  talks with host Jamie Partridge about the significance of this campaign for our labor movement.<?xml:namespace prefix = o />