2393 – Union Made Parental Leave & Democrats As A Rudderless Ship w/ Madi Oates & Michelle Eisen; David Dayen

It’s Hump Day! Sam speaks with Madi Oates, shift supervisor and bargaining delegate for Starbucks Workers United (SWU), based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Michelle Eisen, organizing member of SWU, to discuss Starbucks recent update to its parental leave policy. And then, Sam is joined by David Dayen, executive editor at The American Prospect and co-host of the Organized Money podcast, to discuss the prospects of the Democratic Party going into 2025 and beyond. First, Sam runs through updates on the GOP’s continuing resolution, the Matt Gaetz ethics report, the Fed’s rate cuts, Senate judicial confirmation, Lina Khan’s FTC, Luigi Mangione, Palestinians’ and Palestinian-Americans’ suit against the State Department, Trump’s legal woes, Amazon labor action, and the US’ TikTok ban, also expanding on the GOP infighting around the continuing resolution and Mike Johnson’s message to unelected billionaire bureaucrats Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Madi Oates and Michelle Eisen then join as they dive right into the major victory won by Starbucks Workers United in securing the same level of paid parental leave for Starbucks’ workers as it provides for its executives, tackling the major exploitation and effort put on the company’s pregnant workers and unpacking the various policy benefits that this negotiation has won. Stepping back, Eisen and Oates paint a picture of the major progress SWU has had in expanding its US presence, organizing some 5% of stores nationally, and the major progress they’ve made in securing rights and fair wages for their members, before looking forward to the future of this fight, as Starbucks’ myriad open unfair labor practice cases and lack of a clear economic proposal come into their crosshairs. David Dayen then joins, first touching on the coalescence of a rudderless Biden Administration with a floundering Democratic Party that seems incapable of working as an opposition party, dissecting the overlap of these issues in the role the party’s gerontocratic class putting their egos and ideological commitments over the need for the party to readapt to a younger electorate with vastly evolved concerns. Expanding on this, Dayen and Sam zero in on the role Nancy Pelosi has played in legitimizing this cling to power (even amid failure), with her recent obstruction of AOC’s bid for Dem chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee serving as a key example of her refusal to back down from dictating a party for which she is no longer Minority Leader. Wrapping up, they assess the problem of Democrats’ utter dearth of a plan for acting as an organized opposition to Trump, and whether internal dissent in the party will be able to push leadership back on track.

And in the Fun Half: Sam unpacks Trump’s plan to privatize the USPS, with some helpful confusion added by a member of the TimCast team, before tackling RFK Jr’s ongoing pivot right on abortion. Sean Hannity is suddenly pro-Europe, Kowalski from Nebraska helps us understand why food in the US is unhealthier than in Europe (freedom… and deregulation), and the DOGE caucus sets their sites on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Hillary from Brooklyn helps us understand the NYPD’s attempt to charge Luigi Mangione with terrorism, and John from San Antonio parses through the turnout and demographic numbers for the 2024 election, plus, your calls and IMs!

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