By Doug Cunningham

Herman Benson, founder of the Association for Union Democracy, is out with a book called "Rebels, Reformers and Racketeers", a history of rank and file dissidents who have pressed for democratic reform and an end to corruption in the labor movement over the decades.

[Herman Benson 1] : "One of the more emotional aims of this book is to really tell about people who fought and died to make the union movement cleaner and more democratic. And people who, because they were dissidents , are forgotten."

The ninety year old Benson says he's seen enormous progress made by those fighting for union democracy…

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Communications Director Jim Spellane talks about future of labor and his union. The IBEW has endorsed John Sweeney as their choice to continue leading the AFL-CIO. Spellane talks to WIN about why Sweeney is the right choice, the IBEW's concerns for the future of the labor movement and some issues important for that union. Click here for the raw audio.

Author Suzanne Gordon says the nursing crisis in America is driven by cost-cutting management imposing bad working conditions on nurses at a time when we need nurses the most. Gordon's book, "Nursing Against the Odds" details real-life experiences of nurses battling to deliver quality care to patients in an atmosphere that doesn't value, empower or nourish their efforts. Gordon says collective action by nurses and allied groups is needed to turn the crisis around.

[Suzanne Gordon 1]: "Well I think collective action is always part of the answer because when you work for a large institution you have no power on your own. And in America if you don't have a union you're an employee at will. So if you say to a manager, a hospital administrator, I'm worried about patient care, you know they can fire you and you have no recourse unless you're in a union."

Eric Lee is a long-time labor activist and founder of Labourstart, an online labor resource, and RadioLabourstart, an Internet radio station dedicated to labor news. Lee has written several books, his newest is called "How Internet Radio Can Change the World: An Activist's Handbook." Lee says Internet radio isn't going to change the labor movement all by itself, but it will certainly help.

[Lee1] "Internet radio is part of the whole slough of communications technologies which are changing the world, like the web, email and internet radio, it's part of that process, but it's the part that unions have tended to ignore."

Allegations that the Coca-Cola corporation is contributing to human rights violations in Colombia were brought to a new audience earlier this month when political poet Martin Espada refused to accept the companies money during a speaking engagement at Kansas University. Espada requested that the $1200 put forth by Coca-Cola through the Kansas University Endowment Association instead be donated to the National Food Workers Union in Colombia that represents workers at Coke plants in that country. The company is accused of allowing paramilitary groups to intimidate workers and in some cases murder trade union leaders. Espada says it is the companies attitude towards the situation that upsets him the most:

If you ever needed a self-defense manual on the job to assert your rights against abuses by the boss, Labor Notes can supply it. A Troublemaker¹s Handbook 2, How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win! is designed to empower workers looking for tactics to win justice on the job. Editor Jane Slaughter says more than seventy authors tell their stories and share their expertise on collective tactics workers anywhere can use.

On Wednesday, the Workers Independent News had the opportunity to talk with author and activist Anthony Arnove, co-editor with Howard Zinn on the book "Voices of a People's History of the United States." Arnove, a member of the National Writer's Union and the United Association for Labor Education, spoke about the book, the lessons it has for the future of labor and why it is important to not forget the struggle of working men and women throughout the history of the United States.

[Arnove1]: People talk as if the United States is a classless society, but it certainly isn't now and it never has been one. We look at a number of these documents - Genora Johnson Dollinger describing the sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan. And we should recall at the time people said it would be impossible to organize auto. Just as we know hear today people saying it would be impossible to organize Wal-Mart. I think their are some lessons to be drawn from people who really made tremendous sacrifices, had great courage, had great creativity.

To hear more from this interview, visit the labor radio website...

Ever since Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union called for a restructuring of labor, a great deal of attention has been focused on what it means on a national level. Tracy Suprise, organizing director of SEIU1199-Wisconsin, told WIN on Thursday that restructuring is important on the local level because many states are watching their union membership numbers drop.

[Suprise1]:That tells me that no matter how good we are at collective bargaining, no matter how good we are in terms of being a player in the political action arena, we're not organizing to even stay with a percentage of the workforce - we're losing ground. That to me is a clear cut message as to why we need to step out of the box and we've got to do things differently.

Tax incremental finance districts created nationwide were supposed to kick-start local economies hit by blight by offering tax savings to companies to create jobs. But Greg Leroy of Good Jobs First in Washington, D.C. is publishing a book called The Great American Jobs Scam that asserts these TIF districts have been perverted into dumb corporate giveaways that don¹t create the jobs that were promised.

[Greg LeRoy 1]: "Well, I'm talking about a system that allows companies to exact huge tax breaks and other kinds of subsidies by talking about creating good jobs, but then a system that allows companies to fail to deliver on the jobs even though they get the big tax breaks and subsidies."

Leroy says because TIF requirements have become too relaxed in their definition of blight they¹ve become a giant ripoff of both taxpayers and workers.