we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. host: president obama travels to wisconsin to speak at a labor day event, after the president used his weekly radio address to discuss wages. calling for the raising of the minimum wage. on this labor day, our program will focus on different aspects of the labor market and to start up today, we're interested in hearing from you about your take on the current condition of the job market. perhaps you are working, looking for a job, or taking a job or you're making considerably less. our first 45 minutes, we want to hear from you. here is how you can call us this morning --

to start off to remind you as far as the click through the unemployment united states, about 6.2%. that was the latest figures from july. figures for august not out yet. work 200,000 jobs plus created during that time. that kind of 50 a picture as far as the numbers are concerned. if you look at the kiplinger magazine, there's a story that looks at the current state of the job market and also talking about issues within.

some saying by some measures, we're still struggling. top openings are up, but that isn't translating into an evil number of new hires. .here's a mismatch employers having difficulty finding employees with the right skill sets. to tell us more about the current state of job market, christopher rugabar from the associated press joining us on the phone. thank you for joining us, especially on this labor day. guest: thank you for having me. host: when it comes to the job market, what things would be safe for people to look at to get a sense of how well it is doing? guest: you can look at some of the things, the unemployment rate, the number of jobs added each month. had a pretty good stretch of documents in the last six months, over 200,000 each averaging out about 245,000 for the past six months.

there are some details such as the quality of jobs. part-time jobs, and disintegrate -- and to some degree, three caps on fast food. >> from the employee perspective, but what about the employers? to create jobsg or add-on to current jobs available? guest: you mentioned most of the job openings are at a number of jobs companies have posted is at a 13-year high. that is a good thing. in june, up a bit which is the latest number available. ath, there is a sign of least some confidence in the economy among employers to take on folks. also low-level number of unemployment claims, people coming in to get benefits.

that has followed to low levels, which tells us companies are willing to hold onto their workers and not lay off people. host: for those working, christopher rugabar, tell us about the situation. how are they doing as far as hours worked and how much they make an hour? give us a snapshot of that. guest: people working are not sing a whole lot of reasons, still, under an area of weakness in the job market at this point. economists are watching closely the hiring, some of the picking up in the hiring we're seeing, when will that turn into more pay for those who have jobs and those looking for jobs, wages have risen about 2% or so in the past year. that is the pace we've seen since the recession, which is love the long run of 3.5% to 4%. there is still a need for more wages. hours have not been too bad.

there have been some part jobs added, but overall, people who have jobs, the government does track an average of hours worked per week and that is at a previous level around 35 hours a week. host: this comes as even on the front page of "the new york workerstories of hourly saying they're being paid for overtime, not being accounting for that. that factors into, i guess, the satisfaction of workers today, especially for those who make hourly wages. would you say that? guest: yes, yes. it is an issue that has become -- we're seeing more activism among lower paid workers. it is interesting to see how that will play out. wage theft, demonstrations on things like minimum wage.

we have some issues related to scheduling workers where they may not know with their schedules are very far in advance. their hours are irregular. all of those issues have been coming up in recent months. we've seen a lot of activism on part of the lower wage workers and their unions. host: when we expect another report on the unemployed rate and what do you expect it might say? guest: the next one will be this friday. it will tell us how many jobs were added in august and give us the unemployment rate. most economists are looking for . decent report unemployment is about 6.2% are now. we would like to see that go down, i was the, further. 5% to say it is healthy.

recent signs have been people expect hiring to continue at a steady pace in the next report. host: christopher rugabar, giving us his sense of the state of the job market. he covers that for the ap. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: as you heard him talk about the various aspects, maybe you want to give your own personal take. to call -- let's start with pennsylvania on our employed line. what you think about the job market as you see it? caller: i think it is hard to find a job, at least in pennsylvania, right now.

all the people across the borders -- it is going to be twice as hard to find a job. host: tell us a little bit -- you identified yourself as employed. what is your job situation? caller: i'm unemployed. host: are you employed or unemployed? caller: i don't have a job. i was working at a mill and it got shut down. host: the immigration issue also on the front page of "the times." we are asking about your take on the job market. richard, florida, who finds himself unemployed. caller: good morning. i have a question. every time on tv you see where 28 -- $28,ge wage is is that including the hourly

wage plus benefits or what? over 40da, i worked for years until our company got bought out a couple months ago and i got laid off. i never made $20, $40 an hour. anytime, the best i did coming benefits was $23. when they're saying $24 plus is average, is that including benefits? host: before you go, tell us about your unemployment experience. how long you been unemployed? caller: like i said, about three months now. i had worked for the same company for 40 years. host: have you been searching? if you have, what has that been like? caller: i have been searching. i'm 64 years old. basically, when i go, you can tell in their eyes, being a meat cutter at 64, long in the tooth, if you want to say. they are nice to me, that they

tell me they will get back to me. there's no demand for meat cutters here. host: sandra, employed line. calling on the employed line and i would like to make an observation that i found personally that helped me is mobility. i do work for the government. i have worked for government since 2008. prior to that, i were to the private sector for about 10 years. i walked willingly in 2008 because i saw the bottom getting ready to tank. and workedsurance for major insurance company. they were laying off left and right. i was getting assurances, "you'll be ok." i said, "no, i'm getting out of here." it was the best thing i could have ever done. i work for the v8 now.

i love it. i guess my security is as good as any, but i never take anything for granted. what has really helped me is just being able to be mobile. i've moved around a lot to follow jobs. i going to places i did not necessarily want to go, but when opportunities open up, i was able to pick up and go. i know a lot of people cannot do that. folks have got to. i tell my friends, your got to go were the jobs are. i lived in the maryland area. i worked part time. i can quit a job, i don't like it, get another part-time. because i have security clearance, i worked security. i work weekends. people to movege around if you can.

jobs are better in different parts of the country. the lowest unemployment rate is in north dakota right now. folks may not want to go there, but if i did not have a job and somebody offered me a job in north dakota, i would pack up and go to north dakota. host: alabama, scott, unemployed. caller: how are you doing? host: fine, thank you. caller: i worked at a job in birmingham for 20 years and i hour.bout $24 an -- i was unemployed for about a year. i got a job in the same field making seven dollars an hour less. wages are going down. is that because you could not negotiate a better wage or so because there are a lot of people filling that type of job? what do you think factors into that? caller: i just think they are

not going to pay know better. i have 20 years of expansion what i do. host: what is your background? caller: i'm an aircraft mechanic. host: we said $24 an hour, is that with wages and benefits or just wages? would you mind sharing that? caller: no, i had a really good job making $24 an hour. that is just what my wage was. with benefits, i was making about $40. host: wichita, kansas, thomas, unemployed. unemployed. kind of i'm 68 years old. navy veteran. my mom just turned 90. world war ii veteran. you know what makes me idiotically insane is when you

unemployment is 6.2%. that 93.8% that mean are employed? host: i guess you could look at it that way. but your point would be? the 93.8% of americans 6.2%mployed, not unemployed. 93.8% are employed. atn if they're making less $24 and seven dollars and da da da, it drives me crazy that you are want to say 6.2% unemployed. ok.: caller: why not say 9320% are employed? georgia.nkly,

caller: how are you all doing this morning? i have been working all my life. i'm a welder. it was voted through by reagan. if you're going to do anything really in america, you're fixing to have to get on a plane and fly to another country. host: another country, not the united states. why do you say that? caller: you can see it going. where do you think the workers are going to follow? when the business goes overseas, the workers have to follow. host: what type of work do you do? eld for who wants to will\/el living, pedro? i've been doing it all my life. it is all i've ever done.

i got a 10th grade education. i sent a kid through college. the policies of these politicians are destroying the young and the ambition to do anything in america. you see it sitting all around. host: one of the policies talked about president obama this week in his weekly radio address, that a minimum wage. he wanted to see congress work on the minimum wage and call for an increase of it. here's a little bit of his thoughts. [video clip] worksamerica, no one who full should ever have to raise a family in poverty. a hard day's work deserves a fair days pay. and raising the minimum wage would be one of the best ways to give a boost to working families . it will help around 20 million americans from all walks of life pay the bills, provide for their kids, and spend that money at local businesses. and that grows the economy for everybody.

the bottom line is, america deserves a raise. but until we have got a congress that cares about raising working folks wages, it is up to the rest of us to make it happen. in the air and a half since i first asked congress to raise the minimum wage, all walks of life are doing just that. d.c. have done our part by raising the minimum wages. four more states have initiatives on the ballot this november. the states were the minimum wage has gone up this year, have experienced higher job growth in the states that happened. this does leaders in copies like theirap are doing a part. mayor emanuel in chicago and garcetti in los angeles looking to raise to $13 an hour. host: from twitter --

talking about your take on the job market. we have divided the lines to fully than usual. choose the one that best identifies with you -- hampshire, employed. hello. are you there? caller: yes, i'm calling in from rochester, minnesota. good morning. good morning, america.

a recessionrienced in rochester, minnesota. i just wanted to say that i have been unemployed most of my life, jobrecently, i found a good . it just changes your life, you know? if we can raise the minimum wage and keep it at least at the cost of living, people will live that are. live better.l we have to come down hard on those who hire illegals. we can't blame illegals for coming to america. jailve to come down and the people that hire illegals and now will stop them from coming over and stop the business owners from hiring them. put stiffer penalties on them. host: what type of job did you find? caller: i'm working at a mill plant. it changed my life. it's not nothing major, but it

really, really helped out. $10 or $12 just doesn't do it these days. i'm a black man. it is sad to see a lot of the black people just standing around, not looking for work. it really ticks me off. i can't believe ferguson has a to percent black and no black people in power. i can't understand the rich football players, they don't try to help. just forget about them. host: robert, laredo, texas, underemployed. caller: i wanted to comment and say employment figures can be a little misleading. frome in a border city border with mexico. we're below the national average, yet -- host: go ahead. you are still on. caller: sorry about that.

here, unemployed rate is under the national average. there are a lot of staffing companies. for example, one of my last gigs , i was going to a walmart to a staffing company where your scent about an hour drive -- you were sent about an hour trying write away. you are not paid for the drive. there were a lot of underhanded practices as well. earlier comments you mentioned in one of the newspapers from around the country, there are a lot of wage withholdings. these practices tend to crop up more with the rise of these staffing companies. not all jobs are created equal. it is important to look at the quality of jobs available. regularity, are you working on a regular basis? how does it work? caller: you have to show up at a

staffing company every day. basically, you work per day. it is very disheartening. you just cannot get any work. it is very, very difficult. host: who determines the wage? is it per job for a flat rate? caller: around here, minimum wage. it is rare to find anything above that unless you have some sort of specialized skills. i'm 28 years old. previous to that, i worked at a call center for eight years. that choice -- bad choice. show you the headline out of virginia, they focus on older workers as far as their story taking a look at labor day. it profiles three people as part of that story. we will hear from richard, broken arrow, oklahoma employed. caller: good morning.

employed now. the job looks pretty good. looks like it is pretty stable. i was laid off three times in the last five years. it has been a rough ride. i had to move from new jersey down here. it hasn't been so easy. while i am doing well, i've always got my eyes in the back of my head looking just to make sure that everything stays well and knowing it could change at any time. host: what type of work do you do? caller: engineer. you moven you say around, is there a family involved or just yourself? caller: there is my wife. i haven't moved around. i moved from new jersey a few years ago.

there's a big difference in the labor market down here versus back in new jersey. back in new jersey, it is absolutely terrible. host: we're talking about wages. what about benefit? caller: i've got pretty good benefits. .retty stable job i hope i can keep it until retirement. lewis, michigan, talking about the job market. he identifies himself as unemployed. caller: hello. whys calling, talking about the upper classes are not paying enough taxes and that is the reason why there is unemployment in this country right now is because of lack of the money that should be flowing -- they're taking all the money and taking it out of this country. we all know that. that is why the economy is like

it is. as far as immigration, those people have been coming here for hundreds of years from across the borders. the only reason they brought it up now is because it is easy to put an immigrant in prison in these privatized prisons. they're making profits off the taxpayers. that is one of the reasons why immigration has gone through the roof and everybody is up in arms about it. they have been coming here for years. they do jobs that nobody else once to do. i have been in arizona. i worked out there. i went and picked those cabbages and stuff in the fields, and you can to the workers people do. most people won't do it here in america. they won't do it. who was going to do it? they have to come here to do it. host: houston, texas, john. caller: i just wanted to respond to the caller was talking about

.2% employed it made me recall a comment from a fellow okie. will rogers said the difference between a recession and depression, he said the recession is when your neighbor is out of business or work and it is a depression when you are out of work. the 6% is really important. host: before you go, do you mind sharing your job picture? caller: i am a commercial collector. i consider myself underemployed because i haven't had a raise in six years. host: how would you describe the stability of your job? caller: i consider myself the best collector in the world, so i think it is pretty good. host: twittter --

you can continue on your calls. the lines are divided differently for today -- isis and russia and things foreign policy dominated the sunday morning talk shows yesterday. post,"n "the washington be headline, the president's foreign-policy coming under bipartisan criticism. several guest on the shows yesterday. the help intelligence committee chairman, mike rogers, talking there was a sense of how many westerners were currently fighting for isis. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> well, yes, we have a sense. the problem is, we have no sure number. for the intelligence committees to say that the right number,

they won't do that because they cannot do that. unknown andit of an how many of those fighters actually got there and came back. are they tracking the ones that we can identify? yes, they're doing that. >> how many americans to rethink? >> it is in the hundreds. some of them have drifted back. some of them have gone to europe. what we have seen and what we started raising this alarm, me brussels you saw the event, the attack on the jewish museum. isil-lede that was in warns party event. that was the first time they had attacked, we believe, outside their borders. europe has obviously stood up and said we have a huge problem. david cameron said, not only do we have a problem, here is my plan to deal with it. the united states seems to be in this malaise of not being that concerned. i will tell you, i am very

concerned. because we don't know every single person that has an american passport that has gone and trained and learned how to fight. and we're not sure the brits have a good handle, they think it is about 500 in britain, some several hundred in canada. what if one gets there and gets through? now they have a passport that allows them free travel to the united states of america. the chances of error are greater than our ability to track every single error. dianne feinstein commenting about the president's comments he made last week .oncerning isis and a strategy the president said there was no strategy as of yet dealing with them. here is her reaction to that. [video clip] >> i know what you want me to say, but i'm not going to say it in that sense. i think i've learned one thing about this president, and that is he is very cautious. maybe in this instance, too cautious. i do know the military, i know

the state department, i know that others have been putting plans together. hopefully, those plans will coalesce into a strategy that can encourage that coalition from arab nations, you know, jordan is in jeopardy, lebanon is in jeopardy, the so, there is good reason for people to come together now and begin to approach this as a very real threat, that it in fact is. >> just to show you from the washington post, a story that took place in iraq by air strike, and said that u.s. air on kes broker a two month sunday. back to your calls taking a look at the job market, kevin from south carolina, he is employed, hello. caller: yes.

i wanted to comment, because the gentleman called from michigan a few minutes ago saying these illegal aliens are doing jobs that americans won't do. and to be honest with you, i just got back to work because i finally got a job they had taken with me. they're running our heavy equipment, they're doing everything in construction. they've ruined our housing market, all american roofing companies have gone under because the hispanic have taken them over. they come and steal our jobs. so, people like that that are sitting at home, not looking for work, blaming the rich people, ok, i'm not rich by any means. but they need to get a grip. host: kevin, what was your return to work like? what's it been like? kevin, are you there? ok. so that's kevin. again, if you want to give your thoughts in the remaining time, we have about 15 minutes before we move on, because it's labor day we're focusing on different

aspects of the labor world and issues regarding it. i showed you the front page of the "new york times" taking a look at the wage deficit being described. this is out of california. he spends some of the piece setting up and talking about specific experiences but it talks about a lawsuit and if you were to read it online lower down it says the lawsuits's part of a flood of recent cases and across the nation that accuse employers of violating minimum wage and overtime laws, erasing work hours and wrongfully taking employee tips. they called it wage theft insisting it had become far too prevalant. that's in "the new york times" this morning. let's hear from tom. dayton, ohio, hi.

caller: good morning, i'm calling on the underemployed just because of the money i make. you know, 30 years ago, i made what i'm making right now and it's an absolute shame. gallon of gas was 50 cents. i see all these elite people, including our government to pass every law to help the rich man. you've got a hedge fund manager and the c.e.o. of apple making $400 million, i honestly believe if our forefathers were here they would put a stop to what is going on right now because there would be a whole, whole lot of people arrested, thank you very much. host: tom before you go, what kind of work do you do? caller: well, i work in a couple of big plants of major companies. i actually retired from one of them, so i took another job after i laid around for a couple of years and enjoyed my older

life. but i took a job in a machine shop. i'm actually making what i did 30 years ago and it's absolutely disgusting. host: what kind of hours are you working? caller: i'm working eight hours a day. it does give me extra pocket money. but i feel sorry for the younger people i'm working with because they don't have no chance. out here making $12 an hour, and like i told you -- host: how much are you making? caller: $12, and they're talking about raising the minimum wage to $10. they need to look at what we started making 30 years ago before they did the outsourcing. we need to let germany in here and take over our government and they could treat our people decent. host: larry from arkansas who is employed, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, you're on. caller: i want to say i think people should make themselves

more marketable and be willing -- i know -- people have families and everything like that. but i've always had to go where the work is. i'm 25 years old this month and i've worked in six different states ranging from new york, pennsylvania, i'm now in texas, and i've just had to make myself marketable. if they do raise the minimum wage, some people are going to have to go other places if they want to have work i believe. that's my thought process of making yourself marketable and be willing to travel. host: what do you do? caller: i work in the oil and depass industry, natural gas operations to be specific. host: as far as your ability to move, how easy is it, is it just yourself? caller: it's just myself. it's hard on families because the jb is very demanding. i work more hours than anybody i think i've ever met. so it's hard to get to home when i want to. it's tough on that part with

relatives and everything. i don't see my mom, she calls me to ask if i'm alive because i don't get to come home very often. it's tough in that aspect but i do make a good living. you have to sacrifice somewhere. host: a previously caller mentioned germany, here's a story taking a look at vokes wag con about their plant in choot nothinga, tennessee, their desire to bring a german work ethic, read that in the washington time. we'll hear from rich, next. rich is from pennsylvania, hi. caller: yes, good morning. i am underemployed only because i am not getting the hours i need. but my suggest is back in the 30's when the economy was tanking we had something caused a w.p.a., we had so many people unemployed or underemployed. if some people are unemployed why can't they sign up for a

federal program, which a job training, which is overseen by the army core of engineers, which would help us, rebuild our infrastructure. you had union company, union personnel training these employees, if you're on employment, you have to sign up and work at least 90 days to six months. and in the meantime you depth your unemployment. after that, then you have to resign up and everything. it's down the road. but if you've been out of work for say 90 days, to collect unemployment, you have to sign up for one of these c.c.c. type programs or w.p.a. as far as the minimum wage, i was recently working, got laid off and picked up by another company doing the same thing, ok? what i'm making now is a dollar more an hour and i am more product productive, i feel more appreciative. the more you make the more you

feel you're appreciated. the more you feel appreciated, the more production goes up, the more production goes up, the better the company does and it's a trickle up. host: bobby from pennsylvania, he's employed. good morning. pob by from pennsylvania, hello? caller: oh yes, hello. thank you. yes, i am employed, and the problem that i have is that you continually hear the politicians say the unemployment rate is six or what have you. i don't know where they get that figure from. i know a lot of people out of work in this state, in this county i live in, in this country. it's strictly for political purposes. they're not counting the people that aren't looking for work. so you know it's way -- it could be double digit, it could be 15, 20%. and that's the reason why i'm calling. because i continue to hear them say that and it always gets me.

also, raising the minimum wage is a big thing, you know. they say that oh well, it's going to take away jobs and if we raise the minimum wage, but that can't be true either pause you have people making $7, you can't depth these kids to work for $7. if you raise the minimum wage these people would not qualify for unemployment, or public assistance excuse me, and those roles would go down and that's another group of people that aren't on public assistance. raise the minimum wage, make less people qualify for public assistance and of course that of course will help the economy. host: you heard the president talk about minimum wage, the republican response was from a congressman from indiana and he spoke about republican efforts to strengthen the job market. here's what he had to say. >> as a physician i took an oath to do no harm. while this physician's policies continue to harm our nation's

economy and families continue to struggle to make ends meet. republicans are offering solutions america's workers can count on. our solutions will address the shrug issue job market and grow our economy over the long run. we need to get people back into steady, good paying jobs. one thing we've done is fix our job training system to make it easier for workers to find the skills they need to get ahead. this was a bipartisan, common sense compromise with our colleagues in the senate. we've offer offered proposals to jumpstart business and reign in the red tape factory that makes it harder for employers to hide and expand. we have 40 good jobs awaiting action in the democrat run united states senate. host: up next, chris from virginia, good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. i'm an employer as well as an employee for a company and we hire people all over the united states. and i see that for the hiring

jobs, especially in texas, because there's my industry, you would think that the way with the economy is there would be more people looking for work. what i fire is a lot of these people demand pretty good salaries and they're pretty tough to find. and as far as increasing minimum wage and stuff like that, as an employer and someone that started up a small company, i don't think it will help anything. i think it needs to become easier and less expensive for employers to bring jobs to america. because this is a global economy. and increasing minimum wage and increasing regulations, it makes business harder here. when you increase miami mum wage you make it illegal to have jobs at that well wage, so they just naturally go elsewhere because that work is needed. but it can't be done at the higher wage. if you want people to bring home

more money, than make it easier for them, make it easier to open up jobs in the united states. host: sheridan from ohio, good morning. caller: good morning, march 1, 1948, i was going to college. my boss told me if you work 30 hours you can be a full time employee. i said i can do that, i got all the benefits. today, i don't know who put this into effect, i wish someone would call and report it. you can't get regular benefits unless you work 35 hours and nobody's, they're hiring them for 38, 36, 32, but not 35 because these cheap corporations don't want to pay benefits, and i wish someone would really, the media is going to focus on this. by the way, i work for 25 cents an hour for a bakery over 70 years ago and this 7:25 in a minimum, there are still countries overseas that are

civilized and they have a living wage. why the dickens don't the united states have a living wage. these corporations are making so much profit it's pathetic. host: robert from virginia beach, virginia, hello. caller: yes, hi. host: you're on, go ahead. caller: sorry, i'm here. host: go ahead, you're on. caller: my comment is how tough it is for the recent college graduates to obtain desirable full-time work. host: go ahead. ok, let's hear from richard in florida. richard from florida, hello. caller: hello? host: you're on, go ahead. working eah, i've been at the same job for 39 years and still working at the very same

job and it's never changed. host: richard, thanks for your comments this morning. this one, the washington post section talking about citizens united, saying they're helping the g.o.p. saying the researchers found out the ruling, the federal election committee, sorningted with a 6% increase in the likelihood that a republican candidate could win a raise. in six of the most affected states, michigan, minnesota, montana, north carolina, ohio and tennessee, the probablity that a republican will be elected to a state legislative seat increased by 10 percentage points or more. it also says that other states have benefit as well. you can read more in the washington post section this morning. if you go to the "washington times" and their policy section, it takes a look at senate races but also talks about issues concerning those from the west would go fight for isis and other related groups.

including one in massachusetts, it was on friday that the former massachusetts senator scott brown who's running for a senate seed in neighboring new hampshire called the congress this is legislation -- the reaction based on fear rather smanmart policy. sheryl from connecticut, hi. caller: hi. i was calling about my last job that i had that i was working. i was underemployed and while i

was working, the place i was working, i was working cnn, i worked there four years. worked my tail off, did good job, everything. wage worked at a good earning that was enough for me to support my family. i got paid between $8-$10, and in connecticut that's nothing. and i was pairly making any hours, like 30, 40 hours a week, at the most. and i was putting in so much ork and i was producing so much, and i never saw enough to earn enough for my family because at the end of the month or end of the pay period, i had nothing after paying bills and doing all those types of things. but they received from me so much productivity from me that

you know they received good clients because of my work ethic, everything. so why is it that, as it being a labor day, that these companies can depth away with putting people in that situation to where they're showing so much productivity and earning them money that they're not putting back that money back into the people that work for them? host: so sheryl, you identify as unemployed, do you still get benefits of any type? caller: no, i don't. host: how often are you looking for work and what has that experience been like? caller: it has been horrible. trying to go pack and looking for work doing that particular job is harder now because there are more requirements now, you know. host: and what is a c.n.a.? caller: a home health aid, a

nurse's aid. host: that's sheryl from connecticut, telling us about her experience on the current job market. this being labor day, we'll continue on taking a look at the theme of labor. coming up, we'll hear about the state of the market. later the role of labor unions, that conversation with david madeline who directed the american worker project. we'll have those conversations coming up as "washington journal" continues after this. >> today, on the c-span networks, on c-span, at 5:30 eastern, an education department summit on bullying in schools.

at 8:00, bill nyne the science guy and ken ham debate evolution. tv,man james clyburn talks about his youth to his leadership position in the house of representatives. t :30, author sylvia dukes morris on about her book about claire booth luce. and michael lewis discusses the hidden world of high frequency stock trading. on c-span 3 american history tv. find our television schedule at

c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-606-3200. or itter, use the #c 123, email us @comments at c-span.org. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: as promised from bloomberg news, victoria stillwell joins us, covering economics for the organization, welcome. guest: thank you. host: you've written about the job market and one of the things, finding that it's a mixed job market. can you explain how you see that? host: yeah, it's really interesting. a lot of economists are saying it's something we haven't really seen, we're kind of in uncharted territory here. we've got a whole group that are looking pretty good. job gains are coming in pretty

steady this year. the unemployment rate is dropping. job openings are at 13-year high. and yet we still have this whole other host of indicators that aren't. still a lot of long-term unemployed, a lot of people who are part-time workers and don't want to be, they want full time jobs. so definitely a mixed bag right now. host: we see a 6.2 unemployment rate, what does it tell us and what is it not telling us, just specifically that figure. guest: right, there's been a lot of debate about what the unemployment rate says these days. basically it's supposed to show us the share of the labor force that is unemployed and looking for work. the number has come in flux this year because we've had a lot of people dropping out of the labor force for various reasons from retirement to being discouraged, to staying in school. and also just a lot of people still looking for work. further more there are people

who do underemployed as a lot of callers already noted, so a lot of people don't believe that it is completely accurate of what the labor market looks like. but it has been coming down steadly. it is at a very low rate, still not exactly where a lot of policy makers want it. they would like to see it go lower. host: how low? guest: about 5% is considered the natural rate, but it all depends on whether the economy has struck early change. can we even get back to that 5% level. or is there so much that has changed in recession as a result of the recession that maybe is a realistic goal. host: one of the things we saw from the previous numbers from jobs created over 200,000, is that expected to continue and what does it show? guest: yes, we'll get a jobs report on friday which people are anxiously awaiting. right now we've had six straight months of job growth, over

200,000 jobs created, so that's great. we haven't seen that since 1997. economists are really encouraged by that. it's a sign that maybe the jobs market and the recovery in the labor market that has been slow to take off is finally about to do so. so people are looking for that to continue right now. the economists surveyed by bloomberg forecast about 225,000 jobs added in august which would continue that streak. i think anything less than that would probably be a disappointment. host: let me take a point, if you want to ask our guest questions, here's a chance to do o. 200,000, does it tell us what kind of jobs are being created? guest: we do know we've had broad based gains in jobs. factories have been doing really well, big hit in a recession. orders have been strong, demands

have been strong. they've been taking on workers. actually there have been some signs that middle tier jobs, middle income jobs, they've been making a small comeback this year which is great, because we've had years of signs and data that the kind of middle class is being hollowed out a little bit. either job gains in the really high-paying jobs or job gains in the really low paying jobs. but it does look like there's been some middle level growth this year. host: as far as the number of jobs are being concerned, how many of those 200,000 would you describe as full time, how many fall into part time and their way of breaking it down? >> part time and full time gross has been really interesting this year. there's still a ton of people who want to work full time jobs that can't. 7.5 million. that is actually what the federal reserve is looking at right now, and it troubles them.

it's unlike any recovery basically. and i think they're still waiting to see a huge improvement in that. full time work is still doing very well, especially this year. but i think the number of people who want to be working 35 hours or more just can't find the jobs. at the same time, we are seeing this interesting shift in the labor market because there's a growing number of people who are working part time because they want to, they're not looking for full time work. that actually is much, much larger than the share of people who are looking for full time. so, i think people are trying to figure out what exactly that means that people just want to work fewer hours. host: when you take a look at the number described as the labor force participation rate, this number is 62.9%. is that a positive way of saying, he criticized us for showing a 6.2 figure rather than that, is there a difference between looking at those

numbers? guest: definitely. i basically measures a share of working age people that are in the labor force, so that means they're looking for work or they have work. if you're not doing one of these two things you're not this the labor force. if you're a student, on disability, retired, taking care of family and not looking for a job because of that, you won't be classified in the labor force. basically you have to be looking for work to be in the labor force. that thurm has steadly trended down. in june, it was about the lowest since 1978. so it's decades low. so people are hopeful that as the economy improves, more people will be drawn into the labor force. host: our first call is from new york, democrats line. lynn, good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning. u know, the context of the republicans inability to spend a ickel on infrastructure just

seems to be forgotten in the whole conversation. two months ago i was in newark airport. it took me through a bus, a smelly train an hour to get into manhattan. that's two weeks ago, i was in stockholm, i rode a train 120 miles per hour. and now, we had rick scott christy turning money for high speed trains that would unquestionably benefit the entire region we're representing and it goes unmentioned constantly. could you please comment? depoip well right now interest rates are very, very low and have to stay. the argument on one side is while we have the ability to cheaply, why ry

aren't we investing more on infrastructure. the other is do we have the money to do it. there are definitely competing forces working there. infrastructure projects put people to work, but there's a big push to have a balanced bugget and to not spend more than our means are. so it's a big toss up very now and i'm very interested to see how this all shakes out. host: pennsylvania up next, this is freddy, good morning. reddy, good morning, go ahead. we will try ronald, up next from north carolina, democrats line. hi. caller: good morning. my question is for miss stillwell. if the numbers seem like they're getting better since 2008, and the job market is getting better, i guess the question is, why is that the administration rap for doing

-- i would say if all of them worked together it would seem to me this country would be in better shape. guest: hi. well, i'm also from north carolina, and i'm sure you know there's still a large amount of slack in the labor market. as you noted the numbers are getting better, but things are still not as good as they could be and not as good as a lot of people want to see them. so, i think as long as there's work to do, people will continue to push the administration on that, because there's still a lot of people out there that work jobs and can't find them. there are still a lot of people that want to work more hours. additionally wages have been flat, people haven't been seeing their paychecks go up at all during this recovery. i think as long as there's work to do, the administration will ontinue to be pressed on that.

host: let's try freddy from pennsylvania, host: freddy, good morning. kay, just so you know, folks, if you're waiting on-line, make sure you turn your television down. new jersey, hi. caller: hi, how are you? host: good morning. caller: i have a disagreement unemployment t an rate. i'm college grad and work -- i'm underemployed. a job i don't like. i don't see this economy getting any better. don't see jobs being created and a lot of people keep saying jobs ornth that 200,000 100,000 jobs will be great. where? what industries are these jobs. see it here in new jersey. guest: what do you do?

what's your job? caller: i work for the postal ffice, it's the worst industry to work for. guest: a lot of industries are continuing to struggle and it's that you see and it's something that the economists are looking at too. e've been seeing job growth in a couple of different industries, things like logging actually, have been doing well this year. and some of the lower paying jobs as well, retail as i mentioned. manufacturing, which is doing well too. its's definitely been a mixed bag. but it is as you say, a lot of not seeing that improvement. and that is definitely what at ies policy makers over the federal reserve chair, janet ellin herself is extremely concerned about people who just aren't seeing any improvement. is -- she will not rest until things are back to where she would like to see them. host: and in june of this year, openings, e to job

4.7 million job openings available. uest: it's been an interesting situation with job openings. as i mentionled earlier, a 13-year high. companies ot seeing in a huge rush to fill them. 10 're still close to million people looking for work. et, we can't get the job openings. it's a matter of the company being picky. re they posting job openings with no intentions to fill them. can they not find people with the right skills? that's one of the largest conundrums out in the labor right now. host: what about the idea of doing more with less? guest: that's happening. talked to recruiters not too long ago. they'll hire someone for a job one.give them two jobs at pay them a little bit more than they would have just for the one but they won't hire the high functioning, highly skilled save and combine jobs to money. that's still going on.

from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? you're on.ead, caller: okay. it's corporate greed. they're trying to save money. they just want to make all of the money. for instance, when she says they hire people do more than ne job and pay them just a little bit more. ow they hire people in the -- in temporary service and then just do away -- they're making great profits. they're killing the profits. don't care about the employees. they don't care if they pay not.ody or that's what people need to look at and understand. it's not just the economy. and everything is going to go for the corporate. not the people who work for the corporate. guest: the labor share of income down over ely gone the years. that's something very concerning. the you aring the recession, we companies really

kind of squeezing as much as they could out of their workers, ou know, slashing hours, slashing workers, and getting as much as they could. now that the economy is proving stronger and picking up, i feel like companies are how far can we push this? how much can we squeeze out of before ns, so to speak, we have to raise wages and take on more workers. profits are doing great. and i don't think they're going be super eager to give those up right away. thing is, as demand picks up to a certain amount and the orders come in. have the bodies to fill them as quickly, they're going to have to hire. i think that's what economists are hoping for. host: it shows the level of productivity in the united as of 2013. that consistently rising, but wages, that to consistently staying the same. you were described as flat. have been extremely in

this recovery. that's been a big concern. year-over-year, we've seen wage growth of about 2%. 1.6% ion is about year-over-year. so we're -- we're not really all.ing any wage growth at and i think that's really that's why le -- they see the labor recovery as very slow and it also kind of this feedback loop, right? if people don't feel like their paychecks are going up, they on goods.d more if consumer spending stays flat, then, you know, companies don't orders, bookings, people don't buy as much and that feeds into jobs again. cycle we want to get out of. host: we're talking with victoria steele of bloomberg news, jasper from tennessee, hi. caller: how are you doing today. the political era in this ronald reagan came along, they busted the unions. the democrats wanted to get out

and the poor white republicans in the south, they're always talking about want to on, but they put people in power to keep the jobs low and what they're doing competing against the immigrants. and i see the people every day. they're working, they're taking instead of standing together and demanding better wages and better jobs. so they don't care. so if you're a white republican, don't call in and complain about jobs. because he was the one that's hindering the job market. thank you. guest: unions have been kind of in flux at a certain point, you they're still standing strong. but we have seen kind of reduced membership of over the years. it will be interesting to see how that evolves. someone who alk to studies unions in the next segment. next up is charles from the alabama republican line. caller: yeah, i think what's for many years is they've gone out here and they

gone out here and lied created this situation. it was the democrats with nafta going back to 21 years ago. go back and look at how many jobs have left this country, the news media still demonizes here and the republicans for this. the wall.g is on all of the jobs are gone. i've been in the construction 43 years. are ch of people out here lazy, they don't want to work, don't know how to work. 40 years old, no talent. are you supposed to pay these people? they do not have any work ethics. they have no knowledge to go out here and advance themselves. cigarettes hey get and beer and god knows what else, they're happy. they're living with the eating food from welfare, food stamps. country that's become totally lazy but the democrats are the ones who set

the whole thing up. host: if i could take from that trade the topic of policy. how that equates to job conditions and job availability? guest: right, well, it east interesting because we have -- whole idea compared to producing things. if you're good as producing it things that uy the other people are good at producing, the problem there is we may not have an industry here a certain thing that maybe we just are not as good at anymore. my mother has worked in manufacturing her whole life. the small town makes furniture, we got hit hard by the recession. overseas.jobs moved i'm seeing that firsthand. but at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to find other industries which we do excel and produce jobs in and we can make goods better than anybody else. it's kind of this balancing act that we need to figure out is. the best mix and i think you made an interesting point -- there's

out there a question of how many people who have been idelined by the recession and and by trade policies who aren't labor force, aren't looking for jobs, or offer unemployed and have been, how any of them will actually find work? how many of them will come back to the labor force? ad i think that's a -- that's really, really big question that needs to be answered right now. because that basically tells us how fast our economy can run. host: we talked about hiring or wages.t bill king from twitter brings up benefits and asking about get tions where people vacation, sick time, health care, and pension. ive an idea of what that's like. guest: benefits have improved. wages haven't kept up as i before.ed so there's been a tradeoff that's happening for some. you get -- you get better years, but thethe wages aren't really doing anything. so it's kind of in the eye of honestly, which one do you value more. but we have been seeing benefits

slowly start to improve. ost: frank in hollywood, fl fl -- florida. frank, go ahead. caller: oh, yes, it's me, frank. you keep saying things are better. open the want ads and you will see there are no jobs available. with need more training centers and i think president obama be the first one to enter his own training center so he realize he can't run a country from a golf cart. no jobs available. certain types of jobs, one kind job, if you open the want ads, you find job listings. frank is gone. make a comment on it. >> in training, he did touch on a point. complainingkers are they're not getting enough training. especially recent college grads. they expect their employers to them a lot more training than they're actually getting.

work at all.nding so i think there's definitely a additional u.s. for training for employers to take on workers, teach them how do the jobs. a lot of elp bring in unemployed who may have lost skills. to ill help them to react the job industry, whatever industry they're entering to, host: duke, up next, republican line. go ahead. caller: am i on? go ahead.ear on, caller: 200,000 jobs are created in america when we have millions unemployed, are underemployed, and working two jobs trying to make ends meet. live offe today cannot of the so-called minimum wage. liveable wage at this time. our el elected officials need to

come together with corporate and create a vision for america today. free the leader of the world, you see? we can do it again. think of the guilded age in the 1870s, 1880s, america ndustrialized itself and it brought the world into a different equation of time. you see? vision from both corporate world and the government sector. to have a vision to move america again. we cannot dwell on this. this is insanity, that's what it is. and that's probably my statement. host: duke, we have a lot of season talents putting their own living wages. why should this be a federal issue? caller: federal would be dealing with the country nationwide and equality is there. but government needs to have a position in now this matter. government through policy, so s, regulation, the epa,

forth, it's killing jobs right now. duke. thank you, guest: minimum wage is $7.25. there's a push by the obama it up to tion to move $10.10. i think there's -- i think the jury is still out on this one. a lot of the economists say if the minimum wage, a certain number of jobs will be equation. of the others say it may incentivize people to work harder, up.uctivity will go and economies may have to eat costs anyway. so we don't know which one is right at the moment. conflicting of data on this. we have seen over time, minimum raised without huge devastating hits to the economy. whether there's a bump in or a cut in employment, we will, excuse me -- a bump in employment or a

it will be yment, very small. viewer f twitter, a asks, when we should consider the twitter situation a new normal. guest: a lot of economists are debating it right now. there's a whole kind of onversation about whether there's been so much structural damage done to the economy by we won't everthat be able to get back to a lot of the peaks that we saw beforehand. how low can we go in the unemployment rate? is how much job growth normal? and to take it one step further, fast can the economy run? what's the best gdp rate we can see? 4.2% in the second quarter. in was after a contraction the first quarter blamed on harsh winter weather. lot ofe's a -- there's a questions out there about how -- how good the economy can be, basically. from jersey city, new jersey. victoria stillwell of bloomberg

news, hello. caller: hi, thank you. go ahead. caller: i used to be a forklift operator in the new jersey area. recently i got laid off because the job had moved out of state. so i started working within my city, union city, secaucus, 99% of every one i went to would not not t me because i was bilingual. i think that's one of the biggest problems we're having in this area. guest: that's really interesting. lookings are definitely for a set of skills. larger -- probably more skills have in the past and language seems to be one of those. they are being -- it doesn't they're being sort of picky, but they're also not raise wages toto attract those people who, as you

or have the ngual skills they're looking for. o it's kind of at a stand still. that's a really interesting development. host: politically on "the theington times," a look at republicans trying to rebrand it as a wage issue. immigrants and concerns about jobs. guest: we hear about this, this debate that will never go away. at kind i like to look of the demographics and trends that way. declining . has a fertility rate. we're having fewer babies and e're going to need people to work jobs. so that's where immigration is, you and the question know, how much. we s -- listen, it's so -- have people that need work. we have people that need workers. ages are going to do what they will based on that. so companies need workers and they can't find them, they're to raise wages. if those are immigrants, they're immigrants. f they're americans, they're

americans. i think that i tried to stay way i like s issue the more at the data. pennsylvania, brian, hi. caller: good morning. i wanted to talk about the federal rep serve. just wondering at what point we realize the treatment may not problem. than the the federal reserve with the low interest rates. ncentiveizing corporations to borrow money to buy the stock back. raisecentiveizing them to wages. new tax inversions where they're able to borrow money cheaply companies, buying overseas companies to reduce the tax rate. 200,000 job out growth in a month. but the reality is there were part time jobs created with the loss of 600,000 fulltime jobs. the he last thing on interest rates, reduced interest rates, they're crushing our who would hope to live in the retirement off of the interest off of the safer

that's not here available to them any longer. guest: you made some interesting points that i'll address here the corporations. really interesting developments there. companies have been using debts to as you say fund stock pay off more st debt. what they vice president really it for significantly raise capital investment which is what we want to see that, you know, creates jobs, and that boosts productivity. seeing 't really been them do that in large amounts since the recovery. piece in a missing this equation. the federal reserve as you said on retaining ent this accommodative stance and rates low.erest there are going to be some casualties as the result of that. think that is something that people are finding it's kind to live off of the

of reduced risk investments that they had hoped to be able to. time, raising ame interest rates would pose problems for the housing market. rates, you know, jumped a little bit about a year ago. and people freaked out and buying new houses and stops refinancing. the hat's something that federal reserve is extremely worried about. hey view housing and the recovery as a critical component to the economy. and they definitely don't want kind of throw to that off of the tracks. so it's a very kind of fun strike they have to there. host: from robert in oliver tennessee, hello. caller: yeah. industry. the timber and i have for about almost 20 years. i think the problem is synonymous across the board, the economy is government regulation. or example, our industry

ballooned in 2005 to the housing market bust of '08. and the federal government was the banks loans to people who couldn't afford the houses. now, after the housing market crashed, you know, we had to take our lumps. consequently, there was a short enough supply. loggers shut down, down. and we're just now getting by to where times are booming. the housing se of market. and then we have the affordable care act. oil, diesel fuel, have gone up ing because of government regulation. and where i worked as well. industry is big in tennessee, kentucky, southern est virginia and the epa regulations are destroying that industry. there's been thousands of jobs ost around here because of government regulation. and the part time jobs are coming because of the affordable care act. nobody in our industry can afford to pay the premiums and

that they're going to have to owe because of these affordable care act. host: sorry, i didn't mean to cut you off there. uest: regulation is something that's been looked at. we saw a flurry of economists talking about this after the recently came t down. with k the administration respect to that rule specifically has acknowledged there will be some hits to such as coal. but the hope there is that jobs other industries like renewable energy, etc., will be created. regulation is something that has kind of debated for centuries at this point. it's a matter of kind of how much can we live with and start to kind of stifle what corporations can do and how much they can be productive and how much money they can make. host: on the front page, there's the jobtaking a look at search experience for older workers and it profiles three people. the about the plight of

older worker working today. workers have had a tough time in this recovery. longer to find work for those who are unemployed. 35, it takes 4 to weeks or so for workers around retirement age, it's about 17 to 18 weeks. that's just the median. much mg averages are much, different. so they definitely got the rough end of the stick here in this recovery. of use i talked to a few them. and, you know, they -- they'll they get the sense that employers are kind of because to hire them they don't know how much they'll be working. they're not sure of their abilities. it's really discouraging for them. the se they -- they're in labor market. they're there. they're ready to do it. they get the sense that there with en't

them. that's the problem. from silverado, california. caller: how are you doing? host thanks, go ahead. an older worker. prudent to the previous story. i don't ally is -- think your guest is -- she just oesn't look old enough to be aware of. it isn't happening for 10 to 12 years. which is izing corporations trying to get something for nothing. one person take on maybe four sets of because where s paying fourstead of people to do it. in the meantime, the person who does it, they pretty much try have to move on the the next stage. ut i think between that and reagan and patco, that's where

started. that's my view, anyway. guest: that touches on the point made earlier that we have seen companies and recruiters noting hat they are perfect lip happy to make do with less. two people one or to do few jobs and pay them not much more. host: georgia, hello. and r: i'm in my late 50s i'm from flint, michigan. i can tell you that obviously ruthlessness of outsourcing. you know, i went out in the that time, jobs pay enefits involve annual reviews if you're an excellent employee. raise.% and then there became what i new the new job or the employment paradigm. i was part of it because i entered management. i got out of it because i got sick of seeing how management were hostile and

antipathy to the working man. electrician.n he held up his hands. he said you cannot outsource this. outsource een able to him, i'm sure they would have. gentleman who blamed clinton, because when he signed financial modernization act, it pretty much sent us down the on.h that we've been but to that gentleman, i would simply remind him of the boom '90s.g the people wonder which i the charts at and that you just showed looked the way they to the the uphill climb top and the flat line at the bottom. there are no benefits or for people working a work a day job and they're not of ing raises where did all

that money go when the pie's gotten so much bigger. the subject of the social contract between workers and their employers has been an one lately. it's kind of a question of how -- in yalty is there if either direction. and this is something that ehavioral economists look at a lot. there does seem to be this kind loyalty, either by young employees, you know, to their employers or we used to situation where kind of people stuck around in jobs for 30 years. ut that's also when they were getting pensions and steady raises. the o we've had kind of deterioration of the social employers and n employees and kind of everyone is looking to see where that the future if it improves or disintegrates. headline was the job

market was tilting towards workers and virtuous signingle. can you expand? going through their roles and calling people who may have contacted them months ago and we have istening, positions that we're trying to fill. work.u still looking for so there is dlsh is some sign improving. are but i think a lot of callers ave noted, the situation is

definitely not rosy, it's not -- it's improving but not as good wants it to be. no one is happy with where the labor market and the economy is right now. talking about?we guest: administrative jobs. i.t., finance jobs. and it kind of runs the gamut. more middle t's tier, maybe lower upper tier. that offer e jobs salary, no benefits of that kind. offer benefits. ost: on with her from new castle, hi. caller: hi, how are you. is a black man. the republicans will do nothing him.elp he's probably signed in more legislation for unions than any president lately.

they vilify the unions because we want a decent wage and a are going out the door now. we know corporate america is the greed. do question is, what do we about it? that's my question to you. thank you. guest: so i -- what can we do bout if it's this -- the republican stance for the obama administration, i feel like that stone. pretty second in regards to wages and pensions, however, that's something that people are looking at very closely. we want to see wages increase. and hopefully that's something as the labor en market slack. who knows how long that can take. stuck, stuck k, year after year if you've not done anything. i think this is hurting people. pensions are on the decline. i don't think it will be kind of a resurgence of those in the near future. the employers are consistently s.rning to 401(k)

retirement experts that i took in -- talked to said, you know, basically age is going to be dependent on a 401(k) or a personal savings. so pensions, i definitely don't think, are going to come back any time soon. really -- the onus here has shifted on to the worker from the employer. that's a stressful situation. host: if you're interested in hearing the union perspective, taking up that topic in the next segment coming up. ohn, thanks for holding on, you're from california, hi. caller: hi, good morning. it's funny. different outlook on the job market. i've been on this planet for 60 years and i remember minimum actually, you can buy a car and get ahead. ight now, minimum wage according to elizabeth warren at be at e of growth should about $32 an hour. and people say, well, yeah, but

wage, raise minimum thenoff ear going to have to raise the price of the products, which isn't true. giving away the corporate bonuses of millions of tolars for christmas bonuses ceos and, you know, you just laced the money that should be there for the employer. oosevelt put that law in to place where american workers a ld always make at least good living wage and, you know, right now, it's turning into modern day slavery. forget trickle down economics, i think it should start trickling up. guest: this is something that obama is obviously pushing more. comes bang from recess. we want to see when and if there's a wage increase. that note that if you look at the pace of inflation and the ace of growth, minimum wage

really hasn't kecht up with the rates of either one of those. of then there's also a group people who are very concerned the minimumrease in wage will suppress job growth. so it's going to have to be something that plays out. we'll have to see how it goes. >> kenneth, clayton, north carolina, independent line. call e caller: yes, i would like to talk about the corporate takeover. i know the intent is that getting from the state and local governments. north carolina they were offered volkswagen lure illion package to them here. not giving the same incentives to local small businesses. hey're picking and choosing who's going to win and who's going to lose on this. i know eisenhower warned about the 1950s when he warned s about military industrial

complex, taking over everything. and now that's what's happening. elections.ing they're choosing which corporations want to win and lose. local taxpayer is picking up the tab for it. big push to is a lure these big companies to states. but it may come with good right?ions, they want to bring jobs to the state and the companies can presumably bring a greater to a smaller company would. that said, i'm not an expert on incentives offered by different states. its's a trend that's getting increasingly competitive between states to get the big companies to move there. subject kswagen is the of a profile in "washington times" this morning. the plant in tennessee talking there.training workers also talks about union issues as well. one more call, daniel from

franklin, new york. caller: good morning, victoria.s to i like what she's been saying. i work with the department of i wanted to share some retired now. so the issue of minimum wage, 25 years, minimum wage has been frozen. concept of that inflation. the last 35, 45 years, minimum by inflation. that's why young people and old people, you got minimum wage, barely make ends meet. you can't make ends meet when ou talk about cutting the minimum wage of the past 34 years. that's a critical issue. as regards to job creation, i don't know, you've added adp comes d friday, out. the department the department of

labor. added approximately 10.3 million jobs since january 1, 2010. we're averaging over 170,000 jobs created per month. the 96 months under president bush, we added 13,541.2 jobs per month. the big issue is the media. the media. no job -- 2.3 million. to hit ate, we're going 16 million, 17 million by january 17, 2017. host: thanks, caller. guest: your point is interesting. you have to look at it in the living costs. washington or other urban areas, it's difficult to live off of when you look at the cost of housing and food. if you look at gas or car, even if you take public

transportation, that check very gets eaten away. over inflation has risen the years, the minimum wage power has eroded as well. host: stillwell with bloomberg talk about us to the state of the labor department. thanks for coming. guest: thank you for having me. host: but first, c-span radio. 6:30 a.m. eastern time. international news this hour, for s government is asking an international investigation of crimes by the islamic state group. the request is before the united nations top human rights body. geneva.meeting in officials are expressing grave atrocities in the iraq and civilian areas. warning that are

the threat extends to cities and western nations. obama to president take action to prevent such attacks but haven't offered any specifics on how to do that. leaders in the senate and house intelligence committees on the sunday ts tv talk shows, diane feinstein telling "meet the in s" the islamic group was her words extraordinarily dangerous. the foreign minister insists in his words a peaceful settlement in ukraine. russia would not intervene militarily in ukraine reports to the contrary of the ukrainian government, nato, and western nations. round of talks is being held today. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> today, on the c-span c-span at 5:30 eastern, an education department

in schools.llying at 8:00, bill nye the science creation museum founder evolution.bate james 2's book tv, clyburn talks about the youth to the jim crow south to the position in the house of representatives. sylvia dukes morris on her book, "price of fame" about claire booth luce. and 10:00 p.m., arthur luis, uthor of flash boys discusses the world of high frequency stock trading. 3, american history tv. american artifacts looks at documents related to the 1964 gulf of on the kin incidents that led to the vietnam war. the at 8:00 p.m., president warren love gs' knewly released letters. 9:45, the life of nobel prize inning economist, milton

friedman. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what the programs t that you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. #c123.tter, use the or e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. join the c-span conversation, us us on facebook, follow on twitter. continues.on journal host: on this labor day, a discussion of unions with the american progress. the project director of the project, hello guest: hello. how would you describe the state in the u.s. today? guest: they've been in decline. so there's been a long slow of decline. and then there's increasing sort of political fight where is they're feeling under attack.

the negative. i think on the positive; you would also see that there's a a wing resurgence and recognition that if we want some of the basic things that i ear able to provide like higher wages, we have to rebuild the union movement. ost: what would you say led to some of the -- what are some of the facts that led to the decline. is t: one of the key things the current state of our law is really weak. and for example, if a company breaks the law and fires someone for trying to join a union, so they break the law, the penalty is so weak that after years of fighting in courts, the person to get their job back minus any wages they made in the meantime. so that's really kind of a slap on the wrist. choose ompany wants to to avoid unions, there's a lot of incentive to do that. host: a gallup poll put out on the 28th talking about approving disproving, 53% say they approve. starting 72% as a

point in 1936. >> the trend there's slightly than hat approve disapprove. other kinds of questions, do you think labor unions are important to get ing workers higher wages and benefits, they recognize their value. have some negative attitudes that there's not support. ing >> what's the perception of the the reality?hat's guest: the exception would be in the past. minimum wage or overtime. but that was in the past. so maybe they're not as relevant today.

host if you want b to ask some labor unions -- independents, 202-585-3882. if you're a union member, you want to give your thoughts as 202-585-3883. a jeptleman wrote an opinion labor day and t unions. he wrote this. he said as labor became less

number of a large democrats became cool to unions. president carter angered unions s when he pushed fiscal austerity and didn't back legislation that would have prevented boycotts. president clinton clashed over unions with the nafta free trade reaty and president obama disappointed many when he didn't push for the employee free in 2010.t i wouldnificant amount, agree. unions were able to work across isles and both parties recognized their value. increasingly, that's become the party and the democratic are more closely associated. even there in the democratic party, there's been tension over years. peement ev-- people are

the g back to recognizing value of unions. we've had 30 years of stagnant wages and declining incomes for a decade. and the ways that you can think of raising incomes, its's get there without unions. host: president obama is in a labor to talk about event. ho uh do you feel about his relationship as far as what he's done for unions. guest: more generally trying to boost wages for workers and jobs workers and quite supportive in some ways of unions. make the strongest couple of a bill a years ago in congress. that would have faced an june anyway.d in congress on the whole, quite good. he made good appointments, appointmentse good and good regulations but they're on the smaller scale. the bigger things will take congress. really an uphill road right now. >> what would you like congress first and foremost?

guest: i mentioned the weak law.lties for breaking the if you do something like fire a worker for wanting to exercise a a ic right, like joining union, there should be much higher penalties. i think we can fix this election want to here if you become a -- join a union, its's unfair process an host: is that only in states with what are known to right to work laws or other states as well. guest: right to work is a separate issue. union, whether you need to pay for the services they provide. first call to our guests. ann for new york, democrats line, for david madeline of the american progress. go ahead. caller: i do support the unions, i think we need a revolution in this country. i think the corporate greed, the ceos, and the congress not supporting the eople as opposed to the

corporations and including the supreme court. i think it's time for the people revolution in a this country a go out and demonstrate. guest: thanks for the call. we need citizens to have more and our the economy politics right now. of sh mentioned the issue top pay or ceo pay. declining, at are the top, record increases. ceo pay is 300 times the typical workers' pay when 30 years ago, it was like 20 times. o we've had all of the gains going to the top. and i think there's steps we can tart to take so that ordinary when the economy does well. that's what unions do. get ital thing is they

lost. unions negotiating with an employer one-on-one so workers wages.ter they help workers have some power in politics. they encourage workers to get and vote more off b and talk to the legislators more often. so that's a counterbalancing power. you have corporations with a lot not so in congress but much workers. both should have power and negotiation there. if it goes to the political activity as well? guest: so if you join the union, yes, they do political activity. to you pay the fee, that's represent you for the forward do with the employer. if you don't want to join the union, you want to pay the fee representation, that's possible too. is : from florida this, john. hi. caller: hi, c-span. always like to say, it's about the price of labor. labor, theynts cheap

make lots of money. they buy our politicians. labor, they make lots of money, they get cheap politicians,uy our they buy our news media. ou can go on and on with this stuff, you know? it's always between business and labor. over history, k what is it? usinesses looking for cheap labor. it caused slavery, illegal child labor. those businessmen used to take young kids, put them to work in factories and work died.until they literally that's what you have to look at. we need a labor party in this country. labour t we have a party? reflecting aller is that sometimes antagonism where willing business are

to go too far in order to make money. ou mention in the past child labor, slave labor. certainly there's a possibility for those trying to make money to go too far. where you get back to vital role for unions. not everything that the union wants is going to be good. power.th have some able to get to the reasonable place where hopefully it works for both parties. a little longer, i think one of the places you see that working well is in germany. where they have a different model, unions have quite a bit of power. they tried to structure things the owners of capital a va seat and labor has a seat. they negotiate the things that work well for both of them. successful for the economy. very high wages and dominant in the export market. they have figured out less of a conflict, the driving down of and how to compete on

a high level. effortslkswagen and the in the united states in bringing work there. are there lessons in union involvement? guest: very much so. volkswagen is a key example. the -- they are bun of the leading manufacturers in the world. members on their board helping to make decisions company does. they are trying to operate in the united states where they have a different model. they're bringing some of their practices to the tennessee plant. one of those is the idea of the where workers have some input in the day-to-day operations like what's the best think about running this particular machine, for example. successful in germany. trying to do that here. led to huge conflict where some of the local politicians have felt in change power relations where you bring in unions and they fault and listed it.

created a conflict that in my mind hopefully will be able o be resolved with workers to be able to join a union and some of the advanced practices put in place. host: does the plant in tennessee have a union? guest: no, it doesn't. starting to join the union. there's -- it's very complicated. i can give me a while, answer. they don't have a full union yet. host: because -- guest: votes of workers. here were threats of taking away subsidies by the tennessee government if the workers unionize. big, big fight which is what neither the workers or vw wanted. slightly going on a different track where the workers are -- those who want have joined in a minority union figuring out how to work with the company. 202-585-38883.

a union member, hello. thomas, good morning. caller: i was working at safeway. the big thing was to get 40 hours. of all,f i believe the unions built the middle class in this country. in 1979, when i was in san jose state and working at safeway. vendors would come in and start touching the items on the shelf. repuld complain to my union and he could get in there and get them out of there because i more hours butet the vendors were able to reface the store and do all that stuff. ack then, they couldn't do that. they would pull them out. hours.d get the to make $13 an hour and make full benefits. a husband and wife could make

$40,000, $60,000 a year working on sundays. a husband and wife could raise a family. the stores, you see vendors doing all of the stocking on the shelves. point.t was my the unions have lost a lot of clout. the benefits have gone way down. agree. we need a revival of the unions. thank you. guest: the caller is making two big points there. the idea that as labor unions have declined, they had less ability to raise wages and for workers. you get little debate from even your next guest would agree with that. which i est point, think is really critical is that essential if you want a strong middle class. this is something i've discussed for a long time. it's not just the past. it's clear if you look over time in the u.s., you can see as increased, the strength of the middle class increased and then it fell as

density fell. today in states that have a stronger union movement, they classes, nger middle meaning the income going to the higher there.s world.ound the the same is true so not just in that the it's today union movement is vital to a strong middle class. union im from ohio, a member. jim, go ahead. caller: good morning, gentlemen. but nions are necessary, the companies don't want them. that? do we get past i was a teamster for a few years college, in the urw in good year in akron. prototypical machinery. one day, i asked, which plant is akron, chine going to in one, two, three or whatever. they said, oh, this is going to to tn. lightbulb came on. i left and became a teacher.

in the nea and the oea. around to the point i wanted to make earlier unions operate, a paradigm shift. in goodyear, it was about the money. you'd go to the union leadership and say, well, let's talk about etraining issues and job security issues and transfer rights and some of those things. they department want to hear it. $2, $3, $5 the $1, an hour. companies are interested in the total costs. back.re coming i want you to speak a little paradigm shift us, 10% for % for the company. go to the 50-50, win-win kind of situation. yes it's going to have to be ive and take, yes, we do need

the unions. ideal so what would the situation look like where companies and unions have some power and get to a better place. interesting really model. they have several things, but really, is in the best interest of the company. ecause the company that's nonprofitable is not good for workers or unions. neither is a company where the of the re getting all profits. when people d is think about the future of the company that continue to benefit everyone there. the german model, there's workers that are unionized. they negotiate for wages and benefits. they also have the union members on a board that has sort of veto say over some really important decisions like, for example, whether or not to production or what kind of investment needs to happen. then workers have the ability to say, you know what?

we see the need to go there and do this thing, if you invest will make the whole company stronger. it's been a successful model. germany, high union, high wages, and a huge export surplus. more people around the world are wanting to buy their stuff because it's really competitive. host: ga this, is allen, republican line. aller: yes, thank you for having me on. call in about a previous caller from rightway who was talking about his job outsources at the vendor for staging a store. common sense dictates a all of vendor, go to the work for the vendor. i was, on a minimum wage, making minimum wage in '73 at the ripe age of 13.

i was making minimum wage at a power company after high school. skills. i had to learn how to do my job in 30 minutes. s long as you're doing a job that you can learn how to do in 30 minutes, you're going to make minimum wage. raise the minimum wage to $25. but all that means is that poor people will be making $25 an hour. you're never going to be able to the value of a job just by raising the cost of it. guest: the caller makes a point skills that e workers have will help determine which wages they make. basically government policies as well as things like unions that help negotiate for higher wages. mum wage, that was a point of discussion a lot in the previous segment, the basic about the minimum wage is that it used to in the 1950s and 60s be about half of the average wage. is that was relatively close to class.ddle

now it has declined with inflation. $7.25 an you know, hour. it would be much, much higher if you haven't even kept pace where -- to be.bchlt so it's not just about the workers have.e it's about government policy. the last thing i want to add the minimum wage is that not, again, just about the -- for the individual worker. things in theader economy. you have more demand because consumers -- workers have more money in their pocket and they buy things which is a critical thing they need. we have governments subsidizing wage employers. because if you're paid that $7.25, you would be getting food stamps or medicaid. we can reduce those kinds of to nditures if we were able raise wages. host: "the boston globe" has a but it king away provides a chart between the differences between public

ector and private sector unions. public sector, a sustainability s but a since the '80 decrease in the private sector. why are those happening? basic trend you're on is right. public unionization rates are decades.r private sector, a sharp and steady decline. there's different laws, i think. different laws, but i think that's really the significant explanation. there's blic sector, huge opposition by the employer. you can't see the government waging a fight saying don't unionize. workers are going to make a decision under reasonably fair conditions. he private sector, you uh have employers heavily going after them saying don't do this y, or z.of x, cross themetimes they line. then they do, they're weak. most of the differences can be explained by the basic structure

of rules. one more thing, canada, for example, has stagnant -- rates have stayed about the same, much higher than the united states. in the private sector, because they have a different set of rules. host: a recent event at the victor foundation, jaques from employee freedom week talked about right to work overall, but also about unions and here's a little bit had to say.e >> as part of national employee reedom week this year, we decided to conduct a poll, a national poll of union members ohn't out of could your union without any penalty, would you do so? surveyed 454 union members across the country. said, yes.% i want to opt out of my union if penalty.so without there's 14.5 million union members, so that's oobt a 4 who want to e leave. they can. amazing is

if they're in a right to work to e, they don't even need pay agency fees. if they're in a nonright to work state, their options aren't as have options. they can become an agency fee ayer and receive a rebate of their union's political study or and igious objector redirect the union dues to the union to a charitable organization they find acceptable. wanted to ask the american public what they thought. this union members have right. in a separate survey of 500 americans we asked, should union mployees without force or penalty be able to opt out of union membership? americans said yes. he workers should have that choice. they should be able to make the decision about union membership that's best for them. you can take from that? guest: one of the most union embers would like to stay in their union. they like it. that seems that most unions are doing a relatively good job.

to be re always going people who aren't satisfied. the other core thing he is this idea that people could be able to leave without any penalties or any issues. the problem there, unions must represent all workers whether they're a member of the union or not. they must negotiate unions for ll workers, if you have a particular gree vagrievance, yo talk to your supervisor about it. they have to do all sorts of work for you. but if you left, they still have that. that's the questions -- the polls that are getting to don't could the basic idea, you ask people the same kind of thing -- do you think people hould leave the union and get all of the benefit that unions provide, you get a different of answer. host: one more question. hen a viewer asked about the unions, the local and state governments budgets respect able benefits.e generous

that equals bankruptcy. guest: it's a little more complicated. the share of state budgets that go to employee compensation for the last several decades has same.the it's been the same. o they're not getting huge increases. what has happened with the economy crater, the great recession, that made budgets huge demands on budgets because getting less e money in, but they had to spend more money on supporting people unemployed, etc. so you have this huge budget crush. but you have pensions. long-term obligations that much of the money is invested in the stock market. hit.stock market took a big that led to these sort of crises. ut it's not because workers were getting so much more or getting so much out of -- out of basically all states and the other thing about his, all states are facing a similar situation. not just whether they're unionized or not. the union rates and states of

public empoiees varies hugely from much higher states, isconsin, for example, to much lower states, south carolina. few , you know, very, very workers in the public sector are unionized. all have a similar problem. it's not just about unions making negotiations for high it's about the larger changes in the economy. vicki from new york is on the line, democrats' line and a union member. hello? caller: i wanted the reiterate what the guy is saying. i'm a union member. 've been a union member for over 18 years. i work for the city of new york. $18,000 d on my job at an hour. i'm at $61,000. that's because of the union. every year.aises and if we didn't have a union, i wouldn't be at my salary. so you started at $18 an hour and you're currently --

caller: i started at $18,000 a year. host: $18,000 a year, now $61. caller: yeah. of the unions. i get a 3% raise every year. he unions represent us for upper management. now, working for the state, the the raises. my dues are $25.60 every two weeks. $50 a month for union represent raises, what's wrong with that? who did you want want that? caller had aad the good experience. she's been able to get what most think, ould like, i which is that as they progress in their career, as they become they're able to get a steady increasing income, of the kes them part middle class. gave them basic security, to rtunity, the ability provide for their children, send their kids to college. a all of the things that we would associate with the middle

class. unfortunately, it's been very, very hard for most people in the today.y we've had decades of stagnant wages. at the same time the wages have for most people, they've had rising costs for college, for example, doubling whereas oubling over wages have been flat. costs for health care almost the increases.of housing also rapidly rising. so the middle-class families are being dramatically squeezed and one of the things that can help is if r thinks, i think, we were able to strengthen unions so more workers could increases of wages and strablt in their lives. host: liz, democrats line, a union member, hello. caller: hello. a discussion since this morning. obviously a 's benefit to being a worker. life in one my entire the public sector in education.

my father was a union pipe itter and benefitted both in the pension and the retirement benefits that were able to be gotten for him. lived a nice long life into his 90s. think a lot of the problem i see is some of the baby-boomers have known a world that there was more unionized workforce in the private and public sector. and they -- they understand the benefits. he people younger, the gen-xors, the ones that bought the reagan ideal, we are living the reagan world. this is the amount of unionism that he apparently wanted, slim sector.in the private this is his world. and they think it's a better world. they don't want the government, want big unions. but they don't realize they are dead in the water, their wages

are going nowhere. guest: the caller mentions the workers may older have more experience with unions seened what they can do and be supportive. truth to that. but what's also very, very interesting, the millennials, he younger generation, basically, 18 to 20-ish, mid 20s, that is the future. this big generation, they're the most supportive of unions of any previous generation. i think that is is because they have seen the world without them. faced ve -- they have basically a recession since even before the great recession, well 2007, the economy was terrible for these folks. the most likely to go without ealth insurance, for example, they were stuck in jobs where they were overeducated for and getting low wages. have the great recession and they're feeling all of the effects. they had a terrible economy. hey would like to do something about it. they see the potential for unions. so that's one of the things that

though we've, even had trends of declining unionization, right? e have future generations recognizing a great need for them. >> della lives in new york on line.emocrats you're on with david madeline, hello. caller: good morning. of the problems for unions and labors in the united states is that we have globalized the corporations to move their jobs elsewhere, to move their jobs to place has where banned, like n bangladesh. and how can we compete with this? we have to globalize the rights of unions to move all over. wherever we have a trade agreement, we have to make sure hat the people in that country and that place have the right to right to on, have the collective bargaining. guest: the caller hits on a things, the e way -- the changes in the economy and our government olicies have given capital, owners of capital and corporations a lot more power

about.edom to move but they haven't at the same time strengthened workers to be to negotiate for themselves and improve living conditions abroad. led to a situation where the rate is down. it's not happening. different model. there's a hugely globalized economy. they're an export leader. but their model has been how do we do it in the way that works or both workers and for companies, profitable company, rising wages for workers, and been a real boone for both parties involved. we can do those similar kinds of things. wouldn't do the same way. but we can find ways in the united states, we have done it have past where we arrangements that work with to compete.

host: on the republican line, randy from california. caller: good morning, good to hear from all of the union members calling in. unions, it's a mixed bag. i have no objection whatsoever with agreeing with being in private sector unions. ike a professional like a coal miner or something. of course i want representation nd make sure that as many safety precautions, you know, can be taken as possible. you start talking about ublic employee unions, you know, there's just i'm a alifornia resident, and public employee unions are the obstacle for poor people that are trying to improve their schools. unions as whole pretty much

amnesty pay. living e a poor person in this country, you know, diploma,n a high school you come from a sub standard school, you're trying to make a iving, guess what, there's a lot of low-skill people coming up behind you trying to pull you down. guest: the caller has a lot of points. i'll see how many of them i can hit. discusses is sort of whether the things that negotiate for are necessarily good. i think you always find any is nization not everything exactly what any one person would want, just like the corporation, the things they do, you wouldn't say things they do is perfect. they're necessary parts of a modern economy. both have a role to play and they both need some power. specifics of teachers.a

i'm sure that maybe not everything, but much of what the provide good is to schools and good classrooms which in theory should benefit decision by : the the national labor relations board taking a look at cdonald's. mcdonald's could be held liable with the franchises for wage and violations. talk about the impact of that decision. of thethe modern economy u.s. has shifted towards fewer and fewer people kind of being employed by pa corporation. a lot of different ways that corporations have structured hemselves so that they in some ways have escaped responsibility for providing good wages and benefits. kind of mcdonald's model. and the question -- yet, has some still oversight and influence over the franchisees operate. so the question the lawsuit is bout is, well, they're still telling them how to do x, y, and

z. they are the employers of these workers. n that case, you have the potential really to raise wages and benefits for the workers. franchisees say we're not profitable. wages.'t do it and raise the ultimate headquarters really s and they've been making lots of profits. these are interesting because future of t that the workers might have power in different ways. f i may go back in history, this is a little of how our economy was organized in the late 1900s. s, the early 1900s sewing r example sweatshops, multiple different operations but the person on the a couple of ing people claim they didn't have the ability to raise wages where layers thatyers and people were making profits. we figured out how the laws ould string the whole thing together so that everyone who had power was actually responsible for the working conditions.

host: pat from huntington, west line, a democrats union member, hi. on, er: i'm on when you're that's great. this is what i wanted to say, about three things i wanted to in history to start off with. 1 in of all on september 1907, walter ruger was born in virginia. west he was a long-time president of the united auto workers and was founders of the union movement here in the united states. but on september 1, 1921, the -- had captured 25 miles of blair mountain, the ridge up the mining wars. and were about to descend on it. and get what they had fought for, some recognition. when president warren harding

and es under marshal law ordered federal troops and a bombing squadron to come in and citizens.d states that's what your government does protecting you laborites. armed the iterally train and seeing the shots that i lived within sight here in ton, and ran it up here and machine gun living in tent children.th their host: what would you like our guest to comment on? we're almost out of time. here's what i wanted to say. my -- i watched the program one -- of a species of bird another d wait until species got its nest built. then it could come in and push of its nest, take crow st, and stand up and about -- and call its mate in. that's what i see. host: okay, thanks.

caller was talking ant history of labor in the country. rights, huge conflicts that were not good nor anyone. the government would go on the ide of the employers and suppress the workers. this is a terrible situation. 1930s, we in the created a law that gave workers national rights, labor relations act that we weren't going to crush unions. that law was a huge step forward. unfortunately, it hadn't been updated for decades and decades. now it's become so weak that we're nowhere near back to where the caller was, but we've gone too far with the corporate -- the companies have too much workers have too little. >> the question of the state of

the unions with david madeline, center of american progress, thanks. >> thanks for having me. look, another perspective with mark mix with laws in america. that conversation coming uh after a news update from c-span radio. 9:18 eastern time. police officers in ferguson, mo using body cameras. this after protests following of a black ooting teenager be i a white police officer three weeks ago. st. louison tells the poach dispatch that approximately 50 cameras were donated by two companies. he said the cameras were being police to the city's squads and each officer would get one to use. laire mccaskill, a democrat of missouri, suggested that police departments should require officers to wear body cameras in order to receive federal funding. may begin covering end of life discussions next year if t approves a recent request

from the american medical association. that's the country's largest association of physicians and students. one of the am a's roles is to codes from ng medical services, codes used by doctors, hospitals, and insurers. it created codes for end of life medicare.ted them to the centers which runs medicare will not discuss whether it will to cover end of life discussions. the decision is expected this fall. the stock piling of military eastern europe. the goal would be to help rotect member to cover end of t potential russian aggression. the nato chief speaking earlier reporters say the proposed new force could be made up of

several thousand troops rotating basis a by the 28 nato countries. summit this week, hosted by the united kingdom in new port wales. obama will be attending. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> today on the c-span networks, education 0 eastern, summit on bullying and schools. bill nye science guy and creation founder ken ham debate evolution. on c-span 2's book tv, james clyburn talks about his life the jim crow in south to the leadership position in the house of representatives. author sylvia dukes morris on the book, "price of playwright, and congresswoman claire booth loose. and at 10:00 p.m., the high

trading. stock on c-span 3's american history tv, 7:15 p.m. eastern time, american artifacts looks at documents related to the 1964 gulf of on the kin ncident that led to the escalation of the vietnam war. at 8:00 p.m., president warren newly released love letters. nobel prize ce of winning columnist milton friedman. let us know what you think about programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. #c123.tter, use the or e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. join the c-span organization, facebook, follow us on twitter. >> washington journal continues. host: our guest of the national right to work legal defense

foundation. he's their president. good morning. guest: good morning, paid row. how would you define right work laws? guest: we believe every worker the union, to join that right is protected and is it. no worker should be compelled as to paytion of employment dues or fees to a union to get or keep a job. not?: why guest: we don't think it's fair. individuals have choices. believe the compulsion is instance.every any compulsion we give to government. monopolistic. but workers have been able to say, first, you must be a member is n organization, which kind of a real stretch. i think the supreme court agreed with that in the 1960s, he said, can't make you a formal member of a union, of a private organization, but we can 100% of the dues and fees. work are simple,

they protect the right to join a union but you can't be fired if agree.'t host: the people who don't want to pape the fees the same protection as those in the union as the employment and things of that nature. interesting he question about labor law. the union officials have the privilege to impose themselves a every single person in bargaining unit through the means of exclusive monopoly representation. the union is certified and in the work place, that no worker can talk directly to the employer can't deal with an individual employee on an individual basis. a ryone has to be in collective. union officials use this power to onopoly representation force everything in the collective. workers in america sometimes elieve they may get different benefits or certain things workers.them from other fact is, workers, their

voices are mitigated on whatf of whole.ces as the some people say that's a great thing. i would say not necessarily. first amendment of the constitution, the bill of ights, was all about certain rights that individuals had. the right to speak for yourself is something you should never be subjected to in election host: stillon't pay the fees, i get representation. guest: that's not your fault, fault.on's a motto that has been legal. they're going to do member only bargaining. bargaining for those who want b members. benefits for those folks, workers will join them if they're providing good services. exclusive bargaining agent, the only voice in the work place that takes away the individual's right to negotiate to an employer or an mployer to reward good behavior, good work, set aside work, those are urned the

agreement that the officials use and they use it as the contacts are saying, well, e have to represent the workers. not true, they don't have to. states have these laws? guest: 24. who got added. guest: indiana and michigan added laws. host: other states considering it? guest: missouri, kentucky, been severale have right to work laws introduced in several states. drives them to create these laws do you think? guest: it's the individual to work hat the right law brings. if you look at the economic situation in the united states, sector job growth is increasing, the companies are citing new facilities. states are k demonstrably better in jobs in the private sector since 2008. but before that.

an economic decision. companies that want to locate or expand facilities, they say 50, sometimes almost 75% of the to expand or relocate will consider right to ork states as a potential sighting selection for their new investment. talking about right to work issues and the laws in the united states. if you want to ask him 202-585-3880 for 202-585-3881 for republicans and 3882 for independents. karen is from florida, hello. caller: recently retired, i live florida in the right to work state. the right to work has nothing to to do with the employee. it gives all of the rights to work to the employer. to give notice when you leave. they can fire you, they can walk you out the door that minute. no union employees. i'm a nurse. retired nurse.

n the rare occasion of my 40 years of work, they will on occasion try to get a union in. they were in -- let me tell you, employees that were in there. you couldn't visit or talk. if you did, guaranteed in two weeks they would find a reason to let you go. guest: at will employment laws in several states. hey's distinct from right to work laws. the at will is as karen that the the notion employer says i have cause to believe we need to fire you. employment t will doctrine. states that don't b have right to work. but the bottom line is right to simply about a work herb's right to choose about whether or not they want to union. a labor a different doctrine, a different part of the law and has nothing to do with the fl's

right to work law. if in florida you wanted to form the union, the right to form protected. is the employer is regulated and there are certain laws about what they can and can't do. what they an say, can't say. and so those rules are promulgated in the private national labor relations board in washington, d.c. and forced by the nlrb. employees have direct access to the nlrb process. to navigate.ne laws set out what they can and cannot do. is paul, go ahead. caller: yeah, hello. host: yeah, go ahead. caller: i'm here. ost: we're going to put you on hold. while you're putting your television on mute if you could. joe, the california line. caller: i would like the guest use the bout how they tactics to attack american labor.

would like to comment that i have a high school education. years old. union job, my house is paid off, my car is paid off. i have retirement, i have health care. i have paid vacation, paid time.ays, paid sick put two kids through college. host: what do you do? caller: i work for a government contractor at the army training ft.er win. i worked for various contractors years or so.5 and i, you know, for us, it's troops suspect b a cliche, it's our job. uest: sounds like a very, very happy volunteer union member. good for you. that's what unions ought to be doing. you're happy with the service. nothing stopped them from can support you

all of the things they do. you do that voluntarily and they provide a great service for you. it related to the american legislative exchange council, the not a member of american lejts lative exchange legislators put together from across the country. they were the largest the lative group in country; 3,000 legislators would attend. provide ideas about model legislation. alec to work is one that has introduced in the past. we produced meetings where egislators come together, get ideas, talk about issues in the marketplace. sponsors justrate like national state legislatures as well. participate in that process. is on our republican line. aden, go ahead, please. i -- i was a union they just kind of

look to negotiate with me when i got a union involved, really work for me. and i didn't have to do anything i just feel f -- like the unions weren't working like unless there were unions involved in it, they didn't -- the management didn't one-on-one basis like you were saying. with just kind of agree you and say that the right to work is probably a better idea? guest: that's right, under the exclusive bargaining privilege, charged withcan be unfair labor practice if they negotiate or talk with an individual employee when a enforced there. they can't adjudicate a problem. an issue with your pay stub, the employer says you've been doing great work and

increase your salary, you say, no, there's a violation contract. unfair labor practices in the negotiation between you and the raise r and get the $1 taken away because of the exclusive monopoly bargaining power they have in the work place. that's an injustice for the individual employee. they take away this right. in the u.s. supreme court argument we just had on june 30, case on january 31, am aleto asked a series of questions of a union lawyer paul smith about the idea that in a contract negotiation, there who'sbe issues where smun 24 years old would benefit dramatically by a pocket of cash, that could go for basically raise versus increase in pension. someone who's 64 years old is more interested in the pension. sam aleto asked, you know, do ou recall that person who disagrees with what the union is doing for them, what do you call that person? some call that person as kind of a free rider for something in and paul smith said, yeah, they would be.

here he admitted openly in supreme court arguments that the be negatively benefitted but yet forced to inept the representation and states without right to work laws, they're forced to pay for the injustice. to work laws, the uh result of gaining fewer embers and less money through dues and agency fees to support he collective bargaining activities is strengthening the employers' hand in collective bargaining negotiations, a trend that obviously bodes well for the workers suffering low wages as a result. context.don't know the i think i did read that article. volkswagen , the plant. you talked about that situation. we ended up representing the volkswagen. we were their lawyers filing charges not only against ute id auto workers and volkswagen in an interesting

situation down there. in a right to work state stops anyone from wanting to join the union. that's the issue -- union officials believe somehow the we know pedro d in several right to work states, higher union density in states to work t have right laws. i don't know how to explain it other than union officials realize they're in the marketplace. if they're going to get services and get people to join them and pay revenue, they have to good services to workers. if they do that, workers will come. here is michael, go ahead. is michael. my name and then district -- not the -- working for the company and tended to join the union by so much to hey do estroy -- to -- go ahead to destroy the union. but if you look at the companies

a strong union, the whole country -- the middle class is stronger. and they department know -- like thing in the st wages are s -- the straggling because the right to work laws. guest: yeah, in tennessee -- the comments we were talking about the volkswagen unionization drive in chat no gee. get the uaw ing to into the work place. in fact, we had to file an unfair labor charge against the united auto workers and some of n because of the actions they took to force the union inside. it turns out in that situation what the union where was a card check you don't have a secret ballot. workers can't go behind a and privately vote for yes or no. they wanted a card check certification which says if i

sign a card, that card counts as a vote and that vote is in favor of the union. the union gets a majority of those cards signed, the mployer accepts them and the union represents every single worker in the bargaining union except even those workers who card. want to sign a what happened in tennessee was the employer and the union got together. no, we're not aid interested. they fought back. the uaw claimed they had a but no of the cards, one saw the cards. e filed unfair labor practice charges abhow they were obtained. giving away tickets to an and other things. the workers in chattanooga voted against the uaw. we're in the process of looking at a situation where the united auto workers are setting local union, local 42 in chattanooga and it is a union. only exciting to see what they're doing they realized if they workers, they want to join voluntarily, they're not and they can't

force anyone to pay dues in tennessee. we've got a y, majority, they're volunteer to our union. can you recognize us. to your point, in tennessee, the employer and the union officials trying to get the workers to join the union. when they voted in a secret that i voted against representation. host: can union workers opt out dues.ying for guest: not easy, they can. a difficult decision for them. wo cases in the right to work foundation litigated both of them. it was a supreme court case that decided in 1988. what the supreme court said in hat case, we found out there was a telephone line, harry beck out in oregon. he lives in la plata, maryland. spending hishe was money on things he didn't agree with in candidate. all the a lawsuit, wept way back to nlrb in new york.

they were spending 19% of all of he union dues for those in collective bargaining arbitration. so the courts say you have to for those on charge fees and you can't force them to pay for those things. will r harry beck, whate had to do is decide wean the work place rights and the political rights. harry beck to vote n the contract, to vote on the union leadership about how it employment. to pay for any of the activity, he had to be a ebb many of the union, but if he was a member of the union, any money he spent for dues could be used for political causes. had to resign membership, get a reduced payment of fees, he give up on work place contracts. to vote in elections. workers oice that shouldn't have. what's more important, your conscious, your issues? involved in an active part of the work place? you know, workers shouldn't be

make that decision. but it's the monopoly bargaining ower of organized labor that forced them back in the decision. booed, a case, a hudson and in the private sector in the government sector, same type of rights. but, again, the same issue of having to give up one set of another. protect >> john in winter haven, florida, good morning. >> good morning. calling because i have in my ork history been a union officer reporting directly back meanie and later became a labor relation executive in management and both cases i negotiated labor contracts. nd we've only seem to hear one side of it. the unions, basically when i was as when fficer as well i was a management representative, we're at the bargaining table, every one or years for wages, that's what the union did to help the

workers out. than that, their responsibilities amounted to poor workers who were not doing the job they should workers who were breaking the rules of the protect it from disciplinary action. and that's basically all the unions performed for the workers. >> yeah, you know. the bargaining process. i have not negotiated the forth.t back and we represented hundreds of thousands of employees. some were former union officers stories like that. but certainly if there's a place for workers joining together to increase the volume of their voice. no question about that. there's always been a place, a place for workers joined together voluntarily. what we will say to the right to organizations, there's no place for compulsion in that process. if you have to force workers to to get or keepes a job in america, you've gone beyond what you could be doing

actually convincing the workers to join you voluntarily. that's any organization brought together through oluntary means is inherently stronger. samuel knew this. the keyvolunteerism was for strong union movements. since 1945, here in washington, union officials came and lobbied congress for labor policies, dictate labor policies country.e one of the primary components of that policy is the ability to unions.people into the instead of going out and recruiting workers, providing ervice to them, they use government power to force them in. causes unrest in the union. it's a problem for them. mt. another john from airy, maryland, republican line, hi. caller: hi. to say i started with safeway in '68. a very strong union that $1.75 an hour with

part time. full time f up to checker and up to dairy manager. and later on, much later on, the company, we voted on a contract that we happy with. and we voted to strike. all right? strike.nt on the next -- the next day, the judge ordered us back to work. but we had to -- we had to have another union meeting and we meeting e went to the and we found out that the -- that the president of the union had already signed the contract. even though we voted against the contract and voted to strike. so we had -- we had to -- we had go back to work. with the new contract he'd signed.

host: leave it there. let our guest respond. guest: difficult situation. know exactly the details of it. you do see the conflict between and leadership and rank file workers, we saw it at boeing. machinist hat al one contract. the rank and file in boeing had another view. and there was a conflict inside the union that caused trouble. the united food and commercial local 400 that's a strong union. they do a good job with their members. the rginia, obviously members of the local union have the right to choose whether or not to financially support that union. think it makes them more accountable. in maryland, they don't you. be compelled to pay user ees or lose your job in that state because it does not have a right to work law. a t: the afl-cio, they list couple of things, the average worker makes about $1500 a year median house with incomes is $6400 less than other states.

toy say in states with right work laws, 26%% of jobs are low-wage occupations compared other states guest: that the afl-cio put out study page. it was interesting. we had a discussion over that very issue. in the y what happened afl-cio is they do not adjust for cost of living. adjust, you find out workers in right to work states power, 300 in purchasing disposable income in those states.versus forced we know that because the afl-cio affiliate did the study for us. salaries all of the and took cast of living-adjusted wages and tried to prove that california were making less than teachers in some other state because they pay raise in california. they we took the methodology and over the right to work states versus nonright to work states. right to work states had more disposable income. it makes sense to compare apples

to apples. you take a plumber in manhattan and a plumber in utah and compare their wages, surely plumber in manhattan makes more money. but how far does the money go? difference?ke a it does. david, in his group in the merican center for american progress did a study and found disposable income. an agi over $2,000, you take worse.t, it's you look at the irs, you have the higher percentage of workers $200,000.er if you take it out, the difference gets better for states.in right to work host: you're hearing the right to work legal defense foundation. let me push the button, robert from san jose. good morning. caller: good morning. hours,ive eve wo been watching. this thing comes up so much, overcast, okay, that the companies are making puttingaking money, and

the money back in. the productive rise that's gone on. nd the wage earlier i'll start with that -- but if you look at the time cycle, you can -- you most of that from the advent of the microchip. years of over 60 orking, i started out as a mixing milks with hand scoop and i find that job has been automated. you walk in now, there's a machine. put it there -- there, milk. milk. other jobs including one of the to be anof college was aircraft carrier fighter pilot. and guess what? they automated that. 30 years ago, and this will be

point, when i workled for ibm, i went down to a underneath chicago mcdonald's. nd ibm people had put a computer in there to start inspected how the orders were placed and to automate that thing that we've all seen at the counter. let me just remind you of this -- try to jack up the minimum wages in some arbitrary way, you're going to turn that machine around and the customer that order just as well. host: thanks, caller. in t: i was in a small town texas. real quick. i was in a small town in texas a onth ago, there was a soda fountain down there. there may be opportunities for the skill you have. there's something about that. inkroosed productivity, increased technology. there are things, called, quote labor-saving devices, pedro, that people implement to make easier. job that's one oh it was things we have to deal with. i won't speak for everyone.

think from my stand point, you're silting here with an ipad camera computer, a overhead, lights, technologically advanced studio. things.d it helps you get the word out better in a more effective way. caller mentioned mcdonald's. get the national labor relations mcdonald's?on on liability.t franchisor by a franchisee. of the nlrb ith maid a ruling that says they jointly liable for the acts of the francisee. well established in american business. i mean, i don't know how many go in the a daily basis. hat that says is this joint liability will allow them to practices labor

against the mothership company, this case, mcdonald's in oak illinois when the owner in paducah, kentucky does something wrong. model. not the best what's going to happen is we're going to -- all stores become corporate stores. this, why tinue to would you sell your rights to a franchisee unless you can fromte everything they do, wages all the way up to line. i know they allow them to use he packaging and uniforms and there's a style of how you do or ness at mcdonald's wendy's or a burger king. agree to. thing they franchisor that the could be liable is a dramatic shift. it shows that they'll find a way a new group of workers to unionize. pete from illinois, caller: this is labor day. listening to this mix character like listening to the grand wizard of the ku klux klan think antebellum ories of

south on martin luther king jr.'s birthday. ights to work, mr. mix, has gutted the american middle class and continues to do so. that's my point. built middle class america, continue to sustain it, in spite of all of the efforts and individuals such as yourself to destroy the american middle class. street gets richer, american worker gets poorer, year-by-year. florida rse from mentioned earlier, i, too am a nurse. i worked in multiple tried to ents, you form a voluntary union, you say, ir, you will find yourself kicked out the door faster than you can say, you know, good luck, charlie. caller.anks, guest: if it happens again, give 800-336-3600. we have 18 lawyers working to exercise your rights under the law. they won't help you force anyone union.o join a they'll help you with the right to join a union. e have represented workers who

have been fired for trying to form unions. i've been called a lotf oh tires slarned, mail and pictures with my head cut off. i'm offended that you would make that comparison and shows how your argument is, sir, if you're going to resort to that type of behavior. here's what right to work law does. it's what it does. and you understand, look at a right to work law, they simply the opportunity for workers to choose whether or not to be part of a union and pay a fee as a condition of working. that's all they do. the argument that you have is that union officials have a primary conflict with the claim to represent. because right to work is about workers having the choice. with nothing to do anybody else except for the parties. and wisconsin is a great example of that. in rnment emmro iees wisconsin were given right to work protection in act 10, some the ining units, 80% of workers voluntarily chose no longer to support the union. indictment on union leadership. you talk to those people about

the problem they have with uniism. >> donald is next. good morning. caller: i wanted to make the mr. mix bout -- what said about the volunteerism. it doesn't make sense for you to a part of an organization and not support it. mean, what -- i mean the organization is not going to last, you know, without support. make sense that you would -- you make sense that ou shouldn't be forced to pay dues. why would you join an organization if you're not going to support an organization. that's silly. guest: those workers don't want to join the union. worker that voted no against union representation, ow is it that he basically ascends to be forced to pay a fee to a union he did not want to be a part of. a part of a o be labor union, you can pay dues. you don't have to work in a dues.environment to pay they have associate programs trgs steelworkers, the afl-cio

you to join the union s an ordinary citizen like you would join the chamber of commerce or the lion's club or the rotary. of course, those people who groups voluntarily support them financially. they do. that's the same standard that be applied to labor unions. hill, ohn from chapel north carolina, independent line. john from chapel hill. yes, good morning, pedro. i just want to make a couple of points. aller: i think some of the other callers have made it. retired.40 years -- i'm of those 40 years, i was the hr for some nt of pretty major companies. work with unions both unions and plants in right to work states. and i would just say this -- the companies that we acquired in right-to-work states, when we ot there and found the leadership and the management they had and the way they

it was employees, abominable. my 40 years ver in seen a company become unionized hat didn't depp serve to be unionized the. guest: right. host: they did not treat employees the way they should be treated. ship d a wonderful relation ship and to say employees don't have the right to speak to management they're unionized is not true. r you have the wrong management. employees,uld say to they should understand who they're working for. i sat in board rooms, i sat with leaders. and i've heard employees called a lot of names. and they deserve to be unionized the. collectively bargain. ask a so, i wanted to

question. because the point about employer talking to employees in a contract tside of the would be an unfair labor practice. you know that, as an hr guy, cane are certain things you do and can't do for employees in a unionized environment. but his point is it spot on. if an employer is treating workers that way, they deserve unionization. nd there's a process for workers to process and unionize in a situation like that, no question about it. trump of en richard can file o admit they a petition, they can have an election. union and the the union can represent them. i know that it's oversimplification of how the works. but the bottom line, no one is stopping you from joining a union or organizing a union in country. that's a fact. ost: arlene, tampa, florida, you're the last call. caller: hello? host: you're on, go ahead. caller: i never was in a union. when my husband was alive, he

insulated power plant asbestos worker. 30 when i was a nurse for years. i went down for social security, i was going to give me for hat i made, only $800, my husband, i get twice as much. who's disabled gets twice as much, she was going to get $600, now she gets $1200. i'm 300% for unions. it's for the people. to work, we've always had a right to work. that's the american constitution. guest: texas is a right to work state. good for him, good for you. should work.y it and in texas, he had the right voluntarily but could not be compelled. the mark mix is with national right to work foundation with right to work states and laws. thank you for your time this morning. guest: my pleasure, thank you.

tomorrow, the p focus is on back to school. school-related issues. join in, we'll have thomas ginsell with the school board association. the role of school boards specially with the issue of common core. and following that, an hour long discussion on common core. institute and neil mcclus i can of the kato institute will be along with the discussion as we look at school-related issues on tomorrow's washington journal. that show starts at 7:00 a.m. see you then.

>> news on the international front this labor day. a british prime minister's address to parliament live, here on c-span. titles from a recent bullying summit held by the obama administration is addressing issues including dating violence, cyber bullying, and school discipline pack ask. here's a preview. discipline tactics. here's a preview. >> if you ever want the highs and lows of education on a daily

basis, go into the middle school and follow people around. ever had them yourself? hug you anddy to then the next day they don't know anything and want to walk 20 feet in front of you. i remember clearly a student of mine was walking down the hallway one day and unknown to me she hadn't believed extensively for the last several months. she got into a fight. because she precipitated the fight i knew that this was going to be a hard challenge for her and probably the repercussions were not going to be good. i did exactly what every adult should never do i looked at her and i said to her -- it doesn't matter. whereupon she pushed me into a locker and said with an emphatic voice -- it do matter. i realize that that moment in time out of my frustration with my bag of income and dealing with this