yep. got all the cozies. [ grandma ] with new fedex one rate, i could fill a box and ship it for one flat rate. so i knit until it was full. you'd be crazy not to. is that nana? [ male announcer ] fedex one rate. simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. this morning my question, what makes you happy? plus, what your college tuition dollars are really buying. and, the young entrepreneur, building a business and rebuilding lives through lobster. but first, a new holiday tradition. the walmart wars. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. diehard fans who have been watching since last thanksgiving should be prepared to feel a bit of deja vu.

because this morning we are beginning with walmart. the world's largest private employer. and why during the biggest shopping season of the year instead of ringing up your discount purchases walmart workers were walking off the job. if it feels like you heard it all before, that's because you have. >> good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. on friday on the biggest shopping day of the year workers at the largest employer stepped out from behind check-out counters and out of the loading docks, too, chanted stand up and live better. hundreds of workers walked off the job across 46 states joined with union members an activists to call for a living wage and improved working conditions. >> that was last year. when beginning in october walmart workers in alliance with organized labor unions, and labor activists launched the first work stoppage against walmart in u.s. history. that effort continued to build

momentum and culminated with clacko black friday's protest in which they demonstrated at more than 100 stores. workers walked off demanding a living wage and better working conditions. here we are, a year later. bringing you the same story yet again. because for those walmart employees, not much has changed. this year those workers and their labor allies made good on their promise to make black friday strikes, quote, a new permanent reality for walmart organized by our walmart an organization backed by the united food and commercial workers i want national union walmart workers made history again with an even bigger protest on friday. our walmart reported 1500 protests that resulted in more than 110 arrests of walmart workers and supporters in cities across the country. their demands remain the same. better working conditions, more full-time jobs, and minimum

living wage of $25,000 a year. currently the average salary for the lowest paid employee working a 40 hour week is still just less than $19,000 annually. that's only if that employee works five days a week, 52 weeks a year without paying taxes. according to our walmart given the hourly wages and part-time hours put in by most walmart workers the salary amounts to closer to just over $15,000 a year. which still leaves many walmart workers needing to rely on collective government benefits to survive on their salaries. a report released in may from the u.s. health education and work force committee looked at how much wisconsin taxpayers spent on employees who needed to use public benefit programs. they found in that one state the cost to subsidize walmart employees at a single store was up to $1.7 million each year.

closing that wage gap would still allow walmart to uphold their pledge of every day low prices even if walmart passed on part of the cost to consumers. shoppers would only expect to pay 7 to 15 cents more per trip in order for the firms to recuperate the cost of the wage increase according to a study from demos. walmart's response to decades of demands has been to pretty much ignore them. the official company line has been to brush them off, join bid a small minority of employees. except if you've seen some of walmart's advertising over the last year, you might have noticed a different message. the company may not be acting on the workers' demands but they have clearly been paying attention. and more importantly they realize everyone sells paying attention too. when you think of walmart employees, the company's commercials want you to think not of workers walking off in

protest, but of workers like this. >> i'm the next american success story. working for a company where over 75% of the store management started as hourly associates. there is opportunity here. i can use walmart's education benefits to get a degree. maybe work in i.t., or be an engineer. >> this ad is part of a larger campaign launched by walmart in may which focuses on feel good messages about walmart workers, its business model and how customers benefit from shopping the store's low prices. in fact, you probably already have seen the commercials. that's because walmart wanted the ads to air primarily during the you know, sunday morning news shows. suggesting that they may be less interested in influencing the buying habits of people who shop at walmart and more interested in affecting what we think about those workers. they want to change the minds of many who in fact don't actually shop there. joining me today are some

familiar faces that you're going to remember from our black friday discussion last year. an international and public affairs at columbia university. allison co-host of citizen radio at we are citizen radio.com. also a reporter for the nation. she was out yesterday covering the protests. also ed ott former executive and political director for new york city's central labor council who has been active in the labor movement over 40 years. and our friend colby harris, a former walmart employee fired by the company and just arrested yesterday while participating in walmart black friday protests. thanks to all of you for being here. ed, i want to start with you, we are in certain ways just where we were last year. but then in other ways it feels like there is movement. how would you assess the last year in walmart organizing? >> i think several things changed. walmart resorted to retaliation against some of the workers who participated last year.

the workers stood up to that, the labor relations board established the fact they have rights, i think the clear message from the workers is we're not going away, we're back this black friday and staying here. this is not a short-term action. this is a long term siege. i think the other thing that they established is that they are not alone. the workers have a lot of support, a lot of friends, the media including the main stream media has begun to pay attention to the needs of these workers in different ways. bloomberg news, fortune, have all said that in fact, walmart could afford to pay more. >> right. >> last year that wasn't possible. so i think this is become a movement. this is the economic justice movement of the 21st century and the new civil rights movement. >> ed, i appreciate you bringing up the media question. colby, you have been with us multiple times when you first were with us you were still a walmart employee. you are now, you know, you have discussed being let go, you believe in retaliation for your

participation in organizing. how have the year been for you? >> to be honest it's been great. i've been able to still be inside the stores and be able to talk to associates and let them know what their rights are. as you mentioned i was illegally fired september 30 for participating in those activities over the past year and a half. it goes to show that you know, when we speak out for thing this is is the reality of. workers get fired, they get their hours cut and there are others who would love to speak out but they might get fired. >> do you have pending legal action about your claim that you were fired in retaliation in a way that was il sflel. >> yes and there are several other workers part of that charge with the labor board. as of last week the general council ruled in our favor and found that walmart was wrong in firing those workers participating in those activities, the extended strike that we had in june we went to arkansas to try to meet with the executives to talk about fixing the things like increasing the

hours, better benefits and a livable wage. >> one of the things that has -- always sort of tension i guess for me is on the one hand we'll cover these stories, on the other hand walmart will advertise, sometimes during the hours of this show, saying things that are -- that seem to be contrary. so that ad that we saw where we see a young african-american man saying okay, because of walmart i'm going to go to work and potentially pay for school and become an i.t. person. i keep thinking you know, sort of what do we do about the fact that they have an enormous capacity to get their own messaging out there about what kind of store they are. >> i think it's telling that they actually have not been able to successfully switch their p.r. campaign. this year talking about a difference between last year and this year we couldn't get inside the store this year. they don't want people to see the protesters at all. so clearly they lost a little bit of control of their messaging and the labor finding that they are in violation.

it's the snowballing effect where they are losing control of the messaging. >> yesterday, speaking of messaging, you were at the walmart protest in see caucus, colby was arrested. >> it was an orchestrated event. some workers and supporters blocked traffic nearby the walmart. it was the charges were for blocking traffic though there weren't that many cars around. so it was an orchestrated event to bring attention to the movement. >> so this is similar in that sense of sort of using the arrests as a way of demonstrating sort of just how problematic in bringing attention. to we're seeing that in north carolina, moral mondays where we know protesters are going knowing that they are going to be arrested. i keep wondering, though, whether or not there are lessons to be learned by this labor organizing, from kind of a history of labor organizing. does this resonate with what we saw in the early 20th century or different? >> this is very much similar to what we saw in the early 20th

century. inare protests and strikes. a strike is when an individual forgoes a day's pay to make a point. so mr. harris and his colleagues, they passed up a day's pay of you know, we know two thirds of walmart employees make $25,000 or less. that's significant. not only for their co-workers but all americans. when did we see this. when the largest employer was general motors workers went on strike to create ladders of opportunity into the middle class. so those became crammy jobs, frankly. they were made into middle class jobs, with benefits with a pension, with health care, that then other employers in the economy had to replicate which created the broad middle class we had in the 20th century. this is equivalent of the radical strikes by general motors workers and others to create a middle class, to create

an american dream. >> this is a good point there may be a direct benefit for workers who end up with a living wage but that the impact of labor organizing or the death and truncation of labor organizing is for all workers and particularly in the context in which walmart, isn't a player, they are the player. they set the labor standards. >> i think they are no different if you want to go back to previous reference, when we were organizing companies like ford and general motor, they set the standard for what work was about. and industrial work was low paid insecure and dangerous. and here we have, again, walmart, part of the reason why we talk so much about them they are the largest, they talk about their million employees. well, they set a certain standard and when workers stand up and challenge them, they are pulling a lot of other employers with them. so this fight while you know, a lot of the publicity is about walmart, there is a huge struggle going on in this

country of low wage workers across the board whose finally said look, for 40 years you guys suppressed wages, this generation is not going to take it. >> walmart, the if it depresses it goes for everyone. stick wisconsin because when we come back let it never be said i will not be fair. we're going to bring a different kind of voice into this conversation. making the case for walmart and its corporate practices. we'll hear from the other side next. life with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis is a daily game of "what if's". what if my abdominal pain and cramps end our night before it even starts? what if i eat the wrong thing? what if? what if i suddenly have to go? what if? but what if the most important question is the one you're not asking? what if the underlying cause of your symptoms is damaging inflammation? for help getting the answers you need, talk to your doctor and visit crohnsandcolitisadvocates.com to connect with a patient advocate from abbvie

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>> this week economist diana roth echoed walmart's dismissal of the our walmart's organization writing for real clear

markets.com that, quote t workers centers goal is for 500 walmart employees to strike, join the protest. walmart employees 1.3 million workers in the united states so 500 workers constitutes less than one half of 1% of the walmart work force. this is far from a grass roots worker driven movement. call it astroturf. joining me now from washington, d.c. is michael saltsman, director for the employment policies institute. nice to see you. >> good to be back. >> what do you make of diana's argument that this is astroturf? >> i think she's right. you said at the top of the piece this was deja vu. it is the same hype about the protest, the same staged arrests. if you believe some of the write-ups it's the same lack of actual walmart employees. the only thing that's changed this year is sort of that the rhetoric and the press release coming out has been amped up. calling the company's business

model indefensible. and i think it's clear that the only thing that is indefensible is this kind of astroturf campaign against the company that has done more for middle and working class than the ufcw will. >> how do you respond? >> good to see you again, michael. what i like to say in response is as a worker here, there's more than thousands of protesters who have been out that are workers and the fact there are thousands more who are scared of the retaliation. that's why they don't come out. the reality is most of our rallies there is always walmart workers. i find it offensive he would make a comment this is union based when every rally i've been to there are hundreds of workers there. we have supporters. most are workers. it's offensive to me as someone that was retaliated against and fired. i would like to ask you what you think about the labor board ruling that walmart was wrong for firing those workers. >> colby, i think the fact that richard griffin previously the general counsel what he thinks

about walmart it's like asking richard trump ka what he thinks about nafta. there is no surprise. to your point about this not being a union thing, that's not my opinion. that's the opinion of reuters, the l.a. times, people who have written this up. there was a great anecdote about the protest in chicago where they brought in bus loads of people to the walmart in chicago and there was only actually one employee of the 500 store employees who actually showed up for the protest. i think we've seen this elsewhere too. this is entirely union organized. you have union backed pr flacks who are sort of putting the same people in touch with the same reporters. it's all meant to sort of be part of this public pressure campaign to try and make walmart seem mike a bad employer. the point is lots of people want to shop at walmart, lots of people want to work at walmart. we had walmarts open in d.c., 20,000 applied. >> let me pause on that. ed, when i hear michael say that i have to say i get taken back to this moment in the 1960s, 50s

and 60s, when the civil rights movement, similarly heard this argument that it wasn't local people, it wasn't the people of birmingham, it wasn't the people of you know of montgomery who were agitating but outside agitators, union people sometimes, who were coming in and telling them what their interests were. and i mean i got to say, it seems hard to imagine that workers don't notice that wages at this level create for them a circumstance where they then have to rely on benefits. so why would it take an outside agitator to explain this? >> two things here. first off in terms of who participates in these things there's risk. for him to say that is like saying first we're going to break your leg, then laugh at you because you can't dance. they terrorize workers, they fired people who did participate in protest, then they are going to challenge how many people are actually outside. second point. walmart is the welfare queen of the 20th century.

you know the wajs are low because when they hire people, they coach them how to access public social welfare plans including food stamps. right there is the boldest admission that they don't pay enough. and their whole strategy for making profit is predicated on taxpayers subsidizing low wage workers and it's ridiculous for them to then challenge who is on those picket lines. taxpayers have a vested interest in challenging walmart and supporting these workers and that's what this movement is developing. >> hold on. >> it's such a paternalitiontic thing to say these workers aren't protesting because they want to better their lives. like the bogeyman unions telling them. i have spoke tune the workers, they understand the issues, they want living wages, they cannot survive on their wagesings they are organizing because they need to survive not because the seiu told them to do it. >> michael, i want you to listen quickly. walmart's bill simon was on the "today" show.

i want to play him in response to this and get your response. >> your employees have come out and said i like working at walmart. i think it's a good place but i'm not making enough money, i'm not getting enough full time hours that i can feed my family, that i can go to walmart and buy a bicycle or toy for my kid this holiday season. doesn't that bother you a little bit? >> we have the largest one of the largest percentages of full time work force in retail and we pay in the top half of retail. our industry is you know, is a good industry, it's a great way for people to start, you can enter our company at any level from 16 to 66, and we have a lot of opportunity for people to work their way and progress as you move forward. >> so michael, you know, is that -- i hear bill simon responding in a way that doesn't quite sound to me like a response to willie geist. you do have work, i do like working here, walmart is a good company, i enjoy working as an associate but i'm not earning enough money. >> i think his point is, i mean

it's the same point whether you're walmart or unionized grocery store. not everyone is going to be able to make 25 or $30,000 a year when you have customer demand for low prices and a service intense business model. that's not all that's asked for. they are asking for guarantees of full time work. when you're 18 retail store and you have 30 or 40 people on the floor, and no one in the store, that's a problem. that's kind of a crisis. so it's kind of rich getting management advice. these are the people 20 or 30 years ago would have been telling us 500 pages of work rule was a good way to run an auto company. >> we got to go to break. i want to give you 15 seconds to have your last word. >> what i want to say is first there was a store in canton, ohio the stores release where they had food bins for the workers to donate cans to other workers. that's a clear statement there that they are trying to push it off to us and have poor workers take care of poor workers. this company made 17 million in

profit and we're asking for the bare minimum. the minimum that they can do. they can provide more than that. and we're not asking for anything crazy, to have good benefits, affordable health care and a living wage, this is the largest employer in the world. >> thank you for being with us. michael, stay with me. i'll let you in as we come back. up next the walmart paradox. the shopping stampede continues. [ female announcer ] stop using filters to make your skin look flawless.

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conscious customers went to walmart looking for the retail tear deliver on the promise of every day low prices. they didn't mind bypassing workers marching outside to get at the bargains inside. joining the table now is carmen wong olrich, host of market place money. i wanted to ask you to respond to part of what michael said earlier. michael is with us. that customers want not only do associates want to work at walmart but customers want to shop at walmart. those images -- >> because of the low prices. >> makes it look like yeah, people want to shop at walmart. >> this is not how business runs. it's not one to one between getting the low prices and wages. so there's all sorts of ways to put more money into wages in terms of a long term play. so instead of spending billions an buying your stock back, what you could be doing is putting the billions in the long term investment of your employees who a third of walmart customers are employees.

so that money goes back into the system. so there is a real disconnect and it's very you use the word condescending earlier, to think you can say this is because it's all your fault. you want low prices. this is why we have low wages. it's not a one-to-one relationship. you don't get your money to pay people strictly from sales. >> but i do -- part of i guess what i've been wondering if you are walmart shopper and if you are a captured audience and you live in a rural community and walmart is the place you get groceries and scrabble board and you know -- and your guns and bullets, all of that. if you arcaptured audience but you want better labor practices, what choices do you have except to go and shop there? what is the role of the consumer in this effort to get sort of more fair living and working conditions for workers? >> there are high road employers that show the world it doesn't have to be the walmart way. costs costco and trader joe's

pay living wage, they are more profitable, they have less turnover from employees so there is another model out there. but let's go back -- >> look. i love costco. i could -- i have a costco situation in my household. so i love costco. but i also i have the wear with all to purchase a membership. with walmart you can drive through any rural town and there is one and stop and get gas and groceries. >> you can support your local own business that walmart tends to drive out, if it's still there. show up to one of these protests. this is related to what carmen said. walmart's same-store sales in the us vus been flat the last three quarters. we know from leaked e-mails they are concerned and they don't understand why they don't have more sales. and all they have to do is look at their own labor practices. if they paid their workers a living wage they would buy more from the store which will create

demand which according to within report create 100,000 new jobs. even if walmart went a different route it's not radical change. it's be fair, do the right thing and actually it's good for business. >> so let me ask you about that. one of the thoughts i've been having a little bit so you made a claim this is in part a p.r. issue, but even if it is, so let me -- let me put that on the table. let's say it is. but if you think about for example the civil rights movement and what happens with the woolworth lunch counters and the extent to which they become the emblematic example of segregation and of inequality. does walmart want to become the woolworth lunch counter of contemporary wage. >> i think what walmart is doing is providing opportunities for people. what we're talking about with walmart is far more sporadic than grass roots movement. listening to some of the comments, the suggestion that sort of the way the economy grows is that walmart just needs

to be forced to pay more and then people have more money and sort of this cycle. if that's the way to grow the economy then we need to create a 25 or $30 minimum wage stat. the reason it doesn't work and the reason there is no evidence to support that is because when you force wages up like that, you are also going to force other consequences. the math is easy. walmart has 1.4 million employees, you multiply a wage increase across a work force like that, and it's either going to mean fewer jobs or that always low prices become sometimes low prices. >> it's both not true there is no evidence, there certainly is evidence. i think you could make a choice to dispute it but you can't say there isn't evidence. there actually a number of reports that suggest that the kind of increase in wage that is being asked for would actually generate a stimulative effect on the economy including for walmart's own coffers in addition to the generation of additional jobs in the economy because what we know is that people living at the margins

when you pay them more don't put that in a savings account, right, they spend it. and that spending in the economy is stimulative. >> so it really -- push back on that a little bit. the study that everyone goes to from the chicago federal reserve to support this point, only found that an increase in the minimum wage boosts actually debt fueled purchases of automobile vehicles, it's a limited finding and people have used to the suggest that you can somehow kind of create a $25 minimum wage and it's going to boost the economy. >> michael, nobody is asking -- that's a red herring. >> $15 minimum. so at this point and a couple years ago an 8 or $9 minimum wage. there is upward pressure and some day we're going to wonder where the jobs have gone when we're checking ourselves out at the cash register. >> michael, as always i appreciate you joining us. the folks are about to jump out of their seats and in my control room are about to kick me off the air because we've got to

take a break. thanks for joining us this morning. when we come back we'll stay on this issue. the folks have something to say about everything that was just said. [ woman ] too weak.

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meetings start at 11, cindy. [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? i need your timesheets, larry! yesterday walmart released a statement in response to black friday protests which read in part quote of course we have entry level jobs and we always will. the real issue isn't where you start it's where you can go once you started. retail is one of the few industries that has jobs at all levels and on going advancement opportunities. walmart promotes on average more than 430 associates a day. by year's end we'll promoted 160,000 associates including 25,000 this holiday season alone. you can read that statement in its entirety without laughing on our show website msnbc.com.

i want to let you in on this one. i could feel the tension on the claims being made. >> look. he sits and talks about danger of raising the minimum wage. they have been suppressing wages for 35 years. and they can't explain why there are so many people unemployed and under employed in this country. the truth of the matter it's the low wage strategy of large employers like walmart are manufacturing poverty as our largest product in this country. it's unacceptable. and frankly in the long term it's social dynamite. >> and less social mobility. this point of like having a country where people can move, i think americans get entry level jobs. we understand that. americans are the sort of people in our own sort of sense of self. you start. but then you are supposed to move up. >> even within walmart there are opportunities for advancement are virtually nonexistent if you talk to the employees. the entry level is the position they are stuck with their entire career at walmart. that's the problem. >> one of the biggest ideas i hope that people can understand

is that we are all subsidizing walmart's growth and income and money and we are supporting it because so many walmart employees are on public assistance. how does america feel about the fact that we are paying or co-paying walmart employees. i think we would like to not do that. >> not just walmart. this is about low wage work in general. there's online now i get both from the left and the right things to kind of keep myself ahead of what social media is up to. and there is a mcdonald's petition, so guessing the same kind of thing and suggesting it's not right to impoverish employees while sailing above them at a rate of $2,500 an hour. it's immoral to do it with a taxpayer subsidy. there is about the fact that mcdonald's was buying a jet while employees are not making much so walmart is standard setter and yet we see this across. >> the emblem of the american economy. we're creating more low wage jobs than any other jobs, that's

what we see projected out to 2020 the rise of low wage jobs as the norm, not the exception. you pointed to studies and social science about the lack of social mobility. we are the least mobile society meaning if you are born poor what are your chances of working to the middle class. we're at the lowest point than we've been in decades. this is a direct result of the creation of these low wage jobs, so we have studies that show, in social science, that show there is a negligible impact on the minimum wage. to ground ourselves because you use examples from the civil rights movement. 50 years ago in the march on washington one of the demands for a $2 minimum wage. that would be 14 today. the minimum is 7.25. so for walmart and others that denend the employers to be able to say with a straight face workers don't deserve a living wage is not only as colby said offensive but immoral. >> they don't deserve more

entitlements. they want to keep wages low but they don't want to take care of the poor. you have to give somewhere. something's going to have to give. >> we end up with this flarative that the poor who are in need of the social safety net are not working when they are working. >> that's the whole point. the basic strategy is that you will work your entire life and live in poverty. then if that's not unacceptable in a democracy then what is unacceptable. the whole thinking that's gone on in this country now for deck katds is somehow working people are supposed to carry around corporations and profits on their backs. and we're not going to subsue diz it. what this movement is about is we finally caught on and we're not playing this game anymore. infight's not going away. >> i love that image. of this whole class of working people, of working americans who are actually carrying these companies and you know, again if you look, i talked about this before. you look at the forbes 100 list,

my favorite 1 percenter. the number of walton family members in that top 10. these aren't just wealthy business people. this is the tiny -- >> the walton family alone is worth, more welt than 42% of all americans. >> on their backs. stunning. alison, thank you for being here. i'll see you in the next hour. camp season coming back. up next my letter of the week. it's an unusual request. all i'm asking as the recipient doesn't do something. [ male announcer ] with only minutes left before kickoff, thousands of tailgaters realized they needed one thing...and fast. mom, i need a bathroom. [ male announcer ] that's when the charmin tailgating potties rolled in, providing real relief to everyone.

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marisa alexander granted a pretrial release at 10:30 p.m. on wednesday, thanksgiving eve, after spending more than 1,000 days in jail. barely seeing her youngest child who recently turned 3. my letter is not to her. i'm saving that for when you are free for good. my letter is to the woman that worked to put marisa in jail in the first place. florida state attorney for the fourth judicial circuit, angela corey. it's me, melissa. angela, there are a few times in live we actually get chances, second chances, to right our wrong. you have been called a fierce victim's advocate. it's past time you start acting like one. a woman who was hospitalized in 2009 after being shoved into a bathtub and hitting her head she's a victim. a woman who is estranged husband admitted to abusing all five mothers of his children. she is a victim.

and when that woman, that victim, who has just recently given birkt fires a warning shot near the man that cornered her in her home, she's a victim who feels she has no other recourse. but that's part of the problem, angela. you never saw marisa as a victim. you saw marisa as the aggressor, and even justified why the infamous stand your ground law was not applied in her case. because as you put it, she was not fleeing from an abuser. even though her estranged husband has admitted to telling marisa he would kill her if the she ever cheated on him. now, you have said that the shot was fired but it was not consistent with a warning shot because it was at the height of an adult head. but marisa is three inches shorter than reicho gray. according to you she didn't even have to get 20 years in jail. that also was her fight, right,

you said to nbc back in may, she didn't have to get 20 years because i took into account their prior domestic history and her lack of criminal record, we offered here the three-year mandatory minimum. angela, marisa is a mother of three. and she's a victim of abuse and any mother knows that one day away from her child is 24 hours too long. when you're an abuse victim you have to believe that the courts are finally going to free you from the cycle of violence. instead of criminalizing you for trying to protect yourself. if nothing else, the last two years should have shown you that an aggressive prosecution is not always the best one. so, while i know that marisa is thankful this holiday to be home with her family while she awaits her new trial on march 31 of 2014, maybe you angela should spend this holiday being thankful that you have a second chance, a second chance to right this obvious wrong.

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>> we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. certainly you recognize those words from the declaration of independence and we've heard them so often we probably take them for granted. let's not lose sight of this uniqueness in the american project. that the very notion of happiness is enshrined in our founding document. the thomas jefferson and his colleagues in 1776 saw as a formative doctrine of this nation an individual's right to strive to be happy. not necessarily to be happy. but at least to try. to pursue. and since 1776, the debate has

raged on as to what trying really means. and what happiness really is. so, right here right now we're going to try to work on solving that question. joining me now is gretchen rubin the author of the happiness project. and happier at home. also yolanda pierce, associate professor at the princeton theological seminary. dr. drew ramsey author of 50 shades of kale and the happiness diet. an assistant clinical professor. and with us carmen wong olrich. i want to start with you grech in in part, the story of that founding document is pursuit of happiness was meant to be interchangeable with property. this idea that we can buy, we can consume our happiness. from what you know about happiness, how good is consumption, purchasing it. >> money cannot buy happiness. that's clear but it's also true

that money can buy a lot of things to contribute. >> it can cushion the blow. >> it's like health. it's when you lack money. also money can buy things like a pet, it can allow us to travel, it can buy services for our family if somebody needs something, to have travel, great experiences. so there's a lot of ways in which money used wisely can contribute to a happy life f. you are just buying a new pair of boots or jeans, not going to do much. >> i wonder if there is a threshold, so that if we were grabbing happiness and cash would we get to a point even dollar doesn't make you happier. zero to the threshold you would be a lot happier. >> you need your basic needs to be met. most of the research shows between 70 and $80,000 a year in earnings across the country on average in new york probably like double, triple that, once those needs and just above are met happiness with more money remains flat.

and we know lotto winners for the most part the majority end up in bankruptcy, successful sport stars. the money actually does not make people happier. beyond a certain point. what is more of i think is people are looking for the freedom to do what they want to do in terms of work. they want the freedom to not worry if they get sick they lose everything. they want their kids to go to a good school. beyond that how much can money buy you happiness not so much. >> you made the health and wealth connection. >> it's huge. >> i'm wondering about that, doctor, that you know, if the lack of money is in part what makes us feel that deficit of sadness s that also true around health, so that maybe there is sort after threshold to once we got a certain level of health it doesn't make us happier to be thinner or something. >> i would agree. you want a base line of health, as you move on to optimal wellness, getting buff that doesn't make people that much happier. it's the notion of you want a

base line of health, of feeling good like with money. you need a foundation and then that's the hard work of happiness. what are you going to do with that foundation. >> the last 10 poip pounds might not make you happier. >> it's going to make you miserable worrying about them. >> thanksgiving. i want to -- one last thing before break and we'll continue this conversation. but so as much as i love this and i want to be able to put -- poverty is a barrier to happiness, i also part of the reason i want to do at this table i know that your work tells us that people actually are able to find a level of joy and happiness in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. >> absolutely. so on one hand i hear about happiness connected to money and social class, but some of the happiest people i know are people who have very little. are people that have little in terms of material objects, right. but have a sense ever community, a sense of family, a sense of purpose that makes them happy and if not happy certainly

joyful. for me the question is what makes middle class wealthy folks so unhappy, a whole school of people who have little and are much happier. >> so we'll dig into all of that. as well as into how commuting makes you unhappy. this is stressful to me as someone that commutes. so stay with us. we're also going to talk about why on line dating is big business at this time of the year. do you really need love to find happiness? and why you should care if your college professor is still living in her parents' basement to make ends meet. there is plenty of nerd land at the top of the hour.

♪ ♪ you get your coffee here. you get your hair cut here. you find that certain thing you were looking for here, but actually you get so much more. when you shop at these small local businesses, you support all the things that make your community great. the money you spend here, stays here. in this place you call your neighborhood. today is small business saturday. get out and shop small. welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry.

we're talking about happiness and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in our declaration of independence. here is how school house rock illustrated the phrase in 1976. >> the declaration of independence, in 1776, continental congress said that we were free. said we had the right of life and liberty. and the pursuit of happiness. >> did you catch that? did you catch that? the pursuit of happiness was apparently the pursuit of love or lust, colonial lust. many of us are thinking about love around the holidays as we count our blessings and take stock and online dating tends to spike after the holidays. match.com says it typically see as 25 to 30% bump in new members between christmas and valentine's day. maybe that happens because well

meaning relatives spend the time pestering unmarried family members. or maybe because it's snuggling weather. but research into what exactly makes for a happy life has been expanding in recent years. the biggest oldest study of its kind, the harvard grant study has been following 268 men since 1937. to find out what would make them happy. the director of the study george valiant, summed up his findings in five words. happiness is love, full stop. as we all know it can be a bit more complicated. again, here at the table gretchen rubin, yolanda pierce, associate professor of religion at princeton. also dr. drew ramsey, author of 50 shades of kale. and carmen wong olrich. i wanted to ask about this idea of online dating in part connected to or any kind of

dating, this idea that pursue happiness is to pursue love, attachment and particularly like romantic love. that's how we define happiness. >> what feels better than love? when you work with people and you see them get in a relationship, the first few months it's almost psychotic. people are so happy. they feel so good, everything's better. people say it's like i get down to the subway, the subway just shows up now. i'm in love. and it does drive us. it's a primary desire. and people love relationships because the companionship. mentioned the holidays. being with people and loved ones and all of the things that happen when you have a partner. you see your in-laws. you're there and making jokes. >> but then i guess part what if i wonder if there is a way we end up redefining that version of love and miss all of the other aspects that might also be deeply fulfilling to us. so it's true that in those -- >> on the psychosis.

>> exactly. >> psychosis. it tends to be crazy. so i'm someone who prefers, actually and finds a lot more love in family and friends and my child. it's one of those that yes, it's great to be in love but there is this idea that that is what happiness where happiness is. and i can tell you as a divorcee that you can find happiness in all sorts of love and this treasure, this love that follows you throughout life, no matter what your romantic situation is. >> it's true when they look at why are happy people happy, one of the things they have more relationships, we need to belong, we need to feel like we confide, we need to feel like we have long term intimate relat n relationsh relationships. just as important we need to be able to give support. so we need to feel like we're connected, that we're part of something bigger than ourselves and that we're exchanging love and attention with other people. this is absolutely crucial. >> but part of what i love about what you said this interconnection of multiple relationship, a web of

relationships. because yolanda, in part as an african-american woman, you know we know we get a ton of messaging from the media that says that kind of love is off limits to us, no man wants us, we're never going to find that. we're the most unmarried group. so i do wonder if there is an expectation that romantic love is the only kind but we may be engaged with each other as friends, parents, sisters, daughters. >> i worry about that putting the emphasis on the romantic love versus thinking seriously what it means to feel isolated or alone or without a community. because what i think people are longing for is connection. they are longing for touch, longing for hugs, longing to feel like they belong. longing for a sense of community. you can find that in multiple ways. for all of the generations we were living in multigenerational households that we were living right near our families, down the street instead of thousands of miles, we live in a modern situation of isolation and loneliness. so i think people look at the

romantic as one venue to help them resolve that, but the truth of the matter is that we need more people who love us in all kinds of ways surrounding us. >> is that why commuting makes us sad? because it takes us more of those many hours outsid of our network of relationships? >> part is that the time you spend you're not with your family. but it's also that it's unpredictable. some days it might go fast. you're not in control. you're -- they have shown that recently people seem to be less bothered by commutes because of all are our devices. they can use the time, listen to a book or read the paper, get work done so it's not bothering as much. but one of the easiest things you can do is try to cut out that, make that time shorter. find a way to use it better as part of your life. >> that research that an extra hour of commuting time you would need to be compensated with the massive 40% increase in salary in order to make it worth while. i keep thinking carmen in part,

people end up with long commutes because they think the big house will make me happy. you can only afford the big house as you get further out from the job. living in the smaller house closer by. does that tell us something about our consumption patterns and feelings of happiness? >> we saw a shift in the average square footage of homes before the housing bust. it was huge. in the 50s and 60s we used to live in houses that were around 1500 square feet. >> we shared bedrooms. >> we had family around. all of this idea about disconnect you address. this is really about disconnecting. what is commuting, the happiest commuters i find are the ones that make commuting fun, they make friends with the people around them that they see every day. like yeah, those guys. or you're doing something with purpose. the thing with commuting is so frustrating is you mentioned devices. you're actually going from point a to b but there is no purpose in between. yes you get to work and there is home. what are you doing between that time. the longer the time that goes

you're not doing anything the worse you're going to feel. you have to do something during that time. write a book, make friend, anything but sheeping. >> which is why i commute on an airline that as in flight wireless and i talk to the nerds the whole time. they know when i'm on my flight. here come 453 e-mails for melissa. she must be on the flight. let me ask a little about that. i heard you say i ride my bike to do the commute. one of the things we did on thanksgiving morning my husband may never forgive me a 5-mile run as the thing that started our day. for me, i was on a high the rest of the day. there are literally physiological things we can do that will make us feel happier. >> things we have to do. happies? a biological phenomenon. it starts here. all happiness, feeling comes out of your brain. you have to take care of your brain. you went on a run, got moving, did something different, that's one of the reasons commutes

stink it's the same. your biology and psychology. that one of the keys of what i try and teach about happiness is building this foundation. it's about food, it's about community, and it's about we were talking about romantic love. i think it's intimate love. not just sexual intimacy. i know you. not that you're my sexual partner, we share secrets, we support one another, we help one another. that's what makes people happy. so that love that you have with your best friend, that joke you all can tell, across a room to each other because you have a sense of intimacy and shared stories. >> yes. >> i want to add because one other love we haven't talked about here and that is the sense that swoon held and loved in a religious sense. and we talk about the holidays as food and fun and family. there are also often worshipful times t time of hanukkah, advent. it doesn't matter what religion the person is, at the end of the

day what i think attracts people to these spaces of worship, of piety, religion, they feel tied to not only a community but something outside of themselves. something bigger than themselves, that they are loved with an eternal everlasting love that isn't subject to the whims of time or distance or moving or jobs or shifts. and that kind of sense that i am loved, i'm cared for, i am cherished with something that is eternal is a powerful force. then to be in the same space with other people who feel that, people get a lot of joy from singing together in church, sitting next to each other, in the synagogue, praying with one another in the mosque, i think it targets the same thing. the need to be connected but also the need to know that there is something bigger than you are, something outside of yourself. >> the world didn't give -- will take it a way. when we come back, there is a happiness thing going 24 hours a day. ♪

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last week ferrel williams release add 24 hour music video to go with his song "happy." this stars 400 people. some are celebrities like jamie foxx. most are regular people dancing along the streets of los angeles. take a look. ♪ ♪ clap along if you feel that's what you want to do ♪ ♪ don't bring me down

>> okay, this song has been making -- there she is. i'm sorry. nerdland has been happy. our one of our producers there, tracy, listened to that song on a loop all day yesterday. and not only did she not get tired of it but her joy was palpable. she was making all of us dance. which got me to thinking, do you all have songs that make you feel happy? so i asked twitter, twitter gave me a few of the songs that make nerdland happy this christmas by donny hathaway from love shenglum, that this christmas makes her happy. salty pepper told me lovely day by bill withers, never ever ever fails to make her happy. and that is one that my husband loves and plays when i hear lovely day i know my husband is in a great mood. i was thinking about this on the question of happiness that certain kinds of songs, or

certain food, the smoothies, that can impact physically make you feel happy. >> yes. you're talking about with what can we do external things we can do. we can change what we eat, more whole food, kale. you eat something is good for you, packed, it's versatile which is while kale makes me happy. i'm making chocolate chip cookies. >> you are. >> yeah. you can do all fun different things. and then like music. where you shift your state. if you're in a bad mood, what do i do, pull out your favorite song, go for a quick run, cook a quick meal, connect with a friend. those are the things we can do. >> so let me ask about those. those feel like mood boosters. i wonder if that's what we mean when we mean i'm trying to be

happy. it does seem like what we want is more enduring and less ememorial. >> happiness is a lot of perception. you just change your thoughts and that makes you more happy. so instead of saying something like he's making me crazy you say he's crazy. and that simple shift in how you see things can change your levels of happiness. and your perception of it, so for example in personal finance we say you want to feel rich, want less. so the idea that you can frame -- truly. you can frame -- >> what is under it. there is some level of less -- it is important to point out that the founders on the one hand said we have this fundamental right to pursue happy and like also not to be taxed without representation and also to be -- >> absolutely. all levels. an example. my mother was young her father was kidnapped and tortured. for her american children when we would complain about something she would say, oh, he

made me or this person made me. really, they made you? did they have a gun to your said? now her point was is that how happy you are and how you feel really depends on how you are looking at it. she had an extreme view but she really spoke to -- you made the point about poverty and people being happy. they don't take for granted stuff. when you have too much stuff, you take happiness for granted. >> i think you're making here the distinction for me that's crucial. happiness can do with mood, but there is a state of contentment, right, a state of experiencing joy and contentment that i think is beyond just the mood of happiness. because i also want us to have space in our culture for when you're feeling sad, when you're grieving, mourning. we actually want people to be happy all the time. why aren't you smiling, because i'm having a bad day. i don't have to be happy all the time. but i can -- >> exactly. negative emotions are important too. but i also can be content. i can also still experience joys even if i'm having negative

emotions. because i want to experience happiness sometimes i have to experience the sorrows as well. we have to connect those. >> i love this. in part because you hear me say often the struggle continues, that's what my father used to sign on our birthday cards. not love daddy but the struggles continue, daddy. i'm not kidding. i didn't know what he was talking about. i didn't know what he was talking about at 5 yet part of that struggle, i mean i want you to play this out for me. the way in which, again, some of the moments we can think of as the happiness, happiest aren't like just sort of placid but moments when we have struggled and pushed and sometimes even failed, yet have a sense of contentment and joy. >> one of the critical aspects of happiness what i call an atmosphere of growth where you feel like you're helping or making something better or fixing something or learning something or you're struggling to accomplish something. and an atmosphere of growth often brings failure, frustration, resentment. it's hard to grow, it's hard to

move forward. but that's really a source of happiness for all of us. it doesn't always make us feel happy. it doesn't always give you that feeling of like you know, of skipping down the street because you're struggling or trying hard, learning. you are helping somebody, maybe that's not so fun but it makes you happy because you know it's the right thing to do, living a life that reflects your value, pushing yourself forward and that brings a kind of enduring long term foundational happiness that tran sends -- a foundation that also transends momentary happiness. >> it is in fact a challenge but one that americans are into from 1776 on forward. gretch gretchen, thank you all for being here. carmen, thank you. you always have the best parent stories. i got to do an interview on that. up next, that giant tuition check that you're writing isn't going where you think it is. stay with us. i love having a free checked bag

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this is the pursuit of perfection. this thanksgiving is the first time many students returned home during their first semester at college. undoubtedly regaling family with stories about philosophy 101 over dinner on thursday. college is great, but not cheap. the national center for education statistics reported that in 2011 the average annual cost of college education at a 4-year institution more than $22,000. to cover these costs the college board estimated that in 2011, about 57% of public four-year college studented graduated with debt averaging $23,800 and two thirds of the private school counter parts got degrees and a bill for nearly $30,000 in education debt. most students and their families have no idea that a growing proportion of those teaching these expensive classes are

subsisting on poverty wages, multiple jobs and living without health insurance. retirement savings or job security. 78.3% is how much of all instructional faculty in 1969 was tenured or in track positions. while only 33.5% were tenured or in tenured track positions in 2009. 66.5% of faculty ineligible for tenure at all. tenure is not a lifetime guarantee of employment in the face of mediocrity. it ensures due process, a vote in how your institution is governed and the freedom and responsibility to pursue research. it is the foundational core of american higher education. but as colleges rely on aject professors this is eroded. 75.5% of faculty members and instructors are in contingent positions off the tenure track. and 54% of contingent faculty

teach in more than one institution. 29% teaching in at least two institutions. so instead of long hours engaging students in debate about issues raised in class or helping guide students through assignments, instructors commute between institutions and prepare lectures in coffee shops because they have no office of their own. a recent report by the coalition on the academic work force entitled a portrait of part-time faculty members, shows a situation is not getting better. 49.2% of all faculty members are part-time, and make up the largest single category in the academic work force. and despite the high cost of college and their own significant student loan debt from earning their own graduate degrees these college instructors make very little. $2700 is the median pay per 3-credit course, that a part-time faculty member makes at a college or university. and only 22.6% of those surveyed

said they have access to health benefits through their academic employer. 56.7% of part-time faculty reported an annual personal income of less than $35,000, that's a fraction of what full time tenured faculty at the same universities earn. this is not a profession with bearded men and elbow patches on their tweed jackets and wandering across the quad quoting shakespeare. these are over worked, underpaid professionals who exist as second class citizens on their campuses and when we come back we'll talk about how their job conditions are changing the character of american higher education and why all of you students, parents and future employers, should care about what is happening on campus. it's estimated that 30% of the traffic in a city

is caused by people looking for parking. that's remarkable that so much energy is, is wasted. streetline has looked at the problem of parking, which has not been looked at for the last 30, 40 years, we wanted to rethink that whole industry, so we go and put out these sensors in each parking spot and then there's a mesh network that takes this information sends it over the internet so you can go find exactly where those open parking spots are. the collaboration with citi was important for providing us the necessary financing; allow this small start-up to go provide a service to municipalities. citi has been an incredible source of advice, how to engage with municipalities, how to structure deals, and as we think about internationally, citi is there every step of the way. so the end result is you reduce congestion, you reduce pollution and you provide a service to merchants, and that certainly is huge.

i don't have to leave you get your coffee here. you get your hair cut here. you find that certain thing you were looking for here, but actually you get so much more. when you shop at these small local businesses, you support all the things that make your community great. the money you spend here, stays here. in this place you call your neighborhood. today is small business saturday. get out and shop small.

my first college teaching job was as an adjunct instructser. i was teaching a few classes at a local college. in two years i transitioned to a tenured track position. so that means i've made a good salary and had health insurance and able to vote on campus issues. mine is an increasingly rare story. dramatic shifts in college hiring practices mean that a majority now teaching on our campuses are adjunct professors who don't enjoy opportunities for security, advancement and fair pay. but there is a growing movement by professors many of whom are women, to fight for better pay by organizing themselves and joining unions like the service employees international yoonior or seiu. seiu represents more than 18,000

members at ten colleges and universities, that number is increasing and making a difference. part-time faculty with no union representation have 2$2475. pay with union representation increases to a median of $3,100. an adjunct professors are not waging this fight alone. students are joining with their teachers because they know that the conditions their professors endure adetective their own learning environment. it at the table, dorian ward. ed ott, political director at the central labor council and maria mystove, the president of the new faculty majority, the national coalition for adjunct and contingent equity. nice to have you here. so i have been pushing my executive producer to do this

forever. and he keeps saying to me why should anybody care about poor college po fessers who don't make enough money. i say no, you should really care. so make the case, why should people care about this inequity. >> the primary reason is we're now 75% of the faculty on american college campuses and as we say at nfm and throughout the movement faculty working conditions translate into student learning conditions. that makes me anxious. >> and i think when we look at the sky rocketing cost of tuition, in part because of state-based disinvestment in colleges, and i think in part because colleges are still kind of these ivory towers and beind these walls and gates people don't know. oh, these overpaid college professors are the reason that my tuition is so high. but that is not the case at all. >> no. really not. i mean, there are a lot of reasons why tuition is high,

there is a lot of infrastructure the schools have to support. and a lot, a lot of other reasons. they are trying to build programs, trying to attract students to the schools, and of course they do have bureaucracies to support as well which for us is probably the most frustrating aspect of it. because we're in that world but you know, we're not -- we're not sort of considered part of that bureaucracy that's being paid all of the time to do work of the school where as we are doing the teaching of the school, which is you know, really what we consider the most important part. >> so this point is such an important one. as we were preparing for this, i said to you earlier, the most depressing thing for me was realizing how much the business i engage in. i think my primary job in the academy looks like the walmart segment we were having. where there is the inequity for folks full time or tenured track faculty different than the working conditions. on more than anything on 2

vernence, people who are adjunct faculty almost never have a vote on the decisions being made. >> this is an example of one of the institutions, higher education and seeing the walmartization, i made that up, but seeing the walmartization of higher education, jobs. what we're seeing in terms of the economy is affecting every kind of institution. so greater reliance on part-time, and adjunct faculty with no benefits. it does affect student learning conditions. if you are running around trying to prep for this course, meet with student, grade papers, teach a course 20 miles away, another at another school. this has an effect. it gives a myth. it punctures the myth that all we got to do to solve our economic problems is get as much education as possible. these are people with ph.d.'s and cannot find full time work. there have to be other kinds ever solutions we discuss to this broader problem. not only facing adjuncts but all workers in this economy.

>> i like to point out we talk about you may not know next semester whether or not you have a job in order to teach because of the job insecurity. that also means students that if you took a class, with you this semester you may not be around next semester to write a letter of recommendation. i think it's mostly invisible to students. they see us standing up there and giving assignments and they don't realize the differences in how people are experiencing their job. what then can unionization do to help create a more fair set of labor practices. >> if you have a collective bargaining agreement in place you at least have some representation at a table where you can begin to struggle out these issues. the truth of the matter is you always spend the first part of today talking about the private sector. you go through 40 years of wage suppression in the private sector and begins to look like well, people in education in general in higher ed, why should you be the only people with decent wages and benefits so. to the taxpayer there is downward pressure on resources

that legislators are willing to put into the institution. so what happens. what happens is someone who has gotten their education, gotten a higher degree, developed a lot of experience in their field, ends up cobbling together three or four jobs at the city university at different locations trying to maintain benefits and which is something that shouldn't be lost. the uncertainty you talked about. for an adjunct they may go from the end of august to december and they have a job and they are eligible for health care. then no one's fired by the way, they are not renewed. and when they are not renewed, they lose their eligibility for benefits. it has a tremendous impact on the community and the family. >> how does it feel to be on a campus where you are a faculty member, you have education, experience, as you point out are teefrping the classes but you don't end up at the table or having security around whether or not you're coming back in the next semester. >> that really is a major

problem. for me, particularly when i first started and many years into that, part of the issue is really that i was very isolated from other adjuncts. teaching one course, going from semester, rather from campus to campus as many people do, i was coming from an outside profession, so this was just was one course that i teach, bringing my professional experience to that. but i never really saw any other adjuncts, never got to sort of trade stories, get information, sort of see what the lay of the land is. so there is really a sense of disunity among adjuncts and a sense that you have really no perspective on what your employment situation is. so you don't really know. am i making you know, the right amount, comparable to a full time professor? am i being underpaid, overpaid. what are the conditions i should expect. it's hard to figure that out when you can't really speak to anybody. >> when we come back i want to

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but isn't it time to turn the page on your cup of joe? gevalia, or a cup of johan, is like losing yourself in a great book. may i read something? yes, please. of course. a rich, never bitter taste cup after cup. net weight 340 grams. [ sighs ] [ chuckles ] [ announcer ] always rich, never bitter. gevalia. >> zh we're back and talking about the inequality in the profess sor yaxt a majority of the people teaching the classes at your kids came home and talked to you about over thanksgiving dinner, a majority of those folks are not on the tenured track. so maria, we were talking in the break about this idea of having colleagues and allies, and so what those students and those parents who are hearing this for the first time and folks who are

tenured or untenured track what should they do to create more campuses. >> the first thing is really demand that colleges disclose how many adjuncts are on the campuses, what their working conditions are, do they have offices where they can meet privately with students because that's a federally protected right. another thing they can do is support adjuncts when they try to speak out. a lot of adjuncts don't because lacking academic freedom and due process protections they are not going to feel that they are safe enough to speak out. and then, another thing that we can do one of the things we've done in the movement is we've adopted this scarlet a, which is you know again for those of us many of us english professors is a way to connect to get over the stigma of being an adjunct and be proud of who we are and the work that we do and help educate people about the importance of the work we do.

>> it does seem to me there are reasonable and ethical ways to use adjunct labor as part of a college education. so again, you know, when i was finishing my ph.d. it gave me great skills to learn teaching. it makes sense someone is a professional, perhaps a congressman who is going to teach a class, right. but they are not making their living doing that. what are the labor practices that are problematic versus the reasonable use of adjunct? >> part of what we say is that it shouldn't be the -- whether or not a person coming in to teach as adjunct has access to resources aside, apart from the university. it's the nature of the work that should determine the pay and the working conditions and so you show respect for the work by paying a fractional percentage, pro rated fractional percentage what if a full time person should get. that's what -- how we support

students because students pay exactly the same tuition for courses taught by adjuncts as for taught by full time faculty so they should get the same support. >> as you think of the labor organizer here then, and i'm hearing okay, there's the same fear that we heard when we were talking with colby harris about the idea someone could be fired or rather not renewed. how do you start to build on a campus from the folks who do have relative privilege and voice, thinking about tuition paying students, tenured faculty, how do you get them on the side? >> i'm a member of the professional staff congress which is part of the american federation of teachers. you know, what we realized and what i had to learn once i got out of the private sector and into the university, was that once you go down this road of fragmenting your professors and your teachers and breaking them down into part-time parts, it's very, very hard to dig out of it. right now the union has been

pressuring the university and the university has turned back toward getting more full timers but it's going to take years and years to dig out of that hole. it's unfair to the faculty but also as you pointed out before, it's very unfair to the students, and from an organizing perspective if you are running around new york city on three different campuses, getting a job you don't have time for anything else. your main goal is to get home to your family and do what else you got to do. >> that feels like it undermines the other key aspect of what we were meant to be up to in universities, the production of knowledge through research. how can one abresearcher in this context. >> you can't. if you are teaching five courses and running from campus to campus as ed said you don't have time to do your research, to write, to read, to stay up on the latest scholarship. you are only teaching. what we've seen this split in higher ed so people like me and you, we get to focus, we have the luxury to focus on our research. >> before i took this second

job. yeah. >> because adjuncts and graduate teaching students are doing the teaching that we should be doing. so we benefit from the subsidy of teaching assistants so it's our job to say no, this is not right. said university. we need more tenured track lines, to go back actually in many ways to the way higher ed -- we have the best system of higher education in the world or we used to primarily because of the model of full time faculty being able to have time for teaching and research. so we need to get back to that and what's exciting is much like walmart workers and other low wage workers, adjuncts, assistants, are organizing and winning. >> so let me ask you this. if we were to say look, we need more dorians and melissas and full time tenured faculty. does it do the concern people have around walmart to push out people who need jobs, who -- if that is the only model, then in fact we don't have professionals with experience who are on

campus who maybe don't have ph.d.'s or there are fewer sort of courses to be taught and therefore sort of less to go around. that tends to be the counter argument. >> well, that's probably, that would be an argument but i think there would probably be some sort of a transitional phase. i am of the old school of adjuncts, professional who is coming into this world without any knowledge of the academia per se but bringing my professional experience from the performing arts, from the music business. so that certainly i would think that there would still be a place for people like me and like my husband who teaches with me. but again, going back to what maria said before, i think that value should be placed on our knowledge and our expertise and experience than saying this is just a supplement for their other income. the idea should be well, they are bringing all of this information and knowledge that we don't have in this world. so they should be paid on that basis.

>> it's valuable. it is the thing you know, the thing that is meant to distinguish the system of higher education is that it's not meant to be profit driven, it's not to be about how to get to the bottom line, meant to be this other process and i like so much again your point dorian, we say education, education, is the key to being out of this but not if even at the top of education we're doing the same thing. thank you so much. when we come back, starting a new business and giving others a new lease on life. you're not going to believe what our foot soldier is doing with lobster. that's next. clay. mom? come in here. come in where? welcome to my mom cave. wow. sit down. you need some campbell's chunky soup before today's big game, new chunky cheeseburger. mmm. i love cheeseburgers.

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thanksgiving is america's traditional time to express grat fe gratitude for family and friends and community. it's also a time to eat well.

imagine combining these. kyle murdoch is giving back to his community in an unconventional way, with lobster. lobster processing to be exact. kyle was a senior at worcester polytechnical institute when he was inspired to create an industrial lobster and seafood processing plant in maine called sea hag seafood. while he knew the business would help provide jobs to the local community and cut processing costs, he did not know it would become a spring board for people hole have served prison time. just before it launched in august of 2012, a work release program in maine encouraged him to hire incarcerated workers through its restitution program. kyle said he jumped at the opportunity after seeing how a spectacular program helped his brother to get back on his feet aftercy stint in prison. he told us he wanted to provide others with the same opportunity his brother had upon release. his $10 million a year business

is now a large employer for the saint george maine area hiring 65 people during peak season. two-thirds of whom are work release participants from the local correctional facilities. the other employees are residents of maine. 17% of citizens live below the poverty line. in the impact kyle's company is having goes beyond the paychecks that it provides. for employees, there's also a restoration of pride. here is sea hag seafood floor supervisor row san kandel. >> i came from the work release program. i had other jobs before and just the atmosphere was inmate, inmate. you're treated differently than the people that were civilians. but when you get here, all of that changed. like that's frowned upon here. >> that's right. that's how our day starts. >> yep. >> though his company has made a significant difference in the st. george community, for kyle, it was all just part of the job. he told us, when we started working through some of these

programs, it wasn't out of a sense of al truism. we thought that's kind of what we should do anyway. i definitely think it's become part of our correspondence philosophy. kyle's application of that philosophy has expanded since 2012. after noticing other barriers that people with criminal records face when rejoining the workforce, he decided to help his employees surpass one of those obstacles. in early 2013 it, sea hag seafood acquired a property specifically for employee housing. in order to better aid workers who don't have access to transportation. foreseeing the potential in processing lobster claws to help get people back on their feet, kyle murdoch is our foot soldier of the week. and that is also our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. now, i'm going to see you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern for a comprehensive look at one of the very best things about the holiday season, and

about america. and all that good stuff. pie, pie. and if you baked a delicious pie for your holiday celebration, show us. tweet us a picture of what you made through @mhp show and use the #nerd pie. we're going to be putting some of the best photos on tv all throughout the show tomorrow. and, of course, talking about pie. that's on tomorrow's mhp. right now it's time for a preview of weeken"weekends with wit witt". >> what i wouldn't give to have a serious story to start out with. that's a great topic. thanks so much. a developing story out of scotland. a police chopper smashes into a very crowded pub there. the latest on the search for survivors. inside the high profile criminal trial of chef nigel lal lawson. the secret her personal assistants say is the secret to why they were paid to keep quiet.

income equality. and a new book takes a profound look at the ba battle soldiers face when they come home. my conversation with a pulitzer prize-winning author. don't go anywhere. i'll be right back. while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. celebrex can be taken with or without food. and it's not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning. they all may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke, which can lead to death. this chance increases if you have heart disease or risk factors such as high blood pressure

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