good morning from new york, i'm chris hayes, derek rose is out 69 nba playoffs after suffering a torn acl in the bulls playoff win last night in philly. and the white house correspondent's dinner was last night. we've got highlights. joining me today we have marina sit ron from the occupy wall street legal working group and a fellow at the suny graduate school. and democratic new york congressman jerry nadaler, american federation of teachers president, randy winegarden who attended the white house correspondent's dinner, attended a few parties and got on a 3:00 a.m. train to be here. and bill fletcher, author of the upcoming book "they're bankrupting us" and 20 other minutes about unions, formerly education director for the afl-cio it's great to have you

all here. i want to play a clip from the white house correspondents dinner. jimmy kimmel who i thought was okay. this one joke, to me was just a kind of perfect haiku about the obama era in a lot of different ways. >> remember when the country rallied around you in hopes of a better tomorrow? that was hilarious. >> ouch. it's a very funny joke. it's a funny joke for a number of reasons. if you're explaining a joke that makes it less funny. it's funny because the notion of unity, the idea when you look at the approval ratings of the president in the period between essentially his election and inauguration day, they were 85%, 90%. it felt like a rare moment in a country that's extremely polarized along a lot of different dimensions. particularly among ideology and party, that there was a unifying celebration. the unifying part of it, we have

seen how quickly that dissolved and the hope part of it, that this would be fundamental change. broad center left coalition the degree to which change has actually happened. i wanted to start with you, randy about how the joke went over in the room and what your feeling is about where we are now compared to that moment, that sort of emotional moment of hope between the election, the inauguration and also just from the perspective of where you are sitting as the head of a major labor union, your agenda and what you want to see happen. >> one of the things about the white house correspondent's dinner, it's the only time all year that people actually have some comedy with each other. it just dissipates immediately as soon as the night dissipates. when one wonders, you wonder about washington. i got to washington when there was intense polarization already. but people used to say that

people at one point or another, would break bread with each other, talk to each other, try to solve problems, and that just doesn't happen right now. it feels like everything is chess match or tennis match or baseball game or basketball game, as opposed to how you just solve problems. i think the big difference is, you know, the economy, the economy. what, what i think that no one understood was how soft the economy was. that the president inherited. we had this raging debate about whether the stimulus was enough. because at the end of the day. it is about the creation of jobs. it is about the creation of good jobs. not just jobs. it's a creation, it's investing in education, it's investing in infrastructure. and a lot of that has not happened particularly since 2010. >> this question of, of i think you were saying comedy, krrkds

o-m-t-y, not comedy, jokes. >> if you would like to do the double entendre, be my guest. >> i was saying comity, not comedy. >> i think the idea of increasing polarization is something that i've been thinking about a lot. because i am decidedly of two minds about it. in one case i think i had the feeling that bipartisanship was evil, was the enemy. that the culture of beltway clubbishness that we see on display at the white house correspondents' dinner is exactly the kind of thing. can you draw a line from that to the war in iraq. in which you had 20-plus democratic senators voting for the war, the bailout, et cetera, lots of things we feel were moments of bipartisan unity. the vote to authorize the war in afghanistan. which now drags on ten years later. at the same time, i've also begun to feel that polarization, there is something uniquely toxic about the kind of polarization we have now. i'm curious to get your thoughts

on this. coming from a radical perspective outside of that clubby world, how you feel about that? >> it's completely outside the clubby world. the joke is funny and it's very real. people who have been involved in the occupy movements around the u.s., the movements around the world. we're talking about tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people who are in a different conversation. which is not hostile, it's a different conversation altogether. the government is not meeting people's needs, it's not going to meet people's needs, so we need to come together and figure something else out entirely. it's a different conversation about kind of what the government even can do, i think there's a total rejection of the kind of politics that come from representation. people believing that actually we're not represented. >> you represent people, congressman, what do you think about that? >> it's interesting of people

reject the kinds of representation, but there is no other concept. unless you're back to the small greek city state. you have top a representative government. hopefully, it's a democratic government with a small "d" because otherwise, what have you got. so you have to work through representative government. the question is how do you make representative government work. how do you eliminate or reduce the power of money, which is destroying our democratic system. those are the relevant questions, you can't just reject democratic government because there's no alternative. >> i think we need to open the conversation about what democracy means. that's what the occupy movements have been doing. i think if we have no say in our lives, we, the people, about economics, war, social questions, then what kind of democracy -- it's a question. >> but that comes back to the power of money in politics. >> exactly. >> the power of corporate, of corporations, let me say one other thing about that. i very much believe in

counterveiling power. you've got huge corporate power, huge corporations dominating the world. there are only two possible centers of counterveiling power to deal with that. one is government and the other is labor unions, and you have to increase the power of both otherwise you're going to be slaves to corporations. >> i want to talk -- bill, please. >> i would like to step back a second to your original question. see i think between november 2008 and roughly may 2009, we missed a moment. and by we, i mean basically liberal and progressive forces in this country. there was a miss estimation of obama and a level of passivity. this magical view of that moment that obama would deliver and that we would sit back.

so we revel, we party, we're excited. but while that was happening and while the conservative forces were in disarray, we were not doing anything, we were not putting the pressure on the obama administration that needed to happen. we should have been in the streets demanding jobs. >> what you said is there's a tension between what you each are saying, bill, and marina. you're saying there's a strategic moment that was missed. >> that's right. >> and you're saying separationly it's all screwed and no matter how much moeshlization we're having, there's something fundamentally bankrupt about the system. >> there's something fundamentally bankrupt, and it's not just me, i think that's what tens of thousands have been saying. that's not inconsistent with we need stronger labor unions, we need to be in the streets. both things can simultaneously be true. we need to ask the question of what is democracy and economic

interests that go beyond corporate power and government. i think it's a bigger fundamental question. >> i think, i want to get back to what jerry said. because what's also happening is there was like bill said, there was a lack of engagement, okay, job done, the president is elected, we can sit back. i do think we can miss a moment there, which i think has happened between wisconsin, ohio, the occupy movement since that point. but there is something important, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here as a social studies teacher. there is something important and very enduring about our democracy. it needs to be fixed. the public institutions need to be respected. but at the same time, we have to be true to our values, but not give up the basic notion of problem-solving. >> congressman, you noted counterveiling forces, a galbraith phrase.

revived mid century by galbraith, talking about the industry state and balancing the centers of power and you mentioned government and labor unions. i want to talk about labor unions because we have may day coming up, international workers day. a holiday that actually began here in this country. that then we stopped celebrating. >> can i say something before you get into about what -- >> i'm actually -- what bill said. when you talk about a moment that we missed. during the campaign, candidate obama projected himself as a candidate of change. but he wasn't very specific about that change. everybody read into it, whatever they wanted to. and to give the president credit, he never claimed to be a left liberal. a lot of people thought he was, because they hoped he was. but he never said it. he has been absolutely honest about where he's coming from. >> i want to talk about his relationship and the democratic party's relationship to the labor movement after this break.

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welcome back. so i want to talk about the relationship between the democratic party and the labor movement. the reason is, not just because we're coming up on mayday, but because if you look at the core of what a vision of a healthier democracy would be, i think some kind of inconstitutional power for working people as a counterveiling force, to the interest you talked about. just to set things up, here's a chart and this shows the relationship, which is incredibly profound between essentially union density and the middle class share of aggregate income.

you've seen those two lines decline in tandem. this is one of the big stories of the political economy of america in the sort of era of inequality. which is basically from 1970 on. a certain kind of income inequality. let me play, congressman you said about the president not campaigning as a left-leaning liberal. but this is him in 2007 talking about how if there was a strike somewhere, he was going to walk the picket line. take a look. >> if american workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when i'm in the white house, i'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. i'll walk on that picket line with you as president of the united states of america. because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner. >> when you head to capitol hill in a little bit to rally for the free employee free choice act,

say it loud enough so that the folks on the other end of pennsylvania avenue can hear you. in this country we believe that if the majority of workers in a company want a union, they should get a union. that's not complicated. >> so i think that just so that we're clear. he campaigned with someone who is going to be supportive of labor and one of the big agenda items was the employee free choice act. which would have made it, would have changed the statutory way by which a union is officially formed and recognized by the government. it would have reformed the national labor relations board is processed. it's very hard to win an election when the other side can essentially con script the voters, put them in a room, drill them with propaganda. >> delay everything. >> fire the organizers. >> threaten to move to china.

>> let's keep brainstorming the ways in which the process is pretty broken and part of what you see in the decline of union density is in fact the process is broken. employees for equity choice, it was the number one priority for organized labor and it didn't happen. why didn't it happen? >> fundamentally, i would argue that the problem with us, we in the union movement, i think the entire employee choice was flawed. from the beginning. we treated it as lobbying campaign within the beltway, rather than taking this as an issue to the people. i didn't expect obama to do anything about this. if it was going to happen, it was only going to happen because we raised hell. it was only going to happen if we were able to connect employee free choice with economic justice. for regular people, that's not what happened. in fact, what was amazing was

the way that the right was able to flip the script. and they were basically able to say that this was a threat to democracy. my god, when i saw george mcgovern against the employee free trade act, i said, it's over, it's gone, we blew it. i think the issue is that we weren't, the leaders of labor by and large did not look at this as this is an economic justice issue. unionization. >> to mobilize the public around. >> they saw it as an interest group issue, to get essentially your narrow tax credit. and push it through the beltway. >> as opposed to what you saw in the 30s and 40s. people embraced the unionism as the democratic and the small-d" feature. >> i think bill is somewhat right, also somewhat wrong. what we have tried to get labor law reform for 30 years. and what we're seeing -- >> this was a shot.

>> this was a real, this was a real shot. because of the numbers. and what we have learned is that and jerry said this before. about the effect of money. the number one objective of the chamber of commerce, was to defeat this. not to create jobs in the aftermath of the greatest recession since the great depression, but to defeat this. where i think we went wrong is that we did not realize the level at which the chamber was going all out to defeat this. remember, the years before, we got it through the house, we got it through the senate. we couldn't get it signed by republican president. and so, i think that so i think what's happened is, that in the since 2010, what we've done is we've done what bill has said. we've been out there mobilizing every single day. and trying to connect the public with the need for the labor movement. i mean what you saw after

walker's assault on union rights or collective bargaining, is finally people are saying collective bargaining is right. >> shift the conversation to the we. and when we talk about we, we need to look at where unions came from. where our rights actually came from. it's not the we mobilizing another we. it's we regular people self-organizing. that created unions, that created this whole process. that's where looking at the new movements now around the world, it is a self-organized we. experimenting with new forms of democracy to create something totally different. so while it is so important that we have labor unions that we can strike, it is outrageous that we cannot strike in this country. the number one demand that we need to make. or make to just do, to enact. but the self-organizing and the history of that in the u.s. or even in looking around the world and how effective that has been. there have been strikes in greece for example. general strikes.

and they, there's still austerity. but people who have been organizing in neighborhoods say okay, they're going to increase health care. people in neighborhoods organize and they block the cashiers in the hospitals. >> it's more than simply the mobilization or having strike or having a demonstration. what it really is, is the check and balance in a capitalist democracy. the only check and balance for workers. is to collectively organize, so that they can say to the boss, this is what we need to live. and ultimately, when the bosses basically say, we're going to do everything we can to stop you from organizing and we see clear as day by chris's chart, that the, the fewer people who are in unions, the more income inequality. >> you made the point i mean to get to move into the world of inside 495. it passed, before in the house

and senate. there's an elephant in the room here which is the fact that there has been a radical shift in the level of partisan unity in congress. let's talk about that after a break. is

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i want to thank the washington hilton for hosting us tonight. president obama wanted to move the dinner to the kennedy center but the republicans wanted to have it at the hilton. so they compromised and here we are at the hilton. >> there was a little pause before the president laughed at that. i think that sort of captures the notion of implacable opposition and the degree to which we've seen a disintegration of certain governing norms within the

institution of congress. the routine use of the filibuster, the holds on nominations. all sorts of ways of obstructing that are technically within the rules, but simply weren't done before. we've seen a disintegration of what isn't done. a sort of devolution process. >> when you think about the employer prechoice act and the fact that it didn't happen within the first year, which is the window. what is your understanding of why it didn't happen? >> someone who voted for it and thought's it's very important and one of the most important losses of the recent generations. it didn't happen essential by because on the one hand you had the use of the filibuster and i hate when the press routinely reports that it takes 60 votes to pass something that's anti-democratic and unconscionable and has to be dealt with, that's another

question. you had 60 democratic votes, three or four of them weren't really democratic votes. you had no republican support whatsoever. there's no republican support for anything to do with labor or with workers' rights in the last 20 years. and the administration tried, but didn't pull out all the stops, really. now whether it could have pulled out all the stops is still a question. and of course, the increasing power of money in congressional elections has had a heck of a lot to do with that and everything else that goes on these days. >> it seems to me that in the relationship between the democratic party and labor, obviously labor still provides a huge chunk of the democratic votes in any race, right? but you're caught in this vicious cycle. which is that as union density declines, it's a less-important constituency, and as it's a less-important constituency, you start to look at other constituencies, who you can raise money from, where you can get your votes and you don't pursue the agenda of labor so much. because you don't pursue the agenda of labor, labor continues

to decline. >> i want to follow it up. parties change over time. that constituencies change over time. the republican party today is an extraordinarily radical right-wing party on social issues and economic issues. the democratic party is an increasingly very liberal party on social issues and a less liberal party, one could even argue semi conservative party on economic issues. if you look at film clips, you hear a rhetoric that you don't hear today, if you look at things from the '50s. the democratic party is becoming a coalition of upscale, educated, socially liberal people and upper income people. and we're losing the constituency and therefore the influence within the party of people sensitive to labor issues and that's a tragedy. >> so then what? i was going to say, so okay. massive problem, so we need to

talk about organized labor, organizing on the ground. what are we doing to create the alternative. because clearly it's not happening from the top. >> the alternative has to be that labor and community have to work together like never before. in some ways that's why labor gravitated to the occupy movement in a real way and it's why in so many, like in the battle in ohio, community gravitated to labor. why we are -- >> explain the battle in ohio. >> the battle in ohio was after 2010, what you saw was this, this huge tsunami in terms of the gubernatorial elections. and in state house after state house, fairly radical right wing republican putting, installed in as governors, and the first thing they did in the guise of saying there's economic, there's a budget crisis, was to eliminate rights. first it was to eliminate economic rights and then it was to eliminate democratic rights

in terms of voter suppression. and now it's to eliminate some reproductive rights. so what's happened is in ohio, where the only head-to-head battle about collective bargaining in the public sector happened, labor and community joined together, with civil rights movement and we prevailed by a significant amount. like 61-39%. but we made the argument in the community about the importance of public service and the importance of voice. i think the occupy movement has helped enormously because it starts saying, how do we create community together, to fight this economic inequality. >> i'm glad you raised that. it brings me to the question of what is going to happen this tuesday. it's a big day, it's may 1st, occupy mobilization. a big day around the world for labor. i want to hear about what's going to happen on tuesday. le ws about taking aspirin for pain. that's why we developed

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tuesday is may day. a day marking the rights of workers around the world. while much of the world will mark tuesday with parades, celebrating the rights of working men and women. the significance of the day typically goes unnoticed here in the states. even though here is where it all started. occupy wall street is trying to recapture that spirit with a spring awakening of sorts. they're hoping for the first nationwide general strike since may 1st, 1886, when more than 300,000 workers across the united states walked off their jobs in support of the radical crazy proposition of an eight-hour workday. ows is calling this a day without the 99%. marina i know you've been active in working on what may day is going to look like? >> i will talk about how the movement is envisioning it. and to help give a sense of occupy and may day and the concept of general strike. there's a phrase by walter benjamin, this thinker, decades

ago he wrote something about revolutions being this locomotive in history. benjamin said maybe we need to rethink that and maybe we need to think about revolution as when people pull the emergency brake on the train. i think in a lot of ways, what we're talking about with inequality and increasingly rising inequality and lower union density. as a population, we've pulled the emergency brake. i think that's where the occupy movement is about. it's saying, okay, stop, we're going to create something different. and may day and the general strike is another kind of stop. stopping in the sense of you know, will we shut down all production? no, i don't think so. >> i think that's a fair bet. >> and other times in the future, absolutely not out of the question. around the world people do it regularly. if we had we had the right to strike and something we need to demand as a labor movement. the concept of general strike within the occupy movements, is

stopping things as they're existing now. if you can strike and there are unions that are going on strike in maine and in pennsylvania and different states around the country and california. if you cannot go to work, not to go to work. but to do things differently, to manifest our alternatives, and do things differently so ear if you're forced to be at work, you can't afford to do your job. do something different at lunch. organize a discussion with your co-workers, go out to the many, many rallies and actions that are taking place from early in the morning into the evening. and we can talk about all the different activities that are being planned. and people can go to the different websites for occupy wall street. >> we were talking about the strike idea. i want to zero in on that. because i think the strike is, it's fascinating part of our history. although not so much of our present. and let me show this. this statistic. which i, i would, i would nominate this chart in some ways for the single-most important chart in describing american

political economy over basically the last half-century. it's a chart of strikes involving more than 1,000 workers. what you basically see is there is no such thing any more. functionally speaking in america. there are a few, it's not zero. in terms of general strikes, i believe it's taft-hartley, that outlaws any sort of sympathy strike. any strike that's not directly related to the bargaining that you are having with your -- >> and secondary boycotts. so it outlaws the kind of solidarity that was used to achieve these huge gains in the past. as a labor leader, what do you make of that? i mean i remember when i was growing up, teachers' strikes weren't that uncommon and they don't happen now. >> right, but look, you know, we can actually then get into a debate about strikes and civil disobedience and things like that. >> i want to have that. >> i remember at times when i was a labor leader in new york

city, and i would say that i would not ever rule out a strike. and i remember occasionally giuliani or then mayor would then say, you know, threaten to put me in jail or threaten to bankrupt the union and things like that. it goes back to jerry's point about how the field is not level. and so workers, because the field is not level, workers have to take great sacrifice in order to try to maintain the kind of middle class lifestyle that all workers in america should be entitled to. but let me go back to may day. which is what's interesting about america, is that we've kind of morphed from may day to labor day. and labor day has become the day where we think about labor and we think about all those kind of struggles. but i'd like to see on may day -- >> we don't think about those, we think about barbequing and the end of summer and that we have to go back to school. >> some of us ka very muvetch ag

back to school, but some of us still think about labor day and labor and what not. what i would like to see on may 1st is something that we're doing on may 4th. on may 4th, there's a big push against bullying. on may 4th, schools across the country are having a minute of where they're standing up against bullying. i'd like to see, i'm going back to bill's point, about the education in our schools, about what the labor movement was about. and why it had some importance in terms of creating a standard of living in america that befit the american dream. and i think part of what we need to do is start educating people about what the labor movement is about. what community organizing is about. what mobilizing is about. there's a big rally in new york that day. that's tying in labor and immigration rights and that should be a movement for education. >> but why not may day? i mean the level -- >> why don't we act like

levellers. >> frankly, i think we should do that kind of education work on may day. if i was a former social studies teacher. we taught about the labor movement when i taught in the schools in new york city in the 1990s. maybe one day or two days. we're not going to teach kids about the importance of economics, we don't even teach kids the importance of financial literacy, if we don't actually embed it in the curriculum and may day is a great way to do it. >> you're not about to embed it in the curriculum. >> you can teach abstinence, but not labor. more on that after the break. laces? really? slip-on's the way to go. more people do that, security would be like -- there's no charge for the bag. thanks. i know a quiet little place where we can get some work done. there's a three-prong plug.

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t the history of may day, the famous haymarket massacre in check that happened. it was a protest in favor of the eight-hour workday. someone threw a bomb, police responded with violent force, killed eight or nine people were killed. it became a rallying cry of labor leaders. >> labor leaders after a kangaroo trial were executed. >> very important note. >> were executed. after that, grover cleveland, the president, moved, instead of making may day, labor day, created this other lay day. in september, to sort of make sure that they didn't have an official national holiday that would be the occasion for mobilization and labor militancy. there's a sort of interesting history is that may day, because it became the national holiday of the communist regimes, of particularly the ussr after the revolution there, and other places. then the anti-communists in the u.s. push for may day to be americanization day in the 1920s.

>> and then law day. >> and then law day. a celebration of our opposition to those, to those forces. we talk about the concept of the general strike and the fate of the strike in the last 50 years. and bill, there's something you wanted to say about strikes. >> the critical thing we have to get is that with patco, that's when we really lose the right to strike. >> please explain what patco is. >> the firing of air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981 by ronald reagan. and there's this excellent book, "course" by joe mccartney. that really details what led up to that. it's very much worth reading. part of what you have to understand is that the massive, the decision by the reagan administration and the hard right, to take a stand against patco. to fire them and to essentially exile them forever, set in motion a series of events that led to dramatic repression of

workers around the country. >> that's interesting. >> so that workers felt less and less the ability to go on strike. >> it's interesting, patco happens in '82? >> '81. >> it's interesting, i wondered right around there -- >> and patco was a union that actually endorsed, my recollection, it was a union that actually endorsed reagan. there was, there was a whole bunch of repercussions for it because that's when you saw the real dividing line in terms of unions walking to the democratic party. >> i want to say something here that's really important. on the one hand, yes. we must fight for and insist on our right to strike, and strike. but because we don't have a legal right to strike doesn't mean we can't shut down production. people do it all over the world. all the time and that's part of what occupy is arguing for, including on mayday and it's happened even very recently on the west coast. where if workers can't go out on strike, we can, we, whoever we

are, deciding in relationship with workers and whatever that workplace is, helped shut down production. >> explain why. what does that mean? so i want to sort of play devil's advocate and go through the logic of this, right? i am a bodega at 117th street and lexenton in east harlem. why don't i want my production to be shut done? >> if you are the owner, you don't want your production to be shut down. if you are the workers, we're talking about the 99%, whether people identify as workers or not, we don't own these -- >> i'm talking about places where which are all over. people are underpaid. don't have health care. so how do we organize to demand it? we organize together and we -- >> this gets to the point. let's go back. you're talking about the owner. the owner of a bodega on lexington and the 117th is not in the 1%.

there's no chance that that person -- >> we can break down the 99%. though a lot of ownership is actually it might not be one bodega. we would need to be specific about who owns what. there are very few small business owners. >> general intention of cleaving things into the 99% and the 1% and the disruption of production of workers and bosses. there are a lot of bosses ostensibly bosses, managers, even owners of things that are in the 99%. >> a general strike is one of two objectives, either it's a symbolic demonstration of force or you are really aiming to bring someone down, right? if it's one day, it's a symbolic show. and that's very, very important. >> what does it show? what does it show? >> i think it shows resistance, particularly at this moment and that's whey think is so beautiful about occupy. before occupy, it was all about the tea party.

occupy emerges, you don't hear about the tea party and you have people who are thinking more about standing up and fighting for economic justice. i think that's the critical point. >> i want to hear what you have to say. i want to get you to weigh in, but we have it take a break. [ male announcer ] if you think tylenol is the pain reliever orthopedic doctors recommend most for arthritis pain, think again. and take aleve. it's the one doctors recommend most for arthritis pain. two pills can last all day. ♪

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randi wieingarten, we were talking about the history, trajectory, symbolism and the power of a specific strike and a general strike. >> in the united states of america, particularly after the taft hartley law, what happens is that we strike over specific issues and specific reasons. but more important than that, is that if you look back at the eight-hour day. if you look back at the aftermath of the triangle

shirtwaist fire, the strikes that were successful became social and economic movements. which means that it was not simply the people who were sacrificin sacrificing. it was that we captured the public's attention and the workers' attention. the piece that we are missing today, that the republican party has been so successful at doing, is dividing worker from worker. unionized worker from other worker. it used to be post world war ii, that we were looked at as lifting all boats. >> not as special movements. >> that the labor movement was used as a vehicle to increase everyone's economic equality. eight-hour day, pensions, retirement security. health care, whether it was wages. and so we actually have a very important first step before we start talking about strikes. which is that we are not an island, we are a bridge-maker to all workers.

>> and there's a particular -- >> we have to rethink -- >> and be broader about it. >> it's going back to the different we, though. that is a we. but the other we that i'm talking about the we who are going to go out on the street. it's the same we that in 2006 was we the workers, immigrant rights by the million who is went out in the streets. mobilized by someone, but self-mobilized. >> in 2006 -- >> but to actually act on it, which unfortunately never materialized after those amazing demonstrations all across the country. >> the demonstration in 2006 was amazing, you could not see a speck of road there were thousands of people on the streets. >> let me set this up. i want to make sure people are tracking. in 2006 there was the biggest mobilization around may day that had happened in probably a generation. it was called a day without immigrants. mobilized for workers rights. i covered the rally in chicago, one of the most remarkable things i've ever seen in my

entire life. i saw the northwest side, poles marching arm in arm with mexican immigrants from the southwest side. >> but it was immigrants and it was pretty much limited to either people who current generation immigration or people who remembered the immigration experience, the difference that the occupy wall street made, it cannot be over emphasized, we have to see where we go from here, is that it changed the conversation. it changed the conversation from the austerity and deficits, to economic justice, the 1% versus the 99%. what you have right now is a sustained attack. because unions have been to a large extent destroyed this in the private sector, 7% penetration now. >> 7%. >> the struggle of unions today is the public sector, so you see a sustained attack on the public

sector 34remployees. along the lines of you mr. or mrs. private sector worker, you don't have a defined benefit pension plan any more, why should they? they should go to 401(k)s, the way you have. >> not only that, but you are paying their salary. >> even though we know, that three-quarters of people are not going to be able to afford retirement on their 401(k)s, we're trying to say, you've been impoverished, so why not them. >> it's a race to the bottom, rather than a race to the top. >> the solidarity the guidie ethos and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that's the power of all of us. that's the power of all of us. that's the membership effect of american express.

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ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. hello from new york, i'm chris hayes, with me we have marina sitron, jerry nadaler, randi weingarten and bill

fletcher. we're talking about unions and the labor movement and may day, which is coming up this week and the mobilizations planned around may day, the relationship of the democratic party and labor. we're going to talk a little about austerity and what austerity actually looks like in the most brutal laboratory environment of the uk, where we're seeing the results of austerity. we're going to talk about why nations fail and what, what causes the decline. of nations with the co-author of an amazing book. bill you wanted to say something. you wanted to talk about may day and the mobilization around 2006, immigration. >> marina keeps racing the issue around we, who is we, which is very important, as a trade unionist, i've been a trade unionist all of my adult life. what i think is important is that the we is that there's a combination of institutions called unions, and social movements. and the social movements rise and they decline at different

points. you have to fuse a relationship between these two. because the social movements will rise, they'll emerge, they'll be vibrant and they will inevitably decline. if you do not have something there to push srsue, you'll be routed. we have to rethink trade unionism in its fundamentals, when you've been defeated in a conventional war. you surrender or you undertake an unconventional war. we've been defeated head-on by corporate america. let's just be real. now the question is whether we surrender, which i would not advocate, or whether we undertake a very different approach. and part of that means rethinking the way that the unions operate. which means that leaders of our unions have an obligation to throw the dice. they have to do what john l. lewis did in the 1930s. mortgaging, literally mortgaging their buildings, and saying, we have to do this.

but they also have to do something else. which is to, to link with these other movements, like the occupy movement. like immigrant rights. like the black freedom movement and others and one of the failings of organized labor, particularly after world war ii, was that it retreated, particularly under the pressure of the cold war, from really being a social movement and really thinking with other movements, it was almost irrelevant to the black freedom movement. at the same time that the black freedom movement and the so-called civil rights movement was arising, labor was largely, with the exception of a few unions, taking a pass. i think we have an opportunity to reverse that. but it's going to necessitate a combination of a rethinking by the leaders. >> and being less risk had been averse. >> but it's more than -- you know -- thank you for all that faith and confidence that the leaders can do all of this. but i think it is, i think you're right, i think it is about rethinking and one of the most exciting things that we've done as the american federation

of teachers this year, is working with students on the student debt crisis and working with, fighting back to try to have those debts regoesh anegor. $1 trillion of debt. how can college be affordable when we say that college is important and we don't insure that kids have way to do that. that kind of linking of students together and teachers and together with other labor. and the second is, i was honored to be part of montgomery, the selma-to-montgomery marches this past march. what was important about that was not the march itself for me. what was important was that we represent a whoep bunch of folk at the university of alabama. we did a whole bunch of teach-ins, with kids, teachers, university professors, to the point that we had thousands of students actually marching with us on the last leg,

understanding what it was about, understanding the connection between labor and civil rights and marching together to fight the heinous immigration laws that alabama had just passed. >> and marina, you had talked about student walk-outs. >> there are going to be some high schools, some students from middle schools, the universities have totally mobilized. there's more than as of last week, more than 100 faculty from cuny have volunteered to do the popular education in the park. taking university outside. i want to get something to both bill and randi are saying. the framing on yes we need institutions, what does that look like, and who is we. and the build-up and the mobilizing for may day. there are general assembly and spokes councils, to share information with immigrant rights groups, people from organized labor. people who are not organized, people who are more precarious workers. have random jobs here and there. community groups, people from

occupy. so a representation that's more than just kind of a movement. this is when people talk about the 99%, it's not actually specifically 99%, but it's referring to this sensation of a we. and we don't feel represented. we don't feel like, i can speak for myself. this model of coming together, we talk about what a labor movement, not let's look to the old institutions, but let's create this process. >> i want to say this sort of final point on this topic. the we is complicated. because we is about interest and there's a tendency on the left, and we talk about oh, people are voting against their economic interests. people have lots of different interests and conflict is unavoidable. so it's not just, i guess my point is that it's never just that easy or simple. and everyone at the table knows that. but the abstract idea of building a movement for the 99% is a lot more difficult than

what it looks like in person precisely because people have different interests, they have the interests they have, and those interests are often in conflict. >> but they all have some fundamental interests. when you live in a country where 98% of all of the benefits of increased productivity, which have gone up 80% in 40 years goes to .5% of the population and wages don't go up, everybody has got a common interest. >> is the common interest abstract or real? and that's the difference when people came out in the streets in 2006, the populations that came out in the streets were people that had undocumented people in their family or felt a kinship with them and saw the immediate possibility of threat, up against the wall and in a to me is the -- >> given the fundamental corporate control of the major mass media, and the fundamental corporate control of money, the only way you can educate people is from the grassroots upward.

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after two years of massive cuts to public spending, the uk is back in recession. the office for national statistics of britain announced wednesday that the british economy had contracted for the second quarter in a row. in fact, as the figures show, the british economy is now doing worse than it was at the same point during the great depression. let's repeat that. this far into the great depression, the uk was actually growing. today, britain's economy is shrinking. that's in marked contrast to the u.s. which has experienced modest growth during the same

period of time. in 2010, the uk economy began to contract, even as the u.s. economy expanded. what happened in 2010 that set the the u.s. and uk economies on different paths? >> britain had an election. a conservative government led by prime minister david cameron came into power promising savage cuts on spending on everything from education to welfare, because he said that would turn the economy around. his policies are virtually identical to the ones that the u.s. democrats claim will hurt our economy. here's cameron wednesday echoes republican rhetoric. >> typical of this arrogant prime minister, he tries to blame it, the reality is, this is a recession, made by him and the chancellor in downing street. why doesn't he admit it?

it's his catastrophic economic policy, his plan for austerity, cutting too far and too fast, that has landed us back in recession. >> we will not let anyone forget who got us into this mess in the first place. more spending, more borrowing, more debt, that is what caused these problems. it cannot be the solution to these problems. >> for the last two years, the uk has been a literal real-world test case for the policy prescriptions of the republican party. and we now have the results. and congressman, now as someone who is in congress and watched the whole debt crisis deal and the i would call peak austerity moment in terms of the conversation that was happening in washington about the need for austerity, what scares me about what we're seeing in the uk is the fact that there is already a deal struck that's going to lock in a lot of austerity.

and it is, it is the debt ceiling deal. and i worry, are we going to be headed in the same direction? >> well, we may very well. it's rare in life outside of scientific laboratories that you get controlled experiments. and not only great britain, but spain, exactly the same, both elected a conservative government about a year and a half ago. both have instituted the exact same policies that romney and the republicans are promising, the austerity public-sector layoffs, deficit, you know, cutting deficits, et cetera and both have gotten exactly what any keynesian economist would have predicted, a second recession. >> the conservative governments in spain and england also raised taxes. which is something that republicans -- >> which means that, but they're still, that wasn't relevant to what's going on. what's relevant is they're reducing aggregate demand through austerity policies. in the united states, we have weak economic growth, which is

better than collapsing. but it's very interesting. the private sector is going up. and hiring people. we've had 600,000 public-sector employees laid off because of huge austerity in state and local governments. the net government, federal, state and local is deflationary. even with the stimulus, especially since the stimulus started petering out. it's anti-expansionary. now what romney and the republicans want to do is double down on this and create the same catastrophe. >> you made a important point about the way which affects the state level. one important point of the recovery act -- >> it was much too small. >> but it also rain out. as soon as the money ran out, rick perry who railed against the recovery act, used that money to close the state budget gap, governors gladly gobbled up the money, because it meant repairing the balance sheets, it kept people employed. once that ran out -- >> it not only kept people

employed in the public sector, but what people forget is it also means the state didn't not hire the private contractor to fill the potholes who had private-sector employees. >> so this is, it's so frustrating, because what you see in the uk is also what you see in wisconsin. scott walker didn't create any jobs. the number one issue that feels to me to get out of a recession, is to put people back to work. so what's happened is when you start cutting budgets and you lay off more people. you're not putting people back to work. so take even education, which we haven't talked about. 300,000 teachers and other educators were laid off. out of a base of about three million educators in the united states of america. at the very same time as we're saying, we need to help all kids reach 21st century skills. in real economics what that meant was, programs like art and

music, physical education, we do have an obesity problem in the united states. all of those were cut. a.p. courses were cut. so what you have instead of actually growing the economy, investing in the things we need, investing in jobs, investing in infrastructure, you have a contraction. >> it's the equivalent of how we get lied into the iraq war. that you create a fear factor. the republicans have been incredibly successful in leading people to believe -- regular people -- that this issue of the budget and the deficit is the critical piece and just as we were -- >> it's the terrifying threat. >> precisely. >> because they think it's the same as our own personal budget, as opposed to a stimulative effect which will create jobs, which will create more consumer demands. >> obama conceded on this point too early. when he did the freeze in the

federal pay, i mean it was absolutely ridiculous. to make the concession -- >> but we have to -- >> we're talking about controlled experiments, i think we have to the fact that conservative governments were elected explicitly, let's all remember this conservative governments on the continent in europe, right. ran on austerity, they got elected to office, running explicitly on austerity. then they passed austerity. so to the degree that there is a public-political appeal to the austerity agenda, it is not distinct to the united states, now is it necessarily -- >> i want to make two points. number one, spain, which is having the same problem as britain -- >> spain is in terrible shape. >> spain was running a budget surplus before the recession hit. it was a recession that created the budget deficit there. in europe they're doing something we don't have here. in europe the government got elected on a program. they enacted the program. they did what they said they would do. and they're going to throw them out at the next election because they don't work. in the united states because of

the senate filibuster, because of a lot of other institutional problems. >> you can't even have the experiment. >> there's no accountability. you elect a government, it god forbid romney gets elected, you troo i to elect, you try to create your program. it doesn't pass or it passes partially. maybe we judge a president by how much of the program he gets through the congress and everybody points their finger at the other guy when things don't go well. you cannot -- >> can we actually go back to chris's point which sin stead of arguing for why things weren't done the way they ought to have been done between '08 and '11, we do have this evidence now, from the uk that an austerity program like this and from spain and to some extent from italy and some extent from greece, that the that an austerity

program like this does not work to get us out of the recessionary forces. it makes it worse. and so the question then becomes -- how do we show -- i mean that the bigger problem in america is that we live in an evidence-free zone. this is real evidence about why that is the wrong remedy. >> i think if i went back to some of the issues around the occupy movement. let's just go into spain for a second. it's not like everything went downhill when the conservatives took over. the so-called socialist regime that was running spain, was already instituting regressive measures. and part of what happened with these elections is popular disengagement. what we have to look at is why weren't the social forces pushing for a real alternative. >> just so everyone is clear, there's obviously a huge difference in terms of spain, which is in the eurozone, britain which has its own

currency, the pound and the united states which has the reserve currency, the world wide over. the constraints on the policy makers in the eurozone right now are much, much tighter than the united states, which has access to its own printing press. marina, i want to hear you weigh in on this after a quick break. i used to only wear sun protection on a beach day.

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for getting a check-up. it's our wellness for life program, with online access to mayo clinic. see the difference at avivausa.com. marina, i want to hear what you have to say. >> i want to weigh in globally. not just kind of u.s. occupy. >> we're talking about the globe. >> globally these movements, before occupy started all over the world. with a similar spirit. >> a public space occupation. >> with the same kind of the emergency brake and egypt they said, enough, all over the world. and the movements against austerity. and spain and greece, millions of people who organized to occupy public spaces. and both in spain for example, what i was going to say is organizing under the slogan, first of they don't represent us, they can't represent us. these are hundreds of thousands of people organizing in plazas.

and under real democracy, but not we demand real democracy. we are creating real democracy because we can only done do that among ourselves. this is the question that the movements around the world are -- >> that is the question. >> i think we can't just say, that's impractical, let's go back to economic and political and social interests being separate and being determined. >> but in spain, spain has great depression levels of unemployment and fundamentally there's some decision to be made about exiting the eurozone. there's got to be some actions taken by the elected sitting government. if it ignores what the population says -- >> there's more capacity in the united states to do things to create the stimulative effect than maybe there is in greece or in spain. but your point about taking this popular movement of occupy, and moving it to action. and uniting around an economic

agenda. that is our work. and that is our work as occupy, that is our work as a labor movement. that is our work together. >> that's not what she's saying, she's saying uniting around a procedural vision of representation. >> and i'm saying, i'm saying we have to actually, we have to -- the movement of occupy, i think jerry is right. i think you're right, it changed the debate around economic inequality. but we have to actually move to action and, yes, we have to embed the values of democracy and representation. but we have to -- >> but she is saying move into action with the current mechanisms and tools is fundamentally a doomed project because the tools are completely bankrupt. >> and i would respectfully disagree. because we're going to, if we don't, then how are we going to help right that? >> for an example right now i want to give a right-now -- >> i'm about right now. >> people losing their homes and

this is a similar movement in spain and the u.s., we're inspired by what they were doing in spain. people losing their homes. we ask, we petition, please, please, no. people are still getting evicted. what are people in movements in neighborhoods do? they organize to prevent evictions, they call up and find out the night before, and you block it, you don't let the marshall in. the family gets 60 or 90 more days. going into courts, people singing to disrupt auctions of home foreclosures. so work on it legislatively. but as it's not happening, we need to keep people in their homes. >> we need to do both. for example, let me just go back to education. for me, it's not about some. it's about all kids and so we need to create systemic ways of helping all kids get educated. we need to create systematic ways of making sure that everyone whose house is under water has a way out of it.

that's part of the reason that eric schneiderman and others have create d a legal way to do it. i'm saying it's not an either/or, it's a both/and. >> it does feel like the austerity fever has broken. that there was a high point of austerity obsession, austerity discussion that was happening in the u.s. and and then that moment did pass and it passed for a bunch of different reasons. partly it passed because they were able to impose kind of an austerity measure because of the debt ceiling deal. >> we will find out. >> i want to end with on you, congressman about this point which is can, is there a way to throw the brakes on the train of the austerity measure that's coming down the track? >> i think the answer will be on november whatever it is, depending on what happens on election day. >> shouldn't you know what election day is? >> november 4th.

but the fact is, that would largely determine it. we're going to have in the lame duck session of congress in maybe 20 days. a titanic fight and i suspect that we will not have enough time to finish dealing with it and all the things that are supposed to happen on january 1st. >> kick the can a few months down the road. >> right now i'm obsessed with a book called "why nations fail" and i want to talk to one of the authors after this. bored with your one trick lipstick? then lead a double life! with new blast flipstick from covergirl. creamy color on one end, shimmery color on the other. so you can flip your look from demure, to daring. new blast flipstick from covergirl.  what happens when classroom teachers get the training... ...and support they need? schools flourish and students blossom. that's why programs like... ...the mickelson exxonmobil teachers academy... ...and astronaut sally ride's science academy are helping our

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talking about inequality, organized labor and the occupy wall street movement. efforts by citizens to hold political and financial institutions accountable. what happens with institutions break down and the mechanisms for holding those institutions accountable fail? there's a new book out that attempts to answer that question, it's called "why

nations fail" and provides an in-depth historical account of the corrosive nature of what the authors call, extractive institutions. institutions that rigged by elites to exploit the labor and resources of a population. it is the presence of these kinds of institutions in a class of self-dealing elites that leads, the authors contend, to the kind of crippling endemic poverty we see across large swaths of the world today. i'm pleased to welcome the co-author of "why nations fail" deron ajarulu with us. let me give a quote from the book to that extent that summarizes the thesis. you say poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. they get it wrong, not by mistake, or ignorance, but on purpose. what does that mean? >> when you look around policy circles, the prevailing ideas is that you know, you know

prosperities about enlightened leadership. countries that have good leaders, that very good advisers. come up with creative ideas and solve the problem. >> education in right place, have the right technical solutions. >> the right macroeconomic policies, austerity measures. when you look around the world in history. it's not that people make choices that condemn societies to poverty because they don't know the solution. they know the solution, but there's a big conflict of interest in society about who is going to be the winner. and the elites who often control political power choose to make choices that condemn the rest of the society to poverty. >> what's fascinating about the book to me is it has two ideological vallances to it. on one level i think you're an economist, your co-author is a political scientist. the way you view market

equilibrium and the radical history that you tell when you talk about places, the legacy of colonialism, it sounds like reading the open veins of latin america. a radical history of latin america. one of the things you talk about is the way that extractive unts constitutions, their persistence over time. i love this anecdote. the meta is in peru, and how it has endured to this day. >> that's a fascinating example as you just picked it up. the meta was a coarse labor system that the spaniards set up to get people, forced laborers to work in the mines. it created a big catchment where all male laborers were forced to work in the mines. the remarkable thing today, based on a study done by one of my students, if you look just outside the border of the catchment area and still inside. you still see a 30% difference in living standards.

hundred of years after the meta was set up. what's so telling about that system is it's really a coercive labor system that's been designed for the benefit of the elite, the con quest doors, who were going to make the extraction of the silver from the mines. to come back to your point about neoclassical economics, markets versus nonmarkets, the main thing that distinguishes people on the left versus the right. but when you look throughout history, even today, when you see state power in societies, it's very rarely for protection of workers. it's often in the hands of the elites. because they control the state power and there are no institutional checks on them. they can use it for the coercion of workers and coercion of children for their benefit. >> you talk about extractive institutions and their duration. and there's sort of a depressing aspect of this. because one of the things you say is when we look at places that had very promising

revolutions against colonialism, across the global south and the developing world, which then became exploitative system, you're saying that what happens is that people that win that fight, win independence, inherit a whole bunch of extractive institutions, they realize they can benefit from the same extractive system. >> there's a sad story. there are so many examples of revolutionary movements, that come with the right slogans. but once they come to power, they sit atop the new extractive ints zugss and they find it very expedient to use they will. soon for their own enrichment. i don't want to imply there are no ways out of it. there are many societies that have broken out of the cycle of extractivety. and i want to see where you think the u.s. sits on this after this break. (female announcer) most life insurance companies look at you and just see a policy.

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nations fail. and daron, you wanted to make sure that this wasn't just a -- there's something hopeful about the book. there's a dark cast to it, about the fact that so many movements come into power, then just take over the extractive institutions. if institutions matter so much and if they permeate for so long, how do institutions get reformed to actually be what you call inclusive? >> i think you know, this is relevant to the discussion on the occupy movement. i think grassroots movements are very crucial. i think many of these systems actually need a shock and when the shock comes, sometimes they are in a powerful enough to start building inclusive institutions. we've seen it in england with the glorious revolution and in the 19th century with all the democracization movements. the civil rights movement. started changing the south in perhaps the change is not as complete as some people would like it to be. but after hundreds of years of slavery, jim crow and klu klux

klan, and all sorts of repression, it started changing. because of a real grassroots movement. >> people mobilizing, forcing institutions to change and having lived in argentina after the economic crisis, one of the many things people did, was workers who were getting shut out of the workplaces started it take over the workplaces and run them with assemblies and horizontal ways and those workplaces continue to be run, many hundreds, health clinics and newspapers and grocery stores. and those that have existed and continued to exist, are actually doing better and it's forced the government to make new laws to recognize the fact that workers have taken over private property, running it themselves horizontally, being inspired by that and thinking about the alternative powers that we actually have and have forced institutions to recognize from it. >> to borrow from malcolm x, sometimes people use power too

loosely and there's a difference between independence movements and revolutions. many of the independence movements were elite-led, mobilized the mass base, but didn't have any particular intention of mass transformation. >> one of the things that's fascinating about your book is the idea that all elites everywhere are disposed to extraction. >> absolutely. there's nothing wrong with elet-led movements as well as they are properly constrained. we talk about the glorious revolution 168888, the a lot of the institutions that it wasn't elite led, it was constrained by the institutions that it created. >> the obvious elephant in the room is the u.s. and the fact that i've written a book that will come out in six weeks, about a lot of the same themes, specific to the u.s. and about the nature of the failure of the u.s. where do you see the u.s. on

this spectrum, and ha do you sort of project forward? >> i think in the grand scheme of things, the u.s. has a lot of problems, but it's still an inclusive society. we have free media, we have people taking part in democratic process. there's very little electoral fraud. but i think there are worrying signs. i think the root of it is not just economic inequality. we've had a huge increase in economic inequality. the main thing is associated with the economic inequality. we have creeping political inequality and when societies -- >> it's not so creeping. >> it's marching. >> it's been increasing a lot. but it's coming to a very high level right now. and when you see inclusive societies taken an about-face and start declining, it often starts from political inequality. when the elites are able to ascertain their power so much that they start taking control of everything and then they use their political power in order to increase their economic wealth, their economic advantages, that's when -- >> it's a vicious cycle. >> and we are in the midst of it

in the united states. it's not a by headline done conclusion, but we have started that. >> i often say that the increasing power of elites in politics, which is basically a function of the increasing importance of money in politics, which is on the order of magnitude different than it was a generation ago. it's metastasized cancer in our democratic system. if we don't change it in the next 20, 30 years in some way, then historians will eventually right of the american republic, as the roman republic. it was a good 200-year run, but then it devolved. >> people are saying it now. >> people are starting to say it now. but the historians will write that eventually. >> i think that's one important thing to say. i think i share all of these. but we've been here before. we were here in the gilded age, our political institutions were much worse. our senate wasn't elected. the politicians were much more in the pockets of the robber

barons than they are today. but with the populist movement and the progressive movement, we actually rebounded. so u.s. institutions showed some resilience. now the key is, there's no guarantee they're going to show it again. so some sort of mobilization is important. but it's also i would like to add and perhaps it's a place where we'll deverge a little bit from the other guests, is that actually i think it's very important that these grassroot movements ultimately become institutionalized. in the aftermath of the gilded age, the progressives did not influence politics by remaining a protest movement. they actually took over both the republicans and the democrats. and that's crucial. i think the occupy movement is really trying to protect itself from the parties. but as long as it remains outside of parties, the fact is going to be very limited. >> one of the things i think is interesting is the idea of the sort of time scale institutional permanence. that's one of the things i took away from the book. >> i think what daron just said is very important.

and that is political parties are subject to change and these movements have got to occupy the political parties. >> one last -- >> we're not a protest movement. we're an alternative movement. so if we create structures, they are alternative structures. we are at a different table. >> i want to thank our guest, daron, agemoglu, the co-author of "why nations fail." we should know for the news week ahead after this. aspirin is just old school. people will have doubts about taking aspirin for pain.

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nnchts just a moment what you should know for t week ahead, but first an update on last week's discussion about iran nuclear talks, the "los angeles times" quotes unnamed u.s. officials saying the u.s. might be open to letting irantimes" c unnamed sources that they could enrich uranium below the nuclear level, and they could ensure the nuclear program is purely civilian. what you should know? occupy wall street is attempting

to revive the dormant american tradition of labor solidarity on may 1st by calling for a general strike and organizing across the country. the original may day was occasioned by a brutal and violent oppression of labor actions in support of what at the time was a radical and controversial agenda the eight-hour work day. watch events unfold this week, participate in them or criticize them, consider what votes we see as controversial will one day be firmly part of the mainstream con cess success. watch the ads this election season, you will be able to find out just how much broadcasters are making off the super-pac'd, supercharged industrial complex. thanks to a 2-1 vote, local broadcasters have to publish on the internet information about the political advertising sales, information they were required to keep, but wasn't accessible online. broadcasters fought tooth and

nail, saying it would expose pro primary information. but transparency advocates say it doesn't go far enough since it won't be searchable. the house will take up an updated violence against women act after it passed 68-31. every republican woman voted for the bill, while all but 11 republican men voted against it. north carolina is the only certain state without a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and you should know that may not last much longer. you should know on may 8th. voters on the state will be voting on amendment one, which would ban marriage between same-sex partners and domestic partnerships and any other official recognition of same-sex unions. it is so extreme, it attracted opponents from marriage equality and captured an inspiring movement in the state to stand up for marriage equality. we'll be talking about it here on "up" next week.

the white house has threatened to pass an internet security bill that passed the house. privacy and internet freedom groups that raised alarms about the sopa and pipa legislation says this threatens the privacy of internet users and consumers. it's in the senate and you should know without a swarm of public attention which that defeated sopa, the congress is highly unlike to detail privacy concerns. what do you think we should know as the week unfolds. >> may day. tuesday. beginning first thing in the morning and there are million things taking place throughout new york city. people are organizing 99 pickets in the 99% spirit, but against corporations and supporting labor unions and workers organizing. throughout the day, different things taking place, popular education taking place in madison park and union square has a permanent rally, immigrant

rights rally a concert with tom morello. >> and very have viewers across country. >> all over the country. look on occupytogether.org and you will find in your city, town, or village something happening. there will be millions of people doing something, and even if you're not in the street mobilizing, do something differently. have lunch differently with your coworkers, relate differently. to think about strength not just in production, but we relate differently and we are retaking this day as our day. as 99%. >> what should folks know? >> this coming week, congress is not in session, a so-called work period, you can probably see your member of congress occasion your congressmen or congresswoman at home, in a town hall meeting, you should tell him or her, stop the war against women, do the -- the -- reauthorize the violence against women act and even if includes

immigrant and women and indians, those people shouldn't get beaten up either. >> good point. >> second of all, tell them you don't think the cause of this recession is environmental protection. that -- or public employees. public employees didn't crash the economy. wall street did, and you don't want austerity. >> what should people know? >> people should know that speaking of corporations, one corporation this week actually put a bib order on kenneth cole, saying should everyone be well red, r-e-d, and pitting teachers against students. and many of us are filling out signon.org saying kenneth cole, you should be working with teachers and students, not against teachers and students. please sign that petition. >> what should people know? >> double underline. may day, and it should not just be a day, but a moment when we're thinking about alternative

approach to the economy, and not just having the elite step on us a little less. >> that's a good way of putting. thank you to my guests, marina from the occupy wall street working group. jerry nadler, randi wine garden and bill fletcher, author of "they are bankrupting us and 20 other myths about unions" thank you for joining us. we'll be back saturday and sunday at 8:00. david frum, former speechwriter for george w. bush will be here. get more info by liking up with chris on facebook. up next is the one and only melissa harris-perry. what do you have today? >> we have got a very emotional and i think inconsideredibly important discussion about the death penalty this morning. of course, as you know, connecticut just repealed it, california might be next and we'll ask whether or not we're really on the cusp of a major change of this issue here in america.

berry sheck from the innocence project and the mother of a dait row death row inmate. and honestly, i'm quite sick and tired that somehow food stamps are causing the recession, so we're going to ask about whether or not ending welfare as we know it actually contributed to poverty in this country and then, of course, we'll talk about obama being cool. that will be fun. >> slow jamming the news, as only melissa harris-perry could do. we'll see you next week here on "up." (female announcer) most life insurance companies look at you and just see a policy. at aviva, we do things differently. we're bringing humanity back to life insurance. that's why only aviva rewards you with savings

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