think suspect. they would like to do is go to you know the press is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct help us. to make you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying a problem you trust rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america are you ready to join the movement then welcome to. the launch our been in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. tennessee is the fastest

growing state in the country for union membership so why did volkswagen employees reject a plan to join the united auto workers more on that just a moment also another day another miscarriage of justice in florida of a mistrial in the case of the loud music shooter michael dunn finally wake americans up to the dangers of stand your ground shoot first laws and america could be living like the jetsons but instead because of president reagan we're stuck in the stone age of the flintstones i'll tell you why and if that i still need to. you need to know this the fight to preserve the american middle class took a big hit this weekend on friday night retired u.s. circuit judge samuel h. payne announced that a united auto workers led union drive at a volkswagen plant in chattanooga tennessee had failed while six hundred twenty six

workers voted in favor of joining the union seven hundred twelve workers eighty six more voted against doing so the result of the three day long election was shocking to many u.a.w. organizers up until the very end. most thought they did score a big victory in the volunteer state and for good reason to tennessee is actually the fastest growing state in the country for union membership and because the union the u.a.w. wanted to create in chattanooga was supposed to be part of a plan to create a european style works council like they actually have in germany volkswagen didn't oppose the unionization rose fight with. but it appears that a last minute scare campaign by led by republican lawmakers including tennessee senator bob corker of tennessee governor bill haslam worked like a charm it's hard to see just how many votes corker has the other conservatives took away from the u.a.w. but there's no question that there are scare tactics had

a huge impact on that election by threatening to take away volkswagens tax incentives of workers approve the union and by warning that a pro union vote would scare volkswagen away from building its new s.u.v.s in town and see. neither which might have been true anti-union crowd apparently so frighten the small number of workers that they provided the margin for the u.a.w. to lose the vote. tragically in the era of declining union membership an anti worker fervor a failed aloon you know election is not all that surprising union busting has become a two billion dollar a year industry and employers routinely bring in union busting insults and forced workers to watch their videos and listen to their scary pitches this time it was supposed to be different. works councils are popular with employers across the pond and all signs pointed to the chattanooga campaign as the start of a new era for american labor. instead because republican politicians broke the law

and interfered with the vote the labor movement will once again have to pick up the pieces after another stinging defeat what happened in chattanooga on friday is about more than just the labor but it's about the very future of the american middle class the dark truth about the recovery from the great recession is that it hasn't really been a recovery not for everyone that is as right or guys probably as pointed out recently in a piece for the american blog the current recovery has been driven primarily by the upper fifth of income earners as a result of this recovery it's a recovery there's not really a recovery and the majority of consumer spending over sixty percent is done by people the top twenty percent of income earners less than forty percent on the other hand is of that consumer spending is done by the bottom eighty percent of it . what does this mean it means we could be entering a period of prolonged stagnation economy needs middle class people at the bottom

eighty percent of income earners to spend money but middle class people spend money they stimulate demand and when they stimulate demand businesses increase production and hire new workers to meet that demand and the economy grows if on the other hand only rich people do you population spend money they can't stimulate enough demand to keep it economy. so what happens with all the rich people who spend our money is that the economy shrinks something we've been seeing happen in a progressive lead more and more rapid rate basically ever since the beginning of the reagan revolution. fortunately there's a pretty straightforward solution to this problem a solution that will help us grow a bit of class and jumpstart the economy unions unions and more unions it's no coincidence that the decline in union membership since the late one nine hundred sixty s. has coincided almost exactly with the decline of the american middle classes share of national income. unions help workers bring home

a. wages wages that those workers can spend on cars homes and other goods and stimulate the economy. conservatives love to say that our fragile economy can't afford to have unions but they've got it backwards our fragile economy can't afford to not have you. that's why congress needs to get to work right now to pass a national card check bill that will help workers easily join unions without having to navigate an unnecessarily complex selection process that just happens to tilt the scales in favor of management. after all of congress passed to congress pass the employee free choice act back in two thousand and nine like it was supposed to it's very good chance that we would be sitting here today talking about the united auto workers and how they just want a stunning victory for the labor movement in tennessee was also a very good chance the middle class would be well on its way to recovery. joining me now from chicago for more on all this is check us jessica stites deputy editor

at her and web editor at in these times just to welcome. her there thanks for joining us from what you've gathered what's the mood like in labor circles today. is it sober and i think this was a surprise to a lot of people in labor the u.a.w. had gotten a majority of workers to sign cards saying they were interested in the union and u.a.w. really expected a victory. they are gearing up for their victory party on friday night and this came as a shock to them and i think has a ripple effect shock across the labor movement and people are really looking at this to try to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it so what went wrong . well you brought up one major factor and certainly the u.a.w. believes that republican interference was the major factor in.

that there were these threats by republican politicians you had bob corker state senator and the u.s. senator from the state and the former mayor of chattanooga saying that folks wagon would not produce its new s.u.v. line in chattanooga the union election went forward and what was so crazy about that was that the books i guess c.e.o. of the chattanooga plant came out after corker statement and said no we don't know what bob corker is talking about that the union election results have nothing to do with the s.u.v. decision and corker doubled down and said nope i had inside sources the plant manager isn't the guy making this decision i've talked to the people making this decision and the union election would hurt the chances of the s.u.v. line coming to chattanooga and. we have a reporter down in chattanooga right now mike allen who's been doing some fantastic

work down there talking to workers and his sense from workers was yes this carrot that they thought if they live if they didn't get this s.u.v. line writ would hurt jobs you know it would threaten their livelihoods. i understand why republicans hate unions basically i mean historically if you look at all the way from nine hundred thirty five when the when the where the wagner act was passed and it was thirty three whatever the year was the national labor relations act and unions were essentially legalized and started really being a major political force they have been support her spine angele of the democratic party and the republican party has been supported mostly by business and billionaires so you can get at the you know ever since reagan declared war on unions it really wasn't about unions i mean there was this ideological piece for some people but really it was mostly about defunding the democratic party. is there

any. among the members of the unions are in chattanooga about that dimension of a or is that something that just typically flies under the radar i've seen very little mention of that in the pros. that's an interesting question would be a good question for mike to start asking folks down there i think we've got is that regardless of. what motivation. corker might have. workers just believed they thought he had inside knowledge and you know in the case of the other big threat to the union came from republican leaders of both the state house and the state senate who both said that it would vote for the union would mean would jeopardize future subsidies to folks wagon and so that's not just making a prediction that they have the ability to make that happen. yeah. yeah but you know i don't want to. make it sound as though this was the only factor in the

union defeat i think there were a couple other factors from talking to workers both on the pro-union anti-union side and these are things that the u.a.w. might be a little less reluctant to kind of explore but i think there are things that do are important lessons for other unions and other campaigns like. and one of them is that what we've heard from communities supporters of the union drive so people in chattanooga who weren't necessarily employed at folks like and but are pro union you know they exist even in the south pro worker folks who started a committee called chattanooga for workers who were organizing events to support the union drive lisa they did not receive a lot of support and partnership from u.a.w. . and i think that's something that the u.a.w. and other unions may look at going forward. campaigns especially in the south that

really get your and anti-union climate and you need to work to bolster because of these do you think that the u.a.w. thought this was in the bag just because volkswagen didn't oppose it because volkswagens you know from germany which is entirely unionized basically. i think it's possible they thought the neutrality agreement they signed with folks i can really give them an edge i mean they were let into the plant last week to give you the u.a.w. was to get pro union presentations to workers and you know that's the complete opposite from what happens in a campaign that's opposed by management where you have work you know sitting in captive audience meetings hearing about how terrible unions are so you know maybe maybe there was a little bit of hubris there remarkable just just because studs thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you coming up comcast says its plan a forty five billion dollars takeover of time warner cable is going to be just great for consumers but should we celebrate or fear the merger of the two biggest

cable companies in the country. want to answer right after the break. we welcome aaron made an abby martin to two of the coast guard t. network. it's going to give you a different perspective if you want stock never i'll give you the information you make the decision don't worry about how breaking the work the revolution the mind it's revolution ideas and consciousness. extremely probably would be described as angry i think in a strong no one single. wonderful moment like. all the. people.

a pleasure to have you with us here today. to the. technology innovation hall the list of around russia. the future covered. back our country's heavily docu concentrated cable market appears to be headed straight down the road to monopoly late last week comcast announced a massive forty five billion dollar takeover of time warner cable if approved the

merger would combine the two biggest cable companies in the country and give com has control over approximately thirty percent of the american pay t.v. market not surprisingly the deals going to be just great for consumers it c.e.o. brian roberts told c.b.c. that buying time more will ensure that comcast customers get access to better products and faster internet. it's a really special transaction time warner cable and for comcast shareholders or employees and mostly our customers the deal is pro competitive we're going to be able to bring better products faster internet more channels on demand t.v. everywhere and a national local platform that other people however are not so enthusiastic about the deal joining me now for more on this our chance williams associate policy director of free press and todd boyle media and democracy program director for common cause to really extraordinary organization it's great to have you guys both

with me tonight chance break this deal down forty five billion dollars who is comcast who is time warner cable and the time warner cable is not time warner the bigger it's exactly. one of the most powerful companies here in washington d.c. i think that's demonstrated by the approval that they were able to secure of their merger with n.b.c. universal a few years back. huge power players and they expect that this deal will go through and they are selling something that they're hoping washington will from what we've been hearing from the american people. folks were suspicious of this deal from the very start these are two companies that always rank on the bottom when it comes to consumer satisfaction in customer service so there are some real questions here and customers are right to be asking questions you notice when comcast talks about the benefits of this deal one of the things that they never mention is lower prices for

consumers and in fact consumers can expect that their prices will continue to rise that this merger is approved that's coming. at the consumer level it seems like increasingly we're seen basically something that looks like monopoly here it's it's . what from the consumer point of view how is this going so what this means for consumers is that an uncompetitive in consumer unfriendly industry is getting less competitive and less consumer friendly so there's no way that this helps the average everyday cable or broadband consumer rather we can expect that a big powerful corporation that's able to write its own rules will continue to do so will be more a bigger and more powerful and one thing that we should be very clear on is that the reason that there is so little competition in broadband there so and cable is that for years these industries have written their own rules in congress and through friendly regulators in washington so they think that they've. got quite

a bit in the two thousand and eleven merger with the c.u. that chance reference and they think they can go for one more bite at the apple to line their own pockets and hurt consumers well in a way chance this is not so different from you know how the telephone industry used to be i mean you know the cable companies have just kind of picked up that monopoly i lived in vermont years ago the legislature vermont had passed a rule that the rise and when the baby bells got broken up and then spun out and fries and ended up gobbling up the baby bill in vermont and so they owned all the cars. in the state come come into our house. even though they own the copper even though the on the phone line coming into our house they had to offer it to any phone company want to provide telephone service so we had sovereign debt as in sovereign you know because from i used to be a nation before it was texas where the tube and everybody got the pawn but anyhow

it was great service twenty five bucks a month you know the phone company guy who did to live like two blocks down the street for me to walk over fix things and and then i went back to this vermont state legislature and said let's ban this you know we on the copper we should be able to determine who comes into the house and who doesn't know in europe. the model is that you pay for the copper and then you also pay for your internet service provider or your t.v. provider this is why in france for thirty five or forty dollars a month you can you know get all these different plans high speed internet cell phone t.v. everything stuff that we would pay maybe two hundred dollars a month for here would that be an alternative and in fact i like to ask both of you that ultimately would would an alternative to this be to say ok we can set aside our monopoly concerns if we allow essentially monopolies to occur on the copper as long as there's no no monopoly on what's passing through the copper or the fiber or whatever. well you know i think one of the things that has been

a real plus in the rise of the internet is that people actually can't compete with your cable service provider on video so you have netflix you have amazon that are providing video service and that is part of what this deal is obviously about comcast wants to keep their hold on video service in this country and they don't like the fact that netflix and amazon are competing with them and they're competing using that wire that same wire that they bring into your home the same wire that they are going to control that will reach two thirds of the homes in this country so it's a big deal for them. and it's a big deal for consumers when you think about the control that they can exercise there but what if you were able to say ok comcast that's fine thank you for bringing the water into my house i'll pay fifteen dollars a month for the water now the stuff that's coming over the wire i want to buy that from a t.n.t. or i want to buy that from the company that chance just started down the street because he's offering me a better speeds down that where you know obviously there are mechanical limitations

but or he's offering me you know whatever it's. that right now it's not happening right now whoever owns the wires as you were your eye as pete sorry charlie and that is currently with the way things are set up that's not a possibility i don't think that's going to be a possibility that's put on the table to get this merger approved that certainly nothing that we're hearing from comcast this is about more control for them not more control is that is that the sort of thing the free press has as. you know is anybody pushing that any of the states to have we believe in big open pipes that means that people can access the content that they want through the wire that comes into their home there shouldn't be anyone interfering with that let alone not the internet service provider your cable company that you have to pay to get access and todd we're talking about you know basically having open access that's what chance is talking about is net neutrality even though comcast is now your eyes speak with you like it or not what about fluidity among i.s.p.

so your question cuts right to the heart of matter which is choice and competition and i'll reiterate that one of the reasons that we have such abysmal levels of competition and low quality of coast reserves here in our broadband marketplace is because the industry has written rules for itself and that i've written competition out of the game and fact in many of the states that is situation describing about a public entity a municipality creating its own telecommunications services chattanooga being a perfect example or my hometown was in north carolina. the industry's gone to work on the state level stay. by state using the american legislative exchange council as its vehicle to write competition out of the market and so when we look at why. you know. this is one of the main reasons that american consumers pay more and get less for their telecommunications so and arguably we can track all that back in the supreme court discovering the money is protected by the first amendment

corporations are protected by the fourteenth but that's old mother debate. but to do so. too it's very interesting and what i understand there's a group of time warner shareholders who initiated a lawsuit on this the chance were were were that come from was i going to go you know i don't necessarily know where that's going or where it came from but there's a process that has to be that has to go through for this this deal to be approved certainly the federal communications commission has to take a look at this deal and make sure that it meets the public interest also the department of justice has to review the deal to be sure that it's not anti-competitive that's going to be a year long process there's a number of public interest groups that are involved in the fight people all over the country are very interested this is a year down the road. most likely that's when a decision would be up to a year reagan rather famously in eighty two eighty three stopped in force in the

sherman act for all practical purposes which led to this explosion of mergers and acquisition activity was the can they refer to it as the m n a mania you know when you had michael milken and all these guys out there making the deals and the captains of the universe and this mormons consolidation and no president has gone back i mean jimmy carter was the you know presiding over the breakup of a t.n.t. that was initiated i believe by richard nixon was the last president to seriously enforce the sherman act are there sure many problems here you don't want to hear i think this raises clear questions about antitrust about competition any time the largest provider buys but the second largest provider of cable services than you. really the question of whether this is going to have a chilling effect on how position the marketplace does is there recourse is there anything consumers can do if they object to this chance absolutely folks can check this out at free press dot net we have an online petition going which is really important to let folks in washington know that folks in their districts care deeply about this deal and see it for the sham that it is for consumers so folks can

really weigh in there and i guess in a common cause dot org you got something going on that's right common cause. consumers can learn more about what we have to say about competition wide variety of issues it seems like it's just it's so time if this is happening in industry after industry after industry we've seen consolidation in food we've seen media we've seen we're seeing it now in in broadband we're seeing which is the last question is is the broadband part of this the scarier per or the cable t.v. it seems to me that is the broadband real quick to me the broadband is the scariest part of this because that is obviously a communications platform for all of us the two way communications that's the future that's what comcast wants control over it it's the broadband it's how do people connect and communicate and how do they organize and how to access the content the media content of their choice not come close to it or a chance to thank you both for being with you thank you thank you.

in the best of the rest of the news today was another banner day for team usa in sochi skaters meryl davis and charlie white took home goal pairs ice dancing competition beating out their canadian friends and training partners tessa virtue and scott wore five points to finish with a score of one ninety five point five two their first place finish is truly historic before today no american ice dancers had ever wanted. olympic gold about what was once a sport dominated by europeans has now become a source of pride for american skating program it looks poised to compete at an international level three years. less than a week to go in the twenty second winter olympics davis white's victory gives the united states a total of five gold medals in sochi and eighteen is. coming up what's the

difference between fox news and p.b.s. not so much apparently the reason why right after the break. join me. in park and. morning commentary can for news.

on bombast and. the classic. i didn't go to do is go did you know the price is the only

industry specifically mention in the constitution which says that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shrek helpless. little. bit you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying a problem you're trying to rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america are you ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. of the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour another is stand your ground should first trial has come to a close in florida and once again the defendant has at least for now escaped a murder conviction why did a florida jury failed to convict michael dunn for the murder of jordan davis an unarmed teenager who was listening to music with his friends when he was shot and

killed and the taxpayer funded public broadcasting system is supposed to provide americans with objective about biased information so why was the p.b.s. why was p.b.s. airing a series about cutting public employees engines responded by a billionaire political activist also right now every single working american should be enjoying i wages lots of vacation time plenty of time to explore their cultural and intellectual interests at least that's what people in one nine hundred sixty six thought america would look like in the twenty first century so what went wrong. what's keeping us from be coming a leisure society will tell you all about that ronald reagan in tonight's state we take. in screw news over the.