Fast food workers join fight for living wages

>>> in just a moment what we know now that we department know last week. first a quick update on a story we did last weekend. on saturday we took a look at the cultural phenomenon that was black friday. we discussed consumer behavior , the line waiting and getting up too early. we focused on the amount of money that stores like walmart can make on black friday. it can be up to 40% of their annual sales. i'm compelled to mention this after a fire in a bang gla desh garment factory killed 112 workers. the cost of those lives should bear significant loss to walmart's reputation. walmart along with the walt disney company appears the use of factories to make their clothes. retailers have a responsibility to make sureclothes. they should have a responsibility to make sure the overseas factories that manufacture their products were safe. they said they decided to the stop doing business with it. a supplier had continued to use the factory without their authorization. sears has issued a similar story. sean p. diddy combs, whose clothing label eniche had clothes still on the sewing machines inside the factory, has agreed to pay the family members of the dead workers $ 1200 each. what do we know now? we now know that walmart workers aren't the only low wage workers. on thursday, over two dozen fast food restaurants , included mcdonald's burger king , demanded a wage to $15 an hour as well as recognition of the newly formed union. $8 an hour is the current rate. fast food workers are also literally the lowest paid category of employees in the country. we know that building sufficient labor powers in those air why is of service economy where job creation isstrongest, retail, home care, is one of the key areas to reduce the economy

>>> speaking of building economy, baseball and the american labor movement have lost marvin mill herb the legendary economist and baseball player's union leader died this week at 95. he was chosen as head of the players un none why 1956 , fresh from a job with the united steel workers of america . he set aside with relationships with management. players were owned almost like thorough bread horses and had no ability to solicit bids from other teams i i had the pleasure of interviewing him. he described it as unionism was treason. for very well think people that owned franchises, baseball was a respite of the tension and problems elsewhere. here he could control everything. no grievance procedure, no salary arbitration, no nothing. miller changed all that by incull kating players with notions of solidarity. he helped create the modern free agency system in which players make a fair share of the tremendous amount of revenue they generate for the owners. as i mentioned in my book, if the median american wage earner had been able to join a marvin miller union, that wage earner who have seep his or her inflation-adjusted wages increase from just under $5,000 in 1966 to just over $62,000 by 1986 . besides his titanic impact on baseball, he is not in baseball's hall of fame . we now know that is time for that to change.

>>> i want to find out what my guests know that they didn't know at the beginning of the week. danielle?

>> matt diaz , another award winner was just disbarred this week as an attorney. this is a navy jag officer down at guantanamo who thought that we can't be legally detaining these people without acknowledging who they were. he leaked their names to a civil rights organization , served time in the bringing for that, later the supreme court vindicated him. despite that, he is no longer allowed to be an attorney. a real crime.

>> what we know or should know is that the passage of the landmark whistle blower protection act does not mean that whistle blowers will be protected. that happened in 2002 with sarbanes oxley supposedly protecting private sector workers. eight years later, all the workers who filed complaints, 99% of them did not get protected from reprisal. it is up to the public to stand for what happens when these laws are implemented. i want to plug a terrific piece of long-form journalism on labor rights . scott sherman writing about the great labor strike that happened. changing the face of this profession.

>> take a look. we now know that two major new york media figures have pretty heavy questions to answer as a result of the inquiry in the u.k. into press behavior as a result of the phone hacking scandal. it is 1 million pages long. tiny bits are important here in new york, because james murdoch , son of rupert and some people think heir to the huge empire, why he was so unethically engaged in what was going on? did he know who are more than he told us? he also asked why did the final editor of the news of the world before it shut down, why didn't he investigate more deeply into it?

>> we have been losing a number of troops to suicide. rates are higher than they have ever been, approximately 18 veterans a day. the department of defense is taking a look at unifying sue site attempts.

>> if there is an unsuccessful attempt. i would love to have you back on the show to talk about the really important issue.

>> my thanks to daniel brian for the project. a.l. press, author of beautiful souls, saying no, a really fantastic book you should check out. thank you all for getting up.