UE General President Carl Rosen joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast yesterday to talk about UE’s Green Locomotive Project, the right to strike, and how young workers are driving a surge in organizing.
“The American working people have realized that there is a fundamental problem about the way our economy is organized,” Rosen told host Ed “Flash” Ferenc.
He also praised the role young workers are playing in the current worker upsurge. “Young people not only are ready to organize, they are organizing,” he said. “They’re leading it themselves, which is what we need. You know, the modern labor movement was largely organized in the 1930s, in the big CIO upsurge, and that was almost entirely self-organized.”
Rosen explained how the Green Locomotive Project, an organizing effort to force the Class 1 railroads to upgrade their locomotive stock to modern, cleaner and more efficient models would create good, union jobs while addressing the threat of climate change and cleaning up pollution in working-class communities.
Commenting on the federal government’s imposition of a contract on rail workers at the end of last year, he said that the right to strike “is a right that needs to be protected above all else because it’s where we have the most economic leverage.”
Listen using the player below, or search for “America’s Work Force Union” on your favorite podcast app. Rosen’s interview begins at approximately 16:20.