On this week’s Labor Exchange we talk to Boulder Public Library workers Michael Serrano and Rachel Garfield-Levine. Workers at the library have formed a union and are seeking recognition and a contract.

On this bonus episode of the KGNU Labor Exchange we talk to Adrian Rogers, President of AFSCME Local 1733 in Memphis Tennessee.

The local famously gained union recognition in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike which was the for civil rights and union rights for Memphis City Workers. It was during his support for this strike that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr gave his final speech titled I’ve Been to the Mountaintop and was assassinated soon after.

With a special new years message, we listen back to our episode with artist Austin Sauerbrei about his book Trouble! At Coal Creek.

We talk with Kate Biester, a high school social studies teacher and Sheridan Education Association President. The Sheridan School District has refused to honor the educators collective bargaining agreement and educators in the small school district south of Denver are fighting for recognition and a fair contract.

We talk to filmmakers Jen Bradwell and Todd Boekelheide, winner of an Academy Award, on their film Make a Circle about the challenges around early childhood education and solutions that help families and early childhood educators. Watch it on Rocky Mountain PBS using PBS Passport.

We talk about worker solidarity at Casa Bonita, a theme restaurant in Colorado, as workers join together to demand a fair contract. Contract negotiations are ongoing following a strike over the Halloween holiday weekend. We talk to Michelle Mendenhall (IATSE). She started at Casa Bonita behind the bar and is now on the entertainment crew. Riley Holmes (Actors Equity) plays Black Bart and the Sheriff as part of the "dry crew" of entertainers.

NYC 1970. Construction workers and anti-Vietnam War student protestors violently clash in what became known as the Hard Hat Riot. Marc Levin's new film on American Experience digs deep into this tumultuous history with archival footage and interviews with people on the ground in 1970. Listen to his interview with Labor Exchange Host Robert Lindgren.

With a poverty rate above the state average and a higher median wage, Boulder is at a crossroads around the minimum wage and affordability. We catch up with Alejandra Beatty, President of the Boulder Area Labor Federation about an effort to lower the rate of the minimum wage in Boulder County and wider fights around what tipped workers should be paid.