Labor Day is over, but let's keep the focus on the lives of working women and men. This week, the hidden side of work.
First, we head out to sea, where economic pressures are leading to revolutionary ideas.
Julie Eaton is the captain of the Cat Sass. She spends 6 months of the year on the water, and she'll tell you she has the best job in the world. But despite record hauls last summer, she and other boat owners are struggling to make ends meet. The lobster glut forced the price to below $2 a pound.
And for the first time in their history, lobstermen are now looking to get organized and form a union. Catherine Louli reports.
An equally independent minded group of workers are American farmers. They were the original small business people – raising food for themselves and selling or bartering the surplus. . Factory farms have gobbled up many family farms. But there are also starry eyed newcomers who dream of their own organic, self-sufficient farm. Producers Madalyn Warren and Ellen Wong ofWIOXset up a van in upstate New York, and invited farmers to come in and tell their stories.
Up next, a job where fear is part of the daily routine...and a California town that traded an oil boom for prison cells.
Avenal, California is a town that was born with an oil boom. But the boom went bust, as booms often do. Avenal struggled to find a new economy and identity. They embraced an industry most other communities didn't want...but it hasn't turned out the way the town expected.
That story comes to us courtesy of afterthegoldrushradio.com
Finally, public health nurse Amy Gastelum shares her thoughts on fear and its cost – working in a Brooklyn neighborhood where safety can't ever be taken for granted.
That’s our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance. Our theme music is by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock.