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With the current labor movements at Amazon, Starbucks and other major employers in the news, Nell McShane Wulfhart is on the podcast this week to discuss her new book on a vivid moment in labor history, “The Great Stewardess Rebellion: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution.” at 30,000 feet.” That revolution was launched in the face of working conditions that included contracts with heavy demands on every corner of a woman’s life.
“The age restrictions and the marriage restrictions and the pregnancy restrictions — that was a big no-no, of course — they’ve been part of the contracts for many years, I think as long as flight attendants worked,” Wulfhart says. “These restrictions were clearly designed to keep the workforce as young, as lean and flexible as possible, because if you only work for a few years, you’re not as invested in getting better benefits or establishing a retirement plan or fighting for your rights.”
James Kirchick visits the podcast to discuss his new book “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.” The sweeping story, from the days of the New Deal to Bill Clinton’s presidency, centers on the toll of homophobia in the nation’s capital.
“It’s incalculable,” Kirchick says. “The government resources spent on this, the hundreds of thousands of man-hours spent exterminating, discovering and firing patriotic officials. The deep sources of knowledge this country was denied on the basis of fear of gays. We don’t know those numbers. And then of course there’s the impact it had on individual gays.”
Also in this week’s episode, Lauren Christensen and Gregory Cowles talk about what they’ve read. John Williams is the landlord.
Here are the books discussed in this week’s “What We Read”:
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