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The Rick Smith Show 9-10-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_06]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of the working class, Rick Smith.
0:14
[SPEAKER_06]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:20
[SPEAKER_06]: That's so much for being here.
0:22
[SPEAKER_06]: Today on the big program, lots of get too lots to talk about.
0:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, our dear leader, going after Labor Day, you know, those radicals, those leftists, those union people, those people want to destroy America or his America.
0:42
[SPEAKER_06]: And look, you know, Labor has never been more popular than it is right now, and we see the approval ratings, public approval ratings right now for organized labor sits somewhere
0:56
[SPEAKER_06]: The sad reality is the actual Union memberships around 10% of the country, 6% in the private sector.
1:04
[SPEAKER_06]: And there's a reason for that.
1:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Now the right would tell you that, you know, if people just don't want to join unions, like Jeff Bezos is Washington Post, who's headline-screened Americans approve of unions, they just don't want to join them.
1:19
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's the popular refrain on the anti-union side of things.
1:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, but people just don't want them.
1:26
[SPEAKER_06]: They love, man, they're okay.
1:29
[SPEAKER_06]: But we're better than that.
1:30
[SPEAKER_06]: And I love that's my argument.
1:31
[SPEAKER_06]: It's the argument I love the most.
1:33
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we don't need him anymore.
1:34
[SPEAKER_06]: That was something for the past.
1:35
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, when inequality was bad, when workplaces were unsafe, you know, when workers were disposable, you know, back then,
1:46
[SPEAKER_06]: And you sit and you stop and you think about where we are in this moment, it's not shocking that workers are looking for something in the labor movement is that place.
1:56
[SPEAKER_06]: And understand that the labor perspective, from my perspective, the fact that we only have about 10% of union density in this country is not an accident.
2:10
[SPEAKER_06]: This was a concerted effort by corporate America, and by policymakers to not address the abuses that they have, that our corporate law overlords have, have heaped upon us.
2:21
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not that people are rejecting unions.
2:24
[SPEAKER_06]: It's structural obstruction standing between desire and reality.
2:29
[SPEAKER_06]: And as someone who's done a little bit, not an awful lot of organizing, I've worked on campaigns over the years.
2:40
[SPEAKER_06]: haven't talked to and you know, better round organizers who that's their existence, there are some common threads in all of this and one of the big ones is the fear that corporate America has put into working peoples into their heart and their soul, the fear of retaliation, the fear of you're going to get fired because understand, you know, in in this country, it's not really a crime to fire people.
3:07
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, you know, we got a president who his tagline was, you're fired, no, no, no, just cause no due process, none of that, just you're fired, and that says a lot about us.
3:20
[SPEAKER_06]: That says a lot about us as a working class that we're willing to have a guy be our leader who takes great glee and joy at firing people.
3:31
[SPEAKER_06]: And understand employers are charged with violating federal labor law in over 40% of all union election campaigns.
3:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
3:40
[SPEAKER_06]: And in fear of retaliation, even where it's illegal.
3:44
[SPEAKER_06]: Two thirds of US professionals believe their employer would interfere if they tried to organize.
3:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Only nine what 10% nine 10% believe that they wouldn't.
3:57
[SPEAKER_06]: So just in our minds, we're already, hey, we're going to get fired.
4:02
[SPEAKER_06]: They're going to retaliate against us.
4:04
[SPEAKER_06]: And understand, they're very, very little penalties.
4:07
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't lock anybody up.
4:09
[SPEAKER_06]: And the back pay game is ridiculous, because understand, if you got fired and then got another job making, let's say the same amount of money, there's no loss.
4:19
[SPEAKER_06]: So the employer doesn't have to pay anything.
4:22
[SPEAKER_06]: And also, you know, firing you to send a chilling effect across the bargaining unit saves them tons of money because what we know is unions demand higher wages better health care better retirement security job security you good on the list.
4:41
[SPEAKER_06]: And they got this way because well, they're able to to abuse their employees.
4:53
[SPEAKER_06]: designed entirely to coerce, surveil, harass and intimidate workers who may even be thinking about it.
5:02
[SPEAKER_06]: And then you could on the list of the legal things we do.
5:05
[SPEAKER_06]: I was just reading a minute ago that Trump has stacked the NLRBs administrative law judges with five more anti-worker folks.
5:15
[SPEAKER_06]: uh... you've got right to work laws in this country that have blood union resources and all by the way bend the pendulum that's swung onto the side of corporate america and i come back to this moment of we all know what the problems are inequality has never been greater
5:40
[SPEAKER_06]: It's getting harder and harder to put food on the table.
5:43
[SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, when asked, would you join a union?
5:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'd really like to have one of those union jobs.
5:47
[SPEAKER_06]: I have yet to meet a person face to face.
5:50
[SPEAKER_06]: I get a lot of online trolls who I think are bots, because understand, we just passed a pretty interesting milestone that more than half of online traffic and this blew my mind.
6:03
[SPEAKER_06]: More than half of online traffic is non-human.
6:09
[SPEAKER_06]: Think about that.
6:10
[SPEAKER_06]: So when you're reading through those comments, more than half of them are basically troll bots set out to well deliver the message, which is, unions are bad.
6:23
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't need them anymore.
6:24
[SPEAKER_06]: We're so much kinder and nicer and better.
6:30
[SPEAKER_06]: And the thing is is,
6:32
[SPEAKER_06]: you get these big complexes, these industrial parks, where they wall organizers off, it's hard for unions to get in and talk to those people.
6:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Employers have access to them 24-7, whenever they want.
6:46
[SPEAKER_06]: And you would think that nobody would ever join a union when companies know that the reason most people demand some type of representation,
6:59
[SPEAKER_06]: is because of respect, because of treatment.
7:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Not so much wages, which surprises me, but respect.
7:08
[SPEAKER_06]: The fact that you can't put food on your table for your kids and your family, the ultimate disrespect.
7:13
[SPEAKER_06]: Want to hear your thoughts?
7:14
[SPEAKER_06]: We're at therixmithshow.com right back.
7:21
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
7:25
[SPEAKER_06]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1919.
7:28
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the day that the Boston police went out on strike.
7:32
[SPEAKER_06]: The police in Boston had not had a raise for over six years.
7:36
[SPEAKER_06]: They worked long shifts, sometimes even more than 80 hours a week.
7:41
[SPEAKER_06]: The police force was predominantly Irish.
7:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Many had served as U.S. soldiers in World War I.
7:46
[SPEAKER_06]: fed up with their working conditions, the police formed a union and joined the American Federation of Labor.
7:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Boston's police commissioner, Edwin U. Curtis, refused to recognize the police union and fired 19 police officers for their organizing efforts.
8:02
[SPEAKER_06]: In response, the new union voted overwhelmingly to support a walkout.
8:07
[SPEAKER_06]: More than 1100 police officers voted to strike with only two, voting no.
8:12
[SPEAKER_06]: Across the country, newspapers made dire predictions about the collapse of law and order in Boston.
8:18
[SPEAKER_06]: While there was an upsurge in crime due to the lack of police on the streets, the press wildly exaggerated what was happening in the city.
8:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Newspapers ran stories about gangs running wild with rioters and communists attacking women fueling red scare fears.
8:35
[SPEAKER_06]: The entire labor movement came under attack.
8:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge declared, quote, there is no right to strike against public safety by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
8:47
[SPEAKER_06]: This hard line against the striking police helped propel him to the national stage and eventually to the Oval Office.
8:54
[SPEAKER_06]: The striking policemen were fired and replaced with unemployed World War I veterans.
8:59
[SPEAKER_06]: In response to the National Outcry over the strike, the American Federation of Labor revolted the charter for other police unions.
9:07
[SPEAKER_06]: The Boston Police Strike is the subject of the page-turner the given day by author Dennis Lehan.
9:13
[SPEAKER_06]: A fictionized account of the events surrounding the strike, the novel follows the experiences of one Irish policeman during this tumultuous time.
9:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
9:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
9:34
[SPEAKER_06]: Kim Groshen is your drink piece over at the Guardian, written by our good friend Stephen Greenhouse.
9:39
[SPEAKER_06]: The most anti-union president how Trump turned his back on U.S. workers was the headline.
9:46
[SPEAKER_06]: And the underside of it, the other line, the second tagline, is Labor experts stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been
10:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, and that's why I've asked Stephen Greenhouse to come share some thoughts and maybe talk about just how bad Donald Trump has been and if maybe he's shocked by how bad he's been Steven Thanks for looking time for us
10:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Good to be hearing.
10:15
[SPEAKER_06]: So let's talk about this.
10:16
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, the reality is, I think he's been exactly what I thought he would be.
10:20
[SPEAKER_06]: I actually thought his labor secretary would be even more functional than the drunken one he had, and would be doing much more damage, so I'm grateful for the ineptitude, but I'm surprised that someone thinks, oh my, we didn't see this coming.
10:36
[SPEAKER_05]: So Trump's a complicated man.
10:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And he said, I'm going to fight for forgotten Americans.
10:46
[SPEAKER_05]: The White House keeps saying, every action he takes has the good of American workers of average Americans in mind.
10:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And he keeps done a few little things to help workers, the no-tips, the lower taxes on overtime.
11:02
[SPEAKER_05]: But I was going to be in one later expert who said,
11:05
[SPEAKER_05]: She was stunned that on his very first day back in office, he erased the minor ways that federal contractors must play employees from 1775 an hour, down to 13 period an hour.
11:17
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a big decrease, you know.
11:20
[SPEAKER_05]: 40 or 12 an hour, and as a result, a lot of people lost 9,000 full-tempo because 9,000 dollars in pay.
11:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And she was stunned that even for someone whom she didn't trust, then he would still kick the workers in the cajonas and such a painful way.
11:38
[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, I did love Trump.
11:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't vote for him, but he's turned out much worse than I expected.
11:45
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, what did you know, so another thing people had kind of been like, how is it possible Steven?
11:50
[SPEAKER_05]: How is it possible?
11:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I think I'm a naive, I'm a naive, babe, and the word I'm not naive.
11:54
[SPEAKER_06]: I live through the last, the first term, but what do you see even worse now?
11:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I know.
11:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
11:59
[SPEAKER_05]: So this term, you know, you're 3 million.
12:03
[SPEAKER_05]: people in our states who work as home care workers, taking care of the elderly and the disabled at home.
12:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And he's Trump is erasing the minimum wage protections and overtime protections for these workers who are among the lowest wage workers in the country to start.
12:17
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's like happening anyone pretend, you know, presumed to say he's pro-worked or always has workers in mind when he does such
12:27
[SPEAKER_05]: He really stabs him in the back as, you know, as several people as I interviewed said.
12:32
[SPEAKER_06]: But Steve, you've been doing this a long time.
12:34
[SPEAKER_06]: I know during the first campaign, you were interviewing the same people that I was who were saying, look, you know, as a contractor, as him building buildings, he stiffed us at every turn.
12:44
[SPEAKER_06]: He stiffed every working person, he could get a get away with.
12:47
[SPEAKER_06]: And I know in New York you have to build with unions and with union labor because it's New York.
12:52
[SPEAKER_06]: And I know he said he did, but we've got him on tape going, he's all in favor of right
12:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I, yeah, come, come on, oh, so, you know, Trump, you know, is very good at fooling people, better than probably better than anyone in American history.
13:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And he, and anyway, he, you know, the fact is, and as my story explained, he's extremely anti-union, he's extremely anti-worker.
13:27
[SPEAKER_05]: only says half of it because he's incredibly empty worker across the board.
13:31
[SPEAKER_05]: He wants to weaken unions.
13:33
[SPEAKER_05]: He wants to weaken the voice of workers.
13:35
[SPEAKER_05]: He's, you know, he's sought to weaken protections for workers.
13:38
[SPEAKER_05]: He sought to weaken the voice of workers because he's so gone home and helped in corporations and he doesn't want those damn little people and those damn nuisance of unions getting in the way of his corporate friends.
13:50
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no, no.
13:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And, and, and,
13:52
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, he may believe is a friend of units.
13:55
[SPEAKER_05]: So I keep those favors for the team's disunion.
13:57
[SPEAKER_05]: He just ended federal oversight of the team's disunion, which, you know, Shona Brian Bradley wanted.
14:04
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, some work rather could say was time to end.
14:07
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, he's, you know, so one of the insane things Rick that many, that perhaps some of your listeners don't know about.
14:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So unions were among the leading in Minnesota, you know, when Trump sent in a gazillion ice agents
14:23
[SPEAKER_05]: intimidate harass, scare, bully, you know, men of sotans, labor unions really help lead the way in pushing back against dyes and, you know, protecting their neighbors.
14:35
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, immigrants who live in a neighborhood, hard working immigrants who just want to, you know, work hard and make a decent living and support their family.
14:43
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, among those who, that protest against
14:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Trump's prosecutors in Minnesota seized obtained the financial records of some of the leaving most respected unions in the nation.
15:02
[SPEAKER_05]: The service employees' international union and my union and the communication workers of America, the newspaper guilds union to because they suspected of engaging in domestic terrorism because they had the audacity to stand up to Trump and stand up to ICE.
15:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And not only that Rick, you know, the AFL CIO, you know, this middle of the road, you know, a very substeady respected organization representing of a 15 million workers and retirees, you know, prosecutors told the grand jury that the AFL CIO might have been part of a conspiracy to promote domestic terrorism against ICE.
15:48
[SPEAKER_05]: of unions and, you know, in these investigative actions, he's prosecutorial actions in Minnesota.
15:53
[SPEAKER_05]: He's showing how much he dislikes unions, distrust unions and, you know,
16:00
[SPEAKER_05]: wants to weaken them.
16:01
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but here's the thing.
16:03
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is what I said from the beginning.
16:05
[SPEAKER_06]: Look, unions are the only counter-bounds to corporate greed and the only way we're going to hold the wealthy in corporate America and any bit of check.
16:13
[SPEAKER_06]: So any power that is a challenge to what they want or to Trump's government is God of is the enemy.
16:21
[SPEAKER_06]: And we've heard Trump say for years that he gets even with his enemies, that he crushes his enemies.
16:28
[SPEAKER_06]: So I guess I'm just sitting
16:30
[SPEAKER_06]: It's Wednesday.
16:33
[SPEAKER_06]: It's exactly what I expected him to do.
16:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
16:39
[SPEAKER_05]: So another thing we should discuss very quickly, Rick, is, you know, the Gallup organization, the Gallup poll does a survey every year to ask Americans, do you approve of labor units?
16:50
[SPEAKER_05]: So a few days before Labor Day, there was this big news release by Gallup saying, 71% of Americans approve of unions.
16:58
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the highest number since 1959.
17:01
[SPEAKER_05]: 67 years ago, it's a long time ago.
17:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And it shows that people are set up with corporate dominance, they're set up with, you know, the billionaires controlling everything, they're set up with Republican to Democrats and Congress not doing enough to help them, they're set up with, you know, feeling that they're falling behind because wages aren't going up enough while inflation is outpacing wages.
17:24
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, you know, and as you say, Rick, who but unions, you know, what other, no other institution except unions fights every day to raise the pay to raise living standards to have a Jamaican.
17:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that's a big reason that many Americans approve of unions.
17:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And for this, only the second time in the past 25 years, a majority of Republicans say they approve of unions, 52% of Republicans approve of unions.
17:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm throwing out so many numbers, and there was another one, another.
17:52
[SPEAKER_05]: fascinating number in this gap survey.
17:56
[SPEAKER_05]: 47% of Americans say they think unions should have more influence.
18:01
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think it shows they've despairing that the parties, that the Congress, that the president, isn't doing enough to fight for average Americans.
18:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think who fights for average Americans, labor unions?
18:12
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, but what do you say to the Jeff basis, his newspaper headline?
18:15
[SPEAKER_06]: That said, Americans approve of unions.
18:18
[SPEAKER_06]: They just don't want to join them.
18:21
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, that's wrong.
18:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, again, they're these surveys studies by folks at MIT and elsewhere showing that basically 40% to 50% of workers say that they would vote to join a union today if they could, but only 10% of American workers are a union.
18:38
[SPEAKER_05]: And so certainly, look at that, is that if workers got their way, you know, half of the net, you know, half of the net, half of the net, half of the nation's workers, 70 million workers would be a union.
18:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And the reason workers are not joining unions is that corporations like Amazon and Starbucks and Trader Joe is fight extremely hard to prevent their workers reunionizing.
19:05
[SPEAKER_05]: And even though a lot of workers want unions, but they're scared to stick their net cap to support one, because they're where they get fired, they're where they're businesses and they say, oh, our business will close, if you're unionized.
19:16
[SPEAKER_05]: So workers really want to union because they see unions
19:21
[SPEAKER_05]: lift themselves up and lift the co-workers up, but they're often scared and they're often pummeled by corporate folks saying, you need a bad for you that, you know, this and that.
19:32
[SPEAKER_06]: No, your point of the people are afraid that the retaliation will come is very real.
19:37
[SPEAKER_06]: I know corporate America does a great job of scaring them, you know, what out of people.
19:41
[SPEAKER_06]: But I look at the Trump administration right now and this, your article should be mandatory reading for every worker in this country.
19:47
[SPEAKER_06]: because what this administration has done in this short period of time in this second term should be the greatest recruiting tool for unions to go out and say, hey look, he's been going after those federal workers.
19:59
[SPEAKER_06]: Everyone of you federal workers should now be joining the defend what you've got.
20:03
[SPEAKER_06]: He's gone after, you know, as you point it out, the contractor minimum wage, every one of you contractors, and every one of you workers should be fighting for this.
20:11
[SPEAKER_06]: You think about the overtime protection rollback.
20:13
[SPEAKER_06]: You think about the fact that we're making workplaces less safe.
20:17
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, you're allowing independent contractors to do the...
20:21
[SPEAKER_06]: It seems the heat protection rule so much.
20:24
[SPEAKER_06]: It seems like this should be a great opportunity to go, this is what you're fighting against.
20:30
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the poster child of why you should be joining units.
20:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
20:35
[SPEAKER_05]: This is true, but Fox News is not reporting all that.
20:38
[SPEAKER_05]: The Washington Post is, you know, Washington Post has a great labor reporter Lauren Garley, but, you know, the op-ed page, that's for a page that's very conservative, quite empty union.
20:49
[SPEAKER_05]: And the word is hard for the word to get out there that unions are the institution that will help.
20:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean,
20:58
[SPEAKER_05]: It's getting, we're getting a sum up because setting a percent of people approve of unions, but it's hard to organize unions because employers are so vehement against them.
21:10
[SPEAKER_06]: No, so why we need major comprehensive labor law reform.
21:12
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, the fact is, and I've organized places where someone got fired and it was, there was a chilling effect across the whole, whole bargaining unit and the penalties that the employer paid for firing somebody were not existed.
21:25
[SPEAKER_06]: they didn't have to pay any penalties because the guy got a job doing something else making a little bit more money so there was no penalty, there's no penalty Steven to breaking the law.
21:34
[SPEAKER_06]: We talked about wage theft the other day.
21:36
[SPEAKER_06]: Nobody seems to go to jail for a wage theft.
21:38
[SPEAKER_06]: This is as a union guy as someone who's been a union in my whole life, never been a victim of wage theft because my union fights for that.
21:45
[SPEAKER_06]: This is this guy's the poster child.
21:49
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, the nation's laboralizing discussed the previous times.
21:53
[SPEAKER_05]: The nation's laboralizing is very weak.
21:55
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's illegal to fire a worker for supporting a union.
21:59
[SPEAKER_05]: It's done all the time.
22:01
[SPEAKER_05]: The companies can't be fine for that.
22:03
[SPEAKER_05]: So like, why not fire someone for supporting a union?
22:06
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you're not going to be punished.
22:07
[SPEAKER_05]: You're not going to be fine.
22:09
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's like open season to fire people.
22:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, the laboral rule will, you know, that the proposals and Congress to make it easy.
22:19
[SPEAKER_05]: companies, you know, $50,000 for a legally firing a pro union worker, $100,000 if you do it a second time.
22:25
[SPEAKER_05]: That might begin to make a difference.
22:28
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, it's long as you need 60 votes in the Senate, it's going to be very hard to ever enact legislation that makes it easy to unionize because there's so many red states.
22:40
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, here's the thing, you were I break the law.
22:43
[SPEAKER_06]: There was a shiny set of bracelets for us.
22:46
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, corporate America breaks law.
22:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, promise you won't do it again.
22:50
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep.
22:53
[SPEAKER_06]: And tell you do.
22:54
[SPEAKER_06]: So the list of things that you've gone through in your article of all of the attacks that Trump has done in this second term, one of the top three, one of the worst three things that you think he's done.
23:05
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I want people to understand that it affects their lives.
23:09
[SPEAKER_05]: So again, he ran to someone who may believe he was a
23:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Early on he wanted to deny he stripped a million federal workers of their ability to bargain collectively, and he wanted to basically, you know, end their their unions.
23:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, our interviewed Lissula, the president of the FSO and and we talked about how it was terrible Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controls in 1981 because they worked on a legal strike.
23:38
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, let's do a set of, you know, it's by far the most anti-union action that any president ever took four Donald Trump to strip a million workers of their ability to bargain.
23:49
[SPEAKER_05]: That's one in 14 union members of the nation.
23:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Trump says, you know, screw you.
23:53
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't want you to have a union.
23:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I usually don't really take away that power from you.
23:56
[SPEAKER_05]: That's that's one.
23:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Another thing that gets me because, again, Trump ran both in 2016 and 2020 again, 2024 that he's a great friend of coal miners.
24:08
[SPEAKER_05]: And maybe these aren't the most important actions, but he cut back ocean inspections, he cut back mining inspections, he cut back stricter mining rules.
24:16
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is a important rule that Biden was pushing the silica.
24:20
[SPEAKER_05]: So silica rule, silica dust is causing serious black, black lung problems now in coal mines, many people are drowning from it.
24:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And Biden wanted to get serious on that.
24:33
[SPEAKER_05]: And Trump is basically delayed delayed delay kicker can of down the road kicker can't down the road on the silver roll and he's, you know, many minors feels against stepped in the back by Trump, you know, he may believe he's going to be their best friend.
24:49
[SPEAKER_05]: The third thing.
24:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you know, taking you, you know, taking away.
24:57
[SPEAKER_05]: taking away minimum wage and overtime protections from home care workers.
25:02
[SPEAKER_05]: They are arguably the most exploited workers in the country.
25:08
[SPEAKER_05]: And to take away those very basic protections from these women, off a women of color, it's just like inexcusable, unconscionable.
25:16
[SPEAKER_06]: No, look, I'm now in the role of a caregiver from my wife.
25:20
[SPEAKER_06]: And I deal with a lot of people who are in this world and aren't as fortunate as I am, and they are struggling.
25:27
[SPEAKER_06]: And this, this is, well, I think it's just another kick to people who are already down.
25:32
[SPEAKER_06]: And I look at the video that he put out with the Canadian Prime Minister, while he's beaten him with a stick while he's on his hands and knees.
25:39
[SPEAKER_06]: To me, that's, that's who Trump is.
25:41
[SPEAKER_06]: So none of this stuff is surprising.
25:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Let me ask you about that real quick.
25:46
[SPEAKER_06]: What reaction did you have to seeing Trump in the USA, hockey uniform, you know, beating somebody on his hands and knees?
25:54
[SPEAKER_05]: It's disgraceful.
25:55
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just, it's just, it's just, you know, you and I are well over 60, I think.
26:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm well over 60, maybe you are not over any.
26:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, yeah, we can have a long time, you know, I was born one, you know, Dwight D. Eisenhower was present at, you know, very respectable guy, a great general,
26:16
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't expect the president to act so to the base, the presidency, to act so
26:23
[SPEAKER_05]: So infant, you know, like an infant and then the way he treats people and the rights people makes fun of people.
26:29
[SPEAKER_05]: He's so cruel to people.
26:30
[SPEAKER_05]: He insults people.
26:31
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just no, you know, person, no friend of if a friend of mine did that I'd say, you suck.
26:37
[SPEAKER_05]: We're in a longer friends.
26:38
[SPEAKER_05]: We're like to see the president of the United States doing this is such a disgrace and Canada was our closest ally for years and years and Trump is treating like dunk like dirt like.
26:49
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, how dare you talk back to me, Mr. Curney, you should be by Vassal and for talking back to me, I'm gonna stop on your head and make fun of you all the time and threaten to cut off all trade and it's, it's ridiculous.
27:02
[SPEAKER_06]: No, look, I saw the video and I go, you know, this is the suit Trump is.
27:05
[SPEAKER_06]: As a kid, you know, I fought all the time as a kid.
27:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Group and I housing project in the West Side of Cleveland, we fought every day.
27:12
[SPEAKER_06]: But you never kick someone when they were down.
27:14
[SPEAKER_06]: You never hit somebody when they were on the ground.
27:17
[SPEAKER_06]: When they were defenseless.
27:18
[SPEAKER_06]: And I saw that and I'm going, yeah, this is what I expect.
27:21
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no surprise for me here.
27:23
[SPEAKER_06]: But I guess we'll see, come November, how the country is going to weigh in on this.
27:28
[SPEAKER_06]: But Stephen, I appreciate the time.
27:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Great work.
27:31
[SPEAKER_06]: I look forward to talking to you again real soon.
27:33
[SPEAKER_06]: OK.
27:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Our good friends, Steve and Greenhouse, one of your thoughts.
27:40
[SPEAKER_06]: What do you think is the worst thing Trump is done for working people?
27:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Is it the inflation?
27:44
[SPEAKER_06]: Because of his war?
27:46
[SPEAKER_06]: Is it all of the list of things Steven pointed out?
27:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Rick at theworksmithshow.com.
27:49
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to hear it back after this.
28:00
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1929.
28:07
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the day a mistrial was declared in the case of 16 textile mill unionists in North Carolina.
28:14
[SPEAKER_06]: The mistrial sparked five days of anti-union vigilante violence.
28:19
[SPEAKER_06]: textile mill workers at Gastonia's Lowery Mill had been on strike since April 1st.
28:24
[SPEAKER_06]: They demanded higher wages and shorter work hours, union recognition, and an end to the hated stretch-out system.
28:31
[SPEAKER_06]: Soon, textile workers at Bessamer City's American Mill walked off the job in solidarity and joined the National Textal Workers Union.
28:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Elamay Wiggins was one of the strike leaders at American Mill.
28:43
[SPEAKER_06]: She was known for her militancy, but also for organizing black workers into the union.
28:48
[SPEAKER_06]: As the strike war on, mill owners evicted dozens of families from company housing.
28:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Wiggins helped set up a tent city.
28:56
[SPEAKER_06]: On June 7, sheriff's deputies attacked strikers who marched to Laurie Mill to call out remaining workers.
29:02
[SPEAKER_06]: The police arrived at the tent colony later that evening to disarm them.
29:06
[SPEAKER_06]: And Gastonia's police chief, wound up dead.
29:09
[SPEAKER_06]: Immediately, more than 70 textile union members and leaders were rounded up and arrested.
29:15
[SPEAKER_06]: 16 stood trial for the murder of Chief Atterhold.
29:19
[SPEAKER_06]: The anti-union committee of 100 smashed up the N.T.W.U headquarters in Gastonia and Bessomer City.
29:26
[SPEAKER_06]: They kidnapped, beat, and threatened to kill several union members.
29:30
[SPEAKER_06]: The rampage continued as scab forces moved on to Charlotte to raid the offices of the international labor defense, who had handled the striker's case.
29:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Five days into the terror, Wiggins was killed on her way to a union solidarity rally.
29:44
[SPEAKER_06]: outrage over her murder forced mill owners to improve conditions and wages, but the fight to organize would continue for years.
29:53
[SPEAKER_06]: For more information, go to laborhistoryn2.com, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at laborhistoryn2.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: under siege by secretive data center powers intent on seizing our land, water, electric grid, and even our local democracy?
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That is when you're grateful to have a president who stand with you fighting for the people's rights.
30:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's hope we can get one of those soon.
30:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we're now stuck with a holy corporatized Puscellanumus president who is waving the flag
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: worse, America's self-proclaimed Supreme Leader is publicly mocking the gutsy local groups of all political stripes who are daring to oppose the global technocratic order being devised by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and a handful of other billionaire profiteers.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: The president of our People's Republic recently belittled the millions of grassroots democracy rebels who opposed the Robert Baron's Brave New World.
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: He pompously sneered that the only reason they don't want data centers is called, they want to end up being backwards and poor.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, keen inside Mr. President, he even proposes an AI monarchy.
31:15
[SPEAKER_00]: If your communities want to be successful in rich, he says, let data reign.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Rain?
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, a US president has actually declared that artificial intelligence should rule over us, meaning that Musk bases us and other royal billionaires who own AI will rule.
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heiter saying, Trump and company warn that if you democracy rebels quote Kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But perhaps he doesn't realize that the Golden Goose is a fable.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: A self-loader-tory myth.
31:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Golden eggs are not laid by a goose, but by humanity.
31:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Communities working together and investing in the common good.
32:13
[SPEAKER_06]: the folks over at the revolving door project they are a watchdog group focused on political corruption and there's a lot of work to be done.
32:22
[SPEAKER_06]: They've issued a statement from their executive director Jeff Houser criticizing Senate Democrats.
32:28
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, over, um, you're family ties to controversial industries, uh, the release argues that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's daughter, Jessica, taking a job at Open AI, I don't know, not maybe doesn't look great, uh, reportedly to help the company secure taxpayer funding kind of undermines Democrats' ability to run the anti-corruption message against Trump ahead of the midterms.
32:54
[SPEAKER_06]: uh... it also flags the the ds cc's chair cursing gilder brands twenty-two-year-old son the door uh... getting thirty thirty million dollar investment for a crypto uh... adjacent i don't know what that means but a crypto adjacent finance venture
33:10
[SPEAKER_06]: Just days after graduating from college and here to share some thoughts on well all of this and maybe maybe why I've asked my good friend Jeff How's there to come share some thoughts Jeff is the executive director of the revolving door project check out the website the revolving door project dot com Jeff thanks for the good time for us my pleasure
33:30
[SPEAKER_06]: So I saw this, and my mind goes to this place of course.
33:36
[SPEAKER_06]: Why of course Democrats would do the dumbest thing in the moment of really having a great opportunity to say, we're better than them.
33:46
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, thoughts?
33:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, it's,
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: a little sad I mean we've never ever ever seen corruption like that of Donald Trump and his family.
33:58
[SPEAKER_04]: His fell sons are increasingly mega rich because they are getting into business opportunities because of who their father is.
34:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean no one's hiring Eric Trump for his brains or Donald Trump Jr. for his judgment.
34:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They are getting added to boards and making crypto billions because
34:21
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a way to bribe their father.
34:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We all know this.
34:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So you would think that an opposition party would say, okay, but one thing we gotta make sure is,
34:31
[SPEAKER_04]: our kids are beyond reproach, like we are not going to do anything like this.
34:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We are going to hold off for a few years because we keep telling everyone that our democracy is at stake.
34:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And that what we need to do is destroy maga, bury it.
34:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And the way we're going to do that is we're going to be a real choice, a real difference from the Republican Party.
34:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And obviously the Democrats
34:55
[SPEAKER_04]: going corrupt in anything like the way the Trump family is.
34:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
35:00
[SPEAKER_04]: What we've seen with leader Schumer and Senator Joe Brand is a willingness to do stuff that it's pretty bad.
35:07
[SPEAKER_04]: It's nowhere near as bad as the Trump family, but it's not defensible.
35:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just started to see why they can't be a little bit less greedy and just stay clean so they can focus on an anti-corruption message.
35:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I think when you resonate with angry voters.
35:22
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so is it greedier as it's stupid?
35:24
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I look at it and I'm going really, any other industries, any other thing you could get into.
35:30
[SPEAKER_06]: Not this, not in this moment with all the anger that's going on.
35:34
[SPEAKER_06]: And you call this a generational realignment moment for Democrats on AI.
35:39
[SPEAKER_06]: What specifically would it look like for some Democrats to actually run on an anti-AI subsidy party kind of message?
35:48
[SPEAKER_06]: And who inside the caucus is currently, you know, doing any of that or blocking it?
35:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think right now, voters have all sorts of concerns about AI.
35:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the data center issue has been dominating the discourse this summer, and with good reason people are very worried about electricity prices.
36:07
[SPEAKER_03]: they are worried about taxpayer subsidies for corporations.
36:12
[SPEAKER_03]: They are worried about non-disclosure agreements which are the norm in the data center construction and build that.
36:19
[SPEAKER_03]: But they're also worried about the post-moting that we have in AI bubble.
36:22
[SPEAKER_03]: They're worried about the potential impact on workers of AI.
36:25
[SPEAKER_03]: They're worried about privacy and flock.
36:28
[SPEAKER_03]: They're worried about AI safety, they're worried about cyber security.
36:31
[SPEAKER_03]: They have a lot of worries and they think that the AI industry is taking over this country and no one voted on this, like no one voted to put our country in service of the AI industry.
36:43
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's what Mark Andrews said in Elon Musk and the rest of the big tech oligarchs wants and it's happening.
36:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And so they want a party to stand
36:53
[SPEAKER_04]: a thwart history and say, let's stop, pause, and think about what's going on.
36:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And Senator Bernie Sanders has done a great job of urging a moratorium.
37:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And wherever you come out on data centers specifically, I think there's a good reason to think that we need to slow things down and figure out what's going on.
37:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, AI industry says that they need regulation, why are we moving ahead so fast into we have a chance to legislate?
37:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but again, it just shows how broken our system isn't this moment.
37:25
[SPEAKER_06]: Because look, I'm, I,
37:27
[SPEAKER_06]: I look at the data center issue is the horse is out of the bar at this point the best I think you'd be done because look the permits are done they're breaking ground they're doing all this stuff.
37:36
[SPEAKER_06]: The best I think we can do is make sure that there are strong community benefit agreements, strong project labor agreements, strong investments in infrastructure so maybe they're neutral on electricity and water and maybe even like Alaska does.
37:53
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, paying a dividend back the communities and they sent a couple of days ago.
37:58
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to see the kind of flipping of the script on communities, you know, playing that beggar thy neighbor economic development and giving away the baby in the bath water to get these things in.
38:08
[SPEAKER_06]: I want them to say, okay, we want to be in your community and we're going to pay for the privilege of being there by making your community better.
38:15
[SPEAKER_06]: Because we're in this moment where there's
38:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, there's only leverage, though, if we have government able to exercise that leverage and what the hyperscalers have done is they've gone to communities across the country, oftentimes where the local government is made up of part time people.
38:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And they are writing deals that are insane.
38:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They are getting tax credits.
38:43
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not giving dividends back, but they are instead getting subsidized to do these deals.
38:49
[SPEAKER_04]: They are non-disclosure agreements, so we don't even know exactly how favorable these deals are to the private sector and how much of a better deal the community should have driven.
38:59
[SPEAKER_04]: But we just don't have the expertise in local government to stand up to meta, to stand up to Amazon, to stand up to the big hyper-scaling companies, Google.
39:09
[SPEAKER_04]: These companies are too big and our local governments are too small.
39:12
[SPEAKER_04]: These are not serious negotiations by people with the same level of skill and resources on both sides.
39:20
[SPEAKER_06]: You are absolutely spot on there.
39:22
[SPEAKER_06]: Look, I live in a very small community.
39:24
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a 700 acre campus of data centers plants, like 1314 buildings.
39:31
[SPEAKER_06]: And you know, the concern is, and it's like the current concern is real with me as well, which is why I think, look, they already steam rolled the local government as you've pointed out, but I think you've got at the state level at the federal level, you've got to step in and make these a lot more beneficial to communities.
39:47
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, they're going to give like $14 million here to the local community to help build parks and stuff.
39:53
[SPEAKER_06]: That is a drop in the bucket.
39:54
[SPEAKER_06]: It should be much more than that.
39:56
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is where my mindset is because they're already breaking ground.
39:59
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I don't know you stop it, but you will say, I guess.
40:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, I often think about the Memphis metropolitan area where Elon Musk has been building these massive X-A-I, Grok machines.
40:16
[SPEAKER_04]: These huge data centers with massive natural gas plants that he's building a new.
40:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And these are areas that had
40:24
[SPEAKER_04]: incredible amounts of environmental racism and just huge cancer death rates already before they built these new natural gas plants and they're situating them in black communities for obvious historical political reasons on because the off musk is you know who he is and the community the communities did not have any say in this matter and so
40:51
[SPEAKER_04]: They broke the law in doing this in the West Memphis area and there are lawsuits being brought in the Trump administration is intervening on Elon Musk behalf and saying that individuals should not have the right to sue under the clean air.
41:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So like yes, can you say stop?
41:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, these plants are at least in some cases kind of illegal under the law.
41:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's possible we can stop some at least we could with different courts and a different administration.
41:17
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, you bring up Jessica Seumer, the summer going to say, look, you know, Jeff, she's been she's been working in tech for years, she's been there, she's made her way up the ranks, she knows the business, this is just a merit per motion.
41:30
[SPEAKER_06]: What makes this particular a open AI role different or more disqualifying than then past positions she's had in your view?
41:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I mean, we are concerned about her job helping Amazon in New York State, which is what she was doing before.
41:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you might recall that New York State's not a random state when your father is Chuck Schumer.
41:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the state he is represented in the Senate for nearly 30 years.
41:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So,
41:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's very hard to disentangle merit, I mean, as far as I understand about Jessica Schumer she's very different than a Trump kid in that, you know, she only went to schools, but she like learned stuff there and had good academic credentials.
42:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, she also was like the deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff at the National Economic Council at a very, very young age and probably being the daughter of a
42:20
[SPEAKER_04]: reading, you know, the Senate majority leader did not hurt that extent, but it's not really about whether she's a smart person, which by all accounts, she very much is, again, this is not a barren Trump situation here.
42:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So,
42:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's saying she isn't qualified to be a serious person, it's there are lots of jobs in tech that are not doing lobbying or lobbying like activities.
42:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Like she's not technically a paid lobbyist, but her job is by all colloquial understanding of the term lobbying.
42:52
[SPEAKER_04]: She's the lobbyist.
42:53
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, it quacks like a duck.
42:55
[SPEAKER_04]: It walks like a duck.
42:56
[SPEAKER_04]: It just doesn't have to legally register as a duck.
42:58
[SPEAKER_06]: So here's what my concern is when I read the story, my mind goes, I know my red hat friends are going to go they're they're both the same they all suck and this kind of false equivalency that Look what this Trump administration is doing is unprecedented in the level of corruption and and priming that's going on.
43:15
[SPEAKER_06]: And every time one of these stories comes up, it's like, oh, you'll hunder Biden got away with stuff.
43:20
[SPEAKER_06]: So we should let the billions and trillions that are possibly going out the back door to trump in his orbit.
43:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Just go, ma'am, they're all the same.
43:29
[SPEAKER_06]: That's kind of my concern.
43:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's definitely not equivalent and we were very clear in our press release and hopefully clear right now that I'm not saying the justice human situation is the same I mean the amount of money that she's making from this is surely got some zero's less than the cryptosums and
43:50
[SPEAKER_04]: drone sums and other business interests, uh, warjests that the Trump kids are enjoying, you know, who their father is.
43:58
[SPEAKER_04]: She's making last money and she is better qualified for her job.
44:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Those things are all true.
44:02
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you're trying to run on anti-corruption, you do get held to a higher standard, because they don't think Donald Trump is telling people, look, I'm going to be clean, I'm going to be pure.
44:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I really believe in ethics.
44:14
[SPEAKER_04]: No one thinks that about him.
44:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Democrats are trying to be different, and you get held to someone higher standard, just like, you know, is somebody in shape?
44:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Is a different question if they're a random, you know, my case 52-year-old person, or if they're a professional athlete, we hope people to different standards.
44:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're trying to be held to the standard of the clean political party, we need to be a little bit cleaner than
44:38
[SPEAKER_04]: A standard of just we're not as bad as the Trump band that is not going to cut it.
44:42
[SPEAKER_06]: We're less bad That's not a political campaign.
44:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Hey, good for us.
44:46
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not inspiring one.
44:47
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah But yeah, I want to go back to the data center AI issue because I think a lot of and we had talked about this before before the interview That there are two separate issues, but they kind of intertwined and I don't know that we're having the right conversations about them
45:02
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, I know there's this big push and I know we're going to be fighting wars, you know, cyber wars over this stuff so I have some issues, you know, with with where we're heading as a globe let alone here at home, what do you think the main main points we should be focusing on that maybe we're not.
45:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think that there are a lot of issues, and it's going to be difficult for our broken politics to deal with them quickly and effectively, and so I'm hoping we can start that process, but that's kind of why I want to see a pause.
45:33
[SPEAKER_04]: But AI safety means a lot of different things.
45:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Some are ideas that are considered pretty duomer, and I'm
45:40
[SPEAKER_04]: a little bit skeptical of them, not certain, and that's just the idea that AI is going to literally act like Terminator movies.
45:48
[SPEAKER_04]: That is not my primary concern, but AI safety can mean making it really easy for hackers to
45:56
[SPEAKER_04]: break into and just destabilize society.
46:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're already seeing that altogether too much.
46:02
[SPEAKER_04]: People seek out crypto and they do ransomware.
46:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And that means they take over the IT systems of a hospital and say if you want your IT to work, you got to pay us out some Bitcoin.
46:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And AI is turbocharging hacking at an incredible rate.
46:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We're actually seeing Iran do some of this against the U.S.
46:25
[SPEAKER_04]: uh, their response to our, um, attack on Ron.
46:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think we're going to see a lot more of that type of cyber safety concern we've seen the hugging face incident, uh, like a nice really good at hacking, but we're also going to see things like the chat bots that urge or at least tell kids how to commit suicide.
46:46
[SPEAKER_04]: These things are all really dangerous.
46:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think rather than saying what is the,
46:50
[SPEAKER_04]: dangerous aspect of AI, we should say, wow, we really need to put a lot of serious resources into figuring out how to regulate AI, and we should not just accept the Albert's vision what AI is.
47:02
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I got it.
47:02
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll be honest with you.
47:03
[SPEAKER_06]: I look at Elon Musk and I needed to have him to have the kind of power that I think this is potentially able to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to have him singularly be able to have that kind of kind of kind of power, not a, let alone Sam Altman and the rest of them.
47:18
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't care who it is, even me, I wouldn't want to have that kind of awesome power.
47:22
[SPEAKER_06]: And nobody should, and this is why regulation is so important, but yet we're in an era where we've got a demonstration, held bent on deregulating everything, and half of the population is going, no, we don't need no speaking regulations, you let the free market work.
47:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, if the free market works the way it's been working to this point, we're in for some really dark times, I think.
47:47
[SPEAKER_04]: regulations and need to be written.
47:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not like we just need to pass a few really obvious laws.
47:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, because the line between what is artificial intelligence versus machine-wording versus algorithms, these lines, there are definitions don't get me wrong, but they're not definitions that would prevent all loop holes.
48:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've had machine-wording and algorithms making important
48:14
[SPEAKER_04]: you know decades now at this point.
48:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's a complicated set of issues and our politics and our government right now are not really well-suited both our elected leaders, but even we don't have the right data scientists in government to really look out for the public interest enough.
48:29
[SPEAKER_06]: Excellent point.
48:30
[SPEAKER_06]: I guess my last question is, when do we become lullite?
48:33
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, when do we start smashing the machines?
48:35
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I'll tell you, I've pulled back from social media.
48:39
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't do much, I don't do much online anymore.
48:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Because every time I turn around, if I say something, there's 15 ads for whatever it is I just said.
48:48
[SPEAKER_06]: The fact that they are so involved in my day-to-day activities is kind of frightening.
48:52
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think I'm hoping people are aware.
48:55
[SPEAKER_06]: And if it's what we want as a country, okay, fine.
48:58
[SPEAKER_06]: But I think we should at least make that decision with our eyes open and not at the the whim of of some billionaire slash trillionaire.
49:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, there's the concept of opt-in versus opt-out and you know, that's just simply should someone be able to add you to an email list or text less on your own or should you have to say, yeah, I want to get this we should be able to opt-in or opt-out of AI and that is extremely difficult right now and we all can become the victims of people misusing AI.
49:29
[SPEAKER_04]: regardless of whether or not we've opted in or even tried very hard to opt out.
49:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, we need our small data democracy to be functioning.
49:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So that society can create rules that make sure that the technology serves us in the long run.
49:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Because that's actually what the what I think we're looking to do.
49:46
[SPEAKER_04]: The what I think we're not anti-technology writ large.
49:49
[SPEAKER_04]: They were against technology that was only used for the
49:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Robberbearance of the 19th century England who were genuinely robberbearance hate so I mean We should admire the one eight we should read about their actual history and we should emulate them There you got Jeff I appreciate the time.
50:06
[SPEAKER_06]: I hope folks will check out your work over at the revolving probably revolving door project dot com Jeff I was your thanks so much my pleasure What are your thoughts?
50:15
[SPEAKER_06]: Where are you on the data center issue?
50:17
[SPEAKER_06]: Where are you on AI?
50:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, I want to have the debate, since Congress won't do it, maybe we should start thinking about it.
50:24
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to hear your thoughts.
50:25
[SPEAKER_06]: Rick at TheRicksmithshow.com.
50:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Right back.
50:37
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
50:41
[SPEAKER_06]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1924.
50:45
[SPEAKER_06]: 16 striking Filipino sugar workers on the Hawaiian island of Kauai were killed by police.
50:51
[SPEAKER_06]: This incident is known as the Hanna Pippi Massacre.
50:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Filipinos began immigrating to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations around 1906.
50:58
[SPEAKER_06]: By 1924, there were nearly 50,000 Filipino workers.
51:03
[SPEAKER_06]: In 1919, Pablo Manlippet organized the Filipino Labor Union and started recruiting Filipino workers from the Hawaiian Sugar Plantations.
51:12
[SPEAKER_06]: The Hawaiian Territorial Legislature passed an anti-picketing law in 1923.
51:17
[SPEAKER_06]: Picators could receive up to 10 years in prison.
51:20
[SPEAKER_06]: In 1924, Manlippet led an eight-month strike of plantation workers on Kuwait.
51:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Workers demanded $2 a day in wages and in eight-hour workday.
51:30
[SPEAKER_06]: The plantation owners brought in scab labor.
51:32
[SPEAKER_06]: They also used armed forces and spies to crush the strike.
51:36
[SPEAKER_06]: Plantation owners turned workers out of their homes.
51:38
[SPEAKER_06]: And on this day, the police armed with clubs and guns came to the Union's headquarters.
51:43
[SPEAKER_06]: They claimed to be looking for two scab laborers they thought were being held prisoner by the Union.
51:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Filipino strikers were armed only with homemade weapons and knives and a few guns.
51:53
[SPEAKER_06]: The Associated Press wrote 20 persons dead on numbered injured lying in hospital.
51:58
[SPEAKER_06]: Officers under orders to shoot strikers as they approach.
52:02
[SPEAKER_06]: 16 of the dead were strikers and four were police.
52:06
[SPEAKER_06]: After the massacre, police arrested 101 male protesters.
52:10
[SPEAKER_06]: 60 received four-year jail sentences.
52:12
[SPEAKER_06]: Manlipit was sentenced to 10 years, others claimed he had been framed, and that witnesses had been promised $10,000 to lie during the trial.
52:21
[SPEAKER_06]: He was then parrolled on the condition that he'd leave Hawaii.
52:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Three months after the massacre, the strike disintegrated.
52:28
[SPEAKER_06]: In 2006, the mayor of Hanna Pippi and Filipino community leaders dedicated a concrete marker honoring the 16 Filipinos who died during the massacre.
52:40
[SPEAKER_06]: you're listening to the rigs medshow we're working people come to talk so yeah again you just go explain to me Chuck what do you think and democratic leadership what are you thinking the outrage around data centers is real luck I run into people all the time who you know they're they're angry
53:11
[SPEAKER_06]: I understand they're going to get built.
53:13
[SPEAKER_06]: It is the future.
53:14
[SPEAKER_06]: I haven't become a lot.
53:15
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
53:15
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think we can smash the machines.
53:17
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think we can stop it entirely.
53:19
[SPEAKER_06]: But I do think there are things we should be fighting for.
53:21
[SPEAKER_06]: And as I've said a number of times, I've chosen to not stand outside yelling at the windows that are closed, but being in the room and making demands that I think we can get.
53:32
[SPEAKER_06]: I think transparency and operations is a huge part of it.
53:35
[SPEAKER_06]: a clear information about what data centers do their operations, their energy consumption, environmental impacts.
53:42
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's interesting to me that, you know, I've had these conversations with some of my Republican friends who have spent years, years destroying the ability to hold environmental impacts that he's for instance, or have some bit of regulation.
53:58
[SPEAKER_06]: Now going, what can't the government do anything?
54:01
[SPEAKER_06]: And you go, well, because you've spent the last, I don't know,
54:04
[SPEAKER_06]: tearing away at the regulatory state to our now we've handed corporate America all of these all this power to do whatever they want whenever they want and you were the guys you told me that the free market would decide now um do i think we're gonna stop it now i don't think it's gonna stop i think there's it is the future
54:25
[SPEAKER_06]: I do think we should be demanding job creation.
54:28
[SPEAKER_06]: Those jobs should have local hiring requirements.
54:31
[SPEAKER_06]: There should be a done with union labor that paid good wages, have benefits, have career paths, have project labor agreements in that.
54:39
[SPEAKER_06]: So we've got everybody on board.
54:41
[SPEAKER_06]: So you don't get these data centers, bring it in fly by night contractors, throw in garbage up and then leaving.
54:48
[SPEAKER_06]: And then of course, the environmental impact protections that have to be there.
54:52
[SPEAKER_06]: minimize water use, minimize energy consumption, you know, carbon emissions, noise pollution.
54:58
[SPEAKER_06]: All of this stuff has got to be on the table, which nobody, at least in my neck, of the woods, nobody has been talking about.
55:07
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a chance here, an opportunity and look, I good on the people who are out there marching in the streets and out there, trying to stop this stuff.
55:18
[SPEAKER_06]: But there's a moment here where we can maybe, as I've said before, flip the script on how corporate America has been screwing over communities for decades.
55:26
[SPEAKER_06]: You want to build these things, you're going to have to make life better for us.
55:32
[SPEAKER_06]: And they're going to have to be some major high-guard rails.
55:36
[SPEAKER_06]: And not just in my neighborhood, because it's interesting that the people that I run into are opposed to it fall into two kind of camps.
55:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, there's the one to go, I don't care, just don't put him in my backyard.
55:48
[SPEAKER_06]: And then the other who are scared to death of what AI is going to bring, and I got to argue right, rightly so a little bit because we are so far behind in holding this stuff to any bit of a count.
56:02
[SPEAKER_06]: And the idea of having some bit of community engagement, I think it's something we should be fighting for.
56:08
[SPEAKER_06]: But for my perspective,
56:10
[SPEAKER_06]: The reason that I'm on board with it is I think the reality is we do need to invest in our infrastructure.
56:16
[SPEAKER_06]: We do do invest in in roads and utilities and bridges and grids and waterways and you name it because we've been talking about it for a lot.
56:26
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, the first truck term was all about infrastructure week.
56:29
[SPEAKER_06]: Never did anything.
56:31
[SPEAKER_06]: Never did anything.
56:33
[SPEAKER_06]: But talked a lot of talk.
56:38
[SPEAKER_06]: This is maybe an opportunity to use what the billionaires want, what their fantasy is, what their fetish is at the moment.
56:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe to use that to get some of the things we need because we sure as shine can't.
56:52
[SPEAKER_06]: We can't tax them, which we should be doing at an enormous rate in this moment.
57:00
[SPEAKER_06]: But these data centers should provide a tax base, a revenue, not a negative.
57:07
[SPEAKER_06]: for communities.
57:08
[SPEAKER_06]: If communities are going to entertain these, if they're going to host them, and they're going to put up with some of the problems, I kind of got to think it's got to make things better.
57:19
[SPEAKER_06]: And again, I go back to that full transparency thing.
57:23
[SPEAKER_06]: You don't get the throw up a data center wall and off with 20 foot high fences, and nobody knows what's going on behind the gate.
57:30
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is where government, again, I believe has gotten so far behind.
57:36
[SPEAKER_06]: Because again, we've got a whole and entire political party and part of the other who said, well, we can't have job killing regulations.
57:45
[SPEAKER_06]: And I come back to my Republican friends, you did this.
57:50
[SPEAKER_06]: This is your baby.
57:52
[SPEAKER_06]: We're living the Reagan dream of the invisible hand.
57:55
[SPEAKER_06]: Why you know what the invisible hand's giving you?
57:58
[SPEAKER_06]: You know?
58:02
[SPEAKER_06]: So for me, there's an opportunity.
58:05
[SPEAKER_06]: to create good jobs, to possibly restrain the enormous growth that the billionaire class, the race to the bottom, if you will, that they're fantasizing about, and actually maybe start to have a conversation politically.
58:23
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe this is gonna be the November issue, but sadly we're behind way behind.
58:33
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, there have been those of us who have been talking about this for about a decade now saying, hey, we need to start, start figuring out what we're going to do with these technology booms, how are we going to use them to benefit us, not just a handful, how are we going to use this to make communities better, not just some far off billionaire, how are we going to use this in a way that helps our children and doesn't make them worse off?
58:58
[SPEAKER_06]: I think there's a chance, but we have to find our way to getting past the rhetoric.
59:05
[SPEAKER_06]: And anything a billionaire says at this moment should be us going, I think we'll go the other way out, thank you very much.
59:12
[SPEAKER_06]: That's my grandfather, always said, if a rich guy's going to take a buck out of his pocket that you don't need something, you better spend two to get it because they understand return on investment.
59:21
[SPEAKER_06]: If they're spending time in energy and effort, trying to convince you you need something,
59:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Kind of got to wonder.
59:28
[SPEAKER_06]: But I want to hear your thoughts, email me, Rick at theRixMithsio.com.
59:32
[SPEAKER_06]: Miss any portion of the program?
59:34
[SPEAKER_06]: Check out the website, theRixMithsio.com.
59:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Thanks so much for being here.
59:38
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people, come to talk.