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The Rick Smith Show 7-16-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:16
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the Rick Smith Show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Today on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Got a number of emails from folks going to the economy's rigged.
0:26
[SPEAKER_03]: It's broken.
0:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick, it's it's broken.
0:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I go, no, it's rigged.
0:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's working perfectly.
0:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are two numbers that could make your blood boil if we had a functional education system.
0:39
[SPEAKER_03]: because on paper, we look like the richest countries in the world, one of the richest countries on earth, average wealth per adult in this country, almost $700,000.
0:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Second in the world.
0:54
[SPEAKER_03]: That figure they brag about in Davos and on the CNBC, America is doing great.
1:01
[SPEAKER_03]: But dig one inch deeper, and you hit the real story in our country.
1:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Media and wealth in this country, you know, that's what the typical adult has.
1:10
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you and I probably have got around 69 grand.
1:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And that puts us all the way down from second wealth to 28th in what people ask, you have.
1:22
[SPEAKER_03]: So congratulations, we're world class at making wealth.
1:26
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just mediocre at letting ordinary people have any of it.
1:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And what that gap really tells us is simple.
1:34
[SPEAKER_03]: A tiny group of people have an awful lot of money that they're hoarding at the top.
1:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And the vast majority of us are scraping by with a used car of modest 401k and whatever home equity we can borrow against to put braces on the kid.
1:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't get second in the world average with 28 in the world median.
1:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Unless you have an insanely distorted system.
2:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And here's where I, as a labor guy, get loud.
2:04
[SPEAKER_03]: This isn't by accident.
2:06
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a policy choice.
2:07
[SPEAKER_03]: We did this on purpose.
2:09
[SPEAKER_03]: We passed tax codes that treat wealth better than wages.
2:12
[SPEAKER_03]: We voted for politicians who decide stockback, buys, buybacks are more important than pensions.
2:19
[SPEAKER_03]: they carried interest deserves a break while overtime gets squeezed that billionaire dynasties should pay less on their unearned fortunes than you pay in your pay check.
2:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we act shocked when the numbers show that
2:32
[SPEAKER_03]: the pie is huge.
2:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Put your slice of it.
2:36
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a little bitty.
2:38
[SPEAKER_03]: If the average American is worth $696,000 in the typical American has 69, then the problem is not that working people don't work hard enough.
2:48
[SPEAKER_03]: The problem is that the system is extracting almost everything you create.
2:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And park that asset in giant bubbles offshore accounts in oak corporate balance sheets.
2:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So what should we be doing?
3:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Stop tinkering around the edges.
3:02
[SPEAKER_03]: We should be talking about how to seriously raise taxes on the insanely wealthy and how to redistribute that wealth.
3:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I don't know actually make it trickle down to the people who produce it.
3:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Unions.
3:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Unions have to be the one of the main vehicles for redistributing that wealth.
3:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you can raise taxes at the top, but unless workers have the organized power to be able to demand more from the bosses to squeeze those better wages and benefits out, we're going to remain where we are.
3:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, Unions turn please into we're bargaining.
3:52
[SPEAKER_03]: and converting profits into pay raises, health care, pensions, safer workplaces.
3:58
[SPEAKER_03]: They democratize the workplace in the same way that progressive taxes are supposed to democratize the economy.
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to move us from second in the world on paper to actually having wealth for all of us?
4:09
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the way forward.
4:12
[SPEAKER_03]: We built a nation where the numbers are rich and the people are poor.
4:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time to flip that script.
4:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
4:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me ricketerrixmythshow.com, quick break, right back after this.
4:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
4:37
[SPEAKER_03]: This day in labor history, the year was 1931.
4:41
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that Ralph Gray was attacked for trying to organize black farmers.
4:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Gray was born to a large African-American family in Alabama.
4:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Living in the Jim Crow South, he became a tenant farmer.
4:54
[SPEAKER_03]: He joined the Communist Party.
4:56
[SPEAKER_03]: At the time, communist labor organizers were often more open to black membership and leadership than were other white dominated labor organizations.
5:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Along with his brother Tommy, Ralph helped to found the croppers and farm workers union in Talapuza County, Alabama.
5:13
[SPEAKER_03]: They set to work organizing black sharecroppers.
5:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Then, several of the local landlords stopped providing food and money to their workers.
5:22
[SPEAKER_03]: They did this in an effort to force the black workers to labor on building a new saw mill.
5:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Angry sharecroppers joined the new union in protest.
5:32
[SPEAKER_03]: The union demanded more autonomy for the tenant farmers.
5:35
[SPEAKER_03]: They also demanded a longer school day and a public school bus for their children.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Alarmed by this organizing, the sheriff, Kyle Young, led a posse to break up a union meeting.
5:47
[SPEAKER_03]: They beat and terrorized the union members.
5:50
[SPEAKER_03]: The vigilantes then went to Tommy Gray's house, where they fractured his wife's skull.
5:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Ralph Gray chased them off with a shotgun, but the next night on July 16th, the union met again.
6:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Gray and others arm themselves to protect the meeting.
6:05
[SPEAKER_03]: gotten fire was exchanged.
6:07
[SPEAKER_03]: The sheriff shot Ralph Gray while he lay on the ground already wounded.
6:11
[SPEAKER_03]: The mob of vigilantes then burned Gray's house to the ground.
6:15
[SPEAKER_03]: They placed Gray's mutilated corpse on the courthouse steps as a warning to any others who dare to stand up for the rights of black workers.
6:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history and two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
6:30
[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintube.com.
6:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
6:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
6:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So last week I got an email from a couple of building trends guys in New York City.
6:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, a big supporter of the building trades, big supporter of their apprenticeship program, big supporter of the safety on the job that they promote, a big supporter of the work that they do to ensure, you know, work safe workplaces, and also the idea of protecting the contractor from themselves.
7:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So I got a email from folks going, hey, there's a building about ready to collapse in New York City.
7:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You might want to come down to 42nd Street and witness the, not such a great miracle.
7:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, fortunately, the building didn't collapse, but when you see some of the pictures of the work that was being done and you see some of the stuff that makes you go, yeah, I don't think you need to be that bright to figure out there's a problem.
7:35
[SPEAKER_03]: made me go, why?
7:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And we find out a non-union contractor hired by a non-union development developer, hiring non-union workers, sounds to me, sounds to me like a recipe for disaster.
7:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why I've asked, tap, sorry, I'll have to come share some thoughts with us.
7:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Tap is a organizer with Launa, the Laborers International Union of North America.
7:58
[SPEAKER_03]: He was on the ground, one of the folks,
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: put a lot out on social media.
8:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Highlighting the fact that maybe this is a bad idea to have non-union developers, non-union contractors, non-union workers, you know, maybe possibly bringing down a high rise in New York City.
8:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Tough.
8:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for taking time for us.
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me, Rick.
8:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So walk me through.
8:19
[SPEAKER_03]: What did I see?
8:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I look, I'm not a building trades guy, but I can tell when a pillar's crumbling.
8:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I can tell when something's at a 45 degree angle that should be
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so this is this site 235 East 42nd Street.
8:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one building that's undergoing a office to residential conversion, and it used to be the old Pfizer headquarters.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's being turned into residences now.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something that's happening around the city.
8:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a housing crisis in New York City, one of the priorities of pretty much everyone in the official world of politics and everything.
8:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to get out more housing production.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So office residential conversions are kind of booming and Metro law, the developer is one of the biggest developers in that market.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we do need more housing as a city, but unfortunately, Metro law is an anti-unit developer.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So they've been having shady companies doing work with them, like Northeast services, which was a subcontractor they were using for demolition.
9:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what caught the attention of
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: local on the ground, local sub-9, where I was an organizer for the last six years, has been bringing the fight over there for the last three years and really rallying and talking to workers and raising awareness in the community about the issues and potential issues with that building.
9:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I was there myself for most of the last summer and with other organizers from our laborers east and region team from our district council at the Mason tenders and from local 79 and we were documenting these issues talking to the public and in one day last year and August I actually saw there was a piece of metal that flew off the top of the building landed across the street of 42nd Street right from the pixel
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: love and building and thank god it didn't hit anybody of people that we had for centuries that were there with our inflatable rat who witnessed it coming down and they said a miss somebody by inches.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, it's just insane.
10:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, so what's happening?
10:19
[SPEAKER_03]: What causes this tough?
10:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, the reality is it's just, you know, people who don't know what they're doing, you know, on skilled labor doing, you know,
10:26
[SPEAKER_03]: jobs that skilled people should be doing is this just a hurry up short cut scenario what what what what what caused this what what made this scenario possible
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think like what happened right after that, and that interaction kind of sheds light on that.
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You had the supers coming out trying to have some of their workers gathered the evidence and get out of the way before anybody could realize what had happened.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's emblematic of what's wrong with non-geny construction.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You're cutting corners, you're taking shortcuts, you're trying to save a buck, and you can't do that in an environment where people are working around dangerous conditions around equipment and taking a risk every single day,
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: you end up with things like that piece of metal flying off the ground and they're in a rush to cover it up and creating more problems for themselves.
11:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Luckily we saw it, the public saw it, so the city was able to send inspectors and the Department of Buildings to come in, slap them with a stop or a quarter which lasted for a couple of weeks and full stop or a quarter.
11:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't even seen one of those in New York for a while before that one, so that was kind of the seriousness of the incidents.
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And for the city to shut down a job site for two weeks,
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: housing the emergency where they're trying to encourage more production and cut red tape for a construction.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a serious message and we were raising the alarm about the things that could be happening, you know, based on talking to the workers and some of the steam fitters and other uniting trades or people that would we would run into while we were organizing it that site and these were brothers that, you know, they weren't shy about letting us know what was happening.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's most
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: floors nearly collapsing.
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not surprised to me that it was a union shop store who was in a apprenticeship graduate who used his training and know how from his apprenticeship training.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So look around see what was happening and then his instincts kicked in, he notified people, notified the chain of command of the job site and he ran down the floors, alerting people and evacuating the building, and
12:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Sean down his name is he says he's not a hero but he is he is absolutely a working class hero he's a hero in New York City he is the hero 40-second street and what trained that hero was a union apprenticeship program and you know what I found inspiring too is that Sean
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: one on the news and said that you have the construction workers we have to look out for each other.
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, you need or not.
12:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I kind of try to stay away from the language of scabs and you know calling names to the non-union workers.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: These are folks that we haven't organized yet into our unions.
12:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So I use the word scab when someone crosses my pick at log.
12:58
[SPEAKER_03]: That's that's when that word is used specifically for that.
13:02
[SPEAKER_03]: But I understand, look, you know, you got to work.
13:04
[SPEAKER_03]: That's part of it.
13:05
[SPEAKER_03]: But this this is one of those scenarios where you you talk about being trained as a as a steward.
13:10
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk about the apprenticeship program.
13:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I would go a step even further in saying that, you know, union workers are empowered to see sit when they see something to absolutely say something to where maybe and maybe you'll correct me if I'm wrong.
13:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe in a non-union workforce, you're not going to feel that empowerment because speaking up could mean you could be shown the door.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in the non-union world, the business model is predatory employers using exploitation, right?
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The go after workers that they know they can hold something over their head, whether it's immigrants who might be worried about their immigration status or, you know, folks that were formally incarcerated to have to have a job or else they risk their parole officer, maybe sending them back into incarceration.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if as the boss, you're able to hold these things over your worker's heads, then as the worker, you're going to look past whatever dangerous conditions are around and just desperately try to make ends meet because chances are they're looking paycheck to paycheck.
14:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't afford to go to the doctor because they don't have health insurance.
14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no light at the end of the tunnel figuring out what you're going to do with your life because you don't have a pension.
14:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So all these conditions are just creating safety hazards on the job.
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The workers are seeing things that are wrong and can't speak out about it.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is a job site where this year, before this has happened, a couple months ago, there were workers that were being injured and are filing lawsuits, and this is all documented.
14:31
[SPEAKER_01]: On this very job site, so there's all sorts of issues and these theme fitters, you know, they went on the media afterwards, and
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They talked about how a personly witnessed a corner is being cut, short cuts being taken, and it's just not the way to do business.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you couldn't maybe get away with that or in other industries, but in construction, when you're building, it's not the owner's life who's at risk.
14:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the owner's in board meetings or on a yacht or, you know, in a nice aircondition, it all fits somewhere, but it's the moment in women that wear the hard hats, that wear the vests that are getting their hands dirty, that are taking that risk every day.
15:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this is one of those moments where you go that empowerment angle that I talked about.
15:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's so very important because someone recognized it, someone said something.
15:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And the question that I then have is, how often does this happen where no one does speak up?
15:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I didn't find out about it until they not only evacuated the building that was affected that had the crumbling columns, but they started evacuating buildings on the right and the left.
15:34
[SPEAKER_03]: How often does that happen?
15:36
[SPEAKER_03]: You said to stop work order or something.
15:38
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't see often.
15:39
[SPEAKER_03]: How often do you evacuate a couple of buildings in New York because there's a potential collapse?
15:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I got to imagine if they did that, the stories that I'm reading aren't necessarily true that it was never in real any peril of collapsing.
15:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to imagine someone really thought, Uh-oh, this could come down.
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, the only time I've really heard of evacuations was I think there was a job or a crane was swinging around you to high winds a couple of years back so they had to evacuate the building next door.
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember some years back we were we had to count me in movement if we were thoughts in yards protesting and there was a job nearby was non union also about the same developer thoughts in yards and they I think they had a gas main so they had to evacuate a whole neighborhood.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: These aren't things that we're supposed to see.
16:30
[SPEAKER_01]: These aren't things that are no longer.
16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We should never allow them to be normalized.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you have owners like Nathan Burm in the owner of Metroloft.
16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He came out and said that these are just typical construction mishaps that people just fall out of windows and in buildings and that windows fall out.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's disgusting.
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait a minute.
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time that there's normal.
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on.
16:51
[SPEAKER_01]: People just fall out of buildings.
16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: people just follow out of buildings, you know?
16:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like walking to the store to get a coffee.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that normal for him.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not normal.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't allow this.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can't allow people to pretend that it's normal.
17:04
[SPEAKER_03]: So how does someone get these contracts to do this?
17:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they do just buy the building.
17:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're going to jump right in the middle of tearing it up.
17:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And the city gives them whatever permits they want.
17:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, doesn't some of this have to go into a permitting process that your record is something that has to be looked at before we go.
17:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, go ahead.
17:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Take on another big project.
17:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely like a lot of permitting processes and a lot of red tape and I know that like I don't all levels of government they're looking at how to do like common sense reforms on some of these regulations to speed up production and get construction out of the ground faster and I think you know in some instances that could make sense, but this is one of those instances that's going to have to make sure that's going to make it so that everyone that's looking at those.
17:48
[SPEAKER_01]: regulations and looking for what makes sense and doesn't have to take a serious look with workers safety and public safety and mine for this site in particular.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They actually receive in public subsidies.
17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a 35 year property tax statement on this site that they're getting because they're creating housing and adding some affordable housing in.
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know that
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's reasonable to ask did that have to do with the rush with the developer and the rush to take advantage of that tax break, did they overlook things.
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was some public reporting to them in the news about this company that does their inspections, I think for their engineering, DEMONI services ink.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got a shady checkered history and this is who they were using.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think we have to really look at what is happening when you've got developers like Mitchell off that are in such a rush to take advantage of public policy through tax breaks that they're bringing on shady subs like Dhamani and speeding along these projects.
18:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And the investigations are going to tell us why happened and we have to wait for those results, but I think, you know, greed is at the heart of this.
18:50
[SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome.
18:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, but so the question I come back to is we're going to be doing a lot of this stuff especially over the next several years because there is as you've said our crisis going on to where I keep hearing we haven't been building houses because of just all those job killing regulations.
19:07
[SPEAKER_03]: But the way I hear you, you know, lay this out and I hear that CEOs comment, my position of, you know, yeah, maybe you're going to say those regulations are killing people, but I say those regulations are saving people's lives, so maybe we should think about not throwing all of them out, maybe streamline some a little bit for people who can, who can shoulder the right burdens, but it sounds like this is a company that, well, it's all about the bottom line.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, where do we draw the line when it's all about the bottom line?
19:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, we've been allowing them to get away with building housing all over the city with not doing an exploited labor with no labor standards on these publicly subsidized affordable housing complexes that are going up.
19:47
[SPEAKER_01]: the first serious labor standard that's coming out for affordable housing is it's called a construction justice act and it's going to put a $40 wage floor on these projects so that companies actually have to stop and like seriously think about with their hiring because now you have to pay a dignified wage and have local hiring.
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We fought for that, local 79 for for that, the Mason Center's District Council for that.
20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: like you in the fall for that.
20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: That didn't exist because somebody outside of the working class came and said, let's do right by the workers.
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It exists because the workers we stood together and produced that results.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: the messengers that workers have to look out for each other and we have to, you know, whether you're union or not union, we have to, whether it's safety, whether it's labor standards, we have to really look out for each other.
20:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, you know, yesterday on the program we were talking about, you know, the power dynamic, and those who have power abusing it, I look at these CEOs who the pendulum has swung way onto their side of the aisle there and how they are abusing it and how we're just kind of,
20:50
[SPEAKER_03]: and it's only through collective action, it's only through us coming together and realizing that we've we've out procreated them, there are more of us and if we found each other maybe we could push back.
21:01
[SPEAKER_03]: So this story to me kind of fits in the line of all of that and empowered worker speaking up, other worker saying we're not going to tolerate this, pushing government into action.
21:11
[SPEAKER_03]: This seems like for me at least a good success.
21:16
[SPEAKER_03]: But how many of these don't we find out about how many of these corners get cut?
21:20
[SPEAKER_03]: How many of these contractors do you shady subs?
21:23
[SPEAKER_03]: How much of this stuff goes unreported to me?
21:27
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a real problem if we're going to start booming in this kind of construction world.
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it happens every day, right?
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It happens every day as workers are on the shadows, whether because of their formerly incarcerated status or immigration status, or whatever other factors are keeping workers in the shadows out of fear.
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They're living through dangerous conditions, living through accidents that go un-reported.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so common, unfortunately, that in the non-union world,
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got issues like if a worker gets hurt on the site, the boss will just call attacks you to come and take them to a clinic or something instead of calling an ambulance and following proper procedures, filing an accident or report, calling the Department of Buildings to come and doing inspection to make sure whatever hazards cause that aren't going to be repeated.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It all goes to power at the end of the day.
22:12
[SPEAKER_01]: When workers don't have power, the boss is already able to get away with and trample all over our rights and all over our existence.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And for workers
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: workers have to be organized, workers have to be unionized, and that's why the unions we really need to go out there and do a blitz, we need to be talking to all the non-union workers educating them about their rights, inviting them to unionize and join into our ranks so that they'll have a voice on the job and not have to put up with this and know that if they stand up to their voice then they have an ally in the brotherhood and the sisterhood of the building trades of Launa.
22:43
[SPEAKER_03]: No, this was my next question because as an organizer, this has got to be something that you point to to go, hey, without this, the steward, without this empowered worker who noticed this and said something about it, you could have been just still working in that collapse could have happened and you could have been in it.
23:01
[SPEAKER_03]: This, this to me, sounds like one of those things that you go, this, this is the example, right here, concrete example.
23:08
[SPEAKER_03]: concrete is the palm of of this is why you organize this is why you put that union card in your wallet outside of the wages hours conditions the benefits all of that stuff this the safety part of it.
23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it really, you know, the policy makers that are signing off on the subsidies that these developers are using and, you know, granting these permits and everything.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They really have to sit back and think like obviously understand like, you know, the city's got to worry about its finances, the state's got to worry about its money, governments.
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's their job to do that.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's what's the risk that we're putting when we're trying to save loss all the time.
23:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Look, Jeff, I say this all the time.
23:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You knew and workers saved companies from themselves.
23:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they saved them from cutting those corners from doing something that's going to get them in trouble or cost them more down the road.
23:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Every employer should want empowered workers or VCEO.
24:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Frontline supervisors I get because you want to be able to cut corners.
24:04
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to be able to abuse people in the moment.
24:07
[SPEAKER_03]: But the big picture, the shareholder class should be should be clamoring for you to organize their workforces.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's better for business, right?
24:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, if you have a unionized workforce, like, yeah, you're going to pay more in wages, but you're not going to have issues like this that could lead a whole project to the stance that'll, and then other than that, you're going to have a happier, more productive workforce.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think a report came out today from California that union projects actually are completed more on time and more on budget than non-union projects.
24:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that really is the case that we were like, you can point to wherever, but
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been working with Union workers and organizing non-union workers for almost a decade now, and I can definitely tell you without a shadow of a doubt that unionized workers are happier, safer, better trained, more productive, you know.
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's something as simple as because you're a union, you're able to take a paid vacation, you're able to take leave when you're sick, you're able to spend some time with your family, you're able to have hopes and dreams about what you're going to do in retirement.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to make you happier in your day-to-day and that's going to make you more productive.
25:12
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I make you.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: safer on the job site and we have to think about things like that.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not all about the bottom line.
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not all about those economics and if it is for people that think that way like, where do we draw the line?
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we going to go so cheap that we're going to bring back child labor?
25:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be putting kids on construction sites to save money.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, let's really take that logic to where the
25:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I've got some, I've got some Republican friends, I've got some Republican friends who are ready to put kids back in the, in the, in the, in the workforce, I mean, Newt Gingra, Dranon, putting kids back in the cleaning bathrooms in the schools to fire that union janitor.
25:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So don't give him any ideas.
25:46
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, in your neck of the woods, your backyard for me is the perfect example that when they rebuilt the tap in Z.
25:52
[SPEAKER_03]: done with a project labor agreement on time under budget, compare that to the other bridge on the other coast.
25:58
[SPEAKER_03]: That's still, it's probably never going to get done, and it was over budget, and there are parts of it still falling off.
26:05
[SPEAKER_03]: To me, it just, it seems very common sense.
26:08
[SPEAKER_03]: But for me, the safety part of it is the most important.
26:11
[SPEAKER_03]: But, Taf, I appreciate you sharing this story.
26:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Last bit, what's the message that you want people to take from this?
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: What's that?
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the takeaway?
26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: My message is directly to unions and union members and union leaders.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to unite, we need to stand at solidarity and we need to rebuild our power.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a time in this country where unions were so committed to organizing and so invested in building that momentum that we created the National Labor Relations Act that we got the New Deal and got tons of money poured into creating
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: need jobs, we built this country, we built all the infrastructure that created the super power status of our country, and it came from men and women who go to work every day, every day, men and women talking to each other, building those relationships, building those connections, so that from the union hole down to the shop floor, we were unshakable, we were united as one force.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing that's stopping us from getting back there, my union, my union, like UNL laborers, international union of North America, we have a program,
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: getting members involved in their union so that the whole is something that's an advocate part of their life to fight for and we do that through violence you're organizing through education, through strategic communications.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Every union should be looking at this model and empowering their members to stand up at fight.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The Hero 42nd Street, Sean Dow, that shop store.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We need thousands, tens of thousands of Sean Dows and there's nothing stopping us from getting to that.
27:33
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes sense.
27:34
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go, Taf, I appreciate the time.
27:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Good on you.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Keep up the good work and I hope you talk to you again real soon.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely brother.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Have going.
27:42
[SPEAKER_03]: You as well.
27:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts email me Rick at the ricksmith show dot com.
27:45
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think?
27:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been saying this for years.
27:49
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a concrete example of what I've been talking about.
27:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear it Rick at the ricksmith show dot com right back to the crowd.
28:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1959.
28:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day half a million steel workers walked off the job in a historic 116-day strike in defense of work rules.
28:16
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the largest industry-wide strike.
28:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It was also the last.
28:20
[SPEAKER_03]: The strike affected 12 steel companies and shut down more than 85 percent of steel production.
28:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Mill owners refused to grant wage increases unless the union agreed to changes in the contract.
28:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Specifically,
28:32
[SPEAKER_03]: They were looking to eliminate Section 2B titled Local Working Conditions.
28:37
[SPEAKER_03]: The boss is one of the ability to change the number of workers assigned to any given task.
28:43
[SPEAKER_03]: They also wanted to introduce new machinery and rules that would reduce labor hours and cut the workforce.
28:49
[SPEAKER_03]: United Steelworker members understood this as an assault on workplace safety and a move to break the union.
28:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Mill bosses hoped that a long strike would provoke the membership to abandon their union.
29:01
[SPEAKER_03]: But according to Jack Metzker, author of Striking Steel, members had grown used to walk out every three years and planned accordingly.
29:09
[SPEAKER_03]: As well, the United Steel Workers had a well-oiled machinery, including an internal welfare system for hardship cases, and also reached out to merchants, banks, charitable agencies, and local and state governments to organize relief.
29:23
[SPEAKER_03]: By the end of August, the Department of Defense stoked anxieties that national security was at risk.
29:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Three months into the strike, Union funds dwindled and strikers felt the pinch.
29:33
[SPEAKER_03]: President Eisenhower involved a tapped heartly injunction hoping to force strikers back to work.
29:39
[SPEAKER_03]: As the Union rose to challenge tapped heartly's constitutionality, solidarity among the mill owners crumbled.
29:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Kaiser Steele broke ranks and settled separately.
29:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Their contract granted wage increases and preserved Section 2B, which set the precedent for the contract that was eventually signed in history.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: What a show, huh?
30:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Big name corporations, when all out this July 4th, with a patriotic ad blitz, professing their devotion to America's democracy.
30:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But it amounted to a firecracker of hypocrisy.
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: For many of these showboat patriots have been back room funders of Trump regimes repression of our people's democratic rights.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, there's an internal level of cynical dishonesty in their flashy show of support for egalitarian values.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: In the past few years, a clique of the Silicon Valley and Wall Street Giants had been monkey-wrenching the rules of their own corporate governance to crush the very ideal of shareholder democracy.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, such a concept has existed, at least in theory.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: For decades, big business profiteers have been given special privileges.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the rest of us, claiming to be Democratic enterprises governed by masses of common shareholders who get one vote for each share of stock they own.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, that makes a corporation more of a plutocracy since the more stock you own the more votes you get.
31:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Today though, even plutocracy is too democratic for monarchy of billionaire bosses like Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So they've invented a superclass of shareholders, mostly themselves and their cronies.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: These elite owners get domineering voting power, exceeding all other investors combined.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Musk owns about 40% of the stock in SpaceX, but his self-created system gives him more than 80% of shareholder votes.
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Among other advantages, this skewed voting power makes Musk quote unfirable, unless he votes to fire himself.
31:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-To-R saying, but where a billionaire's professing any allegiance to America's Democratic values, in fact, just be where a billionaire's Caribbean.
32:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So you may remember it was widely reported that when Russell Vott
32:15
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... was chosen to lead the office of management and budget uh... mb uh... he famously said he wanted workers to either be gone uh... or be miserable
32:27
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, we want the bureaucrats to be dramatically affected when they wake up in the morning.
32:32
[SPEAKER_03]: We want them not to want to go to work because they're increasingly viewed as villains.
32:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got to tell you, the kind of boss that I would be just thrilled to wake up before and do the the most bang up job possible.
32:46
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'll be honest, he to his word, mission accomplished.
32:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Because as you know, Doge ended back on July 4th, it ended a long time before the theft I had already well before it happened, but hundreds of thousands of federal workers got screwed over, many tossed over board, and the fallout really honestly truthfully, quite brutal.
33:07
[SPEAKER_03]: there's now a survey of fit the fired federal workers across some 14 agencies that show they've been struggling, spent months job hunting, nearly one in five still unemployed, more of them, two or two thirds of them have been taking massive pay cuts and not doing not doing that great.
33:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And I guess not only the federal workers that are still there miserable, but he's gone even beyond and above and beyond.
33:36
[SPEAKER_03]: and made the people that they've fired miserable and here to share some thoughts on well the survey and where all this is taken us a best antarogers to come share some thoughts with us and as a contributor over at mother Jones magazine you could check out her latest story on this over at motherjones dot com Anna thanks for the time for us thanks for having me so um mission accomplished no i mean from from what you're talking about and the people you're talking about like you know he at least he was honest right
34:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I think it's also, you know, the extent to which, you know, workers were put in trauma, as he said, is I think something that even at the time when he was saying that even when he was coming into the office of personnel management, like, I don't think anyone had a sense of how expansive that trauma was going to be.
34:29
[SPEAKER_02]: have been fired and have not returned to the federal workforce as this new survey finally has data to show, but also some of those two who were fired and came back and are now on the edge of their seats every day and feeling those feelings of stress still even though essentially they got to come back.
34:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, look, I've worked in places where I've known my, my demise is going to be soon.
34:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Others, one company I worked for, that they, they'd gotten in the middle of a labor dispute, and they fired a bunch of people they shouldn't have, and they were forced to put them back, which meant my time was going to be temporary, and their treatment of me was even worse than that, and my, my interest in being there,
35:12
[SPEAKER_03]: wasn't the greatest so they probably didn't get an awful lot.
35:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is why I have a problem with with this kind of mentality and leadership in our federal workforce because those folks do work for us that we need to get done.
35:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't want to have to deal with someone who's getting beat up by the boss and by the by the customer and I don't want that for people.
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
35:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think when it comes to fellow workers, too, it's not just that they're doing work for us, but also they often, you know, are in these jobs because they really want to do that work.
35:42
[SPEAKER_02]: They're usually very specialized.
35:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, they could perhaps get some similar jobs in, you know, the private sector, but they've usually chosen to be in the federal workforce.
35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And often two, once people get into the federal workforce, they expect it to be there for the rest of their work in life.
36:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So, like, you know, I think something I heard from some of the workers I talked to was that, you know, this is not a normal job loss, like many job losses like archermatic, but I think something specific about this is both, you know, the sort of expectations that the work this workforce has, but also to the fact that they watch their work be destroyed and from what I heard of even people coming back, they don't trust that
36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: If they say yes, I'll take a contractor job, or even I'll come back as a full-time federal employee, that they'll actually get to do that work that they had wanted to do in the first place.
36:37
[SPEAKER_03]: No, and then look, that's Trump all the way down.
36:39
[SPEAKER_03]: The reality is you can't trust a word that it comes out of that guy or anyone that associated with him.
36:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't doubt that, but I've also heard this viewed in another light as well as not just being treated poorly and shown the door and fired and all that.
36:54
[SPEAKER_03]: but almost ostracized to the point where, you know, there's a thought out there that, uh, it's almost like a scarlet letter.
37:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You used to work for the government and they fired you.
37:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, nobody wants to talk to them after that.
37:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you get that sense from people?
37:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I get a sense that it's like hard out there after.
37:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if they feel like as I didn't see as much evidence that like it feels like the fact that they work for the federal government is hanging on their backs, but what does feel like is hanging on a lot of people is that they've got some shoved out of their jobs in waves.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's all these people looking for work at the same time who are similarly highly qualified, but also to you probably don't know how to navigate maybe the private sector workforce because they haven't been there.
37:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's already considered a hospital job market, but then you're throwing these people in all at once who
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: are not necessarily equipped to navigate it.
37:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So it becomes a a perfect storm for, you know, struggling with employment for months and months and months as we saw in the data that many people were.
37:59
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I had one person explaining to me that this way is that, you know, the goal was to vilify federal employees and they have, I got to be honest, Trump and company have done a really great job of vilifying our federal workforce and framing them as lazy and incompetent in all of these
38:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's where that was coming from.
38:17
[SPEAKER_03]: They've done such a great job of saying how worthless our federal workforce is, that people are like, well, you got fired from the federal government.
38:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, we probably can't do anything anyway.
38:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And I guess it's not surprising that they're struggling, that some are struggling on as they are.
38:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think too like to that sort of, you know, public perception of federal workers, I think there was some like rallying around them when they first got fired, but you often end up, you know, with their long-term effects of those, um,
38:52
[SPEAKER_02]: like of those firings.
38:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And those long-term effects are things that, you know, these workers, when I was talking to them about, you know, the aftermath, they clearly want to talk about they still need some support publicly.
39:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it's hard to ask for that support in this environment to ask sympathy.
39:09
[SPEAKER_03]: No, but here's the thing and this is where the there was a point in my life early on where I I was unemployed the bush the the H. W. Bush economy was not great And I was laid off for about seven months and it wears on you when you go hey I can go out and get a job any time I want only to find out that
39:26
[SPEAKER_03]: that really.
39:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It's tough out there and that kind of, you got all these, especially people who came out of the federal workforce who have all of these qualifications, most of them have college degrees and special training and to not then be able to cash in on that or at least put food on the table.
39:44
[SPEAKER_03]: After a bit of time, I got imagine that that wears on your mental health.
39:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So what did you find in your survey?
39:50
[SPEAKER_03]: How did these mass firings?
39:52
[SPEAKER_03]: How did they affect people's mental health beyond the usual stress of being unemployed?
39:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that was one of the most shocking statistics.
40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I know we know generally that being fired from a job often
40:13
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the rate at which this was still true for federal workers, even one year after they were fired, was pretty astounding.
40:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was of everyone they surveyed, everyone answered these questions, and like 95% had new mental health symptoms.
40:32
[SPEAKER_02]: one and four like even started taking a new psychiatric medication.
40:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is something to that I can relate to.
40:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a fellow worker as well, but I quit before everyone I worked with this fired.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And even before I left, I also started feeling like mental health symptoms I didn't have before.
40:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think this is one of the things that I'd wanted to do a story about this for a while,
40:56
[SPEAKER_02]: anecdotally seeing this among fellow workers who I've talked to over the past year, both people I do and people I was interviewing for other stories.
41:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But until the survey came out, there really wasn't a data that showed, you know, this was more than anecdotes that I collected or others collected and it's so widespread.
41:15
[SPEAKER_03]: So how is this different than, you know, because, you know, there are some people, this is different than Maslayoffs, you know, in an private sector, or, you know, I'm sure there are people in the audience who have gone, I lost the job, and a bunch of us lost jobs.
41:27
[SPEAKER_03]: We got over it.
41:27
[SPEAKER_03]: We tough through it.
41:29
[SPEAKER_03]: How, how is this different than a factory closing or, or some other large employer just going, you know, I don't like Microsoft, go, we're going to get rid of, you know, a percentage of our workforce.
41:39
[SPEAKER_03]: How's this different?
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you know in some ways it is similar but I think it's different in that you know this is providing this is not just you know about the people who are fired but the fact that they were often providing public services they know they are not providing so it shifts their you know mindset about this country and where it's going it also to you know
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: These things had been so established, often that there was, you know, no expectation that this could happen, or that if it did maybe the the courts or Congress would intervene and we really didn't see that happen.
42:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We did see the courts rule that the firings were unlawful, but even the judge that a niche that made that ruling.
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: said that, you know, oh, I think the workers are in, you know, jobs now, they've moved on, but what we've largely seen is that is just not true.
42:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, again, I talked about that ruling and it was amazing to me that you would rule.
42:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they can't do this, but you know, it's water under the bridge and yeah, these are people's lives that are now in turmoil.
42:47
[SPEAKER_03]: So long term, I mean, you know, this is like anybody who's lost a job, who's lost income and a large number of these people have taken pay cuts, the health insurance is gone away from a lot of, there's a lot of chaos here.
43:01
[SPEAKER_03]: needless because we're we're now going back rehiring some of those positions.
43:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are people hesitant to go back and take some of those jobs?
43:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I have my opinion and I look at Russell Vott's statement of we want people to be miserable.
43:16
[SPEAKER_03]: But hey, you know, they could work for, you know, this Frank Bezic Nano over at the Social Security Administration who's giving out chocolate-covered
43:26
[SPEAKER_03]: on our granted.
43:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It's his daughter's company that sells these chocolate covered pretzels.
43:29
[SPEAKER_03]: But twice, you know, because, you know, what's better than a sweet pretzel?
43:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I think for a lot of people that, you know, like, there's some people who definitely are going back.
43:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of that is to, like, the necessity.
43:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, if they haven't found a job in
43:43
[SPEAKER_02]: 6, 8, 12 months and they're old institute is hiring like that's a pretty that's a pretty nice deal even if they're going to feel that fear every day in the job and one of the people I spoke to for this piece had returned to her own workplace, but just every day felt this dread of they're going to fire me again.
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's sort of also, you know, what makes this, you know, as a different case, perhaps is that even when people are reinstated, this administration is still doing things that make it clear that they have more firing plan like reclassifying various employees.
44:23
[SPEAKER_02]: to atwill hires who are not previously in that category.
44:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And hiring people as contractors where their contracts could just be cut.
44:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
44:31
[SPEAKER_03]: No, what's amazing to me is, you know, I've, I've had these conversations with a bunch of folks who don't work in the public sector and their response to the atwill thing is, well, I'm atwill.
44:41
[SPEAKER_03]: We've gotten used to it.
44:42
[SPEAKER_03]: We've gotten used to it as a country that you know what the boss is in charge the boss can fire and hire anybody they want and we want government to run like a business So this is how things are going to be done and I got to tell you I I don't think I don't think I don't think I'm there.
44:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah Yeah, I think that the atwill thing.
45:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's maybe not so much like the thing that You know Was Alarming to me about that was not so much that it was changing against atwill I've been an atwill employee at various
45:11
[SPEAKER_02]: points.
45:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's more that the question of why are you reclassifying these people and why are you reclassifying them now?
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it could mean nothing.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It could, you know, just be something they're doing.
45:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Because
45:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh no, it means something, no, I'm not going to let you give them that out.
45:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I said all during the campaign in 2024 that this was all about making patronage great again.
45:34
[SPEAKER_03]: We were only going to have a loyalty hires, you're going to need to spout off your favorite executive order.
45:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You better not have anything written in your social media.
45:43
[SPEAKER_03]: That was negative of dear leader.
45:46
[SPEAKER_03]: because they ran through all this with project 2025.
45:49
[SPEAKER_03]: They were very clear on what their intentions for federal workers are and were and very clear for what they want for American citizens.
45:58
[SPEAKER_03]: So for me the federal workforce is nothing more than the canary in the coal mine of what we all have in store for us if they get their way if we lose this this battle front.
46:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
46:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, too, you know, with all these different signs, we're talking about like with the reclassification thing.
46:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, there's this layer of, because so many of these workers, if they returned, if they stayed in the government this whole time, they're pretty traumatized as vote wanted.
46:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So, with that trauma comes this desire for,
46:28
[SPEAKER_02]: figuring out what's going to happen next for anticipating, um, you know, the things you're afraid about, which in this case is often being fired.
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of reading the tea leaves, some of which is, you know, pretty
46:41
[SPEAKER_02]: blatant and what they've laid out in their plans and others, which are policy changes when we don't quite know where they're headed yet.
46:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Not bigger picture though, my view has always been of the Republican Party as a whole, that they don't believe in government.
46:54
[SPEAKER_03]: They continually tell us that government can't work, doesn't work, and won't work.
46:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And then when they get control of something, they tear it apart and destroy it and cripple it and handcuff it so that it doesn't work.
47:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So they can turn back and go, see it doesn't work so that they can done privatize and profitize it.
47:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So for me, this all fits into their MO.
47:14
[SPEAKER_03]: This is what they do, so I'm not surprised by it.
47:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So the question then comes, you know, for the federal workforce or for potential future federal workers,
47:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to think that, you know, unless you're ready to be every four years, ready to be replaced in a kind of a weird political pendulum, higher in fire scheme, we're probably not going to get the best in brightest who are going to want to serve our government and serve we the people.
47:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're going to end up getting screwed and all by the way, Wall Street and Corporate America will again be fat and happy.
47:46
[SPEAKER_03]: That's just my thought.
47:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious if you will agree, disagree,
47:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, absolutely.
47:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm with the on that, that like, you know, for the people who are going to be accepting jobs in the federal government now, they are kind of having to make peace with this idea that, yeah, they could get fired every four years.
48:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not the stable workforce that's going to build that institutional knowledge that's actually going to help serve the public.
48:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think too, just sort of, you know,
48:16
[SPEAKER_02]: What effects is this going to have beyond just like actually the public services that are impacted, you know, beyond the federal work is themselves is this is clearly starting to have notable impacts on the economy generally especially in regions with a lot of federal workers.
48:34
[SPEAKER_02]: where people are putting off big life expenses, they're tightening their belts because even if they get their jobs back, they're afraid that they're going to go away again so no one's going to buy a house if they're not sure they can afford their mortgage or move to somewhere that's more expensive.
48:50
[SPEAKER_03]: No way to run a lemonade stand, let alone the most powerful largest government on the planet.
48:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just
48:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But I got to tell you, and a very predictable, all of this was very predictable, the whole, you know, the whole run up to the 2024 campaign and the talk of schedule F and all the firings they want to do this was this was all in line.
49:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So the question the last question I got for you, and looking at these people is there a way to mobilize.
49:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Because politically there's got to be a price to pay.
49:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I talked to people all the time We're trying to get through to social security only to find out there's nobody working there anymore Because they can debunch of them, especially the people who knew what they were doing and replace it with some AI bot that you have to try and wrestle through
49:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm curious, do you see some kind of ground swell of support for these folks or sadly like a lot of times when a plant closes and there's mass layoffs, are they just going to fall through the cracks and their life isn't going to be what they had hoped.
49:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I think early on when the fireings were first starting to happen, we saw a lot of attention and rallying behind federal workers.
49:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think also to a lot of that has fallen off as the remaining federal workforce has
50:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think among those people who have been fired, like I have seen so much political activity, so much, you know, campaigning and spending their time.
50:18
[SPEAKER_02]: advocating for the types of services that they once provided and it's it's such an interesting shift and I'm very curious to see a play out because you know typically civil servants shy away from interacting with politics and talking about politics it's usually very taboo because you want a nonpartisan civil service.
50:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's often not something federal workers spend a lot of time.
50:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, at least we used to, at least we used to.
50:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Now in the new day, we want sick offense and loyalists, not nothing.
50:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we want somebody who's, maybe smart enough on how to find the bathroom, but really not helpful.
50:56
[SPEAKER_03]: This is sad stuff.
50:57
[SPEAKER_03]: But antirodgers, I appreciate the time.
50:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope folks will check out the reporting over at motherjones.com.
51:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Motherjones magazine antirodgers.
51:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much.
51:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
51:07
[SPEAKER_03]: One of your thoughts.
51:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you a federal employee?
51:08
[SPEAKER_03]: You got one of these stories?
51:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear it.
51:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And all by the way, everyone's savior.
51:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, man, I will employ you.
51:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I've heard them all.
51:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Save that.
51:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not responding.
51:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything else.
51:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
51:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Brick it the ricksmithshow.com.
51:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Right back.
51:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm ricksmith.
51:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is Labour history into it.
51:31
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, and we are going all the way back to the year 1381.
51:36
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day John Ball, the leader of the peasants revolt in England, was executed.
51:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Due to the plague, the black death, in 1348, many peasants had died.
51:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Land was plentiful, and laborers were scarce.
51:49
[SPEAKER_03]: The authorities responded with emergency legislation.
51:53
[SPEAKER_03]: The ordinance of laborers in 1349 and the statute of laborers in 1351.
51:59
[SPEAKER_03]: These laws fixed wages at pre-played levels and punished employers trying to outbid their competitors.
52:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Local lords had the right to prevent serfs from leaving their manners.
52:10
[SPEAKER_03]: To raise money for the ongoing hundred years war with France, Parliament levied a new tax on every person over the age of 14.
52:18
[SPEAKER_03]: This was especially unpopular among the peasant class.
52:21
[SPEAKER_03]: the church sided with the wealthy landowners.
52:24
[SPEAKER_03]: As a result, some priests rebelled against the church's hierarchy.
52:27
[SPEAKER_03]: John Ball was one of these rebels, and for his rebellion he was imprisoned at Maidstone Castle.
52:33
[SPEAKER_03]: The initial outbreak of the peasants revolt occurred in 1380, the people rose up against the new tax.
52:39
[SPEAKER_03]: One tax collector was beaten and driven from the village of Fabbat.
52:43
[SPEAKER_03]: The chief justice sent to calm the peasants suffered a similar faith, word spread, and uprisings occurred throughout England.
52:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Rebels in Kent besieged Maidstone Castle and freed John Ball.
52:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Troops were dispatched around the country to suppress the revolt.
52:58
[SPEAKER_03]: John Ball was hung, drawn in quartered in the marketplace, as an example to any other potential rebels.
53:04
[SPEAKER_03]: The peasants' revolt was crushed, but Parliament gave up trying to control peasant wages and stopped collecting the poll tags.
53:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Many peasants were now considered free-man, no longer owned by landowners.
53:16
[SPEAKER_03]: All of these things helped to end the feudal system.
53:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history and two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
53:24
[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to laborhistoryinter.com.
53:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Imagine if you worked for an employer that said I want to make your life miserable, I want you to be terrified to come to work.
53:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I want you to be miserable every second of every day.
53:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Imagine, imagine working in that kind of a hostile environment.
53:54
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what this administration is doing to our federal workforce.
53:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know people are, wow, you don't like it.
53:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Just go somewhere else.
54:00
[SPEAKER_03]: As we're finding out, not a lot of places for people to go in this economy.
54:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And the weird thing is, there are kind of laws in place, not a lot of them, but there are some repercussions in the private sector that you're gonna suit the government.
54:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And the weird thing is, and this is where I've been saying, you know, look, the federal unions don't have the power of the strike.
54:28
[SPEAKER_03]: This is where I think we need to give federal employees the power to strike.
54:32
[SPEAKER_03]: They say, look, you know, that's the recourse.
54:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a firm believer in the recourse being if you're not treated well.
54:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Put your hands in your pockets and mark your feet.
54:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Fold your arms, mark your feet, shut things down.
54:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Can't do that though.
54:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Only our politicians can shut our government down.
54:50
[SPEAKER_03]: which they've done a couple of times.
54:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And here's the weird part.
54:53
[SPEAKER_03]: How upside down this world really is.
54:56
[SPEAKER_03]: The politicians, the boss, so to speak, they can shut the good, the job down.
55:04
[SPEAKER_03]: But you still have to show up and keep working and not get paid.
55:08
[SPEAKER_03]: How brilliant of a system is that?
55:13
[SPEAKER_03]: But according to Russell Vow.
55:19
[SPEAKER_03]: they want people dramatically affected.
55:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But they wake up in the morning, won't want them to come here, want them to be viewed as villains.
55:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Imagine working in that and work environment.
55:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And imagine, as they're continuing to cut more and more and they're continuing to tear our government apart and the workplace, because understand, our government is someone's workplace.
55:44
[SPEAKER_03]: the hostility in those workplaces, especially as the person to your right probably isn't there anymore.
55:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you got to double the labor, which is why I thought it was interesting.
55:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And I brought it up with Anna Rogers.
55:55
[SPEAKER_03]: She didn't bite, didn't find it as funny as I did.
55:58
[SPEAKER_03]: That evidently the morale at the Social Security Administration is really bad.
56:12
[SPEAKER_03]: with the massive, massive cuts, and the solution for the guy who's the head of the Social Security Administration, the commissioner, Frank Bizignano, evidently he thought the best idea would to be to give the employees, send the employees the staff, packages of chocolate,
56:39
[SPEAKER_03]: in blazing with the pretzellable brand.
56:42
[SPEAKER_03]: The website, the phone number, because, hey, you know, along with, you know, hey, thanks for being an employee, thanks for, thanks for your work.
56:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Pretzels, not, we've heard of, you know, pizza, you know, you're not getting a raise, company's doing great, profits are at all time.
56:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I, we brought you a pizza, one pizza.
57:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not getting any of the profits, no, no, but, you know, other pizza party.
57:06
[SPEAKER_03]: or I've seen plays with doughnuts, but pretzels and you go, well, why pretzels?
57:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Why chocolate covered pretzels?
57:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, just down.
57:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I like a good chocolate covered pretzels as much as the next guy.
57:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Prefer the soft ones, but chocolate covered pretzels are great.
57:21
[SPEAKER_03]: But why pretzellables?
57:24
[SPEAKER_03]: What could it be about this one specific, this one item that would make you go, gee, I think I'm gonna give my employees
57:34
[SPEAKER_03]: this this wonderful gift this well branded pressable gift along with their website and phone number case they want to order more down the road what could possibly what could possibly drive him to not do it once but to do it twice and I got to wonder did we pay for it yeah we we probably did turns out and I know you're not going to be surprised by this but it turns out
58:01
[SPEAKER_03]: that Commissioner Bizignano's daughter owns pretzels.
58:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Evidently, and it'll go look, but you'll hang out, where would you go if you wanted a good quality product?
58:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You go to your own daughter, right?
58:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You could see all you trust them.
58:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Or, or it's just another sign of how bad the the grift is in this administration.
58:26
[SPEAKER_03]: how the use of our tax dollars and the use of our resources just being squandered to well to further someone else's private interest.
58:35
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a small thing and I admit that it is a small thing.
58:41
[SPEAKER_03]: The real rot is at the head of the fish.
58:43
[SPEAKER_03]: The real rot is in the oval office.
58:45
[SPEAKER_03]: The real rot is the Trump family and all of the all of the graph that's going on there.
58:51
[SPEAKER_03]: But I just thought it was interesting.
58:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and I know there's a brand of chocolate covered pretzels that I will never buy.
59:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, probably never buy in pretzel levels.
59:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
59:07
[SPEAKER_03]: A nice thing to do would you be happy receiving chocolate covered pretzels as a thank you and to help boost morale.
59:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Or would you prefer, I don't know, little job security, maybe a raise, maybe a more enticing workplace somewhere where you'd want to come to work?
59:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, pretzels or being treated better.
59:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
59:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
59:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Miss any portion of the program.
59:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Podcasts.
59:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And as always, thanks for most of your being here.
59:36
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you back your next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Email Rick at Rick at RickSmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Until next time, this is Ben the Rick Smith Show, where working people come to talk.