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The Rick Smith Show 8-13-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the Rick Smith Show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Today on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: The Trump Department of Education found a new way to tell working people that the jobs that are holding their communities together, and they don't really count.
0:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And they are making those jobs harder to get by making education that they need harder to get.
0:43
[SPEAKER_03]: A new coalition, including AFSME, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Nurses United and the AFVL CIO.
0:51
[SPEAKER_03]: They have all sued the Trump administration.
0:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, understand.
0:55
[SPEAKER_03]: The Trump administration has been sued over 750 times.
0:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank goodness for these folks, uh, because they're suing to block the administration's rise student loan program, uh, this, this rule that's.
1:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, places many advanced degrees, you know, like nursing, like social work, like public health, you know, like teaching, like library science, places them in a lower category, basically deep professionalizing them.
1:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where the word salad game matters.
1:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Under the rule, students in the favorite professional programs, they can borrow $50,000 a year or $200,000 in total.
1:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet those in the lower tier,
1:43
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, health care workers, the caps out of just over 20,000 or 100,000 overall.
1:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And what that means is, as tuition's keep rising, this could be the difference between entering those positions and those professions or asking you on fries with that.
2:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And understand, this isn't reform.
2:05
[SPEAKER_03]: This is deep professionalizing by bureaucratic decree.
2:10
[SPEAKER_03]: the Trump administration wants America to believe that a nurse who helps patients who diagnosis patients, a social worker who protects children, a public health worker who fights and disease outbreaks, a teacher who shapes the next generation, somehow their last professional than a lawyer.
2:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You've got communities who are facing hospital under staffing, overloaded classrooms,
2:40
[SPEAKER_03]: They're there.
2:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this union coalition, good on them, suing.
2:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a lawsuit argues that the Department of Education illegally narrowed Congress's definition of a professional degree and that they're using this regulatory maneuver to exclude careers.
2:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I would throw in that overwhelmingly seem to be taken by women, but that's just my editorial.
3:03
[SPEAKER_03]: But these, this is a problem.
3:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've got to tell you, the cruelty is built into the design, because we know wealthy affluent students, people from money are going to get what they want and what they need.
3:16
[SPEAKER_03]: It's working class students, the very people who are going to maybe return to their community as a nurse or as a doctor or as an educator or a public servant, they're going to be locked out at the front gate.
3:37
[SPEAKER_03]: for working class folks to go and do the work that needs to be done.
3:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And makes it already harder to staff the understaff professions that are already killing us.
3:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the administration, and I love this, the administration claims that this new borrowing limit is going to help reduce student debt, and it's going to save taxpayer money.
3:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, if you're not giving them any money, they can't go into debt, but you're also creating a crisis.
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: This is creating the massive roadblock for the next generation of caregivers, educators.
4:10
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not fiscal responsibility.
4:12
[SPEAKER_03]: It's managed and manufactured staffing crisis.
4:17
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... in the political context of this cannot be ignored all the same governing agenda that cuts public services and health care access while ensuring that our wealth class is wildly tax-cutted kind of kind of a problem and creating scarcity and starving our public institutions well this place right into their or government can't do anything
4:45
[SPEAKER_03]: These are professionals.
4:48
[SPEAKER_03]: But what do you expect out of this administration?
4:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Want to hear your thoughts?
4:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
4:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Right back.
4:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
5:00
[SPEAKER_03]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1919.
5:04
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that the chorus girls of the Ziegfeld Follies formed a union.
5:09
[SPEAKER_03]: They called their organization the chorus equity association.
5:13
[SPEAKER_03]: The Ziegfeld Follies were the hottest ticket on Broadway during the early 1900s.
5:18
[SPEAKER_03]: The show was most famous for their chorus girls in elaborate costumes, bedecked with feathers and sparkles.
5:26
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1919, performers on Broadway, as well as Chicago, were standing up for fairer wages and better treatment on the job.
5:34
[SPEAKER_03]: The actor's equity associations contract had expired, and the actor's demanded a fair contract.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: The producers banded together into the producing managers association, actors and producers faced off.
5:47
[SPEAKER_03]: The actors held a meeting and decided not to go on stage unless the contract was settled.
5:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Membership in the union swelled.
5:56
[SPEAKER_03]: 12 shows in New York alone were canceled.
5:59
[SPEAKER_03]: When Florence Ziggfeldt, the head of the Ziggfeldt follies joined the producers group,
6:04
[SPEAKER_03]: The chorus girls took this as a bad song.
6:07
[SPEAKER_03]: They decided it was time they too joined the union movement.
6:11
[SPEAKER_03]: A former chorus girl named Marie Dressler was elected the first union president.
6:15
[SPEAKER_03]: The chorus girls joined the striking actors for a march down Broadway.
6:20
[SPEAKER_03]: The Zigfeld performers formally went out on strike, and the curtain fell on the folly.
6:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Chicago theaters also went dark.
6:29
[SPEAKER_03]: In all 37 productions were shut down in the two cities.
6:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Finally, on September 7, the strike was settled, and the folly's return.
6:39
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1955, chorus equity merged with the actor's equity association.
6:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's to the view of all the way.
6:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history and two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith show.
6:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
7:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Now here is Rick Smith.
7:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So predictably the the sex doll teacher robot story got a lot of email traffic in my
7:21
[SPEAKER_03]: get Randy to organize this six-dollar teacher robots and I'm like, you know, I don't know.
7:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure, but you know what?
7:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I am going to ask and that's why I've asked Randy Winegarten to come share some thoughts.
7:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm all of the things that are going on on, especially this.
7:37
[SPEAKER_03]: She is the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
7:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Also the author of wife fascists, fear teachers, public education, and the future of democracy, Randy.
7:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for taking time for us.
7:48
[SPEAKER_01]: First off, let me just say.
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: we only organize human beings.
7:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's raw the line.
7:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Robots are not human and robots, whether they are, you know, R2D2, or whether they are made by, you know, Sally by the six-style manufacturer.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, the irony, let me just say, you know, right during our conventions is started emerging during our convention and I had a long conversation with our, our president from New York State United teachers.
8:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, and as she's howling me the story because I, you know, during our convention, I didn't see the news much, you know, other than what was happening in Washington.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, what?
8:46
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, like Sally.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: that the robot with high school kids made by the same company.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kept on repeating myself.
8:59
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, yeah, it's like a bad 80 movie, isn't it?
9:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this like a joke?
9:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, no, I'm like, you're kidding me.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they didn't stop.
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't.
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was so incredulous.
9:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I thought what they did was really, really smart.
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: What what nice it did.
9:19
[SPEAKER_01]: They wrote a letter to the state commissioner basically asking, you know, a bunch of questions.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, um, who's monitoring it?
9:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what's going on?
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, don't you get the fact that we have said over and over again,
9:41
[SPEAKER_01]: on Kathy Hockel's desk, the basically says that these kind of bots, these kind of chat bots.
9:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the school system said, oh no, no, no, it's not AI.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, it's just a robot with a curriculum that can respond in a
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Syncopathic in a way that just says nice things to kids, I don't use the big word, but that is like a chatbot.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: These chatbots.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: should be prohibited from young people under the age of 18, because what they're doing is you are replacing humans with a robot that's basically saying, good job, you're so great, you're so wonderful, like what, like what, so, so this is the, these are the reasons why
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: we really need guardrails for all of this work.
10:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, with there has to be safety guardrails that bill that's on the New York State governor's desk, that's for him, it's these kind of chat boxes, I hope she signs.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But thankfully, it has been held off.
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, until, you know, further notice, but this is what scared me, I mean, after after realizing that it wasn't a joke, this is what scared me more than anything else.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: is that these superintendents around the country are under such pressure.
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They think that having this kind of AI tool is a magic potion that's going to turn things around as opposed to understanding.
11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: that learning requires critical thinking, requires real relationships, requires kids to really struggle with how to do things.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no magic a mixer in terms of learning.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But what does that mean?
11:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the robot is just, it was like, okay, another one of these little magic things.
12:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, a couple of things that the throw in there because one, the most obvious to me was they didn't do it in a fluid school district, they did it in a one of the more high poverty school districts, to some indigenous kids, you know, probably weren't going to have a lot of political cloud without the union kind of raising and the bells.
12:20
[SPEAKER_03]: and the other part of it is as you're right it is about it is about finding that silver bullet and how we're teaching children and more importantly I think and maybe you'll weigh in on this maybe how we're deep professionalizing teaching and a lot of other you know and a lot of other professions that are predominantly well frankly predominantly personned by women
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think all of that is true, RIP, I think that the, I think what I heard in the superintendents response was that you know, that they have been sold a bill of goods by the tech industry that all you have to do is put a screen in front of somebody or you put this new shiny object in front of somebody, and that's gonna create engagement.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're going to fall for that, if you're going to fall for that, you probably shouldn't be super intended.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm saying that in the if you look at what has happened.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the speech I gave in May.
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a multi-billion dollar industry big tech and what they sold to school systems over the course from COVID on and you're understood it during COVID but what they have sold to school systems.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So instead of school systems having art, having music, having sports, lower in class size,
13:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What's happened is that the tech is not just a tool, the tech substitutes for education, and this is the thing that really, really separate, and apart from all the jokes we can make about it, that really scares the bejesus out of me, which is that when young kids have screens and front of them for so long,
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: hurts your mind.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It hurts the ability to think and to solve problems.
14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It creates this isolation.
14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we're seeing with AI is that if you don't know what you're doing, like if you don't have the facts in front of you or understand it,
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You're actually not going to learn anything.
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just going to re-degertate or memorize things.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole notion that teachers have to teach kids how to think.
14:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Teachers have to engage kids.
14:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Kids have to have agency.
14:57
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that goes by the wayside with the shiny object.
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: No, so, to your point, really, very dangerous.
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, separate, so, let me say one more thing.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, look, we're going to have to teach kids how to use AI.
15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't have to teach three-year-olds.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And frankly, you're not going to teach high-school kids how to use AI by having a robot and creating more isolation.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to do that.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to actually create the engagement with human beings and use AI as a tool with the guard rails that need to be there.
15:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I've a friend who's a college professor and he says, you know, basically at the college level.
15:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're saying we shouldn't be giving it to, you know, the great school kids or high school kids at the college level.
15:43
[SPEAKER_03]: He's saying the same thing.
15:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Look, everything's done by AI, everything.
15:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can't get kids that critically think and he's seriously concerned about their ability to even remember what they've turned in.
15:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is correct big part of this and I do find it interesting And I want to go back to the poverty angle because you know, they're gonna try it out on the poorest You know, we've tried all of these gimmicks out on poor school districts and on poor kids So it's not surprising to me that you know education Incorporated has come up with another bad idea to get in the taxpayers pocket to benefit themselves for poor outcomes
16:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But again, it's this silver bullet thinking when we know, we know how kids learn and we should be amulating some of the other the other things.
16:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I don't see it at the Sidwell school or at the friend's schools.
16:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't see the if the affluent water sex doll robots in their kids classroom.
16:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you do have these new office schools that cost multiple thousands of dollars that are AI driven and they will not even let us see them.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I've asked to see the office schools, the ones that, you know, Linda McMahon is pushing all over the country.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do, I agree with you on all of this and think about it this way.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Big tech.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: The big tech moms and dads don't let their own kids have screens or have AI early in life.
17:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, we're going to have to find a way.
17:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I said that we shouldn't have in my speech and may the devices down.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: hands, you know, eyes up hands on speech.
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: My, my view based upon listening to the research is that, you know, no AI facing education for young kids in elementary school, nicer New York State United teachers thinks that we should go through junior high school.
17:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to have to teach kids digital.
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: media, digital literacy, all of that stuff.
17:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But do it the right way.
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't do this kind of, you know, having a robot made by a sex style company that you think is going to, you know, got only knows what would happen.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: If a kid got close to the robot, I mean, it's crazy.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It is really crazy.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like what happened with social media and all of the bullying, and the synchophancy, like let us learn the lessons and try to create schooling that is welcoming and safe, and that actually is engaging and enriching for kids.
18:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So kids want to be there.
18:44
[SPEAKER_01]: the biggest tax cut that the people have ever gotten in the United States, the rich, the biggest income inequality that we have, the rich got the biggest tax cut last July.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And how is it being paid for?
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's being paid for by
19:05
[SPEAKER_01]: getting rid of head start and head start rules about safety and health and head start rules about feeding kids.
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's getting rid of by getting by cutting snap.
19:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's it's undermining Medicaid and health care.
19:23
[SPEAKER_01]: it's hurting kids who are going to college by, you know, hiking up what they have to pay in student debt.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically de-professionalizing all these professions because they're saying that it costs too much to, you know, and the feds can't afford it anymore when you actually take out a loan
19:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the kind of priorities this administration has, which is not people, not children, not high school students, not college students, not people who need food or food insecure, or housing insecure, but just the rich folk.
20:09
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, like the said reality is, you know, at least I look at it and I see they're creating the disaster that they want to take advantage of.
20:18
[SPEAKER_03]: They're cutting all the programs that could be helpful so that the only option is going to be the 6-thousand robots or any robots or any of these new gimmicks that Big Tech is trying to ram down our throat.
20:29
[SPEAKER_03]: which is why I think it's important that there are groups like yours who are out there filing lawsuits, having the resources to do it and I understand there's a new coalition of public service and health care unions that are now they're suing the Department of Education.
20:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Over their student loan rule that clearly is I argue and maybe this is just how I view it I view this as pointed directly at that women in the professions that are viewed as as their per view But you know health care education that stuff
21:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to get your thoughts, not on the lawsuit, but on that direction that this administration's taking where we're really creating even bigger crisis for the folks who are struggling already.
21:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it seems like they're cutting off all of the avenues to getting around it.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, this administration has basically had a full-on assault on opportunity for all.
21:29
[SPEAKER_01]: for the kids of those who are rich, it doesn't matter.
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't begrudge them one bit, but their parents can afford all of these different things.
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: For everyone else, if you look at all the different cuts that they have made, it is disproportionately to poor,
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: low wage and middle class families across America.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And the student-depth stuff is just another example.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many different ways that they have attacked this, but essentially in the Obama administration,
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, Obama took over all of student debt that was being paid by young people.
22:22
[SPEAKER_01]: at two afford college.
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about 44 million people.
22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's over $1 trillion.
22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of money.
22:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And what they did was not only did they put it all in the Department of Education, which became a very, very big bank.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But they also made all sorts of different rules to make it
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the rules were, if you were going for a professional degree, then you could get more money, you could be alone, you could borrow more money, and they stopped that.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So they said that if you're going to be a teacher or an architect or a nurse or any number of professionals, you no longer can borrow the money that you need to actually get these degrees.
23:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we sued for today.
23:28
[SPEAKER_01]: They de-professionalised nursing and teaching so that they could cut off the money that people need.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So they didn't have the federal government, they didn't have to pay the interest anymore.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And what did they cut off the money to do so that they could give the tax breaks to the rich?
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thing they did is they changed all these repayment plans.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So you no longer so essentially as of July 1st, most people are in a repayment plan that's now going to cost about $4,000 more a year.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So they took the plans that Biden and others had done, like the saves plan.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a member who was paying $80 a month in terms of repayment of student debt.
24:22
[SPEAKER_01]: because they got rid of the safe plan.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: She's now paying $400 a month.
24:30
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do that?
24:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are, these are, I'm not, and so many people have already kind of gone into forbearance.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: They, Linda McManus, roll them to collection agencies.
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's this whole notion,
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: of basically it's not just women, it's not just people of color, it's basically saying that anyone whose family can't afford to send you to college, you need not apply anymore.
25:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how bad it is and they did this, they took all of this subsidy that people were getting and they used it for tax cuts for the rich.
25:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, there's no argument there.
25:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So the last question I've got for you, in looking at all of this stuff, the cuts to head start, the push towards automation and robotics and all of this stuff.
25:26
[SPEAKER_03]: For the education profession, for young parents who are going to be sending their kids, what's the biggest concern and what should we be doing?
25:33
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the marching order to save our kids future?
25:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Vote.
25:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The most important thing we can do right now.
25:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We know what's going on.
25:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's clear.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's clear that this president's priority is not regular folks.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So whether it's
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: on or fighting or defunding public education or trying to automate and have robots or trying to cut off any kind of subsidy for student debt that makes it easier for people to afford to go to college or whether it's our youngest kids who are now going to get less in terms of the
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: who are going to like lose their research funds, whichever way you look at it, they are basically attacking the future of our country to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
26:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the way to change this,
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: we can we can fight all these battles and we are.
26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we really want to change it, we need different people in Congress that are going to take a check and balance on a Trump.
26:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to say, no, you can't do this.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: that it's not just us going to court and hopefully getting a judge that believes in the rule of law.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We need the Congress to basically do a check-and-balance to basically say, no, Donald Trump, you cannot do this.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Or yes, Donald Trump,
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: deal with gas prices, deal with grocery prices, deal with housing costs and and and and and pass laws.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Let it veto it.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's why when I say vote.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We need majority's worker.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Our majority's in the Congress to stop this net.
27:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Amen.
27:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Time to start throwing some bumps out.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just the way I said, but Randy, I appreciate the thoughts.
27:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Good on you.
27:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope you'll come back and talk to us again real soon.
27:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks.
27:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much, our good friend Randy Weingaard.
27:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of your thoughts is education being the professionalized.
27:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to see your kids taught by sex style teachers and you know, are you concerned about the future.
27:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear it.
27:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at the ricksmithshow dot com right back.
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 1955.
28:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day Teamsters Organizer, 28-year-old William Grammy, was kidnapped and beaten.
28:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Grammy had arrived in Sebastopol, California.
28:16
[SPEAKER_03]: to help organize about 350 workers in local canneries, drying plants, and fruit sheds.
28:22
[SPEAKER_03]: The teamsters had been on campaign footing for months in an attempt to win union recognition, higher wages, better working conditions, and benefits.
28:31
[SPEAKER_03]: They had lost a union representation election the previous fall after a sub-estable apple growers moved quickly to lay off union supporters.
28:39
[SPEAKER_03]: By January,
28:40
[SPEAKER_03]: That canary workers at Oscar Hall and Suns voted for Union Representation.
28:45
[SPEAKER_03]: The workers at Barlow Company would vote against the Union just two months later.
28:50
[SPEAKER_03]: But by early August, the strike wave hit.
28:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Workers walked off the job at the Sebastian Volco-Oper
28:56
[SPEAKER_03]: of Canary.
28:57
[SPEAKER_03]: More at seven other area canaries joined them on strike in the days that followed.
29:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Grammy would later testify that he had heard reports weeks earlier of a grower threatening to have him killed within three hours should any strike actually take place.
29:12
[SPEAKER_03]: During the strike that would ultimately prove victorious, three men kidnapped Grammy outside the unions all.
29:18
[SPEAKER_03]: He was driven along a rural road tied to a pole, gagged, and beaten with a bicycle chain.
29:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Left for dead, he was found the next day and hospitalized immediately.
29:28
[SPEAKER_03]: But the union and the striker is remained on deterred.
29:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Before the strike was over, Scab trucks attempting to haul apples to market were vandalized and burned, and Scab drivers were beaten.
29:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Eight months later, the apple industry finally came to the negotiating table.
29:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
29:53
[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to LaborHistoryInto.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on the Twitters at LaborHistoryInto.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's no secret that voters are increasingly disgusted about today's extremist right-wing Republican lawmakers.
30:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But less known is the fact that extremist GOP lawmakers are even more disgusted by you voters.
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so disgusted that a top legislative priority of Republican leaders in the White House Congress and State Legislatures is to rig election rules.
30:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally, to rule out issues and voters they don't like.
30:27
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Republicans in Missouri, the show me state, showed us what they're made of by attempting to kill the people's right to amend their state's constitution.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Missouri and 25 other states have long provided a citizen-led initiative process so the people can propose and pass their own laws, rather than always depending on politicians to do what's right.
30:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's direct democracy.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But the people, damn them, have been passing things like providing health care for the poor and raising the minimum wage.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So no, no, no, screech Republican leaders in corporate lobbyists who otherwise control the entire state government.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: In a perversion of people power, they wrote a ballot initiative that effectively would leave direct democracy dead in Missouri.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Clever, huh?
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Use the initiative process to kill the initiative process.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But the people rallied, exposed the fraud, and an massive turnout of voters in last week's elections, 80 percent, 80 percent.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: rejected the establishment's anti-democracy ploy.
31:34
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-Tower saying, Missouri and showed him, but anti-democracy elites are now pushing direct voter bands in 15 other states, including Arizona Florida, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: To keep track and shove back against these plutocratic power grabs, connect with a nationwide monitoring and grassroots campaigns of the fairness project, the fairnessproject.org.
32:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Now here is Rick Smith.
32:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So I got to tell you, I love I love every time Randy comes on because she's
32:16
[SPEAKER_03]: She's always at the right side of things.
32:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And I look with the Trump administration's doing with, well, look, deep professionalizing a lot of professions by gutting the funding, to get the kind of loans that you're gonna need to go on, to get those degrees, education being at the front of it, which shouldn't just be everyone should be infuriated by that move.
32:36
[SPEAKER_03]: But also, gutting head start the sextal robots.
32:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I gotta be honest, I'm not thrilled with the WWE woman,
32:45
[SPEAKER_03]: heading up to Secretary of the Department of Education, but also the policies coming out, which is why I look at my state of Pennsylvania.
32:53
[SPEAKER_03]: There's an opportunity to maybe do something positive, and that is this Pennsylvania promise program, which I guess has passed the house for this, this has gotten in a while, and what that's going to what that's going to do,
33:07
[SPEAKER_03]: is maybe make higher at a little more affordable by providing that last dollar aid that other grants aren't covering for tuition and fees, especially at community colleges and our public universities, the treasure of Pennsylvania.
33:24
[SPEAKER_03]: that's why I've asked Patrick McGinty to come share some thoughts with us.
33:27
[SPEAKER_03]: He's the treasurer there are the secretary over at Abskuff, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University faculties.
33:34
[SPEAKER_03]: You can check out their website at abskuff.org.
33:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Patrick, thanks for the good time for us.
33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, I appreciate you having me on and appreciate all the support Fratska for the years.
33:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So we see this, the conversation around affordability, we see the administration doing all the stuff that they're doing around deep professionalizing, I'm going to argue deep for professionalizing teaching and education as a whole.
33:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And I look at this one little thing here in Pennsylvania, the possibility of making college just a touch more affordable.
34:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Gives me hope, should I have some hope in this?
34:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a reason to have hope.
34:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I have more hope based in the last six months than I've had for a while, you know, I have scuffed if it has been working on the PA promise for since before I was in abskuff.
34:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I started in 2015 and it's been a long road.
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is a program that if you're making under $250,000 in Pennsylvania, your kids can go to community college or one of our state institutions for you charge.
34:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You also have grants for adult learners.
34:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You have all sorts of different housing sort of stipends if you're making under 60K.
34:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And what's exciting now, this has been a long process, but the reason for any political work you're doing to do all the work.
34:47
[SPEAKER_02]: in the dark years of the years where it's not going that well is because every so often the culture moves your way which I think this year it is a fortability is very much the buzzword this year and we've known this in MCF we did polling and we were looking at polling last year where 69% of Pennsylvania's were in favor of the PA promise 87% you know identified as Democrat 62% independence 55% conservative so we knew there was a growing
35:15
[SPEAKER_02]: ground swell of report of support in the public and we're seeing that which playively now too where the house for the first time, as you mentioned, passed it through the house one nineteen eighty three not a slim not not a slim little margin like there's there's bipartisan support and interest in this issue.
35:30
[SPEAKER_03]: No, look, the affordability angle is clearly in this moment, especially with gas prices where they are and food prices where they are and rents and all this.
35:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Some things got to help families make it to the next day and the next generation.
35:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And I look at this as an opportunity to help the next generation because I got to be honest, really, I think we've screwed the last couple by saddling them with massive student loan debt.
35:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think hampering their ability to have a future that that most of
35:58
[SPEAKER_03]: my generation.
35:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I think kind of took for granted, but we made sure we gave tax cuts to billionaires.
36:04
[SPEAKER_03]: This seems to me to be like an opportunity to kind of level that, and especially for the state system schools, who have been struggling a little bit, because after all, I've been saying that it's the jewel of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to have these universities and to really educate working class kids.
36:21
[SPEAKER_03]: This, I think, would help them as well.
36:23
[SPEAKER_03]: What
36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: We do a disservice to our younger generations by not supporting them.
36:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned the generational differences.
36:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I worked my way through college.
36:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know for many people who aren't college-age, it's a very big source of pride, particularly in the state of like our respect, like hard work ethic, and group and Pittsburgh's to live here.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I work my way as a cashier.
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: through college.
36:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the difference that people are starting to understand more is that I work the cashier here and there to help make ends meet.
36:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I have students, you know, working night shifts at lows and the loading dock, sending papers in at 3 a.m. on their break and showing up at 8 or 9 a.m. just to afford being in my classroom.
37:05
[SPEAKER_02]: The affordability issue has
37:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Through college this is really different.
37:13
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I think I think that's a really important point because you know I get the same argument from friends about why you know I did it because we all like to think where Horace you algebra pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and we did it all alone We didn't get any help for anyone without understanding and I think your president can mash You know, he's been telling me this for for not a couple of decades
37:33
[SPEAKER_03]: that when I went to school, the Commonwealth picked up about two thirds of the cost of tuition, the student picked up about a third.
37:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Now these are his numbers not mine.
37:43
[SPEAKER_03]: He's saying today the students picking up about three quarters and the Commonwealth about a quarter.
37:49
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's kind of flipped completely upside down.
37:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So the the hill, the journey, a lot more difficult, I think
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I mean, you just spelled it out perfectly.
38:01
[SPEAKER_02]: The graph is an X.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one, it's the percentage that tuition, that the system has been funded by tuition goes up and the amount that it's been funded by state appropriation goes down.
38:14
[SPEAKER_02]: The student has replaced sort of the state allocating funds to replace it.
38:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is also at the same time where our state needs
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Workers, they need nurses, need teachers.
38:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We ice it in all sorts of meetings and then part of different things at my university slippery aqua where we're really, really trying to meet workforce needs and really rethinking, re-changing our curriculum, our programs to try to meet these needs.
38:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We just need the students to be able to afford their attendance in time as you so nicely said, crown jewel institutions.
38:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, look at the reality is we were told it's the golden ticket.
38:47
[SPEAKER_03]: My generation was told got to go to college, got to get it to gray.
38:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the golden ticket to the middle class.
38:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we've done with that golden ticket is we've turned it into, I fear, and he helped me if you think I'm wrong here, a debt trap for a lot of people, because I know a lot of folks who, you know, they're struggling just to pay their loans, let alone being able to afford a mortgage.
39:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So this program, because I think this is a really important one.
39:11
[SPEAKER_03]: This could be not just an economic boom for them and their family, but also for the state of competitive advantage that I think would give us, I don't know, a leg up on a lot of other states by having an educated workforce and one that has some disposable income to participate in an economy that could grow, seems like some good opportunities in my view.
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I would settle for a leg even the low and a leg up.
39:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we are at there are 30 over 30 states that have promised programs, certainly right around us, Maryland, New York places that actively recruit in our state.
39:45
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go near those borders, like in common live here and you can go to college for free, but it's not just right around this, it's Oklahoma process, promise, Tennessee promise.
39:53
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of different programs, I mean,
39:56
[SPEAKER_02]: what's in some ways frustrating is that this isn't some new or crazy idea that we're we're not saying let's fly to Jupiter and see what it's like there.
40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: This is this we have data we have other states that have a wealth of experience of trial and error of fine tuning that we could adopt and are adopting via these proposals that are kind of ready to go and we're just going to keep pushing as we hope this you know affordability conversation keeps
40:22
[SPEAKER_03]: keep sort of driving people towards real programs like this that have just been you know kind of in some years sitting on shelves and now they're not on shelves now they're they're on the house floor getting voted so we're trying to raise as much awareness as we can so as you're talking about these these programs I'm my mind as you were talking my mind immediately on to the to the moment we're in politically you got Donald Trump running around saying everything's communism I got a lot of red hatch going everything socialism
40:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Patrick the sounds like the sounds like socialism sounds like you know We're gonna socialize education sounds like socialism Patrick
40:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if 1982 in Pennsylvania was socialist running a mocked and, you know, I guess, but when you look at when the early, when Pashy was founded, again, that chart that that ax chart I'm talking about that you articulated, that was how Pashy and Pashy's the, you know, the state system of the 14 state schools was founded was the the highest quality education at the lowest possible dollar.
41:18
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the mission of passion.
41:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they found it in the early 80s, they funded it appropriately.
41:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so people often ask me, well, how this happened?
41:26
[SPEAKER_02]: How did it get to boy, why does every state ranking for higher ed?
41:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Does it start with a four for Pennsylvania?
41:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes we get up to 45.
41:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's like a nice wind for us, but usually it's
41:35
[SPEAKER_02]: 47 or 48 and it's it's three decades for decades of disinvestment.
41:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, if it sounds like socialism, I suppose was Pennsylvania in 1980 to 1984 overrun by, you know, if I went back and looked at some of the politicians, I'm not sure I'd find a lot of DSA members amongst them, they just believed in supporting the four higher education.
41:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:00
[SPEAKER_03]: the odds.
42:01
[SPEAKER_03]: But the question then becomes if we don't do this and this is one of those things I love, the exercise that I love to have.
42:06
[SPEAKER_03]: If we don't invest in an education, okay, through 12, higher ed, if we don't do this, what does our future look like?
42:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know there's there's a bashing going on right now about college degrees and you've got my grow out there, whom I don't disagree with on our need for more trades people and more skilled trades folks, and that being a path for young people to go.
42:27
[SPEAKER_03]: but not at the expense, not the exclusive expense of people going on and wanting to get degrees and being able to not be saddled with a lifetime of debt.
42:36
[SPEAKER_03]: What is the consequence of not investing in higher end?
42:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so my friends, Salim Gubriel, who's the executive director of the Pittsburgh Promise, which is an affordability sort of program, Justin Pittsburgh, and privately funded, not publicly funded, and it's also ending, which is what happens when you rely on private institutions
42:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Decided to stop giving, you know, and Salim's done so much research.
42:58
[SPEAKER_02]: His big phrase, he says to me a bunch, is 65 by 35, which is by 2035, we're gonna need 65% of the PA's population to upskill or have a new credential in order just to stay current with workforce needs, given retirements, given, you know, solar birthing rates.
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So we will quite simply not be able to fully staff all of you, you know,
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: operations and jobs we have here, what that does when you're not staffing, you know, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, when you're not building a tax base.
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it might not seem like something that's going to show up in a big way in 2026 or 2027, but when I talk to people like Seliemer, other researchers, and they show me the,
43:39
[SPEAKER_02]: The tenure outlook, particularly as other states write around us, are doing more with the Excel Sears Scholarship, for instance, in New York.
43:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a pretty picture of what happens just to the workforce to say nothing, of what happens to generations of young Pennsylvania's who are regularly in the top five across the country for student debt load.
44:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, I'm before we went on.
44:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I was telling you about a story that a kid I met waiting you there was a rally back in 2011.
44:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I wonder whatever happened to this kid, but I was waiting to speak at the rally and you guys were a big part of it because Tom Corbett, the governor at the time, was going to cut higher ed budgets.
44:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I subject Coney in number of there's like 55% or something crazy like that.
44:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And this kid told me the story of, you know, why he was there.
44:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, he said, look, my grandfather wanted to go to college, couldn't afford it, and did up having to work at the mill.
44:31
[SPEAKER_03]: My dad wanted to go to college, couldn't afford it, and did up having going to work at the mill.
44:36
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, you know, now they're going to take the one lifeline that I've got to be the first in my, my family to go and graduate from college.
44:44
[SPEAKER_03]: They're gonna take that away from me, but the problem is there's no mill to go back to and that's stuck with me And it's been you know, it's been a lot of years since that happened and I'm sure you hear these kind of stories on campus all the time
44:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I mean, it's not, it's not that, it's like that story.
45:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We're now downstream in generation of that story, where, you know, for instance, it's looked up.
45:07
[SPEAKER_02]: We've done a really good job at building a pre-professional professional programs where you can do like an accelerated three plus two, three plus three, like undergrad in three years, masters in two or three to be a physical therapist, you know.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: and OT different things.
45:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But I have talked with parents who, you know, they're signing up their 18-year-old for six years of school, six years of cash payments, and they've lived through that.
45:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what if this changes?
45:35
[SPEAKER_02]: What if there's not?
45:37
[SPEAKER_02]: What if this rural hospital?
45:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It is not there anymore.
45:41
[SPEAKER_02]: What if these different sorts of larger forces, you know, wreck this investment I'm making.
45:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's not that I necessarily have like the same sort of middle-century conversations, but I talk with the parents.
45:54
[SPEAKER_02]: who went through that.
45:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And like want to make the investment that's their kids, they want them to go to school and pay a work in PA, live nearby, raise families nearby.
46:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, we are basically doing what the statistics are telling us to do with our institutions, which is help us boost this workforce.
46:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I could list the we just slippery argument, a really cool construction management program to work with.
46:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Carpenters and other folks like we are thinking outside the box and making partnerships we're still asking some of these people to sign up for again if you're doing the pre-professional if you're doing what everyone's telling you to do which is going to these fields that need work that's still five, six, seven years of investment and there's people who
46:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I understand the parents who grew up in the region and had what seemed like really sturdy infrastructures and bets sort of crumbled beneath them.
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's up to us to, you know, advocate or elect officials to make sure we have these backs up to help these generations and these families.
46:43
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
46:52
[SPEAKER_03]: something I think is an investment that we have to have in our own futures.
46:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I know we all are trained to believe every decision has to be an hour radical self-interest, and I think having an educated workforce, having a group of younger people coming into the workforce, not solving by debt, able to leave mom and dad's house.
47:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I can see a lot of radical self-interest
47:15
[SPEAKER_03]: investing in higher education and doing it the way we used to do in generations past where you could work a job as a cashier or as a waitress and walk out of on a college fairly debt free and at least or at least not saddled for the rest of your life seems like a reasonable I think it's a reasonable policy and something I think in the richest country on the history of on the planet at its richest moment I kind of think possible no I think in the more I have the conversations with
47:44
[SPEAKER_02]: people, is that try to get out in the different communities and across PA, like, you know, once I start telling them these stories about working through college, what it actually looks like, they're on board.
47:53
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why we have a bunch of people on September 28th coming to the Harrisburg Valley for a affordable college now, where we're
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: rallying all across the state coming to Harrisburg to ask for a 15% investment across all public higher ed asks for the PA promise asked for this program and it's been so heartening to see just different different types of people, sure students, sure parents but you know I even have I even talked to a grandma the other day who wants her son to move back to the state with his kids to go to college for free.
48:24
[SPEAKER_02]: She's like oh so he could move back here and his kids
48:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You go to school free and I could see them every once in a while and like this is somebody who, you know, she's done paying again radical self interest Hello, but you really see how it ripples at the ripple effects the tree rings of this really the more I have conversations the more I see how much this would enhance Just a quality of life and Pennsylvania, but
48:46
[SPEAKER_02]: certainly like again that that 65 by 35 you know numbers something I think about a lot of a what did the 20 fairies look like in this in this state if we do not start investing That's the next one point so last question I've got for you the marching order.
49:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you said that the rally in September Which I I'm I'm going to be at a new hip and all but what's the marching order?
49:07
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you want me to do?
49:09
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you want our folks to do?
49:11
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go to appskuff.org, you can certainly see information about the rally on September 28th.
49:16
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have a function there where you can send postcards, digital or real to your elected officials asking them to support the PAPRAMAS telling your story about how.
49:26
[SPEAKER_02]: student debt has affected you, your family, how it's limiting your opportunities.
49:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are really the main things we're looking to do this fall to get more people calling and talking to legislators and if they're able to get them to Harrisburg for our affordable college now, Rally.
49:41
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go.
49:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Patrick, I appreciate the time.
49:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you guys have been fighting for this for a long time.
49:47
[SPEAKER_03]: The hope is we get to pass the finish line and the next generation benefits from it and we make Pennsylvania at least my home state now.
49:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Actually as strong as it can be with Patrick, we get to appreciate the time.
49:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for your support, Rick, to see you on the 28th, I hope in September.
50:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Outstanding, again, Patrick McGinty, Secretary there at the at Abskuff, the Association of Pennsylvania State, College and University faculties.
50:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Abskuff.org, the website, if you want to get all that rally information, I want to hear your thoughts.
50:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me, Rick, at therixmythio.com.
50:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your her ratio, Alger's story.
50:20
[SPEAKER_03]: How difficult was it for you to pull yourself up and pay for college so that you can deny
50:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Kids today.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at TheRickSmith Show.com right back to the ground.
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[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1881.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners passed their first constitution at a meeting in Chicago.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The meeting was organized by Peter J. McGuire.
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[SPEAKER_03]: McGuire grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City.
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[SPEAKER_03]: He became a well-known labor speaker and is credited with helping to found the Labor Day holiday.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Representatives from 11 cities answered McGuire's call and came to Chicago.
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[SPEAKER_03]: For four days, they debated and discussed their vision for a new union.
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[SPEAKER_03]: In the end, they completed a Constitution and General structure.
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[SPEAKER_03]: They nominated McGuire as their first General Secretary, and its founding, the new union had just over 2,000 members.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It grew slowly, not even reaching 6,000 by 1885, yet the union leaders remained determined.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Maguire logged 18-hour days traveling to different cities, speaking, writing, and promoting the union cause.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Then, in 1886, came the nationwide push for the eight-hour work day.
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[SPEAKER_03]: On May 1st, Carpenters marched in the streets with fellow workers in major cities across the nation.
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[SPEAKER_03]: By 1890, Union membership had grown to more than 50,000.
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[SPEAKER_03]: By the time of the Carpenter's convention in 1914, held in Indianapolis, the Union boasted more than 261,000 members.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The Union's General Secretary addressed the convention that day by looking back on what had been accomplished.
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[SPEAKER_03]: He said, our organization today is something to be proud of.
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[SPEAKER_03]: They never imagined for a moment that they would have an organization such as we have and accomplish as much as we have accomplished.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Today, the brotherhood includes more than a half a million members.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history and two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
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[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's at Labor History in two.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So again, I go back to I think about that kid off and I wonder where he is, who looked, he, he, he understood that, you know, high red, that degree was going to be his pathway because we understand now and then and I know there's, and I said this a moment ago, I that, you know, you got the microse of the world running out there, you know, saying, you know, you know, we don't all need a college degree and I, I don't disagree.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We don't all need college degrees, but we do need training.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We do need skills, and I think it's something in my grow would agree with.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Even if that's just technical or community college certificate program, we do need that investment.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I know the right loves to tell me, well, you need to have scoot in the game.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, the pull your boats, the stuff up by your bootstrap argument, only works if you've got boots.
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[SPEAKER_03]: to put the straps in.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, just kind of throwing that out there and I think about myself.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, look, you know, there was a period where I would have money and no time to go to school or no money and time to go to school.
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[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't seem to come together at the same time.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Now, eventually, over a long, whole period of time, I was able to complete my degree and do all of that, but it was much harder than it should have been.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I argue that, you know, for the public, the greatest return on investment is the next level of education, be it higher ed, be it the next level of occasional training, all of that stuff, and it should be affordable, the training should be accessible and well funded.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then connected to actual jobs rather than financed
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[SPEAKER_03]: because what we've done to a couple of generations, it's said, well, you know, if you want that golden ticket, if you want access to our American dream, you've got to believe in yourself.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You've got to invest in yourself, and you've got to then have an 18 year old kid decide, am I going to take out $100,000 in debt?
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[SPEAKER_03]: And to be honest, I think back to when I was a young kid, they were on campus handing out credit cards.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You could get a hat and a $500 limit credit card.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, because you're now an adult and they were handing them out and it was one of the greatest lessons of my life to be honest because they gave me just enough rope.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, to cause myself trouble not to hang myself.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It was a $500 credit card limit, which back in the mid-80s was still a lot of money when minimum wage was $3.35, 500 bucks was a lot of money.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And almost immediately I ran that up to the maximum.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Took me two years to pay it back, because didn't have the money.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I looked at the amount of interest that I paid, because of course it was high, because they got me and I haven't paid interest sets, because I learned the lesson.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And the lesson was, don't misuse debt, use it when you need it, but don't use it on Cheetos or non-sats.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And you go, but Rick, how's that in comparison to education?
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[SPEAKER_03]: We make decisions with play money.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Because we don't really have a concept.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know what 500 bucks was then.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know what that kind of debt meant.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think about my kids and I'm keenly aware of all of this and I've tried to train them in a way that they are as well.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I never had that advantage.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of kids don't, especially poor and working class kids.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where my focus is because look, the elite, they're going to be fine.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The wealthy, they're going to be fine.
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[SPEAKER_03]: They're going to get their kids what they want and what they need.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to go to college and I'm going to get a degree and it's going to be great because I've read all this stuff because we know it raises wages, you get job security when you've got portable skills.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's all great.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to be a nurse or a teacher or I'm going to have a career.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then they take out these massive student loans that they're struggling with.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's something we should be working on.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We should be fixing.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the investment we make in higher education, we all know what this means.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It means, you know, in states that have higher, you know, college graduation rates, have higher students, have higher workers with higher, you know, degree levels, you've got higher wage, you've got more job security, you've got more professionals, you've got more research and innovation and more industry that's working on stuff.
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[SPEAKER_03]: the engine of growth and more jobs and more business activity, we know that's higher.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We also know it generates more tax revenue so that we can fund public services.
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[SPEAKER_03]: If we just wouldn't give it away in billion air tax cuts, it might actually work.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But we also know that your higher educational attainment does lead to better health and life expectancy, we know there's good stuff.
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[SPEAKER_03]: people who want to be active in civic responsibility in their community and that idea of having some upward mobility is there.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And it allows for some resilience as changes happen.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It allows people to adapt.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Because understand an education isn't just learning how to regurgitate facts and how to put me around holes and round pegs and round holes, it's about being able to critically think and solve problems.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's one of the things that I've tried to instill in my kids that they understand.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That's just not about what you're learning here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's the fact that you're learning how to learn, how to analyze, how to synthesize problems, and then solve them.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And also, how not to get hung up on the wrong problems.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of like we are political system in this moment.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's a lot of stuff we should be doing, but we ain't this higher ed being part of that.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Seems like a good, seems like a good idea that as Patrick pointed out, numerous other states have done, but I do find it interesting that California had been a state that had free education for years, for their state system and for all that, and it was Ronald Reagan, who undid it all.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Just find that, they find that ironic.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Want to hear your thoughts?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Work at theRexemithshow.com.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Miss any portion of the program, podcast.
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[SPEAKER_03]: This is always, thanks for being here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you back here next time.
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[SPEAKER_04]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Email, Rick, and Rick at RickSmithshow.com.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Until next time, this is Ben, the Rick Smith show.
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[SPEAKER_04]: We're working people, come to talk.