Latest / The Rick Smith Show / The Rick Smith Show 8-26-2026

Transcript

The Rick Smith Show 8-26-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time for the Rick Smith Show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the Rick Smith Show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Today on the big program, lots to get to.
0:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Lot to talk about, so don't Trump selling early access to his truth social posts.
0:30
[SPEAKER_04]: uh... luck corruption in washington is not some side-effect of power anymore under trump this is now the operating system understand politicians have always gotten rich off of public service we know that they've traded favors landed cushy gigs turn access into cash uh... but trump is taken that to a whole new level on basically just stripped off the mask i's not just normalizing self-dealing he's branded it
0:58
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a guy who treats government like a private equity fund with a flag.
1:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Every policy, every posting, every public appearance, part of the hustle, part of the gig, all to enrich himself.
1:10
[SPEAKER_04]: He signals markets, rewards, loyalists, punishes, anyone who doesn't kiss the well, ring.
1:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And now we're supposed to act like surprise that the whole thing smells like a racket, give me a break.
1:25
[SPEAKER_04]: The stench, the stench has been there since day one.
1:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Always bend them and let's talk about the social media angle because this is where the grift gets really slick.
1:35
[SPEAKER_04]: When Trump uses his social media to move markets, you know, when he posts in ways that get either boost stocks, tank stocks, or telegraph what's coming next, you have to ask yourself, is this bad behavior or something much more nefarious?
1:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, if people can trade off his posts, if incitors can position themselves ahead of the public, if access to his feed becomes a money machine, then what are we going to call that?
2:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It may not always fit neatly into a courtroom charge, but we sure as shine no, what incitor trading by proxy looks like?
2:20
[SPEAKER_04]: At the very least, it's a market manipulation dressed up in presidential blaster.
2:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you think that doesn't matter to working people, you're just not paying attention.
2:32
[SPEAKER_04]: While billionaire crony game the system, regular people like us, we're getting hammered.
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Rents keep climbing, groceries keep rising, debt keeps piling up.
2:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Families are one emergency away from disaster.
2:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And the people in charge are busy looting the place.
2:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And like this,
2:56
[SPEAKER_04]: The real insult here is the cruelty is not an accent.
3:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been saying this for the longest time.
3:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It is the point.
3:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the structure.
3:04
[SPEAKER_04]: It's what the system that Trump has built is built into.
3:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And it protects them.
3:10
[SPEAKER_04]: This is what fascism looks like in modern American clothing.
3:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Not necessarily jack-booted thugs or in banners yet, but corruption, loyalty tests, intimidation, propaganda,
3:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Now you've got a strong man telling his followers, the rules don't apply to him.
3:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And too many cowards in the Republican Party go, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, because either they're getting a piece of it, or they're just, they're just cowardly.
3:43
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not statesmen, they're enablers, they're collaborators, they're terrified of losing power and would rather burn the country to the ground that admit that Trump is a con man
3:56
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't need another lecture, and this won't be crazy.
3:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't need another lecture about both sides do it.
4:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Or the old excuses, you know politics has always been dirty.
4:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we know that, but there are degrees, and this is a whole new level of rot.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: This is self-dealing at an industrial scale.
4:16
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a presidency turned into a profit center, a political cult turned into a griff machine and a governing agenda built to serve the rich
4:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We deserve better than this.
4:31
[SPEAKER_04]: We deserve housing.
4:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We housing, we can afford wages, we can live on food, we can put on the table, and leaders who don't treat public office like their personal ATM.
4:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So enough, enough with the excuses, enough with the cowardly GOP, enough with the billionaire worship.
4:50
[SPEAKER_04]: If there is going to be any hope for us in stopping this, it's gonna take up a really a political revolt.
4:57
[SPEAKER_04]: and big enough to throw the bombs out of office, and to clean house.
5:01
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to ban presidents and senior officials from trading individual stocks at all or holding conflict at conflicted assets and do that in blind trust.
5:11
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to expand whistleblower protections.
5:13
[SPEAKER_04]: We've been talking about this for a while.
5:16
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to expand independent oversight, not allow them to destroy it.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to require real, full time disclosure of meetings, donors, gifts, and any lobbying activities.
5:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we need to know who's going where.
5:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And we need to strengthen rules against social media and official channels that are manipulating the markets.
5:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I look, you know, nobody, we've never had a president like this.
5:44
[SPEAKER_04]: But understand, this is what running a government like a business looks like.
5:52
[SPEAKER_04]: and more importantly than all of the others.
5:55
[SPEAKER_04]: For me, the number one thing, we need to overhaul our campaign finance rules.
6:01
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to reduce billionaire influence and dark money in elections, and we need to do it.
6:05
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to do it right quick.
6:08
[SPEAKER_04]: As I've been saying for years, what we really need to be doing is we need to be taxing billionaires out of existence, and we should never have a trillionaires.
6:17
[SPEAKER_04]: This is one of those moments where you go,
6:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We're a very wealthy country, the wealthiest in the history of humanity.
6:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've got children who go to bed hungry, we've got veterans who sleep on the street, but at least we've got a children there.
6:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It really is interesting times that we live in.
6:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And when we come back, Rand Wilson's going to be here to share some thoughts on how we begin to revive the working class of this country.
6:46
[SPEAKER_04]: and how we begin to create that prosperity in the working class.
6:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Right back, stick around.
6:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Into.
6:59
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1942.
7:03
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that the United States and Mexico signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement.
7:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It became known as the Bracero Program.
7:11
[SPEAKER_04]: The word Bracero can be translated into one who works with his arms and refers to farm workers.
7:18
[SPEAKER_04]: This program allowed Mexican agricultural workers to enter the United States on a temporary basis.
7:25
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a shortage of labor due to the U.S. entry into World War II.
7:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Large American farm owners were clamoring for cheap labor.
7:33
[SPEAKER_04]: By 1945, more than 100,000 Mexican migrant workers were employed through Bracero contracts, mostly in western and southern states.
7:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Most were farm workers, but others labored on the railroads.
7:46
[SPEAKER_04]: The program continued until 1964.
7:49
[SPEAKER_04]: More than 4.5 million individual labor contracts with Mexican workers were awarded as part of this program.
7:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Many of these workers faced exploitation and discrimination.
8:00
[SPEAKER_04]: For example, some of the workers had to subject themselves to fumigation by DDT before they could enter the United States to work.
8:09
[SPEAKER_04]: These Mexican workers were often paid less than white workers performing the same labor, and they were often cheated out of their wages.
8:17
[SPEAKER_04]: The workers were required to work long hours under often grueling conditions.
8:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Despite this exploitation, the Procero program did have some minimal protections for pay and working conditions for those under contract.
8:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Farm owners unwilling to meet even these low standards began to hire undocumented labor to skirt the rules.
8:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor Organizer Ernesto Galaraza wrote a book about the program called Stranger in our fields.
8:44
[SPEAKER_04]: In it, he recounts a worker explaining, quote, in this camp, we have no names.
8:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We are called only by numbers.
8:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Like what you hear, check out more at LaborHistoryInto.com.
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Now here is Rick Smith.
9:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So on Sunday, I got a message from a red hat, a red hat friend of mine.
9:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's let's let's let's go with that.
9:12
[SPEAKER_04]: He sent me this text said, hey, no wonder Bezos is the third richest man.
9:17
[SPEAKER_04]: He has non-English speaking people dropping off packages at eight o'clock on a Sunday night in enterprise rental vans.
9:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And you go, yeah, that's how he's making his money.
9:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And those aren't even Amazon employees.
9:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Those are independent contractors, those are gig workers, and don't forget, don't forget the single mom who's dropping off a few packages on the way home after her 10-hour day job.
9:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, before going home to take care of the kids, yeah, Basos has got a great scheme going.
9:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Got a good scam.
9:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It's got working people going, pulling myself up by my own boss.
9:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I get the deliver these packages piecemeal and I can fit it in while I'm, you know, I'm doing the, uh, the Uber eats or the door dash or the other gig jobs that we're being thrown.
10:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is why I keep saying it's so imperative that we organize Amazon.
10:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Turn those Amazon delivery jobs into into UPS jobs.
10:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Wouldn't that be good for the working class of this country?
10:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to tell you, I think it would be.
10:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And here to share some thoughts on that, I've asked my good friend, Ren Wilson, to come share some thoughts.
10:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Rans a labor organizer and writer does a lot of writing over at labor notes.
10:27
[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a new piece out now on what we could learn from the fight for 15 campaign.
10:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Also, that it's imperative that we organize these folks, Rand.
10:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for taking time for us.
10:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, it's a pleasure to be here, Rick.
10:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Really welcome the opportunity to talk about Amazon.
10:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So look, I'm looking at my red hat buddy, says, hey, you know, Bezos is paying these non-English speakers.
10:49
[SPEAKER_04]: He's paying them on a Sunday night in rental vans.
10:52
[SPEAKER_04]: He doesn't know what they're paying.
10:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I might know, not a lot, but he's upset by that.
10:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And for me, there's an opportunity to, and I engaged to try and reach him a little bit, educate him a little bit.
11:02
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's a chance here, I think.
11:04
[SPEAKER_04]: You got any thoughts?
11:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, well, first of all, continuing the dialogue with, you know, the Maca movement is really important because there's so many things that we really agree on, particularly when we get into the degradation of work that's based on some company or, you know, leaving the charge.
11:30
[SPEAKER_03]: We can't stop having a dialogue because so many working-class people have been seduced by the siren song of Trump and others, but we've got to bring them back.
11:45
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got to focus on reclaiming the kinds of issues that he has exploited.
11:54
[SPEAKER_04]: no look at their very real issues in their worth being angry over and I understand the anger and I'm not diminishing it at all but the fact is we we had he had to throw in there you know they're not in English speakers like somehow you could look out your window and see what language they spoke or where they were born which I find interesting without talking about all of the other people who are doing this job and I actually know a single mother who delivers packages I'm away home from work
12:20
[SPEAKER_04]: As I think a lot of us probably do and I got to tell you that that's not the kind of job structure I think is is beneficial for a prosperous working class and a prosperous company like Amazon should be creating careers.
12:36
[SPEAKER_03]: for people.
12:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Good jobs that our communities need, right?
12:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Not degrading work for the entire working class.
12:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just, it's, that company can afford to provide
12:53
[SPEAKER_04]: really good jobs in the warehouses on the delivery trucks, they've got the depth and money, they've got the model, but instead what they're doing ran, if I can catch you off, or instead what they're doing is they're the weight, they're the rock that's sinking to the bottom of the barrel because not only are they paying underpaying their workforce, they're dragging everybody else down with them.
13:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I look at UPS and I've got friends who work at UPS who are concerned that you know what,
13:21
[SPEAKER_04]: There's just no way you can compete with poverty-wage desperation-wage jobs.
13:26
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
13:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And UPS is beginning to develop similar models in a parallel to the Teamster jobs at divisions called Rodey and other tentacles of UPS emulating the Amazon model.
13:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a threat
13:48
[SPEAKER_03]: to teamster wages and working conditions at UPS.
13:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not just the teamsters and you've sent me a list of all the unions that were affected by Amazon and their low road employment.
14:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like 18 different unions and 18 different crafts.
14:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And just a plethora of jobs that across the spectrum that well beyond just the guy or gal dropping the package on my doorstep from IT on all the way down.
14:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Amazon has its tentacles into anything and everything that it can disrupt and make a profit on.
14:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're moving into healthcare.
14:26
[SPEAKER_03]: They're moving into pharmacy.
14:28
[SPEAKER_03]: They bought whole foods.
14:29
[SPEAKER_03]: They bought hollywood MGM studios.
14:34
[SPEAKER_03]: They are not only doing next day delivery, they're doing same day delivery now.
14:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's particularly with the gig employees.
14:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, at least 18 different unions that wear their wages and working conditions, their labor standards are threatened by the Amazon octopus.
15:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, another reality is, I've always been a believer in one big union.
15:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I like the idea, the old IWW idea of, you know, one big union, we're all in.
15:11
[SPEAKER_04]: This seems like if there was ever a moment in my lifetime where everybody should be in.
15:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think it's, you know, you and I have kicked around in the labor movement long enough to know that the jurisdictions and fight them of different unions are real obstacle to that.
15:32
[SPEAKER_03]: What we would like to see is regional or metro labor tables.
15:38
[SPEAKER_03]: where the UFCW, the teamsters, the service employees, communications workers that organizing AWS, that these different unions come together to share information, to collaborate, to get to know one another and build trust at the local level.
15:58
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have to wait for Liz Schouler and the National AFLCIO Boobas.
16:03
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got to start doing this work locally.
16:07
[SPEAKER_03]: they will come.
16:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I would just urge that we have these metro labor tables, we can develop those in major markets like New York, Chicago, the inland empire, Atlanta,
16:24
[SPEAKER_03]: There's enough interest and support at that level in the labor movement for people to begin to collaborate and build trust with one another.
16:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So even if it isn't one big union, it's the labor unions that are threatened by Amazon collaborating and working together.
16:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, if the reality is, I've often said, I don't know why this hasn't already been built, especially as we've watched Amazon just get bigger and bigger and bigger, because I do think it's, if they have their way, everybody eventually is a gig worker, you know, hustle and out there for, for nickels and, and it's not good thing, it's not a good future.
17:06
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an existential threat, not just to the teamsters, not just to the United Food and Commercial Workers, it's an existential threat to labor standards for the working class.
17:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, this just it affects everybody and we can't keep having our head in the sand.
17:24
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got to come together and work.
17:27
[SPEAKER_03]: to build labor power, build worker power at Amazon.
17:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Raise force that company through whatever means necessary.
17:38
[SPEAKER_03]: We might not be able to get to collect a bargaining right away, but this leads into the fight for 15.
17:44
[SPEAKER_03]: But we have to mount a campaign to force Amazon to raise its wages and to improve its labor standards.
17:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to ask you because your most recent piece you came out with what you could learn from the fight for 15 campaign.
17:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember at the time back in 2012 when they came out.
18:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone got $15 dollars.
18:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you high?
18:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember going, you understand that's how you negotiate.
18:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You throw out a good number.
18:09
[SPEAKER_04]: You say, hey, this is what we want.
18:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you settle for a little bit.
18:12
[SPEAKER_04]: a little bit back, even I was going, you know, maybe 15's a little bit over there, but in retrospect, it's where it should have been back then.
18:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And now there are places where we're talking upwards of 25 or 30 bucks an hour to get to a minimum wage.
18:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So some lessons learned, right?
18:29
[SPEAKER_03]: A living wage is definitely we need to be talking, especially at Amazon, of a minimum of $30 an hour, nothing less than that from this company, but also straight now this gig and fiction of these subcontractors that are running the delivery business that are just a
18:56
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the workers are wearing an Amazon uniform, they're driving an Amazon truck, they're paying, working conditions, hours of service, discipline, everything is run by Amazon and yet they're not treated as an Amazon employee.
19:12
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a gross misclassification and we've got to get that straightened out and it's going to take
19:19
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, a mobilization of Amazon workers, we're doing that, but we also have to mobilize the larger labor community.
19:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And
19:30
[SPEAKER_03]: people that are at just general public that's concerned about how this is degrading their their standards in their communities.
19:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but ultimately and this is this is where I've had more success in talking with neighbors and friends.
19:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone knows their UPS guy.
19:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone knows their postal worker.
19:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone knows that the mail, I know the woman who delivers my mail have known her for almost 20 years now.
19:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Same thing with the UPS guy.
19:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I see him all the time I
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Any time Amazon comes to the house, it's always someone different.
20:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I never know who it is.
20:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And in FedEx is the same way, and I look at the FedEx model, I think this were Bezos told it because they've been doing this kind of stuff for a long time So when I talk to people like, oh, you like your you like your UPS guy you like your postal postal delivery person.
20:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, I love them Don't know the Amazon guys, so it seems like there would be a natural kind of hey don't you want to support someone who you know Bring in stuff to your house know who they are Want them to have a good life and that seems to resonate and I because I think we have to have consumers who buy into this as well
20:36
[SPEAKER_03]: no question about it.
20:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And if we don't, if we're not able to launch a much broader campaign, it's about a lot more than just labor standards, we're never going to get the political traction we need to reign in these abuses.
20:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And let's think back about that fight for 15 where the service employees funded a very large grassroots campaign with hundreds of organizers, huge research staff, an incredible PR machine
21:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It was originally, you know, was the fight for 15 in a union.
21:25
[SPEAKER_03]: They expanded a lot of effort.
21:28
[SPEAKER_03]: They raised wages significantly.
21:31
[SPEAKER_03]: They improved working conditions for tens of thousands of fast food workers.
21:39
[SPEAKER_03]: However, it didn't result,
21:41
[SPEAKER_03]: in a permanent organization of buy and for the fast food workers.
21:47
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's, you know, one of the downsides of that campaign, but the upside of it is it was on a scale that was commensurate with,
22:00
[SPEAKER_03]: the challenge of raising wages in the fast food industry.
22:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we need now is a campaign that's on a scale, commensurate with the challenge that Amazon is giving to all workers in this country.
22:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And do you see that happening?
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Because look, my friend Randy Corgan and the teamsters, they're out there, they're in the in the in the in the empire, they're doing what you're saying, they're out there, you're disrupting, they're out there, you know, sleep, flooding, they're doing all kinds of stuff.
22:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that enough?
22:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, are they doing?
22:31
[SPEAKER_03]: No, the teamsters really want it's necessary, but in fact, it's critical importance, but it's it's still insufficient.
22:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the Teamsters Union.
22:44
[SPEAKER_03]: You know that.
22:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I've worked for the Union.
22:49
[SPEAKER_03]: and I support every teamster initiative and Amazon.
22:54
[SPEAKER_03]: But that one union alone doesn't have the resources, the talent, the expertise to mount the kind of campaign that we need.
23:03
[SPEAKER_03]: We need the UFCW to come in with the same commitment that the teamsters have made.
23:08
[SPEAKER_03]: We need the service employees to come in and make that same commitment.
23:13
[SPEAKER_03]: We need tens of $10 million from each of these organizations to complement and augment what the teamsters are already doing.
23:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But by themselves, they just don't have the resources to really be in the game in a meaningful way with Bezos and
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Amazon because I've heard of explaining to me here recently and I don't I don't know that I necessarily disagree that what we're seeing is just kind of a a show campaign Like the FedEx organizing campaigns at the past where you were just out there causing enough of a nuisance to keep UPS Great so this is what I believe this is what was explained to me and I don't know as why I'm asking you
23:56
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I just agree.
23:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I went to labor notes in June, and we had over 200 Amazon workers there from all over the country who are building committees, are being supported by the Teamsters Union or other independent efforts.
24:17
[SPEAKER_03]: That work is real, and I respect it.
24:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I applaud it, but it's just
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: to the on the scale that we need.
24:29
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's what I want to hear.
24:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear that they're going in the right direction.
24:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to know that the dues dollars are actually being effect used effectively.
24:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And that, you know, maybe if you ramp this up, you get the results.
24:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You're looking for because because we desperately need it because it look.
24:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we're in a 1930s kind of moment.
24:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I think, you know,
24:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we're kind of in this moment where this is a maker break opportunity.
24:50
[SPEAKER_04]: If you can't organize an Amazon or some of these other big companies, it's over for everybody else because there's no one at the scale.
24:59
[SPEAKER_03]: What the workers report to me is that the anger is high, workers are ready, but they need, they need to know that there's a pathway to victory.
25:08
[SPEAKER_03]: They need to know that there's going to be the support and infrastructure for them to succeed.
25:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And we've got to get to that point.
25:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And it means having other unions, UFCW, SCIU, Machina's Union, the CWA, the Pharmacy Unions,
25:35
[SPEAKER_03]: everybody needs to get into this game.
25:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And really resources and organizers and their expert expertise to the fight.
25:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I think we have a shot because I think the workers are ready.
25:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So last question I've got for you.
25:50
[SPEAKER_04]: What are you paying attention to to see if any of this works out?
25:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And what are the marching orders for every union member in this country?
25:57
[SPEAKER_04]: What would you want me or other card carrying union members to do?
26:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Or people who believe that unions
26:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And those people should be members.
26:06
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the marching order?
26:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, hey, have a little story, I met with them.
26:15
[SPEAKER_03]: a guy in, either in summerville, Massachusetts and a letter carrier lives like half a mile from me and we got together somebody suggested that I meet with him and get together for coffee.
26:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So we had coffee and we talked about Amazon and he talked about as a letter carrier how the Amazon was threatening his job, his working conditions as a postal worker.
26:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So next thing I know, he's off to the letter carriers convention, which is happening right now and he's bringing with him a resolution to that convention to to vote resources from the national association of letter carriers to support organizing at Amazon.
27:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So we need everybody to carry that torch wherever you are.
27:10
[SPEAKER_03]: In whatever arena you can get into to bring this up and to urge the support for each union to get involved, to put resources to it, to do the Metro Labor Table, and to get everybody into the fight.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go, Rand.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate the time.
27:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I get the great work.
27:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope folks check out your pieces over at labornotes.org.
27:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick, always a pleasure.
27:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Really appreciate what you do.
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Good seeing you again.
27:40
[SPEAKER_04]: One of your thoughts, email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com.
27:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you, um, the Amazon?
27:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you, uh, do you talk to your driver?
27:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Wanna hear what they say?
27:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Email me, Rick at Therixmithshow.com.
27:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Right back, it's the crime.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History, and today in Labor History, the year was 1941.
28:06
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day Michael Seagull, business agent for New York City's local three IBEW, announced the lights would be going out on Broadway for a half an hour.
28:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Electritions had been on strike for nearly a week to protest consolidated Edison's refusal to employ union electricians for work on its new water side plant.
28:26
[SPEAKER_04]: The company claimed it could only use members of the brotherhood of Edison employees and independent union.
28:32
[SPEAKER_04]: The walkout also affected electricians at area construction sites and at 25 defense contractors across the city.
28:39
[SPEAKER_04]: The union had agreed to exempt electricians at the Brooklyn Navy Yards,
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: where the strike held up work on four battleships.
28:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Also, the IBEW allowed electricians at Ford Instrument to return to work, given they had orders for $100 million in defense instruments.
28:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Seagull announced that at 9pm the following evening, maintenancemen not on strike,
29:00
[SPEAKER_04]: would pull the switches on all signs in time square and sympathy to bring attention to their plot.
29:06
[SPEAKER_04]: After the half hour blackout, the IBEW continued to fight injunctions brought by the New York Electrical Contractors Association.
29:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Harry Van Arne's day old junior, business manager for local 3, declared the blackout had been more successful than they had hoped.
29:21
[SPEAKER_04]: He characterized the switch off as a blackout for enlightenment.
29:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Naval officials complained, however, that the strike held up vital defense projects.
29:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Newspapers noted that Broadway heights suddenly noticed the moon when they estimated 10 million watts of super lighting was turned off.
29:38
[SPEAKER_04]: A Times Square veteran noted it was the darkest since 1918 when a Zeppelin raid alarm caused a blackout.
29:45
[SPEAKER_04]: The strike was called off a week later.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: When Khan had acknowledged its previous agreement with the IBEW.
29:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor History in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smithsia.
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: For more information, go to laborhistoryantube.com.
30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: but then came Trump, trashing the very idea of a green economy.
30:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So to appease the vengeful Republican, obsequious CEOs rushed to dump their green principles, except for one especially burden area of the corporate culture.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: CEO compensation.
30:24
[SPEAKER_00]: As widely reported, top executive pay has surged during the Trump regime, but wait, they won't more.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So other tendrils of executive pay have sprouted and grown like Jack's Beanstalk, further separating those at the top from the rest of us.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Wall Street Journal reporters have uncovered some $600 million in executive perks that big corporations settled out to their haunches last year.
30:50
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, investors in Apollo, the Average's Wall Street Huckster, laid out nearly a million dollars for luxury limo and chauffeur services, so their billionaire CEO would not have to open the car door himself.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: For tax purposes, Apollo called this a security measure, rather than the pompous political critic Perk, it is.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Already overpaid, these royals have come to expect all of life's needs and whims to be covered.
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: including $121,000 in free tickets to bowl games to please the multimillioner chief of roto-ruder.
31:26
[SPEAKER_00]: $20,000 in booze for the head of a liquor conglomerate, which insists the free bee is awarded to enhance the boss's quote, Knowledge of the Product.
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And a $492 pay out to cover the maintenance cost on a home generator for the chief of Hewlett Packard, who is paid $23,000 a year.
31:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-Tower saying an old-edged claims that it's the little things that matter and these CEO entitlements show just how little corporate leaders have become.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So Trump's manufacturing cosplay crashed again into reality as high quality marching band instrument company, a conselmer shot its factory doors in Ohio, about 150 union jobs now gone, a production being shipped, some to Indiana another plant there, but most of it, you know where
32:36
[SPEAKER_04]: uh, uh, uh, China.
32:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And my first thought was, uh, where are all of those working class Republicans who were saying, we care about working people?
32:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, where's the outrage there?
32:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's Donald Trump?
32:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought Trump could stop these things.
32:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought he had the power.
32:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought his tariffs.
32:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought that was supposed to fix it.
32:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought all that donor hype that he knows all the people.
33:03
[SPEAKER_04]: when it's a billionaire hedge fund owner that owns this company.
33:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought we were bringing jobs back.
33:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, what we find out is workers lose wall street wins, always the plant closes and Trump's promise, a lie, and understand, under Trump American manufacturing got the perfect Republican solution again, cut it, close it, ship it out of town.
33:27
[SPEAKER_04]: He promised to rebuild the industry and rebuild a manufacturing.
33:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And what do you deliver?
33:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Demolition with a flag on it.
33:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And here to share some thoughts about, well, anybody still buying Trump is the manufacturing guy?
33:40
[SPEAKER_04]: We haven't even had the facade of manufacturing week yet.
33:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, which is why I've asked my good friend John Logan to come share some thoughts.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: John's a professor there at San Francisco State University.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: John, thanks for taking time for us.
33:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, great.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's be on.
33:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So look, for the last couple of months, the UAW has been fighting to keep these 150 jobs.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been doing everything they can do.
34:02
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been, you know, the conversations with the Republican Senator Marino.
34:07
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been, they've been doing pull it out all the stops.
34:09
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a lot of social media, a lot of organizing, a lot of shame and didn't matter.
34:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Jobs still going to China.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you said to me, it's been the same story ever since Trump came in the second time.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was the first time to me.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: There was an awful lot of rhetoric about bringing good-paying manufacturing jobs back to the United States, which of course is something we would all want to see.
34:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like so many communities in the US have been decimated by the fact
34:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and that they've been replaced either by nothing at all or by low-wage, dead-end service sector logistics, you know, warehouse non-union jobs.
35:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So we would all like to see it happen.
35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and you know, a large part of the reason that we have Trump is because of the impact of the disappearance of these jobs in certain communities and you'll permit West, you know, that I mean, we all know the job started to disappear, you know,
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: five decades, you know, 1970s, you know, the so process of deindustrialization and the offshoring of these jobs.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But then it really happened, you know, on steroids in the 1990s and 2000s after the passage of the NAFTA and, you know, the entry of China into the World Trade Organization is continued.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it caused the economy that sustained like decent middle, you know, what we call middle flash jobs, you know, blue color, middle flashing comes in these communities.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It caused those economies to fall apart, you know, faster than, you know, almost anyone predicted.
36:07
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's this story right here, John.
36:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's like Ohio is a solid work working class kind of community.
36:13
[SPEAKER_04]: These 150 people, some of the stories they pulled out of them were like, look, I wanted to retire from here.
36:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I was happy here.
36:20
[SPEAKER_04]: This was a good, it was a hard job busted my behind.
36:23
[SPEAKER_04]: My body's paying for it, but it was a good job.
36:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's supported my family.
36:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And we were a community.
36:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And now that is gone, it's destroyed.
36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not coming back no matter what traffic is.
36:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you take that away as a devastating impact on the community and, you know, the problem as we know is that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have really had your solutions about how to rebuild their economies.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: in those places, and that sort of creates a sense of hopelessness.
36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when there's something about manufacturing work in particular, you know, when you take those jobs away, I mean, I grew up in a so-form or mining community that then relied on steel industry and lots of other, you know, heavy manufacturing and all of those jobs disappeared.
37:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And it really has a devastating impact.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's neither of the sort of political establishment, neither of the parties are offering solutions.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes people very vulnerable to demagogues like Trump saying, you know, writing in and his white horse saying, only I, you know, I have the solutions, only I have the solutions.
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But as you said, it's all being BS.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like you've lost more manufacturing jobs since Trump has come in.
37:40
[SPEAKER_01]: we have not seen a revival of well-paid American manufacturing jobs.
37:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, there's a depressing and not so depressing part of the story.
37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in some ways, it's a depressing part that we all know, it's not a popular thing to say, but we all know that most of these jobs are not coming back.
38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the future of the global economy is not going to be an high-paid manufacturing jobs for most people.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: China has actually, as you said, most of these jobs have gone to China.
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But China has actually lost more manufacturing jobs in the last 10 years.
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: than the next three economies, the U.S. Germany and Japan put together.
38:33
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason is that, you know, lots of young Chinese do not want to unlike their parents, don't want to go into manufacturing jobs, and so Chinese industry was forced to automate a lot of these jobs.
38:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, so the use of, you know, robotics and automation in China, even in very small plants, you know, not talking about huge factories, you know, fox con factories that, you know, assemble iPhones and things like that, you know, if you go to places like, you know, Beijing, Shanghai, you know,
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: loss of all the places in China.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You can even see very, very small workplaces where they have a level of automation that you know, it's really surprising.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason they have it is that you know, they couldn't get people to do all of these manufacturing jobs.
39:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So they've automated a lot of the manufacturing jobs, out of existence.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean of course, yes, so you said they still continue to get US manufacturing jobs being relocated to China
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, so there is this sort of myth that, you know, you can just reverse the clock, you can bring these jobs back, you can make some high paid manufacturing jobs.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, there are certain things that, you know, the US could be and should be manufacturing in, you know, far greater numbers, you know, semiconductors and all of the rest of it.
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But otherwise, we just need
40:05
[SPEAKER_01]: we will highly build high quality jobs and we can do it but it's not going to be in traditional manufacturing and the other thing that we need to do and you know I know you know this but you know if we want you were at a very sort of dangerous point where wealth
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: and political power are becoming concentrated in fear and fear of hands.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: If we want to have a fairer or more decent society, and we want to have a society in which people's kids can expect not a worse
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: economic assistance, but a better one.
40:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, people are not even thinking about a better one at the moment.
40:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just wanting their kids to be able to enjoy the type of economy that they once enjoyed.
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we want to have a more optimistic economic future,
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: There's really only two things, you know, that there are many things we need to do as a society, but we need stronger unions and stronger collective bargaining to make sure that employers cannot compete on the basis of crappy disposable jobs.
41:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we need to have some realistic redistribution of wealth through taxation so that the economy is not rigged against working people that we don't go further and further down this route where both economic wealth and political power are in the hands of a few companies and a few people.
41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And what that implies, no alternative to those two things, stronger labor movement and, you know, whether you want to call it billionaire wealth tax or whatever it is.
41:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone is talking me, talking about this in California at the moment.
41:49
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not just California, it's all over Europe, it's all over countries that have experienced the same level, you know, similar problems with
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: and the creation of, you know, where they have had jobs replaced some of crappy low-wage dead end disposable jobs.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, countries, you know, like the UK, all of our Europe are discussing, like, you know, it's safe with the surf like, you know,
42:23
[SPEAKER_01]: acceleration of the concentration of wealth and power, you really don't have any alternatives, you know, if you want to have a more decent, more equal society.
42:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course, no, I mean, the reality is, you know, for 21 years I've been sitting in that song.
42:39
[SPEAKER_04]: We need stronger unions, we need a better taxist.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We've created a bigger class, you're right, and bad policy did it, but the problem says you know are far worse now than they were,
42:52
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's absolutely worse, but we went, we weren't listening then are we listening now because look I look at the the folks and look I know tons of people like those folks had had consellers who lost their jobs They were still looking for Trump to bring those jobs back.
43:08
[SPEAKER_04]: They were still wishing in hoping and you're right.
43:11
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not coming back.
43:12
[SPEAKER_04]: They're gone.
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They absolutely do.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, where everyone knows, like, you know, we're already seeing, you know, the company's investment in AI and these sort of other emerging technologies is sort of disrupting.
43:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the job market for college graduates, for young people, you know, it's increasingly difficult for, you know, people who are leaving high school who are leaving college to get anything other than, you know, precarious employment, you know, sort of part-time contingent temporary jobs.
44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's already having that impact, but we're facing the possibility, and we don't exactly know what it's impact is going to be in terms of job displacement.
44:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, these are political choices.
44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: If we don't act to encourage, you know, to give both carrots to make sure that companies do not just dispose of their workers and replace them with the
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: AI and other emerging technologies, and sticks, you know, that you say to them, okay, you can lay off workers and replace them with technology, but you're going to be taxed on every single job that you eliminate.
44:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But say that, continue.
44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't start talking about these solutions.
44:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They were just going to go further and further down this route.
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: where you know already we're in a position we're a handful of people in this country.
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: In other countries too, but the concentration of wealth and power is worse in this country than the other rich democracies.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We have gone further down that route.
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going faster in that direction.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: If we don't actually have some course change, we
45:08
[SPEAKER_01]: and, as I said, like, we know what the problems are, we, you know, the political will were there to actually address the real problems, you know, to put, you know, proper regulations in place to make sure that these companies don't just have incentives to, you know, throw workers on the scrap
45:28
[SPEAKER_01]: and, you know, give larger and larger returns to a very small group of wealthy investors, and to make sure that people do have decent jobs.
45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I mean, you say the decent jobs of the future will not be the same as the decent jobs of the past, but we can turn, you know,
45:48
[SPEAKER_01]: things like, I'm in San Francisco, Bay Area.
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: We think of this tech economy here being dominated by tech.
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: In some ways, it is in terms of the valuation, we have two of these firms, and Tropique and OpenAI, who together are worth over $2 trillion.
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: At the same time,
46:13
[SPEAKER_01]: in San Francisco City Hall in areas like public health and after school programs for kids.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But in another way, it's actually healthcare.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a real driving force of the Bay Area economy.
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, you know, the economy, you know, more widely too, we're creating your tens of thousands of new jobs in healthcare.
46:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of them are low paid,
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: non-union, low-wage jobs.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They do not have to be.
46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we do not create jobs that pay decent incomes where people have a voice at work, where they can actually be fully human.
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not really trying to say.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was talking to someone a very senior union person the other day, and I was recommending to them a book, Jack Metzker, a fabulous book called Striking Steel, but the history of steel unionism.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, you know, if you want to be able to explain to people that hold collective bargaining, which is not this boring technical, you know, a special interest subject.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to know, how collective bargaining really transforms people's lives.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: in a way that allows them to become fully human and you live their full lives.
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll read that book before the unionization of the steel industry, before the unionization of the auto industry.
47:43
[SPEAKER_01]: These were terrible jobs.
47:45
[SPEAKER_01]: These people were not considered to be, you'd say, fully human.
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They did not have decent lives.
47:51
[SPEAKER_01]: They were injured on the job at incredible rates.
47:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They did not earn a living wage, they did not adopt benefits, and all of the things that unionization brought to these industries.
48:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We can do the same with Amazon, with health care jobs, in places where the economy is growing and where it's going to be growing over the next 10 years.
48:14
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why it's been interesting for me to watch, you know, California is Prop 45 out near neck of the woods because you would think taxing billionaires would I don't know to fund health care out you pointed out the biggest growth not just in California, but across the country you think that be a no brainer and for a guy like Gavin Newsom who wants to be president seems like an issue.
48:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
48:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe he might want to consider even though he is adamantly opposed to it.
48:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It just seems like we have all these problems because we voters keep voting for people who don't do the things we want them to do.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think, you know, Newsom is going to find that he's increasingly in a difficult spot because of his opposition to the billionaire health at wealth types.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of wants to have his care to need to, you know, he serves as, yeah,
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: He realizes he can't side with the billionaires against the people.
49:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that would be political suicide.
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So what Newsome has said is that, yes, billionaires should pay more tax, but this is not the right way to do it.
49:17
[SPEAKER_01]: What we need to do is tax billionaires at a federal level.
49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm not opposed to that.
49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't disagree with Newsome knows that that's
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: fantasy right now, you know, it depends on all sorts of things happening politically over the next few years that may or more likely may not happen, you know, maybe we'll have a president use some maybe we want, you know, probably won't that.
49:42
[SPEAKER_01]: All sorts of things have to happen.
49:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He's really beholden to the tech industry and to the tech billionaires for political support, but at the same time realizes that we're kind of in a populist moment.
49:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Both on the right and on the left, you know, on the right, of course, you know, we have Trump's authoritarian populism.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: blame immigrants, blame other people on the left, you know, we have these, you know, initiatives like tax billionaires, but the reason that we have that on the left is that the concentration of wealth and power has become such a problem.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It is distorting the economy and, you know, our political systems don't much.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It is destroying the future of young people, you know, to, I mean, the young people who are not getting jobs this year, next year, the year after, this is something that's going to follow them, probably to the rest of their careers, but, you know, for the next several decades.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: not hiring people, laying off workers, sort of saying, oh, we'll figure it out.
50:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we'll come back, you know, governments will come up with some solution.
51:00
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we're, the moment we're not coming up with any solution.
51:05
[SPEAKER_01]: At least there's another way to look.
51:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the solution is tax them.
51:09
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the solution.
51:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Massive reduce the pressure of well, back down the way it used to be when my grandparents generation were around.
51:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
51:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the politics of these things is always, yeah, somewhat complicated, but the obstacle to passing these things is not that people, you know, most people, when you say to them, well, do you think it's a good idea to tap billionaires in California?
51:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a one-time tax by percent on wealth as of, you know, January
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: just tax billionaires only 200 people in the whole state of California who would be subject to this tax tax from just a little bit more in a way that they can easily afford to make sure that hundreds of thousands and you'll maybe even millions of people don't lose access to basic health services.
52:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that that's a good idea?
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: overwhelmingly people say, you know, certainly Democrats, independent, even some Republicans say, yes, of course that is absolutely reasonable.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The biggest obstacle is that the billionaires are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to defeat these measures.
52:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They will spend as much as they can to try to confuse people to try to convince them that this will have
52:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You know unintended negative consequences to try to convince some that want to achieve what it thinks it will achieve.
52:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's simply not true.
52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can design these things in different ways.
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But the basic principle that we need to tax billionaires a little bit more so that everyone else can just have an absolutely, you know,
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: basic decent standard of living and that your people can think that their kids are actually going to have a good life and exist in a economy that will allow them to make a decent living and have a decent life.
53:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Should
53:19
[SPEAKER_04]: being no brain of that that is you absolutely are not your goal and should be absolutely no brainer and and look you know at the end of the day you said a little bit I want an awful lot more and this is what we're gonna have to leave it because for me I gotta tell you 5% not anywhere near enough we should be going much bigger much much chunkier and maybe that happens down the road but John I appreciate the thoughts always great great conversation and I hope you'll come back and talk to us again real soon
53:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, absolutely, and, you know, we see what happens with the bill we interval, but the issue, as you know, right, the issue is not going to go away.
53:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No, because the problem is not going to go up.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: where the problem is going to get worse.
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to be talking about this issue, the billionaire tax, the need for stronger unions and stronger labor movement.
54:07
[SPEAKER_01]: These are issues that are becoming more urgent, not going to go away.
54:11
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go, John Logan, I appreciate the time as always great stuff, a professor there at San Francisco State University, also the director of their labor and employment studies program.
54:20
[SPEAKER_04]: One of your thoughts, tax the billionaires?
54:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, no, email me ricketerricksmithsio.com, right back.
54:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
54:36
[SPEAKER_04]: This day in labor history, the year was 1997.
54:39
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day 185,000 UPS workers and members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters went out on strike.
54:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It was the biggest strike in the United States in more than a decade.
54:52
[SPEAKER_04]: At issue was the use of part-time workers.
54:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The union estimated that as many as two out of three employees at big brown were part-time.
55:00
[SPEAKER_04]: The package delivery giant had also cut part-time wages to $8 an hour.
55:06
[SPEAKER_04]: These workers also were not eligible for the same benefits as full-time employees.
55:11
[SPEAKER_04]: At the time, UPS handled nearly 80% of the packages delivered in the United States each day.
55:17
[SPEAKER_04]: The strike ground those deliveries to a halt.
55:20
[SPEAKER_04]: The strike lasted for 16 days and cost the company $650 million in business.
55:26
[SPEAKER_04]: The teamsters paid out $10 million from its strike fund to support those on the picket line.
55:32
[SPEAKER_04]: The work stoppage succeeded in improving wages and securing workers' pensions.
55:36
[SPEAKER_04]: UPS also agreed to move 5,000 part-time employees to full-time over the life of the signed five-year contract.
55:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Teamster President Ron Kerry declared, people will be celebrating our victories over corporate greed.
55:50
[SPEAKER_04]: This fight with UPS shows what working people can accomplish when they all stick together.
55:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The UPS workers stood up to the throwaway worker approach,
56:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Today, many companies rely on this throwaway worker approach as their business model.
56:07
[SPEAKER_04]: They keep workers at a part-time status to avoid paying health care benefits and a living wage.
56:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Does today's labor movement have the solidarity with these workers to make a demand for full-time work?
56:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
56:24
[SPEAKER_04]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's At Labor History in two.
56:35
[SPEAKER_02]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show.
56:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people coming to home.
56:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got to tell you, you know, I love John Logan.
56:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, wind it.
56:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, I get gruddy.
56:50
[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a lot to say.
56:51
[SPEAKER_04]: He packs it in there, but the one, the one main takeaway from that, and he's not wrong, it really is the inequality stupid, and it's always going to be the inequality.
57:01
[SPEAKER_04]: The amount of wealth that are 1% and even the 1% of 1% has.
57:09
[SPEAKER_04]: because of how badly our policies have been enacted by people who were supposed to be looking out for us, it's created this environment where you have, he said, you're talking about 200 people in California, that would pay this 5% tax, and it would fund health care for millions.
57:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, just think about the enormous while that man looked, I get everyone going, you
57:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the reality is is I'd be happy to see, I'll change places with them.
57:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You make 30 grand a year, you pay no taxes.
57:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I'm sure that person would love, I'll tell you, I would love to pay 92% tax.
57:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I like they used to do during the Eisenhower era.
57:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Cause it meant I would have a lot of freaking money.
57:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I would love to pay that top marginal rate.
58:02
[SPEAKER_04]: as would anybody else and anyone who tells you that they wouldn't is either one stupid and doesn't understand or two just bold face lying to you.
58:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, you know, they play this game well, you know, you might be a billionaire someday and you have to pay the tax and I'm like, okay, sign me right up because they play that embarrassed millionaire card often.
58:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you know, some day, you could, you know,
58:32
[SPEAKER_04]: whatever and you could be a billionaire and the chances are you're not the chances are you're going to be the guy who doesn't get healthcare chances are you're going to be the family whose kid doesn't get a good education chances are chances are you're going to be on the losing end of that proposition and I go back to Elon Musk running around talking about universal high income everyone's going to have universal high income we can't even get the
59:02
[SPEAKER_04]: we can't do the basic stuff.
59:06
[SPEAKER_04]: What makes you think that the folks who don't want to get the basic stuff paid for for going to share more?
59:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It really, it's really quite remarkable.
59:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And yet, you know, we fall for it.
59:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I'll tell ya, you know, the whole fair share argument I've always been against.
59:24
[SPEAKER_04]: They're gonna pay their fair share.
59:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I know.
59:26
[SPEAKER_04]: We should not have anyone with the kind of power that Elon Musk has.
59:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Just my thoughts.
59:31
[SPEAKER_04]: One of your yours.
59:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at TheRixMithShow.com.
59:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here.
59:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back your next time.
59:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people, come to talk.