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The Rick Smith Show 8-19-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:16
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so much for being here.
0:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Today on the big program, I must get two lots to talk about.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure you've heard a little dust up going on between the Canada's and the U.S. is on the Terrif one, the whiny Terrif president.
0:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd also Donald Trump threatening to block the Gordy
0:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And look, this is one of those stories that sounds complicated until you realize it's actually fairly simple when you stop and you think about it.
0:50
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a new bridge that helps the public helps people at an old bridge that helps a donor.
1:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Which do you think?
1:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Take a wild guess, which one is
1:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right, the Gordy Hell bridge supposedly is a problem, because it's supposed to ease traffic strengthen our supply chains a bit reduced dependency on a single privately owned crossing between Detroit and Windsor.
1:27
[SPEAKER_03]: and it just happens that that privately owned crossing the ambassador bridge, you know, oddly enough, just happens to belong to the maroon family, a group that has spent years fighting the new bridge, like it's somehow personally insulting them at dinner, and why, well, simple, competition is bad if you're the monopoly.
1:54
[SPEAKER_03]: For decades, the Ambassador Bridge has been one of the most important trade arteries in this entire country, in North America, carrying massive amounts of goods between the US and Canada.
2:10
[SPEAKER_03]: It has also been an enormous, toll-generating machine.
2:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the Gordi Halbridge does threaten to break that stranglehold by offering a well-modern, publicly controlled alternative.
2:26
[SPEAKER_03]: More lanes, more capacity to less bottlenecking.
2:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Great for workers, manufacturers, anyone who will enjoy not sitting at a truck for six hours at a time.
2:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Terrible, however, for one person who's business model relies on being the only game in town.
2:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Enter?
2:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, a Donald Trump, who suddenly wants to take a look at this whole bridge situation.
2:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Not to be fair, Trump questions a lot of things, elections, windmills, whether exercise is good for you,
3:08
[SPEAKER_03]: But this particular concern lines up almost perfectly with the financial interests of the Marin family.
3:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And here's where it gets, let's say, I don't know, interesting.
3:22
[SPEAKER_03]: because one of major infrastructure projects that benefits millions of people is put on the chopping block and the biggest winner from that decision just happens to be a politically connected donor family it has to, I mean, honestly, it has to raise very obvious questions.
3:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Whether this is about policy or is about loyalty or is it about greasing the palm?
3:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Because, you know,
3:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Trump, daddy's, daddy's palm is itching.
3:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Now to be clear, you don't need a secret recording of someone so I'll kill, I'll kill the bridge for a jack.
4:00
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't need Trump saying that?
4:01
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not how influence works in 2026 or frankly ever.
4:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Influences, subtle, quieter.
4:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it's about access.
4:11
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about alignment.
4:12
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about knowing who's problems get treated like national emergencies.
4:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And well, who's don't?
4:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And suddenly, a bridge designed to help the public somehow now becomes negotiable.
4:28
[SPEAKER_03]: While a privately owned total bridge remains untouchable, what makes this especially absurd to me at least is the Gordie Howe Bridge isn't some vanity project.
4:40
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a response to a real economic need.
4:45
[SPEAKER_03]: The Detroit Windsor corridor is one of the busiest trade routes
4:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, like I said, in North America, if not the entire world, especially for auto manufacturing.
4:57
[SPEAKER_03]: When that car racing gets clogged, when traffic backs up, it's not just an inconvenience.
5:03
[SPEAKER_03]: It means layoffs, it means delays, and well, higher costs.
5:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And what happens to those costs?
5:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they ripple across the entire working class.
5:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So blocking the new bridge doesn't just protect a business,
5:18
[SPEAKER_03]: it protects a bottleneck, which if you think about it, it's kind of a perfect metaphor, a narrow point where everything gets squeezed and someone collects money while everyone else waits.
5:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I look what they're doing in a ran, and Trump's like, oh, but that's our job.
5:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Now look, this ultimately isn't just about Trump or one donor family.
5:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about what happens when public infrastructure collides with private power.
5:49
[SPEAKER_03]: It really boils down to us versus them.
5:53
[SPEAKER_03]: One side tried to build something bigger, faster, more efficient.
5:56
[SPEAKER_03]: The other tried to keep things exactly the way they are because, well, it pays well, very well.
6:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And somehow, the guy who's supposed to be negotiating on our behalf on behalf of
6:13
[SPEAKER_03]: is looking at this situation and saying, you know what?
6:17
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to take a look at this.
6:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's slow this, let's hit the brakes.
6:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Because, obviously, nothing says America first, like protecting a toll booth monopoly.
6:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
6:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And the weird thing is, is we're in a moment where Donald Trump is running around the country using his new favorite buzzword, communist, because now, if it's deadly, everyone is now a communist.
6:40
[SPEAKER_03]: every one that doesn't agree communist everyone who has a different idea communist and the minions oh oh the minions have picked it up uh... because luck you know the the the other chance kind of stale we got a new hit now and i'll tell you it's it is a hit because my email is now full of you coming on since yeah uh... recently trump was at a campaign style stop in michica
7:08
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... just ahead of the democratic senate primary uh... and you know as as as per you would expect uh... attempting to paint democrats as communists uh... he said communism can't put this up as communism the greatest threat to our country in history i guess including world war one world war two and the attack on pearl harbor
7:33
[SPEAKER_02]: and 9-11 don't forget that.
7:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I said, we can't let them get their claws into this incredible they call it an experiment.
7:42
[SPEAKER_03]: The single greatest year we've ever had as a country.
7:46
[SPEAKER_03]: This, are you feeling that?
7:48
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, we're not going to let these people destroy it.
7:54
[SPEAKER_03]: He called a heckler or communist.
7:56
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, we're running against communist now.
7:59
[SPEAKER_03]: you see what they want to do.
8:01
[SPEAKER_03]: They want to take your house.
8:05
[SPEAKER_03]: They want to do things.
8:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody has ever thought before.
8:09
[SPEAKER_03]: They want to take your money.
8:10
[SPEAKER_03]: They want to raise your taxes up to 80%.
8:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Because again, nobody's ever thought of that before.
8:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Except, you know, Dwight David Eisenhower during his administration.
8:21
[SPEAKER_03]: The top marginal tax rate was 92%.
8:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But the history facts, all that stuff, be damned.
8:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And what's really wild about Trump running around calling everyone a communist now is he's kind of quietly doing his own version of you know fascistic kind of behavior state back corporate control when it suits him and somehow the conversation still gets framed in his terms.
8:55
[SPEAKER_03]: because our laptop corporate controlled billionaire controlled media keeps framing of this stuff.
9:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Take the story coming out of New York City.
9:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Mayor Montgomery, Brad on having city-run grocery stores.
9:10
[SPEAKER_03]: They've announced that on a certain number of staple kind of items, food's going to be 30% cheaper.
9:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Somehow, that's radical communism.
9:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, he's not seizing farms.
9:26
[SPEAKER_03]: He's not abolishing markets.
9:28
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a public option for folks to be able to go through.
9:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Just a public option to undercut the price gouging in one of the most expensive cities on earth.
9:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And instead of grounding it in a working class argument, which is, people can't afford to eat, here's a tool to fix it, we could grab into this kind of ideological mudfight where the right and the minion scream, gobbin' to them!
9:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And parts of the left lean into the rhetoric about taking over industries, like somehow that's going to help.
10:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not helpful.
10:07
[SPEAKER_03]: because here's the uncomfortable truth.
10:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Trump's already doing selective backdoor versions of industrial policy.
10:16
[SPEAKER_03]: He's been pressureing companies for a while, dangling subsidies and or flirting ideas about carving out ownership stakes, like that Intel demand.
10:27
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not some pure free market idea and if we had an honest chamber of commerce and an honest business community,
10:38
[SPEAKER_03]: because what it is is it's state power being used to shape industries.
10:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not entirely against it, but you don't get the point you're finger and claim everyone else is doing horrible things.
10:49
[SPEAKER_03]: We're near.
10:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's a difference to this.
10:54
[SPEAKER_03]: He's doing it for corporate allies in political leverage, not workers.
10:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And when DSA figures start talking loosely about taking over industries without grounding it in material, immediate worker gains, they're playing right into those hands.
11:10
[SPEAKER_03]: You're giving them the talking points.
11:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You're giving them the exact language he needs to scare the you know what out of people and to scare them away from anything mildly redistributive.
11:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've told you before, I'm all in favor of redistributing wealth.
11:25
[SPEAKER_03]: The way it was before Reagan and his minions completely blanked it up.
11:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Because here's the reality, most working people aren't sitting around debating state ownership models.
11:39
[SPEAKER_03]: They're trying to figure out why their grocery prices have jumped 40% while their paychecks haven't.
11:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, I've been saying this all along, the lane Democrats should be living in.
11:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I know we want prices to come down.
11:52
[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna talk affordability.
11:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Prices don't come down.
11:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Look, cheaper groceries are nice.
11:59
[SPEAKER_03]: They help.
11:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm all in favor of doing some things to help lower that, putting pressure where we need public option, huge fan.
12:06
[SPEAKER_03]: But there are pressure valve, not a solution.
12:09
[SPEAKER_03]: If your wages are stagnant, you're still stuck playing defense.
12:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You're still hoping someone, government, corporations, whoever decides to ease up on pricing.
12:21
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not power, that's dependency, higher wages, higher wages, that's power.
12:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And we used to understand that.
12:33
[SPEAKER_03]: My grandparents' generation understood it.
12:40
[SPEAKER_03]: ever had leverage wasn't because politicians promised cheaper goods it was because unions forced demanded better wages hours conditions across industries you know I look at myself I came out of the L.T.L.
12:56
[SPEAKER_03]: trucking industry when I started in the industry it was almost 95% unionized
13:08
[SPEAKER_03]: When you look back in today's money, 100 grand a year kind of jobs with the best health care, with retirement security, with job security.
13:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Now down do well, 10%, all these years later, and what do we have?
13:27
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a trucking industry where it's basically a sweatshop on wheels.
13:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Because we deregulated, we let the quote unquote free market.
13:39
[SPEAKER_03]: determine that workers' wages weren't important.
13:42
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, how you actually beat inflation over the long term?
13:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, my grandparents generation knew it.
13:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You make sure workers have enough income that price shifts don't crush them.
13:53
[SPEAKER_03]: The middle 70s is that the country was going through stagnation.
13:55
[SPEAKER_03]: My grandfather got three raises in one year so that his wages didn't get eroded by inflation.
14:03
[SPEAKER_03]: That's how you fix that.
14:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And right now, we're stuck in this warped debate where the ceiling of ambition seems to be, can we make things slightly cheaper?
14:14
[SPEAKER_03]: While corporations are literally posting record profits and we're being told, just be happy you got a job.
14:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Just be grateful for the scraps we bestow upon you.
14:26
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we need to raise wages.
14:28
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to organize workplaces.
14:34
[SPEAKER_03]: because a union contract does more to stabilize a family and that family's standard of living than any type temporary price cut will ever.
14:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it locks in the gains, it builds collective power.
14:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It shifts the balance of power from the CEOs to the people who actually do the work.
14:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And if we keep letting this conversation revolve around whether something is or is not communism, we've already lost.
15:03
[SPEAKER_03]: because that's Trump's framing.
15:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's a trap.
15:08
[SPEAKER_03]: The real question is, the real question's pretty simple.
15:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Do working people have power or don't we?
15:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And right now, I'll argue, and I think I'm 100% right, we don't.
15:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And until we start organizing like we mean it, no grocery store, public or private is going to fix that.
15:29
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot to be done.
15:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And look, Trump is right now the wrecking ball.
15:35
[SPEAKER_03]: But this wrecking ball's been at the throat of the working class for decades.
15:40
[SPEAKER_03]: The assault on labor began in the middle 70s, but really, really took a head of steam on what was it?
15:49
[SPEAKER_03]: August 4th, 1981, when Reagan fired the Pat co-workers, the shot heard across the boardroom that told corporations, it is now open season
16:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you right now, this is where we should be focused.
16:06
[SPEAKER_03]: This is where Democrats need to be focusing.
16:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we come back, I want to talk about more about what we should be focusing on.
16:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, look, I love the idea of having public options.
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I have for a very long time.
16:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a huge supporter of co-ops and all of those things to help take corporations out of the giving me as a consumer and opportunity
16:32
[SPEAKER_03]: to help my local community, to help my neighbor.
16:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I've always wanted, I think it's a great idea, but I don't believe it's the fix.
16:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we come back, I want to talk about what we should be focusing on.
16:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe a new frame that I think I would like us to start talking about a little bit.
16:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's take a quick break.
16:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanna hear your thoughts.
16:52
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think so far?
16:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think the communist frame is hitting with some?
16:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I've heard someone my lefty friends are like, no, it's a dud.
16:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling ya, it's here.
17:01
[SPEAKER_03]: But I wanna hear your thoughts.
17:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at thewrecksmithsshow.com.
17:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Quick break, right back.
17:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
17:20
[SPEAKER_03]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1956.
17:23
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that an oil tank explosion took the lives of 19 men fighting a fire at the Shamrock Oil and Gas Company in the northeast of Dumus, Texas.
17:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Dumus was in the Texas Panhandle, oil boom country.
17:38
[SPEAKER_03]: The day after the tragedy, the Chicago Daily Tribune carried the story of what happened.
17:43
[SPEAKER_03]: For huge petroleum tanks exploded today, bathing 19 men in a super hot wall of flame and killing them in their tracks.
17:51
[SPEAKER_03]: The towering orange fireball of the first explosion was sighted in Amarillo, 40 miles away.
17:58
[SPEAKER_03]: The events
17:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Just at trigger the explosion, started when a flammable gas caught flame and flared into a small ground fire at Shamrock.
18:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Employees and volunteer firefighters tried to stop the blaze, but despite their effort, the fire grew.
18:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Just before 7 in the morning, a 12,000 barrel tank exploded.
18:16
[SPEAKER_03]: This ignited another 20,000 barrel tank, and then, two more.
18:20
[SPEAKER_03]: 15 of those fighting the fire died instantly.
18:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Four others later succumbed to their burns.
18:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Many more were injured.
18:27
[SPEAKER_03]: A news editor on the scene described what he saw writing, quote, a bright orange mushroom boiled up, floating in heavy black smoke, and I prayed that those firefighters would get out alive.
18:38
[SPEAKER_03]: But some didn't.
18:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Eight who died were shamrock employees.
18:42
[SPEAKER_03]: The other 11 were volunteer firefighters.
18:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, a memorial bearing their names pays tribute to those who died, and inscription reads quote, but whether on the plain so high or in the battle's van, the fittest place where man can die is where he dies for man.
19:00
[SPEAKER_03]: In 2015, 68 firefighters died while on the job protecting people and property throughout the United States.
19:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smithsia for more information go to laborhistoryintu.com.
19:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And I gotta tell you, I really loved that frame, the idea, the idea of a communist, are fighting for the commons.
19:46
[SPEAKER_03]: instead of a communist focusing on communism.
19:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I do, I love that frame and I'm glad Ed sent it and thank you Ed.
19:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I got to think that being a communist isn't about some abstract ideology.
20:01
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about our shared values, the shared goods, shared power, and decent opportunity for ordinary people.
20:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And I started thinking about the commons in, as I've talked about in the past, there are things that I believe are part of the commons, public lands, public parks, public utilities, public education, you go down the list, all of our shared natural resources, clean air, clean water, all of that stuff.
20:29
[SPEAKER_03]: The internet, if you will, basic knowledge that comes from our public universities and the research that we fund,
20:39
[SPEAKER_03]: just how much Republicans and conservatives and corporatists have been trying to privatize profitize and destroy what is the commons.
20:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Those things that while we all need and share and want,
20:54
[SPEAKER_03]: and then they've tried to figure out how to put a price tag on it.
20:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And like I've said before, I've gone to places in the south, especially, where you want to go to the park, you start reaching in your pockets, you want to go across the street, better reach in the other pocket, you want to do anything, the second you pull out of your driveway, the commons are gone, everything's for profit now, everything's somebody's, you want to go across a bridge,
21:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And it got me thinking about, you know, the reality is, is we need to be focusing on things that, that the majority of us agree on, this idea of communism.
21:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, affordable food fits into that.
21:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody should be gouged for groceries.
21:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And really, that's simple, living wages.
21:39
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, workers should be able to survive on the wages that they earn and not just survive.
21:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And this isn't new.
21:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you go back to the 1912 bread and roses strike.
21:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the phrase was bread, yes, but roses too.
21:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Meaning, yeah, we need to put food on the table.
21:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we need basic standard of living, basic sustenance.
22:02
[SPEAKER_03]: But we also want some of the better things too.
22:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Bread, yes, but roses too.
22:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Meaning that, you know, we want to take a day off.
22:09
[SPEAKER_03]: We want to take a vacation.
22:10
[SPEAKER_03]: We want our kids to do better than we did.
22:12
[SPEAKER_03]: We want them to have educational opportunity.
22:14
[SPEAKER_03]: We want all kinds of those things that come from our labor.
22:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So that respect for labor being part of this common ideology that we should be better.
22:25
[SPEAKER_03]: we should have safe and stable housing that isn't so far out of reach that now a generation may never be able to buy house.
22:33
[SPEAKER_03]: We need public health care without question.
22:37
[SPEAKER_03]: We used to and again it's going to be framed as that's communism no no it's communism because we used to do this it was common sense in the past to have a community hospital.
22:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I was born in a community hospital
22:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, all of those things are now for profit, except in the nonprofit, for profit world, because we've set up these nonprofit, for profit models, where they're holding on to gazillions of dollars, because you know, in defense, something bad might happen.
23:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So we keep jacking up prices to keep people away.
23:12
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to be ensuring that health care is accessible, part of the comments.
23:22
[SPEAKER_03]: for any reasonable, rational, God-faring community.
23:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the weird thing for me.
23:29
[SPEAKER_03]: The people who tell me how religious they are, are generally the people who are the most anti-the-comments.
23:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Anti-doing what the guy actually said, which is taking care of thy neighbor, loving thy neighbor as thyself.
23:45
[SPEAKER_03]: seem simple to me.
23:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Also part of the common strong strong labor units clean air clean water.
23:52
[SPEAKER_03]: As I said, reliable public transit and an infrastructure that like I said every time you cross it, you're not digging deep into your pocket.
24:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Public education.
24:04
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the weird thing is we're in the process of really privatizing public education and profitizing all of these charter schools, all of these these these these voucher schemes, all of these opportunities, scholarships, it's all about plucking lottery winners out and giving them what is turned out to be not the best opportunities.
24:28
[SPEAKER_03]: If we were to fully fund public education and truly give people an opportunity, I think we'd be much better off.
24:35
[SPEAKER_03]: But what do we do now?
24:37
[SPEAKER_03]: We're literally screwing around
24:41
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a school district in New York that now this is an indigenous community.
24:47
[SPEAKER_03]: This school district wanted to they did purchase a sex doll teacher because I guess the company that's making these AI kind of cyborg kind of whatever mechanical teachers.
25:01
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a sex toy company before and now we're just going to put some thoughts in there in their computer brain and that's how we're going to teach children, especially in
25:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And it just got me thinking that there's so much that we need to be doing in the public space.
25:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So much that when you talk to people face to face, and this is, you know, I did a podcast recently where someone asked me, what are, what are the three things you want people to do?
25:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the things I said is, look, I think you got to talk to people.
25:29
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to talk to your friends.
25:30
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to talk to your neighbor.
25:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to talk to the guy in line at the grocery store.
25:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I do it all the time.
25:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's not about, hey, I got my colored hat on.
25:39
[SPEAKER_03]: We're on the same team.
25:40
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about, hey, what do you think of that?
25:42
[SPEAKER_03]: When something pops up, make a conversation around it.
25:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Public education being part of that.
25:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I find remarkably is that no matter what if they're wearing a Trump shirt or a DSA shirt or no shirt, we seem to agree on about 80% of things.
26:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, you know, we want safe schools, we want good neighborhoods, we want plentiful housing, we want good jobs, we want healthcare, if we get sick, we don't go broke, we want retirement security, there's a lot of things we should be focusing on.
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: That's where I want to spend our energy.
26:20
[SPEAKER_03]: All of the other stuff we can bigger fight and decide over.
26:24
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's been what's used to divide us to the most.
26:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know any working person who goes, gee, you know, sure, glad I'm paying higher higher gas prices.
26:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, the oil companies can pocket a little bit more money.
26:44
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm sure glad that that's happening, sure glad that somebody's making money at my expense.
26:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I really find that now, when you get into the ideological fight, because I get this, then you get, well, I've got to defend my guy.
27:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm in the, you know, higher gas prices in the cost of freedom.
27:05
[SPEAKER_03]: nonsense, higher gas prices are just a screw job for the working class, and we've got a president who, well, doing a great job, great job there, they're orangey, and this is where I'm hoping, this is where I'm hoping, I'm hoping we find each other, and I'm hoping we begin doing that that hard work of organizing of talking to each other, listening to each other.
27:31
[SPEAKER_03]: finding that common sense, that common ground, that commonality, and maybe we can all become commonists.
27:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I like that frame.
27:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
27:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me ricketerricksmithsier.com.
27:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Good frame.
27:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Something you might use.
27:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear it back after this.
28:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1969.
28:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day, AFSME sanitation workers in Charlotte, North Carolina walked off the job.
28:12
[SPEAKER_03]: More than 85% of the sanitation workers were black in this predominantly white southern city.
28:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It was their third garbage strike in a year.
28:21
[SPEAKER_03]: State statutes prohibited union contracts in municipal agencies, but AFSME was determined to win union recognition and establish an agreement with the city.
28:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Southern Director for AFSME James Pierce Thunderd Quote will bring in whatever help we can get if the city tries to break the strike.
28:39
[SPEAKER_03]: We can turn this place into a Memphis or a Charleston in a few days.
28:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, Pierce was referring to the two Victoria strikes by black workers that had rocked the South within the past year.
28:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Black sanitation workers in Memphis walked out in a historic strike in the spring of 1968.
28:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina had just won their strike days earlier.
29:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Pierce outlined the issues at stake, according to the Asheville Citizen Times.
29:06
[SPEAKER_03]: The Charlotte City Council had adopted its final budget without providing dues check off, without adhering to established grievance procedures or seniority rights, and without adding important safety precautions for garbage collection.
29:19
[SPEAKER_03]: At first, Charlotte's mayor asserted claims that the strike was about to check off, but Pierce shot back about broken promises regarding the establishment of safety committees and non-discrimination enforcement.
29:31
[SPEAKER_03]: By the end of the month, a tentative agreement was in place.
29:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Strikeers won all demands except to check off, but as hospital workers soon found out in Charleston, South Carolina.
29:42
[SPEAKER_03]: The city council refused to carry out its agreement with the union.
29:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Sanitation workers in Charlotte would strike twice unsuccessfully over the next year and a half.
29:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
29:56
[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintube.com.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Does becoming a billionaire turn one into an insufferable jerk?
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is that an innate quality they bring to the position?
30:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Big name billionaires like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg literally flaunt their irrepressible jerkism, but the disease seems to inflict their entire class of Uber-rich corporate royals.
30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Its tell-tale symptoms are not their grandiose mansions and yachts, but they're sudden impulse to instruct us regular people on how to think.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: In particular, they're now demanding that we get out of their way so they can remake society in their image.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Jensen Whang, for example, a Silicon Valley techno-whiz who heads in video now the world's richest corporation.
30:45
[SPEAKER_00]: He's demanding that we transform our economy and social structure into a new order of AI dominance.
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Piously chatting those of us who are angry about AI's destruction of our jobs, communities
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Tutt, the Gavey in their schools, you petty people must quote, create new social norms to advance AI.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's the little-known hauncho of soft bank, a multi-trillion dollar Japanese tech powerhouse, trying to impose AI supremacy worldwide.
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: He's now asserting a corporate morality of wealth.
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Calling people who question AI foolish.
31:24
[SPEAKER_00]: He philosophizes that tech war all quote will transform our lives completely, and do so in a way that generates profits.
31:32
[SPEAKER_00]: For whom?
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: For billionaires, of course.
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So there you have a clear statement of the values and goals of AI profiteers.
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: More for them, no matter the cost to everyone else.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Soft banks imperious boss laughs at those of us who dare question his vision of an AI plutocracy.
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Calling us fools who are spitting upward.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heiter saying, no sir, look again, we are spitting straight at you.
32:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So we talked about this a little bit last week, as you know, recently Lyona, the Laborers International Union of North America, one of our biggest construction unions here in the U.S. and Canada, they represent workers who build maintain and keep our public infrastructure running.
32:26
[SPEAKER_03]: They've entered into a new agreement with the International Union of Painters and Allied trades.
32:31
[SPEAKER_03]: The idea, as I understand it, is to coordinate their organizing, coordinate some strategy
32:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Not a merger, not into one big union, which I have advocated for for years, but entering a kind of a partnership.
32:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to be honest, quite frankly, not quite sure why this hasn't happened before, but this is kind of historic.
32:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why I've asked Brent Booker to come share some thoughts.
32:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Brent is the general president of Lyona.
32:55
[SPEAKER_03]: You can check out their website, Lyona.org.
32:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Brent, thanks for taking time for us.
33:00
[SPEAKER_01]: always good to see and talk to you, Rick, thanks for having me on.
33:02
[SPEAKER_03]: So let me, let me start right there.
33:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, why is it, why now?
33:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Why is the, why hasn't this happened before?
33:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, I know everyone's got their, you know, their silo, you know, why now?
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: As many forces as many people are trying to tear down unions and try to tear down collective bargaining from political interests, to corporations, to media and everywhere and everything in between, I actually think this is overdue.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's really,
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: power building.
33:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's strengthening our collective voice and finding a like-minded organization with like-minded ideas about growth and power and strategic thinking to come together and say, you know what?
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had enough of doing this alone.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go find somebody that can do it with us and that's where Jimmy and I started the conversation a while ago and it's evolved into a pretty historic signing of a memorandum of understanding just a week or so ago.
33:58
[SPEAKER_03]: So now both Lyona and IUPAT, you're both calling it historic, you're a new era of solidarity, I've seen all of this stuff.
34:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So what does it mean?
34:06
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean for the guy on the work site?
34:08
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean for the hard hats?
34:10
[SPEAKER_03]: What's going to mean for the potential members down the road?
34:12
[SPEAKER_03]: What does this look like?
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the simple answer is it's strengthening our voice.
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's building power.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The guy on the work site and the foreseeable future in the next couple of months, probably not going to see a whole lot of differences.
34:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can tell you just from my own experience of walking on to a job site since this has been announced or walking through a convention hall where other trades or where the painters are, that sense of solidarity is real and to feel like that our family just grew to feel like when I see somebody wearing the black and gold of the IUPAT when somebody from their organization see someone with the lionel letters or wearing orange.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: we feel like I feel like we've already started some solidarity and we talk all the time about practicing solidarity and to see, look, man, you always see somebody at the building trades, yeah, cool, somebody else from the building trades and I came coming from the building trades family.
35:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I feel like that that first cousin became a brother and we got a lot closer together as a result of this, you know, of what we're trying to do.
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually practice in solidarity, feeling closer to somebody, growing your family feels feels pretty good out on the job site.
35:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the Trump effect maybe, I mean, when everyone's under attack, do you think that this is people finally waking up and going, hey, and it's in my right to my left, we'd better figure out how to come together, or is that was this in the works, anyone?
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: look, this has been in the works anyway.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, the Trump effect is real.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, what was a report just a month or so ago, that's a corporation spent $1.7 billion last year alone in Busting Unions.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's not just politicians, it's corporations, it's not just corporations, it's media, it's not just, you know, you know, you
35:52
[SPEAKER_01]: construction workers.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's people who are trying to tear us down.
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is just a way for us to kind of put the breaks on those folks who are trying to tear us down and start building that foundation to make us stronger that make have more power allowed our voice, you know, we go from 540,000 people say in the same thing, the 700,000 people say in the same thing.
36:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That extra 140, 160,000 people just means that there's more people standing up, more people fighting back, more people joining together to say enough is enough in this economy, and the system, and this political environment, and this corporate environment, and whatever it is, to actually build work or power, and that's the lens that Jimmy and I are, and our executive boards are looking through.
36:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Look, you know, for years I've been saying that there has to be this kind of uniting and in really understanding what solidarity of and this in this era means and you know I talked about you know in 2011 we were in Wisconsin for the the big uprising that happened there and even then you saw everyone segmented off You see saw Lyona and I got pictures He got Lyona in their orange.
36:56
[SPEAKER_03]: You got apps being their green.
36:57
[SPEAKER_03]: You got SCIU in their purple and
37:00
[SPEAKER_03]: None of it ever bled together, I think the Trump effect for me anyway is a great opportunity to pull people together and kind of blend all that together to where a worker realizes we got better, we got stronger power, we've got more opportunities when we don't divide and conquer ourselves before we get into the fight.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there was constant examples, great.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The county and movement in New York City from, you know, the late 2018, 2019, 2020, that time period is another great example of solidarity.
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But each one of those, and look, you can talk about right to work in Indiana or, you know, the common construction weight, Missouri repealing right to work prevailing weight.
37:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a lot of fights that it's been about a bit an issue, a bill.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And where I think this one's a little bit different is, is that we're not fighting a politician, we're not fighting a bill, we're not standing up to fight against a developer, a project.
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: What we're doing is we're standing up together to say enough is enough from a global standpoint.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And enough is enough that we need to build this power, build our voices, and a lot of times those campaigns they end when either that project is built or that piece of legislation is
38:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And where this is different is, is that there is no end date.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no, once this thing is done, then we can go back and go back to our organization.
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Our end date is building collective power of two organizations that
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: we're going to fight together in a whole lot of things.
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to build power.
38:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to build strength.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do a whole lot of that.
38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't mean that, you know, when the contracts expires on May 30th, that we move on on June 1st, we're still in that family.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We're still in that room together.
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: June 1st and beyond, so that we then go on and we translate that power into the next fight and build that collective strength together.
38:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Or maybe I love the way you frame that is, you know, having a particular fight that you're you're uniting around, or maybe it's just putting down our guard and not fighting each other, which seems to be, you know, to be a frame that I kind of like as well, because, you know, like I got a lot of friends who are in the building trades, and they point to the other ones, as you know, that guy did this or that, there's all that kind of division where we're tearing ourselves apart, and not really going after where the real fight is, and I see this is a small
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree a thousand percent.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really the the frame that Jimmy and I looked at this too is there's enough people trying to tear us apart Let's let's put this I work look to where are we still going to have a jurisdictional is there's still going to be a question over who does a certain job task on a job site probably But that's not that the painers not the labor's enemy and the labor is not the painers enemy and quite frankly anybody within the building.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There's plenty of people
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: who are out there trying to take power away from workers.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: There's plenty of people who are actively trying to pass legislation, stripping, collect the bargaining right, stripping, health and safety, you know, rights that we fought for decades, if not centuries for.
39:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So our enemy has never been the other trader, the other craft, there's been plenty of people who have tried to make us believe that and this is a way for us to stand up and say, you know, that's that's really not where we're at.
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's
40:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We will have our differences.
40:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I would much rather sit at the same table to try to iron out our differences than, you know, to hammer it out on a job site or or to be pitted against each other, whether it's corporate interest media politicians or somebody who doesn't have that union card in their pockets.
40:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So, everyone of our members, everyone of the painters, everyone of the building trades, we have one thing that bonds us together.
40:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a sense of belonging that's being in a family that's having that union card that may be a different color May have different letters on it, but it is, it binds us to being a trade unionist and that's important and just growing that strength and growing that power is really, you know, the direction that we're going here.
40:46
[SPEAKER_03]: right now it's just lying on an IUP A.T. Are there other discussions with other trade unions that kind of kind of move into this?
40:53
[SPEAKER_03]: To where maybe you start looking at at whole jobs and whole whole industries together.
40:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Am I put that right?
41:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, other other people coming on board because I understand you.
41:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You've got an umbrella organization in NAB2.
41:06
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, is there a moment where we're all signing on to doing kind of what you guys were talking about?
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look, that's the model of the building trades and I come from that world.
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We still have to let the ink dry on the MOU first here and we're a week old of us announcing this strategic alliance, this affiliation agreement between Leon and the painters.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we should be doing that.
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we should do that and let's not limited to just the building trades and Jimmy and myself and others have had lots of conversations with other general presidents, other unions that may not make sense to you right now on paper.
41:41
[SPEAKER_01]: having a strong labor movement, having more people in a union is only going to strengthen us.
41:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're open for any conversation, we're open for any discussion.
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be organizing industries.
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if I don't, and Lyunah doesn't get the direct benefit of an industry that's organized, but if you're Uber drivers, a union member, and everybody gets in a noober, and we're talking about union issues, that's only gonna strengthen us, it's only gonna strengthen our position.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: and get the word out and you look at all the polling, you look how young people, you look out, people favorably view unions, having more people in the union movement, having these conversations and these dialogues with sometimes like-minded in the building trades and sometimes,
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, completely different sectors to have this vision of strength of organizing a building worker power is exactly where I'm at.
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly where Jimmy's at.
42:33
[SPEAKER_01]: There's there's others that are around that table with us that we're going to we have to have 21st century solutions to 21st century problems.
42:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm right there with you.
42:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm that frame of building worker power.
42:45
[SPEAKER_03]: First, I heard Sarah Nelson talking about general strike and talking about lining up contract to expire around the same time that I heard Sean Fein say it.
42:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And I heard Jimmy Williams, Jr. say it during your signing saying the kind of the same thing that we need to start thinking strategically and doing some of this stuff.
43:02
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, the general strike question comes up a lot, and I don't know that we have the kind of density in this country to do a mass general strike.
43:11
[SPEAKER_03]: But strategically, I think if you could line some of that stuff up, you could make some pretty significant gains.
43:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this what we're talking about when we're talking about being strategic?
43:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we have that a whole lot of member education.
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we have to have a whole and that's the whole premise and concept behind our program called Labor's Rising, which is an internal organizing campaign to make sure that our membership understands and knows the power of a collective voice to understand, what belonging to Lyon Amines and looks like.
43:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Aligning expiration dates on agreements.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's gonna create leverage.
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's gonna create power.
43:54
[SPEAKER_01]: we should be doing that, we should have been doing that a long time ago and it shouldn't be limited to the context of a general strike.
44:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a general strike is a bold move that you better have everything lined up before you do that and probably the first step out of a 100 is let's make sure that our expiration dates are lined up.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And once we do that then we can build onto member education, member information, member engagement, member activism.
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: When you do those things
44:24
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, call them for a general strike.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The worst thing you can do is call for a general strike and you look behind you.
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: There's only one there.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Your fingers aren't with you.
44:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got it.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a lot of work to do.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, look, look, Brent, I'm not advocating for a strike.
44:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And in fact, I prefer not to strike.
44:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't been on strike in my lifetime.
44:40
[SPEAKER_03]: It's no fun, but it's an arrow in the quiver.
44:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And if it's one of, if it's a, it's a, it's a big arrow.
44:47
[SPEAKER_03]: The deterrent, I think is much better than sometimes actually using it.
44:53
[SPEAKER_03]: is one of those things you bring with you to the bargaining table that, hey, we don't want to do it, but don't make us.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: A great, and that's just one of the, you know, principles outlined in our MOU, where we talk about having our, we should have them expire on the same day.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We should have organizing efforts together.
45:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We should leverage our pension dollars in a way, which we're creating union jobs, not non union jobs.
45:14
[SPEAKER_01]: We should, you know, the, you know,
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: do all of those things, and yeah, that's exactly the idea about it.
45:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's building power, building leverage, building a place where we have a seat at the table and the seat at the table matters.
45:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And combining our resources, combining our voice, combining our power is going to allow us to have
45:35
[SPEAKER_01]: leverage at the bargaining table, allow us to create an environment to organize, create an environment where our existing membership has a better health and welfare plan, a better pension benefit, you know, has better health and safety provisions in their agreement.
45:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first step of many that we need and should do and quite frankly,
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: we should have done this a long time ago and that's why this makes sense at this moment and time, that's why this makes sense for us to really think strategically going forward as to, we've seen what the last 50 years has looked like at the labor movement and we've seen the decline of union density and union membership and hopefully, you know, I know for our organization we've grown significantly in the last two or three years and use that that we've reached the bottom and then how do we start building that up?
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: One step and building that up is finding these alliances, these partnerships, and being very strategic so that we're building that worker voice and building that worker power.
46:33
[SPEAKER_03]: The opportunities there, I mean, but you said something that when I think of organizing, I think of strategy.
46:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think all of the benefits stuff that you just laid out.
46:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So pension health care training.
46:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Are we talking about merging some of that or a lining some of that together?
46:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I've always said, look, I think a labor as a whole in the big picture.
46:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And sure is that their members, that union members get the best health care possible.
46:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I've always wondered why we don't start our own kind of insurance system.
47:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know some places have done some of that.
47:04
[SPEAKER_03]: But look, I think back a hundred years ago when the miners had their own hospital, the steel workers had their own hospital.
47:12
[SPEAKER_03]: They had their own infrastructure.
47:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this kind of what we're thinking, you know,
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
47:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, that's what we're going to match in mirror like what's our training funds look like.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the locations of it?
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Does it make sense to have two training centers of mile from each other?
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we combine our assets?
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: If we're in New York City and we have 30,000 members and they have 20,000 members, wouldn't it make sense to leverage 50,000 union members to get a better deal on premiums for health care than to continue to be divided by the
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: when you look at our pensions and our pension benefits, combining our assets to look at, can we get, where's the best bang for our buck?
47:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of those things are what are contemplated in this MOU, that our starting points to be like, hey, let's evaluate it, let's look at it, let's see where we do have assets together and where would it make sense for us?
48:09
[SPEAKER_01]: to combine those assets, to combine that buying power.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of those things are contemplated in it.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Let alone on the corporate affairs strategy of actually leveraging those dollars to ensure that there's responsible contracting policies.
48:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, we know first and foremost, as a trustee that we have to get the best return of an investment, while doing that, how do we also create opportunities for our signatory contractors, our current members, and our future members who go to work.
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of those things are on the table.
48:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that when we combine those, when we actually put those out on a map and see what's in front of us, that there's so many like-minded individuals or so many funds that are doing the same thing, that we're duplicating efforts, how do we lower costs, how do we increase benefits, how do we stay competitive in some of these markets and one of those things is if insurance premiums are going up 40% in a city or a location, how do we lower that down and we do that by having
49:05
[SPEAKER_01]: more people in the plan and more people combining their efforts to do that.
49:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So just basically just basic insurance risk pool assessment, absolutely.
49:15
[SPEAKER_03]: But you know you said a moment ago on the on the investment side, you know there's I believe there's more to just you know the dollars in sense that you get in return.
49:23
[SPEAKER_03]: There's the investments that you're making in jobs and then and how those jobs are being done and there's there's there's much more to that.
49:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you able to take that into account or is it really just all as I've been told it's just all about dollars
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's both, I mean, you start with the fiduciary responsibility of the dollar some sense to make sure you're getting the return.
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But the best way to keep a pension fund solvent is to have contributions coming into it.
49:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So to use our own money to fund a project that is a anti-union owner or developer doesn't make sense for the long-term health of our fund.
49:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we can get the investment and get the return
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the sweet spot.
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I think all of our responsibilities as trustees on these funds that you know, collectively Atlanta, you know, billions and billions of dollars and to the same with the painters.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So trying to find those opportunities where first and foremost, we're fiduciary responsible and secondly, you know, we're creating an investment or creating investment vehicles or, you know,
50:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Making sure that where we put our money has is that the other end of that they're going to invest in a project that make sure is that the workers have a health and welfare fund to make sure that the workers have a defined benefit or a pension fund.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's ways in which we can do that legally and we're obviously going to do it, you know, in a way that that makes sense with the IRS Department of Treasury and other standards, but there is certainly.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: pathways for us to get the return that we want.
50:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But also at the same time, make sure that there's future benefits going into it.
50:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're constantly looking at that.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's one of the things that's really contemplated here in this MOU of a corporate affairs strategy.
51:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Last question I've got for you because with all of these kind of announcements and look, I remember the change to win, this is going to be the kind of we're going to bring everybody together and while tearing things apart, with all of these, there's raised expectations.
51:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know right now that there's much anticipation around this in a year from now, when I bring you back on and say, it was a year ago, you made this announcement, what you do?
51:30
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you hope and what do you hope becomes from it?
51:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I am confident that we're going to be organizing together.
51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm confident that we're going to maybe not necessarily organize the same contractor, but be in the same city at the same time organizing an industry together.
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm confident that we will have looked at health and welfare funds across the United States to say, does it make sense where is it?
51:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm confident that we're going to have an Excel spreadsheet that contemplates all of our expiration dates to see, does it make sense where who's in the negotiation where we're at, so we can line those things out.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm confident that we're gonna actually practice solidarity that on a job site that we're gonna be closer to the painters.
52:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And the boardroom, we're gonna be closer to the painters.
52:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, capital hill and state hill or, you know, and state legislatures, you know, to have that voice, the voices of 700,000 men and women in the United States of Canada, saying the same thing at the same time is going to build
52:34
[SPEAKER_01]: work or power it's going to build strength.
52:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to build power for both of our organizations that we're both on a growth trajectory right now and I am hopeful and we are hopeful that this is only going to expedite that growth or create a better environment for us to continue to grow both of our organizations.
52:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Good stuff.
52:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Brent, I appreciate you taking a little time for us.
52:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Sharon, this is a historic moment.
52:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I look forward to hearing more about it, but I appreciate the time.
52:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much.
52:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me on Rick always good to see you.
53:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Brad Booker general president of Lyon of the Laborers International Union of North America.
53:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
53:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Good thing, you know, the idea of one big union, maybe using that power, like he said, you know, that collected power to get better wages, hours, conditions, stuff we talk about.
53:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts, Rick at theriksmithshow.com right back.
53:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
53:29
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1970.
53:32
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day the United Farm Workers led by Cesar Chavez signed their first Union Contract in California.
53:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a mile
53:40
[SPEAKER_03]: stone victory for agricultural workers.
53:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Farm workers, often Mexican immigrants, had very strenuous working conditions.
53:47
[SPEAKER_03]: They worked long hours in the fields, for extreme poverty wages.
53:51
[SPEAKER_03]: In the event that housing was provided, it was often unsanitary and a very poor quality.
53:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Filipino organizers sought to improve working conditions for agricultural workers.
54:01
[SPEAKER_03]: After the U.S. colonized the Philippines, many Filipinos were recruited to work on California farms.
54:07
[SPEAKER_03]: They began organizing as early as the 1930s, forming the agricultural workers organizing committed.
54:15
[SPEAKER_03]: The agricultural workers organizing committee reached prominence by the 1950s.
54:20
[SPEAKER_03]: At the same time, Mexican Americans, since our Chavez, along with Dolores Hayata, found at the National Farm Workers Association to organize the Mexican workers who were increasingly dominating the labor force in the fields.
54:32
[SPEAKER_03]: The agricultural workers organizing committee went on strike against the grape growers near Deveno, California.
54:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Their goal was to get a raise of 20 cents per hour.
54:42
[SPEAKER_03]: When the owners refused to negotiate, the agricultural workers organizing committee reached out to Chavez.
54:47
[SPEAKER_03]: The two groups merged to create the United Farm Workers.
54:51
[SPEAKER_03]: The United Farm Workers Union was able to get the support of many in the public through a boycott of California grapes.
54:57
[SPEAKER_03]: While the boycott lasted some five years, grape growers received considerably negative press and suffered financial.
55:04
[SPEAKER_03]: As a result, on July 29th, 1970, growers agreed to a contract with the United Farm Workers.
55:11
[SPEAKER_03]: The first such agreement in farm labor history.
55:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So the next time you're enjoying those tasty grapes, think about the workers and their brave efforts to unionize farm workers.
55:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Like what you hear, check out more at laborhistoryintu.com.
55:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show.
55:30
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people coming to home.
55:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I love what, uh, what Brett and Jimmy Williams Jr. at the Painter's Union and Launa, I love what they're doing.
55:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the fact that, in a very public way they're talking about, look, we're going to stand and we're going to be standing in solidarity with each other.
55:48
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be combining our resources.
55:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Come look, this is not news.
55:52
[SPEAKER_03]: What unions do is what they've done.
55:54
[SPEAKER_03]: This is how we built the most prosperous working class in humanity.
55:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, but unions, you know, for for decades,
56:01
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... built hospitals and clinics uh... to help make sure that members had access to care and that they could control it uh... you know they built strike funds and they they supported blackballed workers uh... they set up sick and disability benefits they've been insurance deathmen of all this stuff uh... things for orphans and family members job placement you know hiring halls i still remember i'm old enough to remember going
56:29
[SPEAKER_03]: to the shape in the morning and going, hey, you know, where is work?
56:33
[SPEAKER_03]: When I was on, when I was laid off work.
56:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And more importantly, having the union halls is the center of the community again, where we're weddings and social events and funerals and things, those things happen.
56:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And we don't do enough of that, and I'm hoping that this is the beginning of that kind of organizing.
56:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I mentioned Cemetery's a moment ago, it just popped into my head.
56:54
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's having the kind of power
56:58
[SPEAKER_03]: that that workers don't really think about anymore.
57:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, our grandparents and great-grandparents, they lived in a very different world than they fought blood and died for the world that we live in.
57:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And for the things that we take for granted.
57:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I said, some of the time they're going, I just, it just popped into my head.
57:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Back in 2013, when we did our labor history tour,
57:22
[SPEAKER_03]: We ended up in Mount Olive, Illinois.
57:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And Mount Olive, Illinois is the final resting place of Mother Jones, Mary Harris, who was buried.
57:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe, you know, in, like,
57:37
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm actually sure when she was buried, but I know that the Mount Olive Cemetery, and I wish I would have, I wish I'd have thought of this sooner.
57:46
[SPEAKER_03]: But the Mount Olive Cemetery came necessary after the Battle of Verdin, and we had gone to see that that memorial as well.
57:59
[SPEAKER_03]: There were four miners who were killed who were from Mount Olive,
58:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And nobody, none of the, the, the, the cemeteries in the area, the privately owned town cemeteries would bury the miners.
58:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Nope, wouldn't, wouldn't happen.
58:16
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, the Luther, the local Lutheran church wouldn't let them be buried either.
58:21
[SPEAKER_03]: So here are these four dead miners who have nowhere to be buried.
58:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was, it was the miners union.
58:30
[SPEAKER_03]: who came forth and near they purchased a plot and I guess an acre of land and now it's a union cemetery and we visited there the visit Mother Jones's grave but also to talk about you know how important it is the kind to have that kind of economic power.
58:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean imagine think about it for a second living in a time where the privately owned cemetery goes, sorry you can't bear
58:59
[SPEAKER_03]: we are not going to allow you to in turn your loved one here.
59:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And you go, wow, that's the past.
59:06
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the 1899 when that happened.
59:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was.
59:13
[SPEAKER_03]: But history tends to repeat itself.
59:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And here we are, all these years later, kind of looking at this administration and some of the things going on, going, history kind of looks like the future.
59:27
[SPEAKER_03]: But I want to hear your thoughts.
59:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me, Rick, at therixmithshare.com.
59:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Miss any portion of the program grab the podcast, and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:36
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people coming to talk.