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The Rick Smith Show 10-23-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so much for being here today on the big program.
0:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots to get to, lots to talk about, 25 billion dollars.
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, $25 billion dollars.
0:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what a New Mexico court just ordered meta.
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark Zuckerberg's company.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: to pay for lying to the people of the state of New Mexico about how it collects their data, how it protects their data, and what they do with it.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And before you think, wow, oh my god.
0:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's a lot of money, $25 billion.
0:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all, that's a huge amount of money.
0:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh!
0:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all, that's a huge, that's a massive five.
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Before you think that, let me put it into a little bit of perspective.
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Because last year, Meta brought in 21 billion dollars.
1:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It cleared more than 60 billion in profit.
1:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So the 25 billion is about five months' profit.
1:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And you go, wow, that's huge.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so much.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Chuck and five months profit and met us already promising as you know they will do They're gonna appeal and they're they want their money back as they don't want to pay and You go well, why is the numbers so big?
1:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Why 25 billion?
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's unusual and it is And the reason it's such a big number is well a jury in Santa Fe Found meta committed more than Hold your hats
1:52
[SPEAKER_01]: 43 million violations of the State's unfair practices act.
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 43 million.
2:04
[SPEAKER_01]: The judge in the case of the deception was intentional, systematic, and reached all the way up to senior leadership.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: At the legal maximum per violation, they gone that route, 43 million violations, had they tallyed up to the maximum, it had been over $200 billion.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And still, it got knocked down to 25.
2:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because we need to make sure that, you know, they learned their lesson, but not too much.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And think about what it took to get there.
2:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this goes all the way back to Cambridge Analytica, when data from 87 million users basically just got hoovered up.
2:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Facebook promised a full investigation.
2:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gonna get to the bottom of it.
2:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to trust them.
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, the judge found that they didn't.
3:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't do it.
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: He called their internal review.
3:05
[SPEAKER_01]: willfully ineffective at OG.
3:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You really thought, anybody really thought they were gonna, they're gonna really go in after themselves.
3:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And you go, well, why was it willfully ineffective?
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You're on her?
3:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But reality is as executives want to keep dog costs.
3:22
[SPEAKER_01]: They got cut corners, synergy.
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, getting rid of excess redundancy, you know, sucking up people's data.
3:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And it costs money to keep costs down.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's that's what happens and look the weird thing is they're sitting on mountains of cash billions of dollars And you know why that fine had to be 25 billion.
3:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I would argue more Because anything smaller than that to a company like like meta Is it's a little bit more than you know couch change maybe a burrito.
4:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know
4:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like you were me getting a, a $50 speeding ticket.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't feel anything.
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they know they're just gonna pass it on to us.
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what this kind of wealth does.
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It turns our law into basically a price tag.
4:24
[SPEAKER_01]: How much crime can you afford?
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: how much will it cost to get out of?
4:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And you look at the people at the very top, you got Elon Musk worth close to what?
4:34
[SPEAKER_01]: A trillion dollars?
4:37
[SPEAKER_01]: One single day this week, Forbes said his fortune jumped 64 billion dollars.
4:43
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, in one day he picked up more than double the entire mind blowing massive meta penalty.
4:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Basel is sitting on what $380 billion last year his Amazon paid two and a half billion to settle federal charges that he tricked millions of people into in the prime and and made the incredibly difficult maze of getting out well standard operating procedure now most customers got some money back I think I fifty bucks or something fifty one was that what it was
5:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But Amazon didn't admit anything.
5:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It admitted no wrongdoing because they never do.
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Basos didn't miss a meal and oh, by the way, nobody goes to jail.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody goes to jail.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You, me, any one of us, pull something like this.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We get shiny new bracelets.
5:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We get a nice, well, I'm not gonna say nice.
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We get a six by nine area with bars for ourselves to set it.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Laws don't apply these folks, and they know it.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And Zuckerberg, look, Zuckerberg, what, worth about $240 billion.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you have these three people who control that much wealth, have that kind of resource.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And throw on top of it, they just don't own companies.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: They own the platforms where we get our news, we get our information, they own the platforms that push information in our direction.
6:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They own the warehouses where your neighbor's work, or we work.
6:25
[SPEAKER_01]: They buy lawyers by the hundreds, they buy lobbyists by the dozen.
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They can outlast any one of us, any regulator, any small town, any worker who dare have
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: How did New Mexico get through when many cases go nowhere?
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would argue a jury in state court and Meta had to stand in front of regular people.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: People who use their product, people who have been screwed over by them.
7:00
[SPEAKER_01]: People whose kids are hooked on on the garbage that gets sent to them.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: People who've had their identity stolen and their grandparents scammed.
7:10
[SPEAKER_01]: These folks who sit on these juries, they know exactly what a company like Meta does, or any of them, because they've lived with it.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Put that same company in front of a hand-picked business-friendly corporate judge, and you're gonna get a lot more risk-lapse.
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Promise is not to do it again.
7:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We won't do it again, promise.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, until next time, because it's so lucrative,
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: because nobody goes to jail, the fines, there's never a corporate death penalty, which is the only death penalty that I actually endorse wholeheartedly.
7:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And like none of this is by accident.
7:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Corporate America has spent decades and serious money pushing cases away from juries towards arbitration and friendly courtrooms.
8:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, our Supreme Court, you remember about 10 or 15 years ago,
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: they decided that mandatory arbitration clause were perfectly fine in all of your contracts in your employment perfectly fine because what corporations understand is a jury box full of working people is something billionaires can't buy and we need to be protecting our right.
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: to have a jury trial.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been saying this for three years because when they shove these forced arbitration contracts down our throat, thank you John Roberts court because it's buried in every contract you sign.
8:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the really small print.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't get to go to court.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't get to have, you know, class action lawsuits that take them into court room.
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: There's none of those movies left.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: they've mandatory arbitrated their way out of all of this.
9:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why we need to be backing a state attorney's general who actually go after these companies.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: From whatever party, I don't care.
9:09
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's a Republican that's willing to go after it, I'd support them.
9:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They haven't been many.
9:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And we need to start looking at candidates and judges who are standing for election, who are gonna think that all of us should play by the same rules.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, all of us.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They have all the money, but we've outprocreated them.
9:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There's more of us.
9:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We can use that power.
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a little election coming up pretty soon.
9:38
[SPEAKER_01]: For one, 12 days?
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe use that power.
9:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Want to hear your thoughts?
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Work at therxmentshow.com, right back.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1934.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the day that the bank robber known as Pretty Boy Floyd was gunned down by federal agents in Ohio.
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: He was born Charles Arthur Floyd in 1904 in Georgia.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: His family moved to Oklahoma when he was a boy.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Like many Oklahoma's during this era, he fell on hard economic times.
10:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Floyd turned to crime.
10:24
[SPEAKER_01]: He did a four-year stretch in a Missouri prison for payroll robbery.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: When he got out, he tried to get a job in the Oklahoma oil fields.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Unable to find work, Floyd took up bank robbing.
10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: He robbed banks in Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri.
10:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He got caught and convicted in Ohio, but escaped on his train trip to prison.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: He made his way back to Oklahoma.
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Locals called him the Robin Hood of the Cooks and Hills.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Legend had it that Floyd destroyed mortgage papers when he robbed backs, winning him friends among farmers reeling from the Great Depression and the Dussball.
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Floyd became a national fugitive when he was accused of killing federal agents in Kansas City.
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: He denied he was ever involved in the killings.
11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Jay Edgar Hoover, head of the US Bureau of Investigation
11:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Named Floyd, public enemy number one, finally the law caught up with Floyd in an Ohio cornfield.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: His body was returned to Oklahoma, whereas many as 40,000 came to his funeral.
11:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Woody Guthrie remembered Floyd in song, but a mini-a-starving farmer, the same old story told.
11:34
[SPEAKER_03]: How the oblo paid their mortgage and saved their little home.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what you hear, check out more at laborindustria.com.
11:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Others tell you about a stranger that comes to beg a meal.
11:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Underneath his napkin lift a thousand dollar bill.
11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So for the last couple of days, we've been talking about the Department of Labor's field assistance bulletin.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Where they pulled back on some Biden era advice, some opinions there.
12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And some rules that weren't important.
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: put it to place the help tip workers.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, never.
12:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump's made the centerpiece of one of his campaign being no tax on tips.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Gonna help those poor poor tipped workers.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I've said for years, maybe if we were really wanting to help him, maybe a living wage and not have to beg for tips, just the thoughts.
12:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But here to share some expert thoughts on what our department of labor has done.
12:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to Donald Trump, I've asked Saru Yairman to come to share some thoughts with us.
12:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Saru is the president of one fair wage.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You can check out their website one fairwage.org.
12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we'll see you next week in time for us.
12:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for having me.
12:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So what do you make of these this decision by the administration to pull back on these Biden era ideas of maybe limiting the amount of time the people are working outside of TIP work, maybe some of the things that some of the rules here you got an opinion you got to thought.
13:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah, sadly, this is very much expected.
13:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's horrific, and I do want to explain the implications for tip-dorkers, but it's very much expected.
13:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's what they said they were going to do from the very beginning, and let's remember who's really behind this.
13:31
[SPEAKER_04]: There is a very powerful trade lobby called the National Restaurant Association.
13:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We've been around since 1919.
13:38
[SPEAKER_04]: We call it the other NRA.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And it has been fighting since emancipation, since it was founded 1919, Jim Crow, to basically maintain a subnet of a wage for tip twerkers.
13:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course, Donald Trump is a card-carrying member of the other NRA of the National Restaurant Association.
13:58
[SPEAKER_04]: He owns restaurants as part of his buildings and hotels.
14:02
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, during the first Trump administration, they tried to change the rules so that tips became the property of owners, rather than workers.
14:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's not forget that.
14:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So when the second administration came along and he announced no tax on tips,
14:16
[SPEAKER_04]: as a way to pander to tip twerkers.
14:19
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of tip twerkers, you know, forgot about what he had tried to do in the first administration in terms of taking their tips away and making them the property of owners.
14:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And they said to us, listen, we know he's pandering, two thirds of us don't even earn enough to pay federal income tax, but at least he's pandering to us.
14:38
[SPEAKER_04]: At least he thinks we're important enough to pander to the other side just keeps ignoring us or throwing us under the bus every time the minimum wage goes up.
14:54
[SPEAKER_04]: unfortunately thrown tipped workers under the bus.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they stopped you right there.
14:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the the surprise points that people have responded because they said, look, the tipped minimum wage hasn't risen since 1996 if I'm not 30 years ago.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still $2.13 an hour on the federal level.
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And here in Pennsylvania, not much better.
15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a way like 286.33.283.
15:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But let's not forget Rick, who struck that deal in 1996.
15:20
[SPEAKER_04]: It was none other than Bill Clinton, who made it deal with the Godfather pizza, right, Herman Kane, and that they agreed that the overall minimum wage would go up to five and 15 at the time, as long as Tipped Workers' State frozen at $2.13.
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And our forever.
15:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So tip workers are not wrong in saying, well, at least he thinks for important up to Pander to the Democrats keep throwing us under the bus.
15:44
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not wrong.
15:45
[SPEAKER_04]: But what's sad is that we knew that that was Pander.
15:48
[SPEAKER_04]: We all knew that was Pandering.
15:49
[SPEAKER_04]: But you know, and here he is doing exactly what he said he was going to do, which is now taking their rights away.
15:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And you have to understand the implication of these new rules.
15:59
[SPEAKER_04]: We've had something in place for a long time called the 80-20 rule.
16:04
[SPEAKER_04]: The 80-20 rule says, if you're going to pay tip workers that lesser minimum wage, that's sub-nidimum wage.
16:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, then they have to make tips to make up the difference between the sub-nidimum wage and the regular minimum wage.
16:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And the 80-20 rule says, in order to make tips, in order to pay that sub-nidimum wage, you as an employer have to ensure
16:24
[SPEAKER_04]: that they're interacting with guests at least 80% of their time.
16:28
[SPEAKER_04]: How else are they going to make tips?
16:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
16:30
[SPEAKER_04]: If they're out cleaning a bathroom or rolling napkins or doing something in the kitchen, they're not going to make tips.
16:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So the only way for them to get those tips to bring them from the sun minimum wage of the regular minimum wage is to interacting with guests, which is why the 80 20 rule.
16:45
[SPEAKER_04]: was put into place.
16:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So taking that rule away now means that unscrupulous restaurant owners and there's just too many of them will be able to have workers do absolutely anything clean a bathroom Cook a meal wash a plate roll napkins do anything with no limitations on how much interaction they get with guests
17:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And only a requirement of $30 a month coming in and tips for those workers to be able to pay them a sub in a wage.
17:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, if you were an employer who wanted to pay as little as possible, wouldn't you just have everybody in the restaurant paid a sub minimum wage?
17:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Why not just say $2 for everybody because now Donald Trump lets you do that.
17:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, but here's the thing, and I got a number of responses from people going, hey, Rick, I think you got it backwards.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you got it wrong, that if they do have, they're doing all of this non-tipped work that eventually they have to pay the minimum wage.
17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So, correct me if I'm wrong, if they're a back rolling napkins, if they're back doing whatever, washing his car, I don't know, eventually it has to at least equate to the minimum wage.
17:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that accurate?
17:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, these are the conflicting rules, right?
17:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Because on the one hand, yes, federal law says tips are supposed to bring you to the sub minimum wage to the right from the sub minimum wage to the regular minimum wage, or the employer has to make up the difference.
18:07
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's another rule that says, if you want to pay them the sub minimum wage, they only need to make $30 a month and tips.
18:14
[SPEAKER_04]: $30 is not going to bring them from $2.13 to $7.25 if you're getting the federal minimum wage for every hour that you work unless you only work six hours in a month because it's a $5 difference for every hour that you work.
18:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So unless you only work five hours, $30 a month is not going to cut it.
18:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And now you add this addition, if you have three rules, right?
18:34
[SPEAKER_04]: One that says the employer has to make up the difference.
18:36
[SPEAKER_04]: One that says you have to get $30 a month to be paid that sum in a
18:42
[SPEAKER_04]: and all in the restaurant and be paid a sub minimum wage.
18:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Basically, you have a law that conflicts and what happens when law conflicts, people are confused, employers are confused, workers are confused, what do we result with?
18:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, even under the Biden administration, which kept the 80 at 20 rule.
18:59
[SPEAKER_04]: We had an 84% violation rate with regard to restaurants ensuring that tips bring you from the summit in the way to the regular minimum wage.
19:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Now if you take away all the protections, you're going to have a 99% violation with regard to, I ask any of you who've worked in a restaurant.
19:17
[SPEAKER_04]: How many of you did your boss come up to you at the end of the night and say, how much did you make in tips?
19:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to make up the difference.
19:23
[SPEAKER_04]: That never happened.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: No, in fact, you know, I had to go back, the only time I've known someone who's personally intimately enough to ask them financial questions, a girlfriend I had back in college, who, you know, tried to explain it to me and said, you know, I go, well, how do they know how much tip you're, how many tips you're getting?
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said, well, they just take like 8% of the check and assume that everyone is, is giving it least that and that's what, what's what I'm taxed on.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going, what happens if you don't get any, what if someone just stiffs you?
19:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I have to pay that.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I eat that.
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
19:59
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
20:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, every April May, we hear from restaurant workers who say, I'm being taxed on tips.
20:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I never helped me.
20:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm being taxed on tips.
20:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I never got, which is why the no tax on tips was so appealing because it's such a messy system.
20:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But as you started with,
20:15
[SPEAKER_04]: What is the solution to a messy system?
20:18
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not making it messier.
20:19
[SPEAKER_04]: It's cleaning it up and just pay everybody a minimum wage.
20:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Like every other worker in every other industry with tips on top.
20:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got to say, Rick, this is not just unfair to these workers.
20:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It is unfair to every other business owner who has to pay the minimum wage.
20:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It is, by the way, why McDonald's left the National Restaurant Association this past year.
20:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It was,
20:41
[SPEAKER_04]: cover story of the Wall Street Journal.
20:43
[SPEAKER_04]: McDonald's was like, why are we paying dues to an association that fights for denies and eye-hop and Applebees to be paying a third of what we're paying and we have to pay the minimum wage?
20:53
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not fair to any other business owner that this one type of restaurant that has servers gets to pay so much less because of this messy
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: is in the solution just to make everyone a tipped employee.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's where we're going.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you look at the gig workforce, I know a lot of gig workers who, you know, the no tax on tips thing was like music to their ears, even though a lot of them didn't actually benefit much from it.
21:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, the question that becomes, isn't that the, is not when we want them shouldn't McDonald's workers be able to get tips shouldn't we be able to abuse them to, I mean, if you're McDonald's wouldn't that be the argument you're making a solution would be just pay everybody a living wage it's why we have a campaign called living wage for all with no exceptions.
21:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Let tips be on top of a living way.
21:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure, let anybody get tips, but let it be on top of a minimum wage, a living wage because all of these workers, whether they work in a restaurant or an Uber or whatever they do, they are skilled workers that deserve to earn enough to feed their family with one job, not three.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's the thing, sir, the number one response I got from people was, you know, but Donald Trump said no tax on tips.
22:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are they going and making it harder for people to get those tips and I'm going because they really didn't care.
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you hit that at the beginning.
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't really care.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a campaign play.
22:12
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
22:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Everybody always knew it would not actually help anybody.
22:16
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the first iteration of the bill they put for the no tax on tips bill included hedge fund billionaires that we're getting tips right.
22:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So this was never about tip workers, but it worked because I'm sorry to say the other side was not very good at appealing to this crowd either they can care.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, don't disagree.
22:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where Democrats have got to do better, you know, that Democrats have got to do better and let the lesson of all of this be in a new Congress that comes in, you know, hopefully you let by Democrats in January, they've got to raise that minimum wage to the cost of living for all workers with no exceptions at least $25 with tips on top.
22:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So let me ask you this because, you know, $25, I can already hear my red hat friends losing their mind because, you know, paying someone 18 bucks to work at the sheets or the the wall wall that for some seems like a bridge too far and I said, you know, how much would you be willing to do that job for.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, you know, it's not really, it's not really about the amount of money.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of what the money says.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And the money saying that if you're, if someone's willing to pay you 725, they don't think that much of you.
23:26
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right, but also the MIT living wage calculator says the least you need to live anywhere in the United States of America, even in the cheapest county, which is McClendon County, Texas, you need at least $25 to survive just survival if you have even one dependent and most people have a child or a spouse or an elderly parent, they're taking care of.
23:47
[SPEAKER_04]: like we need to allow people the ability to survive and feed their families.
23:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And we can only do that with a bare minimum of 25.
23:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And the bills we're talking about don't get to 25 overnight.
23:58
[SPEAKER_04]: They get there over many years.
23:59
[SPEAKER_04]: They allow small businesses.
24:01
[SPEAKER_04]: A very long runway almost a decade to get there.
24:04
[SPEAKER_04]: But if we can't ask business to pay at least what people need to live and let's remember that was the original definition FDR gave of a federal minimum wage he said it is the least the lowest paid worker in America needs to meet the cost of living and right now the least you need is 25 and the minimum wage for tipped workers is $2 how far have we come.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I just talked about yesterday.
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: GM made, you know, 3.4 billion dollars in profit last quarter.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're doing a $20 billion stock buyback.
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And you look at the fact that the matter is from 1982, prior to 82, that was illegal.
24:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But since 82, they've been just the wealth class of this country has been lining their pocket with the money that used to trickle down.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And now it doesn't.
24:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is why we haven't, we've had stagnant wages for 30 plus years.
25:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And Donald Trump is part of that class.
25:03
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a restaurant owner and these rules are all about him being able to exploit his own workers as well.
25:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not to forget that.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So why is it so hard?
25:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you this because you know, when I when I when I talk to people, I say, look, I think 20 25 bucks an hour is not obscene.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you're your life your the hours of your life are worth at least that I get I rolls I get all we can't afford that I hear all of the corporate talking points.
25:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Why has it been so hard for the working class to look in the mirror and go?
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm worth more than 725
25:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I gotta tell you, I don't think it's that hard anymore Rick, we've been doing polling and across the country in red and blue states, working people are overwhelmingly supportive of a $25 minimum wage.
25:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think it's the working people who are saying we don't deserve that.
25:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's too many people who earn more than $25 an hour, who are saying that's too much.
25:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're doing that based on just years and years and years and years of the restaurant association pounding us with this misinformation that it's impossible, it can't be done, you've all got a business Costco pays 30 bucks an hour Rick and they are doing really real well and the business.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: love Costco the workers there are fabulous every question I've met there is happy willing to help never seen so many never seen so many willing and happy workers because you're right they have good wages they got good benefits you know I wish there were there were more union cost goes there are a number of them but you're right it's they're making a good wage but the argument for me is I'm not worried about the guy making 25 bucks an hour I'm not worried about the last guy
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the the messages that you we would all do better.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You when they talk about that rising tide and the boat thing Yeah, we're all kind of net vote, right?
26:46
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
26:47
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
26:48
[SPEAKER_04]: We're all in that boat and every time the minimum wage goes up Everybody above the minimum wage goes up But at this point in you know when we were doing the fight for 15 maybe 20 25% of America earn less than $15 an hour rick
27:00
[SPEAKER_04]: right now 25 is the least you need and 50% 50% of working Americans earn less.
27:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
27:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So at least 50% of working Americans are going to get a raise and their families.
27:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And the people right above that are going to get a raise to your right, a rising tide lifts off.
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's the thing, sir.
27:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We couldn't have a trillionaires.
27:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We could have a trillionaires.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We could have the sense of national pride of a trillionaire.
27:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no need that.
27:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody's asking for that except for one person.
27:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So we are on and I appreciate the time.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Great stuff is always thanks.
27:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for walking us through this and explaining it.
27:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: This a big deal.
27:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you actually believe Trump was going to help tip to workers?
27:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you think it was going to matter?
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Rick at therixmithsshow.com.
27:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Right back.
27:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
28:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1949.
28:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the day Americans awoke to fears the nationwide steel strike would spread rapidly to include key fabrication plants.
28:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Half a million steel workers had joined 400,000 coal miners on strike the morning before.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The miners resolved to defend their $100 a month pension, instituting what John L. Lewis called the No Day Work Week, emboldened the steel workers to walk out of the mills.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Within 24 hours, 96% of all steel production in the country was completely shut down.
28:39
[SPEAKER_01]: United Steelworker contracts were due to expire on the 15th, but the writing was on the wall.
28:44
[SPEAKER_01]: The mill owners decried anything close to mind pensions as nothing short of socialistic and refused to budge in negotiations.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: United Steelworkers president Phil Murray thundered that those companies that
28:58
[SPEAKER_01]: failed to agree to demands for non-contributory pensions and insurance would be shut down, but militants warned that President Truman's fact-finding board had already watered down strike demands.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: The President's board had been established to put off two previous strike deadlines.
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The guidelines it issued only encouraged steel magnets to stand tough against United Steelworker demands.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: These included a 30 cent raise plus increased company insurance and
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it had become a defensive struggle, over whether steel workers would have to begin contributing to health and pension plans through wage cuts.
29:36
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time steel workers ended their strike 42 days later, they had won the $100 a month pension, minus what they would receive from social security, and they had to begin contributing to a health insurance plan with no wage increase at all.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Still, workers celebrated that they had successfully defended the United Steel Workers against the all-out Union Busting Drive.
30:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We're being told that an earth-shaking transformative age of generative artificial intelligence is already upon us.
30:08
[SPEAKER_02]: We're told not to worry, though, just accept it, because an elite clique of Uber smart Uber-rich tech marons have our backs.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: These big thinking visionaries we're told are already devising plans to shape humanity's new future.
30:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But wait, who's telling us all this?
30:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
30:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The barons themselves.
30:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, the same self-enriching Silicon Valley Hucksters, who have unleashed this invasive digital force on our world?
30:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Now say they're planning to save humanity.
30:39
[SPEAKER_02]: How?
30:39
[SPEAKER_02]: By remaking our economy, laws, social systems, et cetera, to fit their new AI world order.
30:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me, but have any of these bearings ask if you want to go there?
30:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I've not been consulted by them.
30:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you?
30:54
[SPEAKER_02]: When did we, the people, elect such ego-monical, anti-social, profiteering billionaires as Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Altman, and Whang to decide humanity's future?
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to see their idea of a technocratic social order, visit one of Bezos's hellish Amazon warehouses that has made him so roly rich, or ask locals how Elon rampages automatically over their community's resources, homes, and rights.
31:22
[SPEAKER_02]: No need to imagine what autocracy they might impose over us, just note that the trillion-dollar tech empires they already run, routinely assert corporate property rights over all human rights, and how their lobbyists routinely rushed to outlaw any public interference with the rapid spread of AS economic environmental and social greed.
31:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This is Jim Heitar saying, these billionaire geniuses don't want to save us from AI dominance.
31:51
[SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to stampede us into their Kakastocracy.
31:55
[SPEAKER_02]: What's that?
31:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Government by the very worst people in society.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So 12 days count them 12 days until November 3rd till election day, that Tuesday where we get the opportunity to go and express our anger, maybe throw some bombs out and maybe who knows maybe actually get some people in those halls of power who are going to address our wants, our needs, our hopes, our dreams, all the things that well.
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not getting on here to share some thoughts on well what their union is doing.
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I've asked our good friends over at the International Union of Painters and allied trades UPA T dot org their website other government a various vice president to share some thoughts.
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's Michael Roy.
32:48
[SPEAKER_05]: That's been a good time for us Hey, you know problem good to see you Rick it's been a minute.
32:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not to be that but look everyone's busy every I know you're out there on the doors I know you're out there, you know, this is this is a ramp up time.
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What's what's going on
33:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'm not on the doors right now.
33:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, I'm in a room, but you know, we have we have a lot of folks, you know, I U P A T like you mentioned, we have a lot of folks on the ground in our battleground areas, right, and that includes places like traditional places Arizona.
33:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Minnesota, a couple of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, but we also have folks in Georgia, Texas, different places, really kind of work in the program.
33:33
[SPEAKER_05]: We work obviously with our union brothers and sisters at the AFLCAO, but also talking to our own members, really, Rick, you know, we're doing a whole program where we're re-engaging our members.
33:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And political stuff is just an extension of that, right?
33:46
[SPEAKER_05]: And what we really want to do is build long-term power for working people.
33:52
[SPEAKER_05]: not being afraid to have hard conversations, not being afraid to, you know, open up to each other, be vulnerable.
33:57
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we're really trying to do that in our political program in this year.
34:01
[SPEAKER_05]: We're really trying to make sure that we're connecting those dots.
34:04
[SPEAKER_05]: What people are sick and tired about, high prices, you know, all those things that you read about in the news every day.
34:10
[SPEAKER_05]: We're really trying to connect the dots between the people.
34:12
[SPEAKER_01]: that we support for elected office.
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: No, look, there's a lot of anger out there right now.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This was supposed to be the administration that was going to bring us lower prices, the economic utopia.
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: We were going to be building everywhere.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know a lot of my building trades friends.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They're they're not.
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not as thrilled.
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, especially in the renewable areas, I look at those revolutions wind project up in New England, that they seem to keep wanting to stop and keep slowing down and all those renewable projects that were really going to put a lot of people to work.
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been crushed.
34:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So are these the kind of things you guys are talking about, making people aware that there's a lot of things that need to be done that well aren't.
34:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's part of it and listen, certainty, you know, that the surety of another job down the coming down the pike is really important in the building trades, right?
35:03
[SPEAKER_05]: So all the uncertainty that's been created through this, by this administration, like you said, canceling jobs, sort of just
35:09
[SPEAKER_05]: pulling money out of things, delaying things, just really playing politics with people's lives is what I think we're, you know, as part of the message and what people I think are connecting those dots.
35:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really starting to understand that, you know, you have to have people
35:26
[SPEAKER_05]: elected office who want to hear and listen to the real concerns of working people.
35:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you don't have that, things can go bad quickly.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I look, the reality is it's one thing to vote against.
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, I know there's a lot of there's a lot of anger about Trump, and I'm on that bandwagon.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's done some horrible things, some terrible things.
35:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of stuff that we were told was going to help make our lives better.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It hasn't.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one thing to vote against him.
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's another thing to vote for something that is going to actually make our lives better.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where I'm thrilled to see some Democrats running on the idea that we need to, you know, we need to actually have policies raise them in a minimum wage, you know, do something on health insurance, invest in our country.
36:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the kind of things that I think are really important.
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So are there any races that you go, hey, this is kind of exciting, this is where we're spending a little time, this is going to help our members or any of those you point to?
36:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot, but, you know, Rick Democrats is one thing, you know, party is one thing, but we've even union members and union people who've worked for unions, people who've been members of unions running for office all over the country.
36:31
[SPEAKER_05]: We have IUPAT members running for state house in Massachusetts,
36:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Trajaxon is the Senate candidate in Maine as an IUPAT member.
36:40
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're really looking, and there's dozens more from other units.
36:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're really looking at those folks to their changing the conversation.
36:48
[SPEAKER_05]: They're really having kitchen table conversations with voters and butthizing, right?
36:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that's some of what we're missing in politics today, right?
36:57
[SPEAKER_05]: We've lost the capacity to see the other side.
37:00
[SPEAKER_05]: See somebody's point of view.
37:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And I really think that those candidates out there who are doing that best are the ones who come from working a working family who have worked with their hands or have worked in an office or have done something other than
37:17
[SPEAKER_05]: you know, being elected official, and they're really connecting, I think, and we're seeing that, I think.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've been saying for a very long time, if we're going to reunite this country, we've got to reunionize it.
37:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the workplace of your united, you're going to take that into your community.
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to take that kind of empowerment that you feel in the workplace, you're going to take it into your community.
37:35
[SPEAKER_01]: and you're going to make your community a little bit better, and everyone's going to do better, and until we come together in the workplace, I don't know that we ever come together back again in society.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're going to continue to stand on the sidewalks and yell at each other instead walking down the middle of the street together.
37:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, that's really true, right?
37:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're like I said at the beginning, our union has has, you know, really
37:59
[SPEAKER_05]: embarked on this program to reconnect, um, broadly with our members, right?
38:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we always talk to our members.
38:04
[SPEAKER_05]: We communicate with them, but really listen to them, right?
38:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And think about what's out there.
38:09
[SPEAKER_05]: How do we, how do we drill down and get it?
38:12
[SPEAKER_05]: What is really bothering people, right?
38:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And, and maybe we're never going to see either eye on every issue.
38:17
[SPEAKER_05]: That's okay.
38:18
[SPEAKER_05]: We're still brothers and sisters and siblings in the labor movement and in our union.
38:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And, and I think the more we can do that,
38:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I had a conversation with somebody about voter ID, like, a couple of weeks ago, and it was very much, you know, like, a perspective shift when I said, hey, like, what if you had to go get more documentation, what if your name had changed?
38:36
[SPEAKER_05]: What if you had to do all these steps just to get the voter ID?
38:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And he hadn't really considered it from that angle, which is fair.
38:43
[SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't his experience, right?
38:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And so just being open and to more of those conversations with more and more people, I think is,
38:51
[SPEAKER_05]: is going to be the change that we need.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No, look, I was at the DMV not too long ago to highlight your point.
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And the poor woman who was in front of me, I've been married and divorced a couple of times in different states across the country.
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And what they were telling her she had to do to get the real ID badge on her, on her license, let alone get the vote.
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Was this herkially an leap of paperwork, mountains of paperwork, and trying to travel at all kinds of craziness.
39:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And you go, and expensive, it's a pull-tax.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's crazy, but again, I think, you know, as a white guy, an old white guy, you know, that's not been my experience, but I got to see it firsthand.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to watch this person go through what I would never tolerate.
39:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
39:33
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think what you named right there is just, that's the empathy though, you know, I'm talking about, right?
39:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Like being able to put yourself in somebody else's situation, just for a minute and say, boy, it's not, it's not where
39:44
[SPEAKER_05]: would I be angry, would I be frustrated, would I, would I think that this is, you know, overreach.
39:49
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think the more conversations you can have with each other, the more you can can do that and break down some of those barriers, you know, I think is is only going to service well.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: at the end of the day and one of the things that I think our politics does wrong is we have too many people punching down instead of looking up and the boss seems to always win in these punching down scenarios so for me the idea of if we can come back together and talk about the things that really matter that kitchen table stuff you know as much as I don't like James Carvel he was not wrong when he said it's the it's the economy stupid it's always the economy stupid yeah and the
40:28
[SPEAKER_05]: lower prices and a bunch of other things and that's not what we're getting right now.
40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know things cost more.
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You're supposed to be too old for you.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I want to change this because look you know there was just a big conference not too long ago.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The tradeswoman built nations conference down at Houston.
40:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I was I think the October 9th through the 11th.
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You're six thousand trades people from across the country came together with countries.
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but across through the continent will go the most of the continent Every time I talk about this someone corrects a bit of it Because I said trades women you go no, no, it's trades people and I'm like, okay
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm there because maybe there were other people there, but this was a big confab of traits people who are mostly women, who you don't generally see.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, somebody my age group doesn't generally see and I think this is kind of exciting.
41:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a lot of work that needs to be done.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of opportunities that are available there.
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's kind of a big freaking deal and that's the reason I've talked about it so much because I think it is that important that my daughters have opportunities their mother did.
41:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, it is the trades women build nation conference, but there are folks, you know, allies there who are not women or trades women.
41:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't come from the tools, but I represent, you know, working workers, obviously.
41:47
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, that conference is maybe the best jolt of like energy and spirit and just the beauty of what it means to come together and just lift each other up.
41:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm privileged to go and be with folks and meet folks and just spend time
42:05
[SPEAKER_05]: these amazing women who let to your point, Rick, who, you know, I'm in my 50s, right?
42:11
[SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't necessarily like a thing that I was told I could go do.
42:15
[SPEAKER_05]: And just that concept of that, this is a whole tonorations of women who are changing that narrative.
42:20
[SPEAKER_05]: We're very proud in our union.
42:22
[SPEAKER_05]: We have a great core crew of women and we, you know, we're, we have goals set to,
42:29
[SPEAKER_05]: to make sure that we're reaching out to more and more women to let them know that there's home for them in the traits that's what they want.
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: No, look, it's one of those things that, you know, when I was of age to start looking for what I wanted to do, the trades, you know, was very much an insular thing.
42:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You had to, you had to know somebody to get the secret.
42:47
[SPEAKER_01]: asswared, you had to know the hand shake, all of that.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And now that the opportunities are there for so many people that the trades are doing, I think a much better job of outreach and bringing in people who, in the past, have been kind of locked out.
43:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is a good thing.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's going to bring some diversity and also some real quality people that we desperately need.
43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you've realized that you know probably more than anybody.
43:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we certainly do and we're, you know, the skilled workers of this country and, you know, are on standby to do it, right, but yeah, we always we always need more people.
43:28
[SPEAKER_05]: in the trades, we build our solves out of jobs.
43:30
[SPEAKER_05]: But there's people think of like the building construction trades is like building things.
43:35
[SPEAKER_05]: It's also maintaining things.
43:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Every time you drive over a bridge, that can can rust and corrode like our members are available to, you know, they're the ones who are out there last in it, making sure it's coded, making sure it's safe and protected.
43:50
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we do all sorts of things, our members do all sorts of things and our brothers and sisters across the building
43:56
[SPEAKER_05]: not only build, but maintain the infrastructure of our country.
44:01
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's important, and if they're important jobs, and they're good jobs, and especially if they're good union jobs, you can have a whole career, raise your family, retire with dignity, that's the whole goal, right?
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And the most important part is it's a good union jobs.
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The reality is, there's a lot of jobs weren't good until they were union jobs, and that's all good jobs.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But the reason I'm a big fan of what the trade does is, you know, your apprenticeship programs are second and then done my son is in one of the apprenticeship programs with the elevator constructors union and and it's it's amazing and from a parental standpoint.
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to pay for college.
44:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there is that.
44:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, speaking of Costco enough, right?
44:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't have to either.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's earning a really good wage with really good benefits, incredible pension, incredible, incredible opportunities.
44:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's not paying for out of his pocket.
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That I think is one of the key cells for young people who want to get into, to find a career if they're looking for something.
45:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and I agree with you there, the Ermoongularan model is amazing.
45:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And there are just so many, you mentioned your son and the elevator concentrists, there's just everything you can possibly imagine, there's a craft for that, right?
45:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And so if you were handy with, you know, if you liked paint, come join us, right?
45:26
[SPEAKER_05]: If you like, you know, if you're more untolectritions, you know, you can do that, right?
45:31
[SPEAKER_05]: If you wanna install elevators and escalators and all that, you know, you'd be with your son, but there's just so many opportunities
45:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I think more and more we're trying to get those opportunities in front of more and more people.
45:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, but, but every time you mention it on your show, every time people talk about it, it's great.
45:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Somebody maybe hears it for the first time or things that could be for them and, you know, we welcome folks.
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they're great jobs and, and again, I go back to that key component, not a lifetime of student loan debt.
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And, oh, by the way, as you said, maybe you like to paint, uh, and not in liking to paint and doing it well are two very different things.
46:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I point to a reflecting pool.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you said the first thing that's something that went and slapped some pain on.
46:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, there's, there's, there's liking to do it.
46:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's knowing how to do it, which is what you guys do better than anyone.
46:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the skilled union trades are different, obviously, because, you know, but we, but we welcome anybody, you know, who wants to give it a try and, you know, we have free apprenticeship programs that we're part of.
46:30
[SPEAKER_05]: There's always to, you know, get into the trades.
46:35
[SPEAKER_05]: If that's what somebody wants to do and I encourage everybody to talk to the to the folks in their life, and it doesn't just have to be college age or somebody coming out of school, you know people we have tons of people who come mid career they've tried something else they didn't like it somebody you know they they found the trades they found us.
46:53
[SPEAKER_05]: and have launched into a second career.
46:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's excellent stuff.
46:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've got to go back to wrap this up 12 days away.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Election day is 12 days away.
47:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
47:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the message between now and then?
47:06
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, listen, November there is the last date of a in this election, right?
47:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Early voting has started, you know, across places, people are returning mail ballots.
47:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So the message I would have here is like,
47:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Go vote.
47:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Do not, if you, you know, are thinking, oh, my vote's not needed because the polls are saying something that's not true.
47:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Go vote.
47:25
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're thinking, oh, my vote doesn't matter because of just one person.
47:29
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not true.
47:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Go vote.
47:30
[SPEAKER_05]: So really the messages get out there get yourself educated on, you know, think about the issues you care about, educate yourself about the candidates that are available to you in your area.
47:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And then make sure you make a plan and go vote.
47:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And I, and I really think that, um,
47:46
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, November 3rd, we're going to see as votes start to come in and get counted and we really, you know, Rick, I will say we also have to make sure that the votes get counted right and so November 3rd is the last day to vote, but we have to really stay strong and make sure that there's that the votes are all counted and there's free and fair elections that people can feel confident and the scary thing is you had to say that.
48:10
[SPEAKER_01]: because we're in that kind of a moment, but Liz, I appreciate the time you guys do incredible work.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you come back and talk to us again as this all continues.
48:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
48:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks, Rick.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much, Liz Backel, right?
48:21
[SPEAKER_01]: General Vice President there.
48:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I've government affairs that I, you, I, you, P, A, T, the International Union of Painters, and Allied Dreads.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You can check out their website, I, U, P, A, T dot org, especially if you want to jump into one of those apprenticeship programs.
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's a way for you to find out how to get yourself or maybe one of your kids into it.
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1981.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority voted to discertify the professional air traffic controllers organization or Pat Co.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The Pat Co Union had gone on strike earlier that year over wages, hours, and working conditions.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: President Ronald Reagan demanded the workers return to work or be fired.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: When the union decided to stay out, he fired more than 11,000 workers.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Federal law prohibited federal workers from participating in a strike.
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet until Reagan, the law was not strictly enforced.
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The three-person federal labor relations authorities sided with Ronald Reagan.
49:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Originally, their decision was two votes to one against the Union.
49:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But, less than two weeks later, the last member changed his vote in support of de-certification.
49:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The Union attempted to fight the de-certification with a court appeal.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Their efforts failed.
49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: In one of Labor's great ironies,
49:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Pat Co had actually endorsed Ronald Reagan for president, leading up to the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan had written a letter to the president of the union.
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: In the letter, he promised you can rest assured that if I'm elected president, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers.
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commiserate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety.
50:15
[SPEAKER_01]: He also pledged a spirit of cooperation between the president and the air traffic controllers.
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Within a year, the Union had been decertified.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened at Patko sent a chill through the labor movement of the United States?
50:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Since then, other Republican politicians, like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, have sought to undermine public sector unions.
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: In doing so, they often invoke the memory of Ronald Reagan and Patko.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what you hear, check out more at laborhistoryintu.com.
50:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show, we're working people, come to talk.
50:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So 12 million people, 12 million people, that's how many fewer Americans are on public health coverage since January of last year.
51:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That's according to health care analyst Charles Gabba's sub-stack page and Charles, it's a really long read, but well worth it.
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: His estimates run from about 11 to 12.4 million people losing their coverage.
51:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Medicaid, that's chip, that's kids coverage, that's all of that.
51:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Down more than six million.
51:36
[SPEAKER_01]: the Affordable Care Act plans down somewhere between four and four and a half and six million.
51:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the kicker.
51:44
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the important part of all this.
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to get worse.
51:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The bad part hasn't started yet.
51:51
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just them being them.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And you go, well, how did we get here?
51:57
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen?
51:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, at the end of last year, you may remember Republicans in Congress let the ACA premium subsidies expire.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: They basically just let it die.
52:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And the folks over at the Kaiser Family Foundation says that people actually pay for those plans.
52:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They jumped, the costs jumped, was 58% on average,
52:24
[SPEAKER_01]: deductibles hit a record almost 3,800 bucks and it appears from what I've been reading ensures one another 15% increase next year.
52:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, think about who was on those plans.
52:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The folks over at KFF found it 88% of the ACA growth since 2020 came from states and you know
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: they're the working poor.
52:55
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of his voters.
52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Working folks with no coverage on the job, they got cut loose.
53:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump supporter or not.
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think about it.
53:06
[SPEAKER_01]: If that's what they're going to do to people who support them, what are they going to do to everyone else?
53:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And this January 1st, the real hammer is going to drop because the Medicaid work requirement is coming.
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: over and over and over and over again.
53:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Forum, lose the letter in the mail, get your hours kind of at the warehouse, you're out, and then to the back of the line.
53:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what they don't tell you.
53:36
[SPEAKER_01]: The Congressional Budget Office, they don't expect these rules to actually put anyone back to work.
53:47
[SPEAKER_01]: What they said and what they know is that well, what this is going to do is going to just knock people knock people off the rolls We're going to make more uninsured because of paperwork and that's the plan.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always been the plan And where they save the savings comes from the CBO says that the one that one rule is going to cut three hundred twenty six billion dollars And what does that mean that means about ten million uninsured Americans by twenty thirty four
54:14
[SPEAKER_01]: more on top of the already what 12 year again.
54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going backwards and you go, well, where's all that money go, Rick?
54:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're going to save the save.
54:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, $326 billion, where's it going?
54:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, according to the CBO, the bottom 10% of households are going to lose about 1,200 bucks a year.
54:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to Trump and company, the top 10% are
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: or at least upper echelot.
54:46
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to pocket about 13,600 bucks.
54:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're literally doing the Robin Hood in reverse.
54:52
[SPEAKER_01]: We're robbing from the poor to give to the very rich.
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And the households in the rarefied air of making over a million dollars a year, they're going to get more in total tax cuts than 127 million households
55:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Let that sink in.
55:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Let that sink in.
55:16
[SPEAKER_01]: The people who are making a million bucks a year are going to get a tax cut greater than 127 million households.
55:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They took healthcare from the cashier to pay for tax breaks for the guy who owns the store chain is what they've done.
55:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And that really is the conservative playbook.
55:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single time it's punched down.
55:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Never up, always punched down.
55:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Go after the working board, kick the downtrodden.
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what they do.
55:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Go after the single mom on Medicaid for paperwork.
55:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Never ask the insurance CEO why premiums keep going through the roof.
55:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
55:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll make sure the guy working two part-time jobs about personal responsibility.
56:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then hand a billionaire attack spray with no strings attached at all.
56:06
[SPEAKER_01]: No worker requirements for a hedge fund manager's tax cuts?
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't do that.
56:10
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
56:12
[SPEAKER_01]: No proof of hours for a jet, private jet right off.
56:16
[SPEAKER_01]: No, can't have that.
56:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And don't think that it's gonna skip you because you've got insurance from your job.
56:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna hit all of us.
56:25
[SPEAKER_01]: When healthy people drop coverage, which is people are doing, that have to make the choices between putting food on the table or the luxury of ensuring themselves.
56:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The pool gets a lot sicker, and premiums go up for everybody.
56:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, the insurers are already saying this.
56:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They're saying it out loud.
56:44
[SPEAKER_01]: When people can't afford to go to the doctor, what do they do?
56:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They wait until it's an emergency, they wait until it's a crisis.
56:51
[SPEAKER_01]: They wait until they've got to get carted off in an ambulance to get to the ER.
56:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And that bill gets paid by all of us because they don't have it.
57:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have hospitals in small towns who are already running on thin margins about ready to go bankrupt or out of business.
57:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to eat those on paid bills or pass them on to the rest of us.
57:15
[SPEAKER_01]: All this actually does trickle down to the rest of us.
57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So the reality is is we have to do something.
57:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're on Medicaid, keep your address current open every letter from your state by all means learn the exemptions before January and figure out how to get through all this.
57:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you buy your own insurance, shop hard when open enrollment comes and watch out for the junk plans that don't cover anything because those are back in a big way.
57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks Donald.
57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And oh, by the way, maybe you've heard there's this little thing coming up in 12 days.
57:53
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a little powwow where the country gets together on a Tuesday and they go and they they they they cast a ballot.
58:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe you've heard of it, they go everybody young.
58:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people may all stuff in early.
58:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people go early because some states are smart enough to have open, open times to go vote.
58:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, Tuesday, November 3rd, that's the day.
58:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The midterms, maybe you've heard of this.
58:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There's an opportunity for folks like you and me to go and have some, some bit of set.
58:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I've said a bunch of times, I want politicians who are going to figure out this health care effect.
58:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I am personally a Medicare for all guy.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that that's the smartest way to go about.
58:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Have one giant insurance pool makes the best common sense.
58:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not government owning hospitals.
58:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's none of that stuff.
58:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is one giant insurance pool that we all buy into.
58:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That we're all in from cradle to grave.
58:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I think we'd make a lot more smart decisions in that world.
59:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want politicians who are going to fight for that.
59:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, in 12 days, you might have the chance to vote for some of them.
59:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't miss the opportunity because this, this is unsustainable.
59:14
[SPEAKER_01]: This, well, this is who, this is who Trump and the conservative movement is.
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, it's always about punching down.
59:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always about kicking people who are down.
59:27
[SPEAKER_01]: To there.
59:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in their blood.
59:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Want to hear your thoughts?
59:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Rick at theRickSmithShow.com.
59:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Miss any portion of the program.
59:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Grab the podcast and always.
59:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_00]: We're working people, come to talk.