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The Rick Smith Show 7-23-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:16
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here today on the big program lots to get to lots to talk about.
0:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Got an interesting email.
0:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I get this a lot.
0:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick you talk about unions all the time.
0:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Unions are a thing of the past.
0:28
[SPEAKER_04]: They're a relic of the past.
0:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't need them.
0:31
[SPEAKER_04]: They're bad.
0:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I get this a lot.
0:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reality, reality is unions aren't a relic of the past.
0:38
[SPEAKER_04]: They're the reason working people still have a past worth fighting for.
0:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Every decent wage, every safe truck, every pension, every weekend you get every lunch break.
0:49
[SPEAKER_04]: That was won by workers who stood together and refused to be treated as disposable.
0:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And the boss still wants the same thing.
0:58
[SPEAKER_04]: The boss is always wanted more.
1:02
[SPEAKER_04]: More work for less pay, more power, more power, more control less for you.
1:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And don't know accountability when things go right.
1:10
[SPEAKER_04]: A union is how we push back.
1:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It's how how we level the playing field.
1:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And they know it.
1:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So to say unions are no longer needed is to ignore the very basic reality that we're struggling.
1:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Wages are still being squeezed.
1:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Health care is still tied to the job safety is often treated as an afterthought.
1:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And companies are still trying to divide us one by one.
1:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Blue collar, white collar, ring around the collar.
1:42
[SPEAKER_04]: They're doing everything they can do to divide and conquer.
1:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's exactly why unions matter now more than ever.
1:49
[SPEAKER_04]: they give working people leverage, dignity, a voice that can't be ignored and look.
1:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been a teamster for over 30 years.
1:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And from my point of view, the answer is pretty simple, you want respect?
2:00
[SPEAKER_04]: You're organized.
2:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You want better wages?
2:02
[SPEAKER_04]: You're organized.
2:03
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to say for working conditions, you're organized.
2:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You want the working class to have a future, you're organized.
2:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Unions aren't old news, though the strongest answer that we have,
2:15
[SPEAKER_04]: to take on corporate power.
2:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It is that simple, and for me, it's a religion, it's almost the thing of a religion.
2:22
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, Charlton Heston, who is the head of the NRA for a while, I should say, for my cold dead hands, yeah.
2:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You'll get my union card from my cold dead hand, absolutely.
2:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, over the years I've joked about starting the Church of Collective Bargainer, because I believe it should be that kind of a religion.
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've often joked about the 10 demandments.
2:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like the 10 commandments, only these are, these are demands.
2:48
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, thou shall not work alone when solidarity can work for all being the first one.
2:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, thou shall demand fair wages, not beg for crumbs.
2:56
[SPEAKER_04]: thou shall not scab.
2:59
[SPEAKER_04]: thou shall protect one worker as though it was, protect the whole crew.
3:05
[SPEAKER_04]: thou shall speak plainly against the boss, against fear, and against waged theft.
3:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, thou thee sound good, which you join, thou shall organize every shop, every shift, every yard, every route, thou shall not let management divide worker from worker, thou shall defend safety, dignity, and rest, as sacred rights, thou shall remember that collective
3:34
[SPEAKER_04]: That's aimed at you gig economy.
3:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And number 10, thou shalt leave no worker behind because the reality is an injury to one is absolutely an injury to all.
3:48
[SPEAKER_04]: The idea that solidarity matters.
3:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where we are and this is a great opportunity to bring people back together under the umbrella of better wages, hours, conditions, opportunities, a better future.
4:04
[SPEAKER_04]: That ideal that we were raised to believe, if you work hard, play by the rules, that you do.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: It makes sense.
4:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So when I have people say, we don't need no stick in you, and you, what does it want to you?
4:16
[SPEAKER_04]: What's a union ever done for me?
4:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And I wish money Python would take this one on, because they've done a pretty good job of what the Romans have ever done.
4:27
[SPEAKER_04]: The reality is, as unions have stood up to employers and given workers a voice raised away, just protected health care and retirement and all of that, one safer workplaces, one enforcement of safer workplaces, fought discrimination on every level, race, gender, orientation, all of that, ethnicity, all of that.
4:54
[SPEAKER_04]: There is so much that we take for granted, so much we take for granted that came out of the struggles, the blood, sweat, and tears and lives of workers in the past who fought blood and died for the things that we take for granted.
5:14
[SPEAKER_04]: If we're going to reunite this country, we're going to bring it back together.
5:51
[SPEAKER_04]: The demands were as follows, free beer, a closed shop, freedom to live outside the breweries, a 10-hour workday, a six-day workweek, and a board of arbitration.
6:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Brewerkers in that city maintained their union loyalty during the two years that followed.
6:06
[SPEAKER_04]: The National Brewer's Association sought to break the brewer's unions across the nation, but the brewer stood strong in San Francisco.
6:14
[SPEAKER_04]: The Brewery Owners Association ordered its affiliated members in San Francisco to fire union workers and replace them with scabs.
6:22
[SPEAKER_04]: This led to a nine-month Brewer worker strike.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: The strike was successful.
6:26
[SPEAKER_04]: The National Brewer's Association finally was forced to capitulate.
6:30
[SPEAKER_04]: There had been other more recent brewery strikes and not just in the United States.
6:35
[SPEAKER_04]: In 2010, Carl's bird brewery workers went on strike in Denmark.
6:39
[SPEAKER_04]: After bosses told the staff, they could only drink at lunchtime.
6:43
[SPEAKER_04]: The warehouse and production workers in Denmark were rebelling against the company's new alcohol policy.
6:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Previously, workers could help themselves to bear throughout the day.
6:52
[SPEAKER_04]: From coolers placed around the work site.
6:55
[SPEAKER_04]: According to a company spokesman, the only restriction was that you could not be drunk at work, which was up to each and every one to be responsible.
7:04
[SPEAKER_04]: On July 9th, 2015, polar brewery workers went on strike in Venezuela.
7:09
[SPEAKER_04]: because the company delayed signing a contract and refused to recognize the union.
7:14
[SPEAKER_04]: The four polar breweries make 80% of Venezuela's beer.
7:18
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no shortage of beer in that country.
7:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Venezuela is one of the 10 largest consumers of beer in the world.
7:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintube.com.
7:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show we're working people come to talk.
7:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So as we've been talking about, the reality is if we're going to pull the country back together, the number one way to do that in my view is to get union density back up to 30% 35% like it was during the heart of my grandparents working lives and look, we just saw the report from EPI that said, what could be if we got, if we tripled union density in this country, it means higher wages, it means better benefits, it means a better standard of living for working people, but how do you get there?
8:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's that organizing.
8:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's that it's that art of pulling people together that art of getting people to work in their best interests And there is nobody who does that better than my friend Phil Cohen who's now got a new book out that I highly suggest people take a look at All the new book is maximum leverage
8:35
[SPEAKER_04]: from the streets to the picket lines, you can find that at Union Buster FightingUnionBuster.org.
8:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll get links out on social media, fill, great book.
8:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for taking time for us.
8:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And my pleasure to be here with you.
8:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So walk me through, I'm here.
8:50
[SPEAKER_04]: You have had an incredible life of fighting the good fight, taking on corporate union busters, taking on these these behemoths and ultimately winning in many cases.
9:04
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the message here?
9:05
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the book about?
9:08
[SPEAKER_05]: OK.
9:12
[SPEAKER_05]: The book is,
9:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess I put it in a simple term.
9:17
[SPEAKER_05]: The book is about people.
9:18
[SPEAKER_05]: The important thing to remember and not of who you're dealing with is that regardless of the organization, the corporation, it's made up of people and people have their vulnerabilities, they have their weaknesses, they have their vices, and we're dealing with a powerful adversary.
9:45
[SPEAKER_05]: figure out their weak links, cut them out from the herd, the way a leopard doesn't take on a whole herd of antelopes.
9:54
[SPEAKER_05]: A leopard will take on will identify one and cut them out from the herd and then take them down.
10:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And is an art to identifying members of management who are
10:10
[SPEAKER_05]: but want to orchestrate the anti-union policies, orchestrated certifications, well, upstate defines to present a first contract and turning them from assets in the eyes of their superior to liabilities.
10:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And once you've crossed that line with them, listen, I've gotten more members of management.
10:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Everything from floor supervisors to corporate attorneys, fired, then there are stars in the sky.
10:40
[SPEAKER_05]: simply by cutting them out from the herd and not getting in the companies to agree with me that they're bad people who don't care about the workers.
10:48
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the most naive approach can possibly take.
10:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Simply turning them into liabilities that are causing them more problems than they are resolving problems.
10:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Now you're better than a street organizing to the picket line.
11:05
[SPEAKER_04]: What do unions often miss when they treat them as a separate world instead of what needs to happen in both worlds?
11:15
[SPEAKER_05]: It's unfortunately, I would say, it's a naive attitude.
11:19
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we have the labor movement today is gone of the direction, I mean, in this high tech world
11:29
[SPEAKER_05]: college graduates, very politically correct, very intellectual people who've never done a day to blue-collar work in their lives.
11:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's the big difference between me and a lot of other people who are in what's called a decision-making capacity in the labor world.
11:45
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, lead organizers, people who direct other organizers is that,
11:55
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sorry.
11:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I ain't, no, look, I don't know the best organizers in my view are people who can speak the language.
12:02
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're going to talk to a truck driver, you've got to have a truck driver who understands what that driver is going through to connect with them and pull them on board.
12:10
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're going to get warehouse workers, it should be someone who at least understands the basic workings and has gotten their hands dirty and their back aching and doing that kind of work.
12:25
[SPEAKER_04]: and a little less boots on the ground.
12:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that absolutely sums it up.
12:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And the problem is, when you get folks coming from an academic perspective, they invariably try to organize people around their values.
12:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And that doesn't work.
12:44
[SPEAKER_05]: All that does is kiss workers off at alienates them.
12:47
[SPEAKER_05]: You gotta identify the value of the workers in a particular situation and organize around their values.
12:55
[SPEAKER_05]: even if you don't agree with them.
12:56
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, because we look, the reality is you know, union approval ratings if you if you buy into all of that are at an all-time high people think very highly of unions I know a lot of people that I've spoken to would say tomorrow I would join a union if it were if you were possible but it's that exercise of taking that step it's that exercise of bringing people together to act in their interest and what I find interesting for me is a lot of organizers
13:23
[SPEAKER_04]: They've got an ego in it that it's about them when it's really, it's really not, it's about facilitating them to move and workers to move in a direction that they want, not necessarily maybe what you want.
13:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that accurate?
13:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
13:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.
13:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Thousands of percent correct.
13:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
13:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I have sat with workers, you know, sitting, you know, one of the things to do in the labor movement to bond is you take people out to dinner, you take people out to lunch,
13:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And the discussion is, what's the best way to whip your children, the belt or the switch?
13:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And sometimes you gotta know when to talk, you want to be aggressive.
14:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Though if I'm if you gotta know, just want to keep your mouth shut.
14:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And just listen, don't agree, don't disagree.
14:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So I've seen people go all around the table, talking about the best way to whip your kids.
14:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I find it profoundly offensive, but I just don't say anything.
14:19
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't agree with them, certainly.
14:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I went through that for any amount of money, but I didn't disagree because I'm not there to teach him how to be parents, and there to teach him how to be good union members.
14:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I've had people stand with me, okay, talking about ages to wrath of God upon gay people.
14:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Are there offensive, you know, notion, but nonetheless, I'm not there to teach them about, you know, sexual politics.
14:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm there to teach them about union politics, but out of a union leader.
14:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So do you think the labor movement has gotten too far into cultural issues too far into things that you might find divisive?
14:57
[SPEAKER_05]: The movement itself, no, but some of the organizers, some of the leaders, yes.
15:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Because this is, after all, the labor movement for the most part, I mean, you know, airplane pilots aside,
15:13
[SPEAKER_05]: The illegal labor movement in and of itself is a blue collar movement.
15:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And I believe it takes blue collar people who've been there.
15:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's the one thing folks know about me when they met me for five minutes.
15:27
[SPEAKER_05]: It's I've been where they've been and I fought no way up from nothing.
15:32
[SPEAKER_05]: to accomplish what I have in my life.
15:34
[SPEAKER_04]: No, yours is an amazing story.
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's one of those American tales of the right should pick up on this.
15:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You're a guy who pulls yourself up by the bootstraps, literally an addict on the streets, homeless at times, and you figured out how to move your way up.
15:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's a story worth telling.
15:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, it's about instincts.
16:02
[SPEAKER_05]: If you don't have street smarts, if you don't have these the sense of instinct of trusting you got your own in and get so far as an organizer in a difficult situation, against really, you know, viral opponents like the dealing with an Amazon or the dealing with its Starbucks, you gotta have instincts and you gotta know how to identify weakness in the worst people in the company.
16:29
[SPEAKER_05]: but also identifying people in the company that essentially really are neutral and just want to do their job, they're really not part of the anti-union efforts and building a relationship with them.
16:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And really part of the magic is not making it personal.
16:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I've taught this to every committee I've worked with, okay, it is really important because it's something called a hierarchy of needs, which a mayor may not have heard of, but as closely as this really fits.
17:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, to me, there's something missing.
17:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe the number one need is to stay alive.
17:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Number two, more important than anything else, more important than sex, more important than family.
17:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Everybody except the stone cold sociopath needs to feel like they're a good person.
17:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And they're writing matter who the hell they are.
17:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Donald Trump has to rationalize that he's a good person and his own head.
17:33
[SPEAKER_05]: OK.
17:33
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm going to deal with management.
17:37
[SPEAKER_05]: You make it personal.
17:38
[SPEAKER_05]: You are really horrible.
17:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Look at the way you treat the workers.
17:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Look at how they're suffering.
17:42
[SPEAKER_05]: You did this.
17:43
[SPEAKER_05]: You did that.
17:44
[SPEAKER_05]: It makes them defensive.
17:46
[SPEAKER_05]: It makes it impossible.
17:48
[SPEAKER_05]: It puts a real stone wall between you and between the union and the company resolving issues
17:56
[SPEAKER_05]: But instead, if you don't make it personal, but you simply, you're focused on the issues, you're attacking what they do, not who they are, and it's really not that complicated um, apology, because I've made it work.
18:13
[SPEAKER_05]: and every company I've dealt with, even the worst company.
18:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, so how do you balance a aggressive tactics with, you know, with the kind of militant rhetoric that sometime you hear, how do you keep rank and file workers engaged, disciplined, and control the fight in a way that is on the grounds that you're talking about?
18:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Because, look, you know, the adversarial relationship,
18:36
[SPEAKER_04]: that that you see sometimes between unions in the company.
18:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I would argue fostered more by the company than the unions.
18:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That seems to be what is been used to keep people apart.
18:47
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you, how do you balance that?
18:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, one of the first, I completely agree with what you just said, the adversary of relationship.
18:53
[SPEAKER_05]: This start is really initiated by the company.
18:59
[SPEAKER_05]: What I teach my folks and I know exactly these words and my folks, I mean the leadership.
19:06
[SPEAKER_05]: because there's no way an organized and I'm going to how good they are can win a campaign if they don't have good local union leadership helping them on the ground.
19:16
[SPEAKER_05]: If you may be in the plant a couple of days a week, they live in the plant, okay?
19:23
[SPEAKER_05]: But teaching them that how to fight absolutely ruthlessly,
19:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And it sounds like a kind of almost an antispedical principle, but I'm able to teach it to countless committees.
19:43
[SPEAKER_05]: How do you fight ruthlessly, but without hatred?
19:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Because that's the market of a warrior.
19:47
[SPEAKER_05]: No, that's what the martial arts are about.
19:49
[SPEAKER_05]: That's excellent point.
19:50
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it really is an excellent point.
19:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Because the other question I have is, in this era of corporate union busting, media spin,
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, what does a smarter, more militant organizing strategy look like on the ground because look, you want to be, you want to be tough, you want to fight the good fight, but I think as you're pointing out, you still got to be some, some area to leave some dignity and respect for the other side.
20:14
[SPEAKER_04]: It's that look like, what's up?
20:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, what it look like is one word, accountability.
20:21
[SPEAKER_05]: You identify who a company is accountable to,
20:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Management individuals are accountable to and the corporation has a whole.
20:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Companies are accountable to the banks that hold their note.
20:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Companies are not just accountable.
20:37
[SPEAKER_05]: They are terrified of their customers.
20:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I have told many a member of management where I did have some kind of relationship, but yeah, we were arguing as I look.
20:47
[SPEAKER_05]: No union on this worst day, bust your chops, half as bad as your own customers every day and you know it.
20:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And they laugh in a smile and make us, I've got their number, okay?
20:59
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, this really strange thing about labor relations in this country.
21:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Companies tough bargain with their suppliers, because they want a better deal on their supplies.
21:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And sometimes it gets really intense and really ugly, but they make a deal.
21:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And you don't read the newspaper that there's a fight between this company and their supplier.
21:22
[SPEAKER_05]: companies negotiate with their customers, but in between supply and customer, what do you got?
21:28
[SPEAKER_05]: You got labor.
21:30
[SPEAKER_05]: You got the people who take the raw materials and turn it into the products at the customers' buy.
21:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And that is unnecessarily adversarial.
21:40
[SPEAKER_05]: It's insanely adversarial.
21:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So let me add in an era where workers are more skeptical that solidarity can still win.
21:53
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the clearest, you know, in your book, what's the clearest lesson from a campaign in the book that you can, you can, you can, you can share with us that solidarity still is something that that can work that if we stick together.
22:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, the whole, it's around the entire book, that's the theme, but I'll mention one story in particular, which was, you know, I did most of my work in the South, but sometimes I was sent on what I referred to as an away mission.
22:32
[SPEAKER_05]: There was a real, there was a crisis happening, somewhere else in the country, the president of the National President of the Union didn't feel that anybody in that affiliate,
22:44
[SPEAKER_05]: had the ability to deal with it and they sent me, okay, and so one of them was an Allentown Pennsylvania where a shoe manufacturer took over a suit manufacturer and tried to for some really major concessions down the workers' throats and we simply attacked that from
23:14
[SPEAKER_05]: rent.
23:15
[SPEAKER_05]: We ran through stores.
23:18
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we took, we took stores over, we took the plant, oh, we literally took the plant over and we were attacked by about 50 cops and I positioned everybody strategically between a row of sewing machines and a wall and we all screamed union so loud, it shook the rafters of the plant and the 50 cops retreated from the couple of 100 workers that I had.
23:38
[SPEAKER_05]: They came back, they retreated again and finally the plant manager
23:44
[SPEAKER_05]: wanted to speak with the Milchir, a very competent Milchir, and so this woman went into the room where he was standing with the police and came back and said, look, the guy wants his plant back, but the police are saying they will withdraw if you allow us to arrest two people who tussled with us.
24:05
[SPEAKER_05]: There is a really big decision that I had to make in a tenth of a second.
24:08
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm good organizing is about making decisions on a dime.
24:12
[SPEAKER_05]: not going my some model and having it all figured out a week before because nothing happens to wave expect.
24:17
[SPEAKER_05]: So one hand I think how absolutely stupid to me in the middle of a labor protest and to fight with the police just because they're showing up and doing their job and get physical with them.
24:28
[SPEAKER_05]: How stupid, baby if you just give these clowns up and I put my head down and I just put look back up and I said you go back and you tell the plant manager we all stay in and we all go out
24:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And we all started chanting and we all stay in and we all go out for like 15 minutes and they call the point of the military back in and the police said, fine, you're all can leave.
24:53
[SPEAKER_05]: And the next day, I love it.
24:55
[SPEAKER_05]: It's one of my favorite quotes of all time, because the chief of police said, I would love nothing more than to arrest field cone.
25:06
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't have enough evidence to do it.
25:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, that's one of my favorite, I'm sorry.
25:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Where are that as a bag of a badge of courage?
25:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
25:20
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, there's, there's another story in the book where, you know, one of the areas when we've companies, even companies that you can normally work with really exploit workers is when it comes to workers' comp.
25:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Not letting them know their rights,
25:38
[SPEAKER_05]: trying to cheat them from exercising, they're scared them into exercising their rights.
25:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And this was, I always sent in to fight a desertification in the end of 1917 at an 80-year-old union local that hired professional union busters, and then I've got called in as always happened to me at the 11th hour and 59 minutes.
26:05
[SPEAKER_05]: and got had to file board triadiers like on a dime, to stop an election with the company woulda won.
26:11
[SPEAKER_05]: And turn things around.
26:12
[SPEAKER_05]: So after we won, we're having a celebration as a picnic.
26:17
[SPEAKER_05]: And his girl comes in Texas seat.
26:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And I look at her, and I've got her admit, my first thought was my gutting, she's something.
26:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And actually they were with my girlfriend look.
26:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I controlled myself and this walked up because there's a worker I've never met
26:34
[SPEAKER_05]: This was who I am, because yeah, I know who you are.
26:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, oh, who are you?
26:38
[SPEAKER_05]: How come I never met you?
26:40
[SPEAKER_05]: You said, well, because I've been on light duty, because I've had a serious injury in my shoulder.
26:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And she was terrified of filing a worker's calm place.
26:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And I said to her, look, if you do this, if you trust me and you do this and you do what I say, you've got my word that I will have your back,
27:02
[SPEAKER_04]: if anybody hurts you they hurt me and that is the message of the message of the book and I hope folks will check it out maximum leverage from the streets to the picket lines written by Phil Cohen you can find it at fighting unionbusters.org we will get links out on social media Phil.
27:23
[SPEAKER_04]: great book, great stories, and I hope folks pick this up, read it, and I hope it does what we intend to do.
27:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Teach some lessons, the future organizers, and help us get a little bit stronger and a little bit better.
27:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But Phil, thanks so much.
27:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And thank you so much for having me.
27:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I really appreciate being here.
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Appreciate the time.
27:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, fighting unionbusters.org is the website.
27:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out Maximum leverage.
27:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll get that written by Phil Cohen.
27:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Email me, Rick, at therixmithshow.com.
27:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to take a quick break right back after this.
27:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Take care.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1916.
28:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day a bomb rocked the preparedness day parade in San Francisco, killing 10 and injuring at least 40.
28:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The Chamber of Commerce and the newly formed law and order committee,
28:19
[SPEAKER_04]: organized the parade to shore up support for war production and eventual entry into World War 1.
28:25
[SPEAKER_04]: But isolationist sentiment in San Francisco remained strong, anti-war activists, prepared pamphlets and protests for the march.
28:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Many trade unionists were opposed to entry into the war.
28:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Some considered the parade a response to the combative longshoremen strike raging on the docks for weeks.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: San Francisco had been a strong union town for years, known for strikes and labor disputes.
28:49
[SPEAKER_04]: 1916 wasn't election year, and already the city had been rocked by a number of strikes.
28:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Business interests launched an open shop campaign and began targeting labor radicals.
29:00
[SPEAKER_04]: They found their scapegoats in labor leaders Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, who were framed and convicted for the bombings.
29:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Journalist Carl Nolty points out that Mooney and his assistant had been trying to organize workers at the city's largest street car company United Railroads.
29:16
[SPEAKER_04]: He notes their convictions were based on purgered testimony and doctored evidence.
29:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Incredibly, one of the prosecution's star witnesses wasn't even in town that day, but the convictions served to vilify labor militants as terrorists.
29:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Fremont Older, editor of two local newspapers, discovered the frame of evidence.
29:36
[SPEAKER_04]: He and many others, including Upton Sinclair and Clarence Darrell, campaigned for years to free the two men.
29:43
[SPEAKER_04]: They were finally released after 22 years in 1939.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The actual bombers were never found, though some have speculated that anarchists of the Galianist movement were likely responsible.
29:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith show.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Executives climbing the corporate ladder to the top seemed to lose IQ the higher up they get That might explain why John Deers top executive bosses have imposed and astonishingly stupid policy on America's farmers For years, they've decreed that while a farmer technically owns a tractor or other John Deer product
30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The owner is prohibited from making any repairs when the machinery breaks down, stalls, out, etc.
30:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, the owner's must call an authorized deer dealer to fix what most farmers could handle by themselves.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: The monopolistic profiteur refuses to make its repair manuals available to customers or local repair shops, so, gotcha.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: The Montana Rancher's tractor had gone to put in hay bathing season.
30:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, set a deer dealer.
30:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The technician is not available.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And no, you can't have access to the dognostic computer to do it yourself.
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So he had to wait weeks before deer finally got his tractor running.
31:09
[SPEAKER_00]: A fairly basic job worth about $600, but they build water $4,000.
31:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what's called a monopoly fix.
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But they messed with the wrong farmer.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Schweitzer, President of the Montana Farmer's Union, mobilized grassroots pressure from five states, forcing federal officials to sue John Deere.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: This month, deer's aloof executive settle that suit.
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, letting its farm customers take charge of the equipment that, hello, they own.
31:39
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heiter saying, Schwitzer points out that this landmark went over the arrogance of deer executives is just one stepping stone to a right to repair law for all products.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: To help push this right forward, go to repair.org, repair.org.
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So, as you know last week, the American Federation of Teachers had their big powwow.
32:14
[SPEAKER_04]: other convention and where they bring together people thought leaders, they bring together ideas on how they're going to make education stronger, how they're going to help kids, how they're going to help teachers, how they're going to move well our society a little bit closer, a little bit further down the road, a little bit better.
32:31
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I love about it.
32:33
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the pieces I came across that I thought was it was an interesting
32:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe an interesting opportunity to have a conversation, there was a guy who wrote a piece called American Unions in the Catholic Church.
32:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Now you've heard me talk about my experience growing up as now a broken Catholic, but but spending my eight-year sentence in Catholic school and and how it was all about
32:55
[SPEAKER_04]: at least my experience.
32:57
[SPEAKER_04]: The Catholic Church was all about peace and social justice.
32:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It was all about workers' rights.
33:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It was all about benefiting the guy at the bottom, the poor, the downtrodden.
33:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what the book talks about?
33:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So I thought this would be a great opportunity to reach out to talk with Steve Schneck.
33:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Steve is the president of Catholics for the future.
33:16
[SPEAKER_04]: He's got the piece out of American unions and the Catholic Church.
33:18
[SPEAKER_04]: You can find that over at stevenshneck.com.
33:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick, it's delightful to be here.
33:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much for the opportunity to just so let's jump right in this because I got to tell you know, my experience in the church, um, what was I pretty got to be honest other than the torture and the beatings and everything that came out of out of my, my school years.
33:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but it really was about peace and social justice.
33:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It taught me about community, you know, that we were all part of something and that that message to me still resonates in my life, even though my hands don't work like they used to because of the beatings, but, um, how did we get to the point where we're now all divided and torn apart and religion was kind of a part of that?
34:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, honestly, I think the turning point was in the 80s, you know, when the Reagan years, especially, there's a concerted effort on the part of really, for the most part, right-wing Protestant Christianity, and it's coming out of the evangelical tradition, but the Catholic Church signed on over the issue of abortion and gradually, you know, we've seen, you know, religion become more and more identified
34:30
[SPEAKER_03]: with right-wing causes and right-wing politics in the United States, which is too bad because anybody who reads the book knows that the book isn't particularly right-wing or a left-wing book, it turns into both, right?
34:44
[SPEAKER_04]: No, and this is one of those things where you're growing up.
34:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I had to go to church and I was an altar boy until they threw me out and all of that stuff, but I was around at least to absorb some of the
34:54
[SPEAKER_04]: the teachings which are, you know, take care of the poor, feed the hungry, you care for the sick, you know, the downtrodden stuff.
35:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not quite sure when it was, uh, Jesus wants me to be rich, and hooray for me and heck with everyone else.
35:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the part that really gets me.
35:09
[SPEAKER_04]: The people who talk about their religiosity, the most are the ones who are willing to take snap benefits away.
35:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So kids like me growing up wouldn't have been fed, take Medicaid benefits away.
35:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So people like me wouldn't have lived.
35:23
[SPEAKER_04]: This is, I'm really struggling in this moment and I gotta tell you, I think an opportunity for guys like you to maybe revive, you know, people like me.
35:33
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's not just ironic, it's hypocritical, you know, some of the things that right when Christians, or at least people that are parading, you know, Christian slogans on the right, you know, have been behind as you say, you know, cutting snap benefits, demolishing Medicare for the most part, Medicaid for the most part.
35:52
[SPEAKER_03]: You know who knows what they're going to be doing to social security.
35:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I'm very concerned about all of these kinds of things.
35:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, it's not, it's not the religion that I really grew up with.
36:02
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the religion, you know, that I find in the Bible.
36:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the, you know, it's not with the red letter words that Jesus says in the Bible.
36:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, I agree with you 100% real.
36:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember I feel exactly the same way.
36:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, I remember priests from the pulpit talking about, you know, supporting a local strike.
36:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember priests walking, pick it lines.
36:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember growing up believing that Jesus would have been walking a picket line, holding a picket line.
36:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I completely believe that that's true.
36:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I do all my union forebearers.
36:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they all thought that they were working, working for God.
36:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So.
36:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, walk me through some of the history of the Catholic Church and the labor, because it wasn't just my experience growing up in the 70s.
36:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, this is a long, long tradition of the Catholic Church being on the side of workers' rights.
36:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
36:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I suppose the key point is in 1891 when, hopefully, the 13th, the Leo before our current
37:06
[SPEAKER_03]: in favor of the working a person and in favor of unions.
37:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's choosing to endorse unions, specifically because there are defense against runemook free market enterprise that has no guardrails, no regulation.
37:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And so he thinks that union is the unions of the best protection that the the common people can have.
37:33
[SPEAKER_03]: in the industrial age.
37:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's continued really from Pope after Pope after Pope through the 20th century and into the 20th or 21st century.
37:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we've seen from the second Pope later that Pope Leo the 14th are current content.
37:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Some very, very strong statements, you know, arguing for the necessity and the importance of unions and Pope Francis just before him actually said that you really can't have a free society if you don't have unions.
38:01
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's
38:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the church has continued throughout the years saying, you know, how important, how critical unions are and how the church supports them.
38:13
[SPEAKER_04]: What I think is interesting is, you know, the Catholic Church, I think is one of those those places.
38:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, I've got Catholic friends who are, holy on the side of unions, we're big union supporters, but everything else, this kind of right-wing populist, this kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, kind of stuff, you know, stuff that Jesus would have been all on board with.
38:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but you know, it seems like our society has moved into direction where, you know, you can, you can be okay with unions, but still this whole hyper individualist pull yourself up by your bootstraps bad things happen because you deserve it kind of ideology or, or do you think I'm reading that a little wrong?
38:54
[SPEAKER_03]: No, and I'm worried about where it all that comes from, you know, that actually, you know, is a perfect fit with kind of right wing libertarianism comes right out of the unregulated market, you know, sort of thinking that hopefully the 13th was complaining about, you know, back in 1891.
39:13
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, that, that, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps is not Catholic thinking at all.
39:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we're all in this together, brothers and sisters.
39:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, we have a responsibility to each other.
39:26
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, we have a special responsibility to those who have the hardest time taking care of themselves.
39:31
[SPEAKER_03]: The, you know, those who are in poverty, those are marginalized for one reason or rather in society.
39:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would say, can I add to that?
39:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, absolutely.
39:40
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, you know, that kind of thinking is really at odds with everything that unions were, you know, formed about and formed for in the first place.
39:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that solidarity forever stuff is not about lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps for what it's worth.
39:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So do you think as Union density has his collapse?
39:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Cause I look, you pointed to the 80s when you think that this, and I agree with you, I think the Reagan era was all about hyperindividualism, this kind of extreme religiosity and all by the way, crushing unions.
40:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So do you think that as Union density was being crushed and this message of hyperindividualism and extreme religion is this where you think possibly,
40:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Some of the the hostility towards labor, especially now in the Catholic church because look I have some Catholic friends who are pro unit, but I also know a lot of my Catholic friends who are we don't we don't need that anymore That's that's a thing of the past they've gone they've grown very suspicion suspicious and even hostile auto unions and despite the teachings of the church
40:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it's really bizarre to see that that that phenomenon, but it's true, you know, we are known Catholics aren't in the United States, particularly white Catholics in the United States, we're not immigrants anymore, we're not not even the sons have been our immigrants were maybe the grandson's or the, you know, the great great granddaughters of immigrants.
41:02
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're not immigrants anymore.
41:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, for the most part, we've climbed out of our, you know, the Catholic ghetto and into the middle class to a certain extent.
41:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, people don't think that maybe they need unions anymore.
41:18
[SPEAKER_03]: The problem is, as I was just quoting Pope Francis
41:30
[SPEAKER_03]: unions, what we lose and not not continuing to support them is we lose everything that unions do to protect us, not only from the dangers of unregulated free enterprise, but also from the dangers of technology, rather, we need unions to protect humanity.
41:50
[SPEAKER_04]: no without question, but here's the weird thing and this is where my mind goes, you know, the powers to be, whoever that is, whether it's the wealth class, whether it's the one percent, whether it's corporate messaging, whatever that is, whether it's our corporate controlled media, I think they have done a masterful job of divide and conquer.
42:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I use the jake gold quote quite often.
42:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I could pay off the working class to murder the other half.
42:15
[SPEAKER_04]: do you think as I do that, you know, this division really came about because, you know, look, the right used abortion, they use the LGBTQ, you know, issue, they've used the culture war issues to to be that chasm between folks and that that dividing line with religion, instead of going, look, you know, hate the sin, love the sinner, we are now just hate everybody.
42:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
42:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And to go back to the 80s, I mean, that's when they picked up using the culture war as this huge wedge to divide Americans against Americans.
42:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And particularly to divide working class and lower class Americans against each other, you know, by seizing on some of these cultural war issues.
42:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's, you know, I'm sorry to say that some of the hierarchy in the church in the 90s and early 2000s, you know, fell into that same trap using the culture
43:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Terminology in ways that ended up dividing not only Americans but dividing Catholic Americans, you know, from one another.
43:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So let me ask you this way, because, you know, as a broken Catholic who hasn't gone to a Catholic mass in some time, is it that from the pulpit things changed or did the people in the puse change, which then moved the change of the, because look, my understanding is, you know, from the Vatican on down, same kind of ideology, you know, support workers' right support, you know, that the poor, the downtrodden, all that stuff.
43:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But is it possible that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
43:44
[SPEAKER_04]: the people in the fuse changed, which then, you know, worked its way up.
43:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's kind of a bottom, do you agree?
43:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a both hand.
43:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So both things were occurring.
43:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So leadership of the church.
43:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there was a real effort on the part of Catholic associated with the regular administration back in the 80s to kind of turn the church in a more conservative direction.
44:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, really a plan on their foot.
44:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So there really was kind of leadership and leadership at the top that was trying to make this
44:13
[SPEAKER_03]: But also, as you say, you're a broken Catholic and you're doing a 10-mask anymore.
44:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you're, I think the statistics are something like 17% of Americans or corporate Catholics.
44:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's a huge population.
44:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And those are the people that are not in the fuse anymore.
44:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And therefore, the people who are in the fuse tend to be people who lean a little bit more conservative in their politics and in their religiosity.
44:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's a little bit about,
44:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so let me ask you that, you know, the reality is what can what can be done in that van because look, I think I think we do need some kind of of thing to pull us back together.
44:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we've been divided and almost conquered.
44:56
[SPEAKER_04]: What role should the Catholic Church do with the parishes, the schools, your social groups?
45:02
[SPEAKER_04]: What should they be doing about educating, you know, about workers' rights, about supporting union campaigns?
45:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And maybe pulling us back somewhere near the same line.
45:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, first let me just say, Pope Baleo is more famous and more popular and more liked than Taylor Swift, much less Donald Trump.
45:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So he is the most liked person in American public opinion.
45:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think he crosses a lot of the lines.
45:33
[SPEAKER_03]: He crosses some of this polarization and these divisions that we were talking about.
45:37
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think we have right now in this American poll, somebody that's a bit of a uniter and can help get things started for overcoming some of this polarization.
45:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I am really pleased to, you know, it's some of the things that are taking place.
45:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there are efforts that are trying to re-establish the connection between the labor movement the United States and the Catholic Church, both within the Catholic Church and within the labor movement itself.
46:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Convention, you know, they have an initiative that they invited me to be part of to try to reconnect to faith communities.
46:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, Catholic faith communities would have been one of those.
46:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But beyond that, what can perishes do?
46:21
[SPEAKER_03]: What can, what can every day a Catholic, or even former Catholics do?
46:26
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think the critical thing is to just become activists for some of the causes that matter to us, because most of the causes that matter to us aren't really those culturally divisive issues, they're the economic issues.
46:42
[SPEAKER_03]: paycheck issues, the kitchen table issues, that wherever you are politically left or right, you're struggling with those issues right now.
46:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think if we begin to talk about that, that too will become aware of maybe overcoming some other division.
46:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Because what's interesting to me is we're, you know, Christianity is now almost the official religion of the country and look I'm I've said a number of times I can't wait till we finally stake the flag in the ground that we are Christian nation so that you know each group can then begin eating itself because we've got to be the Christian of the Christian nation and go you know the guy that I learned about in the book
47:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think he'd been, I don't think he'd been okay with that.
47:22
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, one of my favorite memes on social media is an image of Jesus saying, I didn't blanking, say that.
47:30
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not what I meant.
47:32
[SPEAKER_03]: As he famously said, my kingdom is not of this world.
47:36
[SPEAKER_03]: that some of these people need to remember that.
47:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Christian Nationalism just honestly doesn't make any sense from the perspective of the Bible, but whatever.
47:46
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's not whatever.
47:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the sad reality is there are people who truly have in terms of the idea that Jesus would be a God from voting conservative, right?
47:56
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a guy, there's, I know a guy who's got a literally a Jesus holding an AR-15.
48:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, that is the least Jesus thing ever.
48:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I cannot imagine anything less of Jesus like than a Jesus with an AR 50.
48:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm gonna don't give me wrong.
48:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm actually in favor of good rights, but they don't, it's no, that's as crazy.
48:26
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but look, you know, but these are the people who tell me that Jesus is going to come back and slaughter all of us.
48:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So to them, him having a gun just makes slaughtering us easier.
48:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's a whole other discussion for another day.
48:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I do want to wrap this up with you.
48:39
[SPEAKER_04]: How do...
48:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, looking ahead, what would genuinely help Catholics and labor policy and and people, you know, who have to work and policy and all this, how do we bring all this together to to make our workplaces more democratic our country more democratic and maybe our economy a little bit more just.
49:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, I think I honestly think that faith communities need to be a place for people to come together and talk about these kinds of things and as I said, as we said before, it's the it's the kitchen table issues that's the economic issues that are really going to unite us and really going to I think those issues as they.
49:23
[SPEAKER_03]: we're seeing right now become more and more trenchant people's lives.
49:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that the labor movement is going to be reinvigorated by this.
49:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And frankly, I think that the churches are going to be reinvigorated too.
49:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope people will check out your piece of American unions in the Catholic Church.
49:38
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll get links out at social media.
49:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check it over at Stephen Schneck's sub-stack page last bit, marching order, anything that you want people to know, to do, to take away here.
49:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the takeaway I would suggest is read a little bit of history, read about how the labor movement got started in the United States and its connections with not just Catholics, but with all faith communities.
50:05
[SPEAKER_03]: That linkage, I think, is critical for us to reinvigorate and retrieve right now at this particular moment because Lord knows the times needed.
50:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, I love that you started your piece off with a story about miners of seeking sanctuary in a church, that's not my story, that's Rich Trunk's story about, now you told the story, I mean, you started off with that story, but you know, that used to be what we thought of of churches, that place where
50:33
[SPEAKER_04]: where we saw sanctuary regardless it was the it was did the place that was off limits to politics or whatever I'd like to see that again.
50:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Steve I appreciate the time great stuff again hope folks will take a look at the peaceful.
50:46
[SPEAKER_03]: This was sweet to be together.
50:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really appreciate it.
50:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for letting me be here.
50:50
[SPEAKER_04]: appreciate the time.
50:51
[SPEAKER_04]: When I hear your thoughts, email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com, a great, maybe the Catholic Church should be the place where we go back to some of the stuff that I believed in, peace and social justice, workers' rights, helping people be in part of a community.
51:06
[SPEAKER_04]: When I hear your thoughts, Rick at Therixmithshow.com, back after this.
51:21
[SPEAKER_04]: This day in labor history, the year was 1877.
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[SPEAKER_04]: A group of labor leaders and members of the working men's party met in St. Louis.
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[SPEAKER_04]: They were there because of the labor strike that had swept the nation.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The United States was in the grip of a terrible depression.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Railroad workers in Martin'sburg West Virginia had walked off the job after their wages were slashed.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The popular uprising of workers spread to cities like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Railroad tracks were ripped out of the ground, workers rallied and protested, and workers from other industries joined the march of labor.
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[SPEAKER_04]: In St. Louis, the respond of workers was even more radical.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Many of the workers in the city were German immigrants.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Some remembered the working class uprisings of 1848 in Germany.
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[SPEAKER_04]: At the St. Louis meeting, they declared the start of the St. Louis commune, a takeover of the city by working people.
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[SPEAKER_04]: They called for the eight-hour day and the end of child labor.
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[SPEAKER_04]: On both sides of the Mississippi River, both in St. Louis and East St. Louis, workers began a general strike.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Railroad traffic was stopped.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It was the first general strike in U.S. history, the workers had taken over St. Louis.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Three thousand federal troops were amassed along with thousands of gun thugs paid for by the railroad tycoons.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The workers rebellion was crushed.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The strike committee was arrested, and at least 18 people were killed.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Across the nation, 100 people lost their lives in the great up
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[SPEAKER_04]: City leaders scrambled to build armories so they could quickly arm troops in case the workers rose up again.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
53:05
[SPEAKER_04]: For more information go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's At Labor History in two.
53:28
[SPEAKER_04]: it is interesting how they've used religion to divide and again I go back to my my own upbringing and the reality being I was led to believe that you know that was the thing that was supposed to bring us together was a commonality and I like what he what he said a moment ago about luck you know you can have your disagreements you but this is the place where you have those conversations and I think I think again the weird part of what we've seen is
53:55
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the church has become this ideological center of political thought, not so much of a value thought.
54:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know we have value voters, I hear the value stuff all the time.
54:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And when they talk about being conservative,
54:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's the weird part for me, you know, when you see Donald Trump hold the book up side down and people, oh look, he's the most godly president ever, um, no, no, no, no, no, in fact, I'm surprised the book didn't catch on fire.
54:39
[SPEAKER_04]: But it isn't interesting moment for people of faith to to go out there and tell their stories, which is why I think James
54:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I think people want to have faith.
54:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I think people want to belong a little bit, but I'll tell you.
55:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Some of my calculators, you've got some work to do, Paris to Paris.
55:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Because my relationship with some folks who claim to be of that particular faith,
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[SPEAKER_04]: Not good people in my view and that's the thing I'm struggling with the people who tell me that they're, you know, these, these godly folks tend to not be really great people.
55:30
[SPEAKER_04]: They're the ones who are justifying, you know, cutting taxes for billionaire so that we
55:39
[SPEAKER_04]: being the ones pointing the finger and blaming people for being in positions that they're in.
55:46
[SPEAKER_04]: That kind of judgmental, and it makes me think that maybe they didn't read those rules.
55:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that my Christian friends want them plastered everywhere, and I've taken the position over the years that I'm not opposed to plastering them all over the place, because maybe for some, maybe for some,
56:10
[SPEAKER_04]: not to be horrible, not what I do find the other the flip side of that is I think someone like Trump uses it as a checklist.
56:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's see how many we can get today.
56:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think there are a lot of are so called are so called Christians who view the 10 commandments that way.
56:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But I do wish we were more
56:36
[SPEAKER_04]: more Christ's life.
56:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I know it's going to get me angry email and look, I'm not the most hyper-religious person, but I do think having an agreed upon set of values of good works of charity, of loving thy neighbor as thyself, of helping others.
56:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's a good legacy.
56:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's a positive thing to want to encourage as opposed to the flip side.
56:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And the flip side is where we are, hooray for me in the heck with everybody else and if bad things are happening to you, you're fault, you did this.
57:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Or it's your carmic come up and I don't know.
57:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But I do find the justifications very, very interesting.
57:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And I hope there's a moment where, you know, the churches do, you know, bring people back in and do talk about community better and do talk about being a better community member.
57:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I'll tell you, last 10, 15 years, the vast majority of conversations I have with people in the religious world are not great people.
57:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't say that lightly.
57:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, they're, they're, they're not, they think they are, but not so much.
57:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And I would like to see that change because I, I really, I really do think people of faith of conscience.
58:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we do need more of them.
58:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that we do need them pointing out.
58:11
[SPEAKER_04]: where their book says to do good, where those using the book to say do bad, maybe we hold them accountable, and maybe you do that in the fuse, the guy next to you.
58:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe that's, that's what has to happen, then good on Steve Schneck, for the work that they do, because look, it's, it's a battle, it really is.
58:37
[SPEAKER_04]: But the idea of an AK-47 or an AR-15 wielding Jesus.
58:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It's antithetical to what I grew up believing.
58:46
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I was quite clear.
58:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And you heard me quite clear, broken Catholic.
58:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything to do with doing my time at our lady of great pain and misery.
59:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I do think, you know, the things I learned, the community I learned about, the idea of peace and social justice and loving my neighbor and helping people.
59:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I do think that message came for me anyway, came through loud and clear.
59:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And I do think it's a good one.
59:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
59:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Angry emails to the top of my anti-religion folks.
59:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts just as well.
59:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
59:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Miss any portion of the program.
59:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Grab the podcast and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:34
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back here next time.