Latest / The Rick Smith Show / The Rick Smith Show 9-21-2026

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The Rick Smith Show 9-21-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_05]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the Richmond show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Today on the big program, lots to get to.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Lots to talk about $7 and $17 a gallon in my neck of the woods for diesel.
0:32
[SPEAKER_03]: That is now up what another eight cents from yesterday.
0:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was twenty cents from the day before eight cents today.
0:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Boy, I can't wait for tomorrow.
0:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And look Donald Trump was in North Carolina stumping for a Republican candidate where he said, you know, it's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done.
0:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Remember that.
0:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a little more frankly even if it was a lot more.
0:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and he said it's going to come tumbling down like a rocket ship in reverse.
1:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And, and I got to be honest, a rocket ship in reverse if it's
1:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Walk with me here if you will, because I'm trying to, I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt with the, with the analogy here, but a rocket ship in reverse, coming down fast, is that not crashing, is that not crashing, is that not a disaster, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not, is it not
1:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and yeah, it is it's a disaster like this administration that from day one has been well a disaster and look the polling is is in and I'm going to use Fox news polls here for a second don't like it But I'm going to because even Fox news viewers are going what the a new Fox poll 53% of voters say The Trump administration's enforcement of our immigration laws too far too far
2:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, 49% say that they're targeting the wrong people.
2:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, 45% are saying that the government's using too much force.
2:14
[SPEAKER_03]: This is on Fox.
2:17
[SPEAKER_03]: They're saying it.
2:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Another, another poll.
2:20
[SPEAKER_03]: If you need more, 71% on Fox.
2:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy ending the war in Iran.
2:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think?
2:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Gee, I'm shocked.
2:34
[SPEAKER_03]: 60% say the US military action against Iran was the wrong decision.
2:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And look, you look around and people are struggling.
2:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Met the gas pump because I did a lot of driving today.
2:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody happy.
2:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll tell you I went to look for my local freedom fuel because we were told there's gonna be freedom fuel It's gonna be 347 a gallon in honor of Donald Trump's third administration being number 47 I guess that's what they came up with and it's still cheaper at 347 would be cheaper than what I was going to get at Costco
3:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but it's it's it's not there.
3:15
[SPEAKER_03]: It's quiet.
3:16
[SPEAKER_03]: It's nothing.
3:16
[SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing.
3:17
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no numbers.
3:19
[SPEAKER_03]: You get nothing because it's it's well, could put a gas right now you remember it back in August The freedom fuel people a gas stole like you know a $4 million of unpaid fuel
3:35
[SPEAKER_03]: that they distributed through Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
3:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess that's how they were artificially keeping the prices down to honor dear leader by just stealing.
3:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: the wake of disaster that has followed him.
4:07
[SPEAKER_03]: He's done great in every way, shape, or form.
4:11
[SPEAKER_03]: He, for himself, very successful.
4:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody else, well, not so much, and look, China's, and I've been saying this from the beginning.
4:21
[SPEAKER_03]: China is the benefactor in all of our unforested errors.
4:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything that he screws up, China is more than happy to go in and fill the void.
4:35
[SPEAKER_03]: energy was China was a very dependent country in the energy front and they have been stockpiling fuel, they have been building refineries, they've been they've been
4:48
[SPEAKER_03]: they've been doing the work, you know what they've really been doing, investing enormously in renewable energy, battery technology, solar panels, wind farms, if it can generate energy, they're doing it, they are the epitome of the all of the above strategy.
5:08
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd like to talk about that here, but from the Trumposphere, all of the above means, drove maybe drill oil only, and well, you hippy liberals with your solar panels, and your batteries, and your EVs, well, you know what?
5:23
[SPEAKER_03]: China is eating our lunch.
5:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And you look, you go back to the Carter era where we were just, we, we had just birthed the idea of solar panels, you know, being put on the homes and, and, and used for energy, Carter put solar panels on the White House, when it Reagan do ripped them off.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Why send a message to the big oil companies, I got your back, we're not going to do any of that hippie stuff, none of that green stuff.
5:50
[SPEAKER_03]: We want the good choke on it, burn it.
5:54
[SPEAKER_03]: We want that.
5:57
[SPEAKER_03]: and here we gave away the solar technology.
6:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Germany did pretty well with it.
6:02
[SPEAKER_03]: A number of other countries have done pretty well with it.
6:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Who hasn't us?
6:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And the question is, what's wrong with us?
6:14
[SPEAKER_03]: When will we stop being, I don't know, stupid or electing stupid.
6:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Want to hear your thoughts?
6:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Work at theworksmiths.com, back after this.
6:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
6:33
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1895.
6:37
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that Booker T. Washington delivered what came to be known as, the Atlanta Compromise speech, which outlined his vision for race relations and black labor in the south.
6:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Washington was the founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a college designed to train black students for careers in teaching, farming, and other trades.
6:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Washington was invited to give an address to the cotton states and international exposition in Atlanta.
7:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the first time that a black man was asked to speak before a black and white southern audience.
7:12
[SPEAKER_03]: In his speech, he urged southern landowners and business leaders to employ black labor over European immigrants.
7:19
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, quote, to those of the white race who looked to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, where I permitted, I would repeat what I say to my own race, cast down your bucket where you are.
7:36
[SPEAKER_03]: He continued, cast it down among those people who have without strikes and labor wars,
7:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Built your railroads and cities and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth and help make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the south.
7:55
[SPEAKER_03]: His speech outlined a plan for gradual black economic advancement.
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: He declared, quote, agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly.
8:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Other black leaders, most notably W.E.
8:09
[SPEAKER_03]: DuBois, rejected Booker T. Washington's idea of gradual advancement.
8:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead, DuBois fought racial discrimination through the legal system and helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the N.W.A.C.P.
8:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor History in Too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
8:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
8:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
8:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So, kind of a big deal going on right now in the NLRB than National Labor Relations Board.
8:46
[SPEAKER_03]: This is what I'm hearing.
8:49
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... i'm hearing that they're trying to overturn the c-mext decision uh... that are the c-mext rule that that happened during the biden era and i said back when it happened that it was kind of a kind of a big freaking deal all-bidens and lrb had had basically given workers the tool that my grandparents generation had and that is if a majority of people say we want to have a union
9:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, there's no long drawn-out battle over a secret battle election or any of that.
9:20
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a time frame for all these things and you just begin bargaining because the will of the workers, because it's their right.
9:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, it's being upheld, a big freaking deal.
9:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And I said when Trump was elected, kiss that goodbye, they're going to screw it up.
9:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And well, I think they are, at least they're trying.
9:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why I've asked my good friend David Borer to come share some thoughts.
9:43
[SPEAKER_03]: David's a labor attorney with Gilbert Gilbert Employment Law.
9:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You can check out their website at GELoyer.com.
9:50
[SPEAKER_03]: David, thanks for taking time for us.
9:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I was glad to be here Rick.
9:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So walk me through this.
9:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's start with what the C-Max rule was, what happened and what was it from your perspective?
10:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, about three years ago, the NMRB had this case come through C-Max was the company in California.
10:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And the Union presented cards to the employer as the recognition, the employer refused to recognize them
10:23
[SPEAKER_04]: proceeded to an election, the Union then called for an election, but in the election process, the employer CMAX committed a bunch of UOPs.
10:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So the case comes back to the NMRB and they say, hey, wait a minute, that's not fair, these employees had a majority and now you've got the employer as they always do trying to delay the inevitable and part of the way they're delaying it is by violating the law and committing
11:04
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're presented with a majority of you, the employer, here's the cards from the employees union and it represents a majority of a bargain unit.
11:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You've got 14 days, you either have to agree to recognize the union and begin to bargain.
11:22
[SPEAKER_04]: or you have to file what's called an R-M petition now with the N-R-B, and that's requesting an election management, like requesting an election, and then the sort of corollary with that decision was
11:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And employer, if you commit any, even a single ULP during that election process, then you've forfeit it to the right to contest the election, and we're going to go straight to a bargaining order.
11:58
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, it was a pretty big deal.
12:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It made the chance of getting a bargaining order a lot more likely than it was under the old law.
12:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And what it was is it goes back to my grandparents when my grandfather told me how they organized workplaces back in the in the fort in the late 40s, early 50s and in through the 60s, that's how it was, you know, you said we've got people we want to we want to union and it was either you negotiate with us or we're walking out the door and we're going to strike.
12:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It was right.
12:33
[SPEAKER_04]: The recognition.
12:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It's none of this.
12:35
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to have six months of captive audience meetings, not six months of being followed around at Mailer's sent to your home and well, all the things that Amazon did down in Dunn, Bestomer, Alabama, it won't get the bargaining.
12:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get a tamer out of contract and move forward.
12:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
12:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, me, Rick, I spent a long time under the railway labor act.
12:57
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to be airlines.
12:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And in the early days of the railway labor act,
13:01
[SPEAKER_04]: The law was the court's interpretation of the law was the employer has no role whatsoever in the election.
13:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course, you know, that's gotten twisted around under all the various labor statutes to where the employers think it's their right.
13:19
[SPEAKER_04]: They always want to come on and say, well,
13:21
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, we're entitled to give the employees our point of view.
13:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you weren't originally because the purpose of the law, all of the labor laws, was to promote unionization because it was the Congress decided it was good for the economy and good for the country.
13:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it was good for the country because you know as my grandfather told me and again this is going back to the the the 40s and he remembers the 30s and the 20s where they were literally tearing this country apart brick by brick because they were demanding fair wages decent working conditions
13:58
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's the thing that gets me in the argument that employers make.
14:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we should be able to make our case.
14:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you had the ability to make your case from the day you hired somebody until you got to the point where the workers were fed up generally over conditions, sometimes over wages, but mostly over dignity and respect issues.
14:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So you had your chance.
14:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, workers are saying, look, we want this.
14:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the law was fairly clear back when my grandfather was around.
14:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it was, and all those management consultants and union avoidance, I love that term, attorneys.
14:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But you know, they always put it in terms of it's almost as if if we're a first amendment right of these companies, when in in reality, they can still even under under C Max, we're going to find out, but I think they can still tell their side of the story as a word, they just can't get the employee and a headlock and having a face while they're telling their story, they can't do a captive audience meeting or all these other things have been ruled to be illegal.
15:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what they're crying about.
15:03
[SPEAKER_04]: They're all on set.
15:05
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, I want to go back to something because you said, you know, if if they committed unfair labor practice, it's right to bargaining, which is what I think it should be because I've been saying for the longest time, if I'm one of the union busters or union avoidance people, I'm going to advise companies to fire people because the penalties are so minor.
15:25
[SPEAKER_03]: and the payoff is great because it generally sends a chilling effect across the bargaining unit and and generally it comes out in your favor so by having the ability to say no you can't do that and if you do an art found guilty immediately you have to go to bargaining I think that's the right stick to go with that kind of punishment also what the employee free choice act was going to do triple the fines for it so if you do fire somebody
15:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but these days figured out a long time ago that, um, you know, they can play this game, they can drag it out, they can fire some people, scare people out of support in the union.
16:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And if they, if they get a little fine five years from now, it's like the cost of doing business to these guys.
16:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And even triple the fines isn't going to, you know, it's spitting the ocean, the company like Amazon.
16:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're going to find them five billion dollars.
16:22
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, they pay that kind of fines to, you know, the EU finds out they were monopolizing something and they have to pay $5 billion, they just write a check.
16:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's never in a labor context going to be a fine big enough to change these guys at the beginning.
16:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And that bargaining order is the difference, right?
16:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's a reason they spend $1 billion a year to fight the unions.
16:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, in their view, it's about the money.
16:54
[SPEAKER_04]: There's obviously unions shift a lot of the money to the workers, but it's also about the control.
17:01
[SPEAKER_04]: They just, they can't stand the idea that they have to deal with a democratic representative.
17:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Or they have to follow rules.
17:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's rules for everybody else, but not for them.
17:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
17:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to wake up coming one day.
17:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, we're going to lay out 10% of the people today.
17:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's your letter of signara.
17:20
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and the union, you know, the union can't prevent that stuff necessarily, but you can take the sharp edges off you get, you know, a certain amount of notice you get some severance pay you get whatever you get in the contract some call back right they don't want any of it and in the past the difference here is under gistle the previous.
17:41
[SPEAKER_04]: regime, the previous decision, there had to be outrageous and pervasive, or the words, under labor practices, to warrant a bargaining order.
17:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And now the board has said in C-Max, if you even make one unfair labor practice, that's it.
18:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, once a union demonstrates some majority, you've got to keep your hands clean.
18:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Doesn't mean you have to sit there with a sock in your mouth and not say anything necessarily, but you know, don't do stuff that everybody knows is a violation or you're going to eat it and we're going to be at the bargaining table, pronto.
18:24
[SPEAKER_03]: You know as an organizer you I'm sure you've done a bunch of this stuff walk me through what some of those those illegal things are things that employers generally do I know I've talked about employers firing people for virtually no reason just to make an example of them but there's more subtle things that they do that aren't on the up and up can you walk through some of those.
18:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, back in the unsullable days, he just issued our people, right?
18:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So we've graduated a little bit from that, although, once in a while, you still get a union activist killed.
18:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But the most sophisticated companies don't fire people because, again, that's kind of a red flag and then they're playing defense, trying to say, oh, no, it was because he called it insect.
19:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't because he was a union activist.
19:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Whatever.
19:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, like when I ran the the the biggest organizing campaign in the airline industry, the company.
19:25
[SPEAKER_04]: called all 25,000 members of the bargain unit in for captive audience meetings.
19:31
[SPEAKER_04]: They rented out big movie theaters in all the cities where they had bases.
19:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And everybody was assigned a time and you had to come in there.
19:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And they put on like a half day presentation about everything I could think of.
19:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It was bad with the, and you weren't allowed to leave.
19:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was, you know, just really heavy handed.
19:55
[SPEAKER_04]: That's, you know, a captive audience meeting.
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: There's also surveillance.
20:00
[SPEAKER_04]: that same company one time are our people are organizing in the crew lounge and they noticed there was a curtain over the end of the crew lounge and they noticed some of the tips that somebody shoes sticking out under the under the curtain and they went and looked and somebody's
20:29
[SPEAKER_03]: interferes with worker in the decision process is in theory illegal and and also making making a outrageous promises I worked on a campaign or the boss and I will give you a $3 an hour raise if you just vote the union down and that raise actually when they voted the union down the raise never actually came and they were back a year later trying to organize again.
20:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Well and I can't remember I think it may be this brown form in decision I don't have it right
20:59
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the six circuit case that follow CMAX.
21:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were trying to merchandise, you'll appreciate this, a bourbon distillery in Kentucky and the employer handed out selective raises in the lead-up to the election.
21:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And then right before the election, they handed out free bourbon.
21:24
[SPEAKER_04]: to the voters.
21:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And the sixth circuit didn't think that was officially outrageous to merit a bargaining order.
21:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, well, maybe I'm dropping off the vote.
21:34
[SPEAKER_03]: You're right.
21:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So why?
21:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you're backing off the vote.
21:36
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we don't need a union.
21:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm happy now.
21:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It was unbelievable.
21:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I've been employers throw a lot of pizza on the table over the years.
21:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you know, you have a pizza in quite a year.
21:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You talked about the airline industry.
21:52
[SPEAKER_03]: There were just a couple of years ago.
21:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was Delta that was running an anti-unit cap and with ever saying, you know, if you vote no against the union, you could take your kid to a ball game or buy your kid a play station or play station.
22:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Other things because you won't have to pay those union dues and I'm like, yeah, maybe you wouldn't have to pay the union dues But you might get health care or retirement.
22:11
[SPEAKER_03]: You might get better wages So you you could still buy the the game and the go to the ball game, but you'd have the dignity to do it yourself
22:20
[SPEAKER_04]: there's a certain union president that was running that campaign that you and I both know who had Apple Plexi over that little thing and just punished the company with it for weeks.
22:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, I mean, you know, that's how little they think of the employees.
22:38
[SPEAKER_04]: They think, oh yeah, you know, a night at the ball game versus, you know, fairness in the workplace
22:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here's the thing, and this is where I go back to my union, the teamsters, Sean O'Brien, the president of the teamsters, all behind Lori Chavez, Deremer, who is the secretary of labor for a while, until she either, she was getting pushed out, and now we find out some very interesting things about her tenure.
23:06
[SPEAKER_03]: But I was told that, you know, part of all of that, part of playing nice with the Trump administration was all about saving the joint employer rule, saving this, the C-Mex decision, because Trump really cares about workers, especially union workers.
23:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet, I look at what they're doing, and this is what I was expecting.
23:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not surprised.
23:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I am however surprised it's taken as long as it
23:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It really is.
23:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like we've seen on all the other stuff, whether it's the Kennedy Center litigation or the reflecting pool or
23:43
[SPEAKER_04]: the 99 other things that he's broken the law with, you know, the law isn't made to respond quickly.
23:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's got the White House operation, you know, he says, jump, they say, well, hurry up and jump, just tell us how high, and they're moving faster than the courts can really keep up with.
24:05
[SPEAKER_04]: The legal process has always been slow.
24:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're exploiting that the same
24:13
[SPEAKER_04]: the long delays in RB.
24:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
24:15
[SPEAKER_03]: So last line of questioning I've got for you because look, I'm a big union supporter.
24:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you are as well.
24:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I think if we had, you know, the kind of union density that we had when my grandparents generation were in the workforce.
24:27
[SPEAKER_03]: If we had 30% 35% union density, a lot of the anger and a lot of the problems we have right now wouldn't be.
24:34
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a much fair distribution
24:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And income going to workers, since they've been tracking this, what was it 52.3% going to workers where the high was in the mid 60s, that's a massive redistribution of wealth.
24:54
[SPEAKER_03]: If we had that kind of union density and if we were able to rebuild that kind of union density,
24:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe a lot of the problems we have would would kind of resolve themselves.
25:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So for me, making it easier for people to organize is kind of a goal that I'd like to see.
25:09
[SPEAKER_03]: This decision this rule could have helped in that.
25:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And by going against it with this administration is doing, I think it's just going to prolong a huge part of our problems.
25:20
[SPEAKER_03]: So bring it home to the average worker.
25:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Why does this issue matter to people who don't even know what the NLRB stands for?
25:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, it's going to do exactly what you said.
25:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Left-in place, permanently, this would mean there would be quicker from the time the workers decide they want to have a union until they're at the bargaining table, actually advocating for their own pay and working conditions.
25:51
[SPEAKER_04]: that today.
25:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you can take year two years, three years, to even, you know, get to an election sometimes.
26:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, the employers know that there was long delays, people lose interest.
26:06
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you start organizing campaign.
26:08
[SPEAKER_04]: People get all hyped up and have taken drag it out for two years.
26:12
[SPEAKER_04]: attrition of probably you know wipe out part of your group and the rest will get bored or you know give up hope and and you know trickle away so this is a meant is this is a decision meant to short circuit that and it's funny if you go on management lawyer websites they're all saying wow this is 50 years a lot they're throwing out here and it's not right well that 50 years
26:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Those guys spending a billion and a half dollars a year.
26:47
[SPEAKER_04]: fighting the youth and coming up with, you know, sneaky ways that prolong the process or dirty ways to get away with what used to be an unfair labor practice or whatever.
26:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And now we're talking about getting back to the real purpose of the law, which is to promote unions and, you know, they're trying to interfere.
27:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, the reality is 71% of the workforce,
27:14
[SPEAKER_04]: once they have a union that I'm talking about the entire working population, you know, in the state 71% when they have a union, we're stuck in like 6% of the private sector and that difference is that billion and a half dollars a year.
27:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
27:29
[SPEAKER_04]: If they got out of the way, we'd be back up in the 30s before you knew it.
27:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
27:34
[SPEAKER_03]: David, I appreciate the time the input.
27:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope folks will keep paying attention to this.
27:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much.
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, right?
27:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep up the great work.
27:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much, our good friend David Bore, Labor Attorney there at Gilbert Employment Law Check out their website, G.E.
27:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Lawyer.com.
27:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com, quick break, right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1951.
28:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day pineapple workers on the island of Lenin, emerged victorious.
28:12
[SPEAKER_03]: ILWU Local 142 workers were back on the job after seven months on strike against the Hawaiian pineapple company.
28:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the first contract signed by the new big union that had recently organized 35,000 sugar and pineapple workers.
28:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Local newspapers rejoiced that the long silent whistle signaling workers back to the world's largest pineapple plantation was finally blowing.
28:36
[SPEAKER_03]: The workers on other islands ended their strike in May for an eight cent and hour wage increase.
28:42
[SPEAKER_03]: The Nye Workers held out for additional demands.
28:45
[SPEAKER_03]: They wanted an end to the anti-Philippino discrimination they faced in wages, and housing, and the poor treatment they endured from their bosses.
28:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Historian Dinesio Nodden Veldez notes that, quote, The ultimate concern was equal treatment and dignity for Filipinos.
29:00
[SPEAKER_03]: For decades, a colonized workforce, lacking citizenship rights.
29:04
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a further step towards building interracial unionism.
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: The press, of course, vilified the strikers, red baiting their union leaders and extoling the virtues of the company for bringing progress to the island.
29:17
[SPEAKER_03]: But the union won big.
29:19
[SPEAKER_03]: They re-established pattern bargaining lost in an earlier strike.
29:22
[SPEAKER_03]: They also secured additional wage increases, dues collection, seniority rights, inexpensive housing, and medical coverage.
29:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Importantly, there were contract provisions that addressed mechanization and de-skilling of work.
29:35
[SPEAKER_03]: The Union was finally in a position to change unfair job classifications, winning higher pay for the jobs that required operation of new machinery.
29:43
[SPEAKER_03]: What the Union could not control in the long run was what Valdez referred to as the runaway plantation.
29:50
[SPEAKER_03]: By the 1970s, employment had plummeted, as companies fled Union fields for cheaper land and labor in Thailand and the Philippines.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Greg Evans, the right-wing hack who is Governor of Texas, probably doesn't know what a petard is, but he's now been hoisted by a big one.
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Hoyst on a patard is a Shakespearean phrase referring to a bomb maker being blown sky high by his own creation.
30:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Abbott's bombastic saga began last year when he noticed that high-tech billionaires were waving political cash at lawmakers who would help them build massive AI data centers across America.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: sniffing a quid pro quo benenza.
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Abbott shoved his way to the front of that money hustle, loudly proclaiming that by gullies, he would make Texas the quote, at the center of AI development.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only did he pour massive taxpayer subsidies into the billionaire's pockets, but he even passed a law making it illegal for local officials to interfere with the profiteers.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, Texas is now the world's top location for these corporate invaders.
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But, oops, the governor's giveaway is now called Greg's folly for the vast majority of Texans, especially rural Republicans.
31:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't just oppose his AI data centers, they despise, abominate, hate them.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're now in angry grassroots revolt against the perpetrators, including Greg.
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, hoist on his own petard, Abbott has now flipped flopped from Heipster to reformer, comically demanding an end to the tax giveaways he created, frantically trying to regulate AI projects he deregulated, and crying that the rural voice he silenced must be heard.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heiter saying, sadly for him, those billionaires he corded so passionately are now laughing at him.
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: When he recently commanded all data center owners to report their water usage to him, more than 70% simply ignored the petty tyrant.
32:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So 55 years, 55 years, the Kennedy Center was financially roll it around long.
32:18
[SPEAKER_03]: All they had to ask, come in, people came and enjoyed them.
32:21
[SPEAKER_03]: It seemed to me working, I don't know, fairly well.
32:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Seemed Donald Trump just in a year as chairman of the board, not working anymore.
32:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and now I'm hearing potentially there's talk of maybe tearing it down, have they broken it that badly, uh, a DC friend of mine said that there's some organizing going on for for to gather people to be a human shield to protect the Kennedy Center from bulldozers, should Trump get the, uh, the itch to destroy something even further.
33:04
[SPEAKER_03]: understand this isn't surprising it's what he does is crummy coin I see nothing but complaints about that but you know go back to the vodka and the stakes and the airline and the university and the charities and all of the stuff that he's buggered up
33:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are we shocked?
33:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Why would anybody be surprised in here to show us some thoughts on that?
33:24
[SPEAKER_03]: One of my DC resident friends, Alex Lawson.
33:27
[SPEAKER_03]: He's the executive director over there at social security works.
33:30
[SPEAKER_03]: You can check out their website socialsacurityworks.org.
33:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Alex, thanks for taking time for us.
33:36
[SPEAKER_02]: As always, it is my pleasure, Rick.
33:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So what do you make of the Kennedy Center situation?
33:42
[SPEAKER_03]: There's the right, the Magal World, Red Hat, World, to say, why is all broken?
33:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just, you know, Donald just had the unlucky, you know, unlucky misfortune of being the guy who was aware and strong enough to be the leader who pointed it out that it was, you know, the rest of the nonsense.
34:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't even think they believe that now, though.
34:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even, I don't see that one working.
34:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Rick, as you know, we've been working really hand in glove with a lot of the public lands, public buildings, movement because they were trying to tear down the Wilbur J. Cohen building, which has these immense frescoes about the creation of social security by Ben Sean, Philip
34:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this is priceless stuff, not that the folks in the White House understand that, you know, with their taste, but we were able to back them off of the Cohen building.
34:48
[SPEAKER_02]: We, you know, like with public pressure and we stood in solidarity with the Kennedy Center workers and they came and stood in solidarity with us.
35:03
[SPEAKER_02]: he tore down the east wing and after that we're like, yeah, we're not exaggerating things here.
35:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So he might destroy the Kennedy Center because we helped.
35:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I just saying we were, we were there.
35:15
[SPEAKER_02]: We live streamed when they took his name off of the building.
35:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what this is all about.
35:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little man with a hurt ego who is going to try to destroy the building.
35:31
[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on is he's saying, put my name on the building or I'm going to bulldoze it.
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all it is.
35:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if you heard today.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We have activists there and a big root chat.
35:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It is trying to keep eyes on it.
35:47
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the forklifts just kept running into a column.
35:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And was like obviously trying to cause problems.
35:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just like, and why it should, why, why would, why could, or it wasn't just somebody who was really bad at their job.
36:04
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, it's not.
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not and it's not a sophisticated con either, but it's the same thing as always, right?
36:11
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just trying to kneecap the mailman can play in the mail is late.
36:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So the ceiling fell, right?
36:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're pretending that this is a decrepit building.
36:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you kidding me?
36:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I will forgive people who've not been to DC and have not been to the Kennedy Center, but the Kennedy Center is a world-class venue just months ago.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, not like, oh, it's a little nice, but need some touch-up or no.
36:40
[SPEAKER_02]: The Kennedy Center is a world-class venue that hosted the greatest acts.
36:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, it is an amazing place.
36:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was, but it still is.
36:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, you know, it's not like it's in disrepair.
36:57
[SPEAKER_02]: The dude is lying and it's all about threatening.
37:03
[SPEAKER_02]: destroy the building so that they can put his name on it.
37:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And like I want us to the reason it's shocking, Rick is just you know the man.
37:15
[SPEAKER_02]: is messed up, you know, you know, with all the things, he literally started and lost a war faster than any, right?
37:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like gas prices are seven, master, nomenical, seven, 17 a gallon for diesel in my neighborhood.
37:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And their plan was drive less.
37:32
[SPEAKER_03]: You saw that, right?
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: They were like, what's your plan for the high drive gas prices drive less?
37:37
[SPEAKER_03]: and eat less because we don't need his, if you eat less, they'll be less trucks that need to go to the supermarket.
37:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's the thing, I mean, if this is what he's done to the Kennedy Center, what about the Washington Monument?
37:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just waiting for some crazy nonsense, like him needing to put his name on that or else, it's gotta come down.
37:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that is though, it's a joke, but like don't give him ideas, Rick, like do not show that any more because he will be like, that's a great idea.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: The man is not only does he have literally the worst taste of anyone that I've ever seen, like if you were to create a gosh, oh god.
38:18
[SPEAKER_02]: for terrible taste, right?
38:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I, I like high-brow, middle-brow, low-brow, low-brow, you know, outsider art, I'm not trying to say you got to be high-falutin, but you can't be garbage.
38:32
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy is garbage.
38:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you seen what he's done at the White House, right?
38:36
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, let's put up this ugly gold leaf, I bought it home depot, and they've like taped up pictures of presidents here, like,
38:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's who he is, and he's a very small man.
38:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And he has read obviously some books about Hitler, about Stalin, about other authoritarians, and leaving their mark.
39:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, I'm a building's guy.
39:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna spend my time in office actually trying to put my name on as much stuff as possible.
39:08
[SPEAKER_03]: He's gonna leave his mark all right.
39:10
[SPEAKER_03]: He is gay.
39:10
[SPEAKER_03]: He is gay.
39:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Foric.
39:14
[SPEAKER_03]: it hurts me in my soul no I mean this is the sad thing and you know do you agree that I saw a commentator and I don't I don't know who to credit it to it's not my idea but a commentator I saw said that he knows that when he's gone
39:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody's going to do what Newt Gingrich and company did for Reagan and slap his name all over everything So he's basically doing it himself because he knows once he's out the door his legacies He's gonna they're gonna try and scrub any any memory of being attached to him or any of this stuff So he's got to get his name on stuff now.
39:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you buy your name?
39:53
[SPEAKER_02]: He's forget, I think that's exactly right, but what he's forgetting is that, no, there's not going to be a bunch of people trying to slap his name on things, but there will be a army of us who are happily chiseling his name off of everything that he has ever touched, so that he is literally erased from the history of this country, and you know, I will say just Google,
40:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Romans obliterating memories, or something of that, and you'll see, I can't remember what the Latin is, but this is what you do when you have a tyrant, and they would go, and they would just literally chisel the name off, and it was, who is that blank space right there?
40:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, we're not going to remember him.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the point.
40:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to forget him and we're going to build new things.
40:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope we don't forget him.
40:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope this is a history we learn and never do again.
40:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You're exactly right.
40:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to forget him.
41:00
[SPEAKER_02]: actively.
41:01
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to honor him in any way.
41:04
[SPEAKER_02]: We're only going to hold him as an example of what we can never do again, right?
41:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe maybe we can come together and like put a smoldering pile of garbage together, right?
41:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Something like that, like just really the where I then just put his name right on that Donald Trump never forget the garbage Something but he's not going to get his name on the Kennedy Center.
41:31
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not going to get his name on the Washington Monument And anything he gets his name on we're gonna take it down.
41:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, or they have a part of this You know the stuff that he does produce and I again I've been seeing all these complaints about the the $10 dollar coin
41:46
[SPEAKER_03]: that is just crummoly made.
41:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like it was minted a while ago and it's gone through circulation from what I've been reading.
41:55
[SPEAKER_03]: But everything this guy touches is cheap, gotty, and isn't going to last long, and I hope I hope that comes of all of this.
42:03
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's the thing, and this is what bugs me.
42:05
[SPEAKER_03]: The real attacks are coming policy-wise.
42:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Republicans are trying to get a little more muscular, especially around social security,
42:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I hear rumors of another fiscal commission talking about raising the retirement age, talking about doing a whole bunch of things that wouldn't solve our problem, but wouldn't give us massive benefit cuts and all by the way, save rich people from having to kick in.
42:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've got to get your thoughts on what's going on, what do we not hear it?
42:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to tie the two together because they're super related.
42:37
[SPEAKER_02]: They are basically dangling shiny things in front of Donald Trump.
42:41
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, hey, pay attention to that stuff over there.
42:43
[SPEAKER_02]: While the billionaires are hard at we're trying to lock in their gains, you know, overthrow democracy, they know that the tune has stopped and if they don't stop, if they if they let the people,
43:00
[SPEAKER_02]: have their voices heard.
43:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to take it all back and we're going to never let them do it again.
43:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're trying to rush this stuff through while they still have some power.
43:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is why right now I'll be going down to Dallas, Texas.
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: or Jodi Arrington, the chair of the Budget Committee, House Budget Committee, who is on the record, right?
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Like people are saying, oh, well, what's the Republican plan?
43:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It's true because they won't put out a piece of legislation.
43:26
[SPEAKER_02]: But you just have to Google Jodi Arrington, social security, what is Jodi think?
43:31
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants to raise the retirement age.
43:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And he doesn't think that he can do it through regular order in the light of day.
43:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So he wants to create a closed or fiscal commission
43:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're meeting in Texas on Monday a field hearing where they're going to try to push this as a bipartisan solution to social security.
43:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And social security does not need saving, it needs saving from Jody, it needs saving from the billionaires.
44:03
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we have to do.
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have to defeat this push on the fiscal commission, which is just
44:10
[SPEAKER_02]: a closed door behind smokey rooms, way of pushing benefit cuts.
44:17
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what it all is.
44:19
[SPEAKER_02]: In 2032, if Congress does nothing, there's a 22% across the board benefit cut.
44:25
[SPEAKER_02]: What the billionaires know is as we get to that date, the public are going to demand that we don't have a 22% benefit cut.
44:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So that means that billionaires got to pay in on all of their income, which they don't do right now.
44:40
[SPEAKER_02]: They only pay in on the first $184,500 in income.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't want to pay in on all their income.
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Elon Musk doesn't want to pay in on all their income, all his income.
44:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So they get this commission together and then they lie about what they're doing and they're like, I don't worry, we're just going to raise the retirement age because everyone's living long.
44:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's not living longer.
45:00
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lie to begin with.
45:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people are living longer, rich people are living longer, but working people are not living longer.
45:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Also,
45:07
[SPEAKER_02]: an increase in the retirement age is just a 7% benefit cut which means their proposed solution to a 22% benefit cut is a 21% benefit cut right like they're going to do that now and you know like that's not a solution that's just the problem sooner.
45:26
[SPEAKER_02]: and you obviously set it up correctly.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole reason they're gonna do that is because the solution is to make billionaires pay their fair share.
45:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's no benefit cut and we can expand benefits for everyone.
45:39
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a way of cutting us off at the past and pretending that we're gonna get nothing, right?
45:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's going bankrupt.
45:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to act now, act now.
45:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's to have us believe we're gonna get nothing.
45:54
[SPEAKER_02]: so that we'll accept less than we're owed.
45:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, no, I want to bring up an interview that I saw.
46:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw bits and parts of with Aaron Rogers, the Steelers quarterback, who has just gotten himself into a lot of situations over vaccines and, you know, his comment that, you know, no one regrets not getting the vaccine, which you go, yeah, I talked about this yesterday.
46:14
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of dead people, I think,
46:16
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think if we could re-animate them, if we could figure out how to put some water on them and make them grow again, I think they might regret not getting it, just throwing that out there, especially as we're making measles amazing here in the state of Pennsylvania.
46:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But he went on to talk about how nothing gets better and our political systems broken, and it's this kind of both sides suck Uniparty argument that I hear a lot from people on the right that you know why we got Trump But Trump he is what he is, but he's entertaining.
46:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't care what he's doing.
46:48
[SPEAKER_03]: They all suck
46:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And he went on to say that Trump hasn't done anything he promised.
46:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Obama's promised hope and change, things haven't gotten better in the black community.
46:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And all by the way, the ACA didn't make a difference in the world besides being an extra tax on the rich.
47:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that framing there is really interesting to me because I know people who the ACA has saved their lives because for the first time they were able to get health care.
47:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not someone who's an enormous fan of the ACA.
47:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I've always believed it was a step towards getting where we need to go.
47:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do know people who do say, yeah, it changed my world.
47:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think some of that kind of uniparty, they all suck kind of argument.
47:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that has to be addressed.
47:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious if you have any thoughts.
47:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that's just a tool of the billionaire's apathy, right?
47:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, it's all terrible, both sides are terrible.
47:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So do nothing.
47:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That is silence, right?
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: That just helps the billionaires continue just robbing us blind.
47:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it is predicated on, I mean, at least he was honest about one thing.
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like,
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it anything more than raising taxes on the rich, and you're like, well, probably not to you, because you're rich, man, so to you, who already has rich person health care, you didn't benefit from the Medicaid expansions, which saved.
48:17
[SPEAKER_02]: so many lives across this country, to you rich person, it probably did only raise your taxes, but it did make things better for millions of Americans not even close to enough.
48:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But the problem with this whole thing is we should never listen to Aaron Rodgers, right?
48:38
[SPEAKER_02]: That man is an idiot.
48:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like watching a play football.
48:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I think he's a good exactly even at his at this age It's amazing.
48:45
[SPEAKER_03]: He's still playing.
48:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I hate the Steelers for my Pittsburgh friends, but um, no I think he's I think he's a good athlete, but it's this pushing of the hyper individual that I have a problem with
48:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't help me at all so screw everybody else even if we know it like you just said It's helped millions of people now you could take that from the ACA and you could move it to anything else And education to its social security to anything else you can move that to because if it doesn't benefit me Alex It shouldn't exist and we shouldn't have to pay for it because well screw you buddy
49:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, the converse of this is, you know, we see this so often, right, on the, for the right for Republicans.
49:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not bad until it happens to me, right?
49:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how many stories are there where it's now, you know, well, Republican is impacted by their policies and you're like, oh my God, I can't believe it.
49:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're like, we were telling you this, you just didn't care.
49:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we didn't even hear other people.
49:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, um, I haven't even heard some beef ranchers here.
49:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a cattle ranchers coming to know I will say because I I know I I know I know but Michael Brooks always had it best sympathy for the cond none for the cond man.
50:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, the right.
50:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I'm with you.
50:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I really I want to welcome people and be like you were
50:15
[SPEAKER_02]: not being told the truth.
50:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish you'd known that then.
50:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But now if you know it now, come on.
50:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But the codman for the elected Republicans, right?
50:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, just Google it.
50:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes you at every month, there's a story of the like, oh, I can't believe that this policy that I literally voted for can negatively affect me and now I'm against it.
50:40
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
50:40
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, I'm right there with you.
50:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's how you're individualism.
50:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Before I let you go, we're going, going down the sea, Jodi Arlington, because Joni loves Chachi.
50:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Jodi, it's Jodi, right?
50:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Jodi, Jodi, Jodi.
50:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going down the sea of people in his congressional district can they come and see this, the shindig, I mean, because it seems to me like, now might be the time to pay some attention to what they're doing a little bit more, especially with the, I'm sure you know there's an election
51:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, they they sprung this on on everybody so I mean it is a public a public meeting anyone can go, but you know, they they noticed it like yesterday, which means they put the information out so they don't they they're going to pack the the.
51:27
[SPEAKER_02]: hall with their supporters, but we're going to get our people there.
51:31
[SPEAKER_02]: We just had Governor Martin O'Malley and Dallas two days ago doing a town hall on social security.
51:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, we packed the room with the public and they're on our side.
51:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to go down there and make sure
51:46
[SPEAKER_02]: people's voices are heard.
51:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to make sure my voice is heard.
51:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to try to bring everybody who I talk to all of the stories that I carry from social security works into that room with me, the millions of people who have signed petitions saying,
52:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Do not cut social security by even a single penny and I'm gonna make sure that they have to listen to me And Jodi Arrington knows that he's very annoyed with me anytime he sees me because he knows that I'm gonna do just that I'm going to burst their little fictional bubble that they're the reasonable people in the room I'm gonna point out
52:25
[SPEAKER_02]: that everybody hates you, Jody.
52:28
[SPEAKER_02]: No one agrees with you.
52:30
[SPEAKER_02]: 90% of Americans do not want to see social security cut by even a single penny.
52:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And you only get away with this behind closed doors in your secret meetings that you spring on people, but luckily for you, Jody, I'll be there to make sure that people know what kind of nefarious stuff you're getting up to.
52:50
[SPEAKER_02]: There we go.
52:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Alex, as always, I appreciate the time, social security, social security works.org, the website.
52:57
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll get links out.
52:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Alex, as always, great stuff.
53:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Rick.
53:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Want to hear your thoughts?
53:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com.
53:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you ready for, are you ready for the Trump monument?
53:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
53:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at therixmithshow.com, quick break.
53:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Right back after this, to go round.
53:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
53:27
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1830.
53:31
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that Tom Thum, the first locomotive built in the U.S. raced a horse on a nine-mile course in Maryland.
53:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Here is part of John La Trobs' eyewitness account of that historic race.
53:46
[SPEAKER_03]: At first, the gray had the best of it.
53:53
[SPEAKER_03]: While the engine had to wait until the rotation of the wheels set the blower to work.
53:58
[SPEAKER_03]: The horse was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when the safety valve of the engine lifted and the thin blue vapor issuing from it showed an excess of steam.
54:08
[SPEAKER_03]: The blower whistled the steam blew off in vapory clouds.
54:12
[SPEAKER_03]: The pace increased.
54:13
[SPEAKER_03]: The passengers shouted.
54:15
[SPEAKER_03]: The engine gained on the horse.
54:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Soon it left him.
54:18
[SPEAKER_03]: The race was neck and neck.
54:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Then the engine passed the horse.
54:22
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was not repeated.
54:23
[SPEAKER_03]: For just at this time, the band which drove the pulley and blower slipped from the drum.
54:29
[SPEAKER_03]: The safety valve ceased to scream, and the engine began to wheeze and pant.
54:33
[SPEAKER_03]: The horse gained on the machine, and passed it.
54:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And although the band was presently replaced, the steam again did its best.
54:40
[SPEAKER_03]: The horse was too far ahead to be overtaken, and came in the winner of the race.
54:45
[SPEAKER_03]: The horse may have won the race that day, but the iron horse would soon revolutionize transportation.
54:51
[SPEAKER_03]: The railway industry also played an integral part in labor union history.
54:55
[SPEAKER_03]: From the early railroad worker brotherhoods to Eugene V. Debzes, American railway union to a Philip Randolph's brotherhood of sleeping car porters, railroads, and the workers who built them and ran them, helped to build and strengthen the American labor movement.
55:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been working on the railroad all the long days.
55:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
55:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes, another fiscal commission boy.
55:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't wait for that.
55:39
[SPEAKER_03]: as if what was it the uh... Simpson bulls the last time they tried to uh... they tried to change cpi and all the other craziness you know because we got to figure out not how to bring more money into social security make sure that it's it's it's solvent and that it's it pays what it's promised no no that we can break you know that we can we can figure out how to screw for future generations off of
56:05
[SPEAKER_03]: because again, like my generation got stiff because they raised the social security age up to 65.
56:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Up to 67, I mean, and I think I have to go a little bit beyond 67.
56:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you start thinking about, hey, that's a couple of years.
56:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And back then, I didn't think of it as a benefit cut.
56:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But now that I'm looking towards, you know, the body ain't hold up as well as it used to, the idea that I'm going to have to work in extra two, two and a half years to get to being able to get those benefits that I've spent my whole life paying into.
56:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a little angering.
56:42
[SPEAKER_03]: and look, the next generation may not be doing the same physically taxing jobs that my generation did, or maybe they will, but the idea of that that you should have the option.
56:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, listen to Dr. Oz, you know, if we could just get people to be healthier, they just, you know, did what RFK Jr said, you have trillion dollars to our economy, because that's more important.
57:07
[SPEAKER_03]: making sure that Wall Street is well fed that the employer class, they're good.
57:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Working people enjoying the final years of their lives.
57:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, not so much.
57:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Now look, I have a big believer and I'll probably work until the day I die.
57:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll probably do something.
57:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And we want people to do something.
57:30
[SPEAKER_03]: But this idea that you have no choice.
57:34
[SPEAKER_03]: That's where I have a problem and we know what these commissions are going to come up with the same ideas of the past What got us into the mess that we're in not fixing the actual structure, which is honestly if we were to tax everybody the same This is the fairness argument.
57:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I pay a hundred percent of My income
58:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Elon Musk pays everything that he's going to pay for the entire year before the sun comes up or before the first hour of the year.
58:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And you go, there's something seriously wrong when you're talking about potentially having a 22% benefit cut across the board in 2032.
58:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Now we've got six years to fix this.
58:31
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been talking about this for probably 10 years now, and again, they keep kicking this down the road, kicking it down the road.
58:38
[SPEAKER_03]: What they want is they want to put it in a crisis situation.
58:41
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't actually want to solve the problem.
58:43
[SPEAKER_03]: They want to make sure that there's a crisis so that they can impose their austerity on us.
58:52
[SPEAKER_03]: because that's what the wealthy want.
58:53
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't want you retiring.
58:54
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't want you having a couple of golden years where you get to maybe go, I don't know, like I want to do drive through the desert of Utah.
59:04
[SPEAKER_03]: They want you showing up to that job, making that profit, getting them there, their profits.
59:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You think it's a good idea to have this big commission, led by Joni Errington,
59:21
[SPEAKER_03]: led by Republicans who have already told us their plan is to get those entitlements in line which means less for you more for them.
59:30
[SPEAKER_03]: When you hear your thoughts, work at therixmithshow.com.
59:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Missy the portion of the program grab the podcast and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:39
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you back your next time.
59:46
[SPEAKER_05]: email wreck at wreck at thericksmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_05]: We're working people, come to talk.