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The Rick Smith Show 10-14-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is the voice of the working class, Rick Smith.
0:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Today on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about, had someone throw at me.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Rick, how do we recreate the prosperity of the golden age of our economy?
0:30
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we get back to those fabulous 50s?
0:33
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we make America great again?
0:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Seriously, this is a, you go, really?
0:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you not been paying attention?
0:42
[SPEAKER_02]: The reality is is the upward mobility that we saw in the fabulous 50s wasn't magic and I've been saying this for years.
0:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It was policy, smart policy.
0:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the result of very deliberate pro-worker structures, extremely strong unions, cheap and abundant housing because we had policy that invested in it.
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And, oh, by the way, education was attainable.
1:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we made public investments and, oh, by the way, we constrained corporate and financial power.
1:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You want the prosperity of the past?
1:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You want that working class prosperity, that's what you have to do.
1:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And we need modern versions of those same pillars.
1:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We need a true living wage and tie the productivity.
1:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Productivity is higher than it's ever been.
1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet, the share of it going to working people keeps getting less and less and less.
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: In the 50s, wages rose steadily as productivity went up.
1:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So the more productive our economy got, the bigger the working class got.
1:52
[SPEAKER_02]: As in hard to figure out, not hard to figure out.
1:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And we did that because we had very strong unions.
1:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So we need to rebuild union power.
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And as the the folks over at the economic policy institute pointed out, if we were to triple union density get back to a third of the workforce, it could mean almost eight grand more in every worker's pocket.
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
2:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you look at that, you go, hey, maybe we could do some of that.
2:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we could help workers join informed unions to negotiate with the bosses, to get some of that wealth.
2:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe they're not buying stock back and giving out the winnings to the investor class, just maybe, but also they treated housing, not a shelter.
2:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They treated as shelter, not as a speculative asset.
2:39
[SPEAKER_02]: In the fifties, in my grandparents went through this,
2:45
[SPEAKER_02]: double your yearly household income.
2:47
[SPEAKER_02]: She was the cost of a house.
2:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Verse today, where it's like six to 10 times more.
2:52
[SPEAKER_02]: or worse depending on where you are.
2:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So we need affordability policies, absolutely.
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's affordability policies are twofold.
3:01
[SPEAKER_02]: One higher wages, yes.
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And two massive investments, like we made after World War II when my grandparents' generation came home for war.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: They built communities on cost plus two or three percent for these building contractors
3:21
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to do that again, but also we need the education system that they had done, and we need to get to free tuition or at least near free public higher education and training.
3:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Workers need to be able to get skills and not have to spend a lifetime in debt because you just need to have some skin in the game.
3:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to undo all of the conservative neo-neo-con, Reaganomics that is destroyed this economy.
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we need to start talking about how do we get healthcare away from employment?
3:59
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we push towards universal, single payer?
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we move towards some kind of a system, Medicare for all?
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Call it what you want, but to ensure that when people need healthcare, they have it, they don't go bankrupt.
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: We can do smart things.
4:17
[SPEAKER_02]: We can make smart policies.
4:19
[SPEAKER_02]: We can have the ability to have a single income bread winner in the household and a parent stay home.
4:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you know child care is kind of expensive.
4:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But if parents want to work, we should be moving towards policy to get child care for people.
4:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Understand, our tax structures are terrible.
4:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of, I don't know, rewarding gambling on Wall Street, we need industrial policies that are gonna anchor jobs here to the US.
4:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Post World War II, we control the huge share of the global manufacturing.
5:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And thanks to our free trade, EDSC policies, what did that get us?
5:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we gave our jobs away.
5:12
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot we need to be doing.
5:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to be restraining capital.
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
5:19
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to make sure that wage theft is is is is punished biggest crime.
5:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And understand, there are things that we have to be doing policy wise that we're just not raising the minimum wage smart thing.
5:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But are we going to do that?
5:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope so.
5:38
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're watching what I'm watching, anything that I just said, any of those things go down the laundry list of things that I just laid out, all of those things are viewed as socialist or communist now.
5:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet, yet, it's what built my grandparents' possibility to go from homelessness, to dying in their home with dignity.
6:01
[SPEAKER_02]: to leading a productive, prosperous life that raised children that gave them respect and old age, then opportunity.
6:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we're hearing, you hear talk about unions, you talk about the raising of the minimum wage, talk about universal public education or anything like that.
6:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It's now communist and has to be discarded as such because they don't want you to know the history that we once did this stuff.
6:27
[SPEAKER_02]: We for ourselves, through our government,
6:33
[SPEAKER_02]: because the rich people don't want to share.
6:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And guess who controls the messaging machine that gives us these narratives?
6:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, the rich people.
6:42
[SPEAKER_02]: My grandfather always said, if a rich guy's gonna take a buck out of his pocket to tell you you don't need something, you better spend two to get it.
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: We better start spending two to get it.
6:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Quick break, break back.
6:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
7:01
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1913.
7:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Silk Quarters in Patterson, New Jersey, ended their unsuccessful six-month strike.
7:10
[SPEAKER_02]: By 1900, Patterson had won the nickname Silk City, skilled weavers, ribbon weavers in particular were proud of their craft.
7:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They were tenacious in fighting for the respect and decent wages they thought they deserved.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Earlier that spring, these skilled ribbon weavers united all of the silk workers and went on strike.
7:30
[SPEAKER_02]: The strikers' main demand was a call for the eight-hour work day.
7:33
[SPEAKER_02]: The strikers were aided by members of the industrial workers of the world.
7:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Most notably, Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Curley Flynn.
7:41
[SPEAKER_02]: The strike also drew attention from intellectuals in Granted Village in New York.
7:46
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, some time after the strike started,
7:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Many of the Greenwich Villagers came to Patterson to observe the strike firsthand.
7:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They were impressed by the solidarity among the many nationalities of the silk workers and the courage of the strikers.
8:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The strike spread to other towns in New Jersey as well as Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut.
8:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, by May, the Greenwich Villagers were working on what they called the Patterson Pagent.
8:12
[SPEAKER_02]: They hoped to bring public attention to the workers' struggles by staging a dramatic performance of the strike.
8:18
[SPEAKER_02]: On June 7th, Madison Square Garden was overflowing.
8:22
[SPEAKER_02]: with 15,000 audience members and more filling this standing room only.
8:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yet while the Patterson Paget did bring money into the strike fund, this was not enough to help all of the workers on strike.
8:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Finally, the strikers returned to work.
8:36
[SPEAKER_02]: They were able to get a nine-hour work day at most job sites, but the elusive quest for the eight-hour day remained incomplete.
8:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Labor History in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
8:49
[SPEAKER_02]: For more information, go to LaborHistoryIntude.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's at LaborHistoryIntude.
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
9:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
9:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So as Democrats are out pushing the raise the minimum wage, the right wing think tank world is pushing out their experts.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: There, you know, experts, push them out into corporate media, spreading horror stories of why it would be horrible, horrible.
9:25
[SPEAKER_02]: If employers had to pay a reasonable living wage to people,
9:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And most recently, I came across a piece over at the Washington Post, you know, the people's newspaper, uh, uh, this piece, this opinion piece, again, right wing think tank, uh, argues that, uh, phasing out the tip to minimum wage has hurt restaurants, it's hurt employers, it's hurt employees, uh, it's done more harm than good and now thank goodness the city has paused this and it's going to help everyone recover.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look at this at this framing is interesting to me.
9:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they're trying to push it as a cautionary tail.
10:00
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do this, all your restaurants are going to close your loose jobs, and you're going to have to cook at home.
10:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of what they're saying.
10:08
[SPEAKER_02]: here to share some thoughts on well what's reality in this world can we do away with a tip to minimum wage can we earn a living decent wage and still have well employers so I've asked so so Ruri Aram and to come share some thoughts with us so Ruri is the president of one fair wage you can check out their website one fair wage dot org so Ruri thanks for taking time for us
10:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for having me.
10:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So walk me through this DC scenario.
10:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that they DC was phasing out the tip of minimum wage.
10:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to make sure that if you showed up to work, you got paid a decent wage.
10:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the what the right wing think tank world is saying, it was a horrible experiment and it's the cautionary tale for everyone else.
10:51
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened?
10:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, first I want to make sure everybody knew that DC voters voted for this three times, right?
10:59
[SPEAKER_03]: They voted for it in 2018.
11:03
[SPEAKER_03]: They voted again in 2022.
11:04
[SPEAKER_03]: They signed petitions in 2020.
11:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they vote DC voters over and over again have said, we believe workers in the district should be paid at least the minimum wage with tips on top, tipped workers.
11:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we won, we won this in 2022, and the DC budget office itself put out their own data, the district's own budget office, put out data showing that in fact, the restaurant industry grew every year since the initiative passed.
11:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And two more things to that, we hit the highest number
11:50
[SPEAKER_03]: in Washington, D.C. after this past, also from the D.C. budget office, not from us, from the D.C. budget office, a third outlet, a third entity also put out data showing that D.C. became the highest tipping place in the United States of America.
12:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So tips are higher, establishments are growing.
12:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And jobs are increasing and the DC City Council based on a few restaurants saying we can't do this.
12:19
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't want to pay more.
12:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And using regular restaurant closures as evidence, you know, every year some restaurants close using regular restaurant closures as evidence
12:35
[SPEAKER_03]: to pause this increase that voters had voted on multiple times.
12:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And the truth is if you look at the data, restaurants have continued to grow in DC both as the wage was going up and even after it paused.
12:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And because the DC Council did all of this, the person who left the fight, let's be clear Rick, lost his seat,
12:59
[SPEAKER_03]: and his race for mayor.
13:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And the person who won for mayor in Washington, D.C., is Janice Lewis George, who was the champion of this issue for the last many, many years, and who always said, this is good for the district and should not be paused.
13:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So not only was all of this a lie and I honestly I feel very proud to be attacked and criticized by the right wing billionaire led Washington post let's be clear who owns and controls the Washington post it's based on that's right and so I'm very proud that they're coming after us because it means we got their attention but the reality on the ground is even the district's own budget office has said there's been growth that industries doing great.
13:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And guess what the person who fought for workers all along is now the mayor is going to be mayor Yeah, but here's the thing I read these articles in the Washington Post because you know We're the the people's newspaper on a biobillion here and I had a conversation around this with someone who who you're works in a shipping dock Makes 32 bucks an hour.
14:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good union job with good wages good benefits all of that
14:07
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, complaining that the person at the, uh, at the gas station on the streets making $18 an hour, which is pushing the price of everything up.
14:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So I look at this and, you know, I had to remind him, I know a guy who's working on a shipping dock making $32 bucks an hour.
14:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
14:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it's this kind of hunger game scenario where I'm sorry I would like you to do better, but if you do better than I'm going to do worse that we're continually fat in this this editorial piece by the post really plays into that in pitting workers against one another and and I just think I think that's something that has to be discussed a little bit.
14:43
[SPEAKER_03]: totally.
14:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And I encourage you and everybody, everybody out there to look up this new booklet that's just come out called Markets for Humans by an academic from Oxford and a business owner, Nick Hanauer.
14:58
[SPEAKER_03]: What it puts out, it's called markets for humans, please look it up.
15:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And what it puts out is that the entire field of economics and these premises we all have bought that somehow raising wages for one person hurts other people, that it kills jobs or it increases inflation.
15:15
[SPEAKER_03]: None of these things have borne out to be true in the data and we keep proving it over and over and over again.
15:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Each time the minimum wage goes up, jobs grow, number of establishments grows.
15:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And they keep feeding us this, this, this, these lies that we keep buying.
15:31
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, the markets for humans book indicates that the greatest period of economic growth in US history was when we have the biggest middle class.
15:45
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, join the middle class able to consume is really good for economic growth.
15:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It is good for jobs.
15:52
[SPEAKER_03]: It is good for businesses because people come soon.
15:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, back when we race prices.
15:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Back when we had an incredibly high top marginal tax rates, back when we had 35% union density, back when we had strong government policies, a strong minimum wage.
16:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we had a strong growing, burgeoning middle class of consumers.
16:12
[SPEAKER_02]: who went in and bought stuff.
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just said this the other day, you know, we've given rich people all of the money.
16:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a rich person's welfare.
16:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas in the past, rich people actually work for it by providing things that we bought, the money gets to the adventure.
16:28
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
16:29
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
16:30
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
16:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Look, that.
16:31
[SPEAKER_03]: The greatest steel of the last century has been all of our labor, all of the value of our labor being stolen by the one percent and by the billionaires and the corporations and growth being them benefiting the most from growth and us not benefiting from the value of our own labor.
16:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And so
16:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I was sharing with you.
16:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so frustrated at the idea that we're going to solve affordability by just reducing prices.
16:58
[SPEAKER_03]: That is another lie that we've been told over and over and over again because they don't want to raise our wages.
17:05
[SPEAKER_03]: But the easiest solution to the cost of living crisis is to raise people's wages closer to the cost of living.
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: No, absolutely.
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've told the story a thousand times, you know, my grandparents lived through the stagnation era of the 70s.
17:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They bought their house in the 60s when it was kind of hard to pay the mortgage.
17:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But by the end of the 70s, their mortgage was a days pay.
17:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And why is that?
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It's because the unions had in their contracts, cost-deliving adjustments, whereas inflation went up, their wages kept up, so their standard of living wasn't eroded away.
17:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, at the end of the 70s, their life had never been better because of their union contracts.
17:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and that's the way it should be for everybody.
17:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have launched a new national campaign called Living Wage for All, Every Worker, that gas station attended, and that shipyard worker, and the worker at Costco, and and the restaurant worker, the tipped worker, everybody deserves to be paid by their boss, a wage that helps them meet the cost of living without working more than one job.
18:05
[SPEAKER_03]: One job should be enough.
18:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was, in the day that you're talking, I'm in the period you're talking about, one job was enough and it can be enough if we pay people closer to the cost of living.
18:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So we now have a federal bill, the Living Wage for All Act, that 30 house members have signed on to and Senator Murphy has introduced in the Senate that would raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour for big businesses by 2030 and for smaller businesses over a longer time period.
18:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is about getting people closer to the cost of living.
18:35
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the number one thing that politicians can and should do to address the cost of living.
18:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, if you weren't a raise it up to, let's say, 25 bucks an hour.
18:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I know other places have gone up to 30, that they're seeking potentially, how many people would benefit from that?
18:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Because look, most of the people I know, they're, they're not making more than 30 bucks an hour.
18:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it is, it's only a couple bucks more, they're not making a hundred or two hundred dollars.
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not what we're asking for.
18:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the ridiculous argument, I get, whoa, if you're going to raise the minimum wage, why not just make it a hundred
19:04
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not talking about being that ridiculous.
19:06
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about being able to live and exist.
19:09
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
19:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually that was believe it or not, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President Roosevelt's original idea when he passed the first federal minimum wage in the country.
19:18
[SPEAKER_03]: If you go back and look at it, he said, we need a wage in this country that is the minimum any worker of any industry needs to meet the cost of living.
19:28
[SPEAKER_03]: That is the idea of a minimum wage and has been for a hundred years.
19:33
[SPEAKER_03]: But now the cost of living is at minimum 25 and the federal minimum wage is $7.25.
19:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, that differential has been stolen from us by the people at the top.
19:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's time that we demand universally for all workers regardless of industry that our wages meet the cost of living.
19:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Hence 25 is a floor, but allowing higher cost regions like New York and California to go up to 30 is essential.
19:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but here's the thing, and this is where I get from the right, and I know the right wing think tank people say, you know, the minimum wage was never something you were supposed to live on, Saru.
20:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a team ageer's wage.
20:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The McDonald's is all teenagers.
20:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, while the teenagers are in school, it's all teenagers.
20:14
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not.
20:14
[SPEAKER_03]: They're working adults and sadly, you know, at this point 50% of working Americans, mostly adults in America, do not earn enough to meet the cost of living, which is a minimum of 25 dollars.
20:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So if we raise the minimum H of 25 to answer your earlier question, you're talking about 50% of America of working America would get a raise at least 67 million workers would get a raise because the cost of living has just six.
20:44
[SPEAKER_03]: bloated so greatly.
20:45
[SPEAKER_03]: We need that minimum wage, you know, we need that minimum wage to be closer to what people need to live.
20:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you say to the argument then?
20:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I know this is going to come.
20:53
[SPEAKER_02]: If you raise wages like that, inflation's going to skyrocket and you're not going to help those people anyway because employers are just going to pass it on in higher cost.
21:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Because hey, their profits are sacked recent.
21:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So we just did a thorough economic impact analysis of a $30 measure we're moving here in the Bay Area in California, even for $30 economists said, over the length of the increase, which is a full decade for small businesses.
21:21
[SPEAKER_03]: You're talking about less than 1% price increases, less than 1% and that's for 30.
21:28
[SPEAKER_03]: You'd be talking about half of 1% if you're talking about 25.
21:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Over the period of the increase and that is if employers pass on 100% of their costs to consumers which they generally don't and this is why Rick because when people are paid more guess what?
21:43
[SPEAKER_03]: They stay longer and so employers save money and they don't need to pass on 100% of the increase
21:51
[SPEAKER_03]: consumers, but I do want to share with you.
21:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I am not finding that most voters in America are turned off by this argument of inflation.
21:58
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, we're finding in a lot of places.
22:01
[SPEAKER_03]: when we're polling.
22:02
[SPEAKER_03]: If we say to people, do you support a living wage for all overwhelmingly two-thirds of Americans say yes, even in red states?
22:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And then if you say, but what about inflation?
22:11
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to raise prices.
22:13
[SPEAKER_03]: We find most voters are saying back to us, what are you talking about?
22:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Prices have already gone way up.
22:18
[SPEAKER_03]: The only thing that has not gone up is my paycheck.
22:22
[SPEAKER_02]: No, absolutely.
22:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you bought up Costco a minute ago and I'm a big Costco fan now.
22:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a convert.
22:27
[SPEAKER_02]: They built one in our area and happy there because I'll be honest.
22:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I go there and I empty out my wallet every week or so.
22:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have never had a negative interaction.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: With anybody that works there from the person that hands me the hot dog to the person who's you know pointing me in a direction everyone there seems happy everyone seems helpful.
22:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't say that about a lot of other places that I've had to go shop that to me is kind of like a shoppers miracle if you will of happy people wanting to be at their jobs.
22:59
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
22:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
23:00
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, there was a really great editor, not a toilet, an article in another billionaire paper, the Wall Street Journal, but even they felt compelled to write it about a A cashier at Costco who has worked there for 20 years and is now earning $33 an hour and has a million dollar pension because Costco also offers their workers retirement security.
23:23
[SPEAKER_03]: and is so happy and so skilled at his job and has stayed at Costco this entire time with one job, not three, but one job because he's paid enough to serve you Rick in a really happy friendly way.
23:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And so Costco has proved what we've been saying all along that in fact,
23:43
[SPEAKER_03]: weight increasing wages does not decrease jobs or growth or business expansion.
23:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just the opposite.
23:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Increasing wages increases your potential to get consumers who like shopping there to spend because your people are happy and do a good job.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, when I was chasing nickels as a young man, working just above minimum wage, the argument was minimum wage, minimum effort.
24:08
[SPEAKER_02]: and and that comes out and i don't know as an employer why you would want that to infect your your workplace but i guess it is about greed control i don't know so walk me through what how we get to a point to where we respect work again in this country because sadly for too long again that hunger game is mentality i got mine screw the guy behind me
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: how do you get to this point because look I'm a union guy you're a you're a minimum wage person you're you're you're you're clubbing the bag is raised a minimum wage mine you get everybody into unions to negotiate um
24:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the two of them should be, it have to be.
24:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And both get the same bad.
24:46
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right, they have to be in the same bag.
24:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think both of us are facing a moment right now.
24:52
[SPEAKER_03]: We're so much of America is not just demanding this.
24:55
[SPEAKER_03]: They are kicking out incumbent politicians who don't deliver on this and bringing in people like Janicell's George and D.C. who support living wages and support unions, also.
25:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm excited.
25:10
[SPEAKER_03]: and cities where 25, 27 or 30 is moving on the ballot.
25:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's really important through these local and state campaigns to show that democracy can deliver on cost of living.
25:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's really important to create hope right now, and especially because Rick, this is not just in the affordability crisis.
25:28
[SPEAKER_03]: This is about a crisis of democracy.
25:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And if we want working people to care about saving democracy, we have to prove that democracy is worth
25:37
[SPEAKER_03]: and we do it by delivering increased paychecks by organizing people to deliver increased paychecks.
25:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Last line of questioning I've got for you on this because you know increasing the minimum wage, me wanting stronger unions and a stronger minimum wage obviously now being framed as communist or socialist or
25:55
[SPEAKER_02]: or some of this because you know, hey, there were some candidates and some places that ran on a DSA platform that included strong labor, right, strong minimum wage, strong workplace protections.
26:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, redistribution of wealth, the way my grandparents, you know, the people who fought World War II fought for.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Politically, do you see this as a killer, or do you see this as something that maybe voters are going to be smart enough to work around?
26:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think voters care, Rick.
26:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Voters right now are worried about the fact that they work three jobs and still can't make ends meet.
26:26
[SPEAKER_03]: That is their top concern.
26:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think voters care about all of these names, frankly, whether it's fascism or socialism or communist.
26:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think people care.
26:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I think people are focused on will you deliver for me and the people who've been in office all along have not delivered, honestly, in either party.
26:44
[SPEAKER_03]: because they are too tied up with their billionaire donors and their corporate donors and the National Restaurant Association to deliver.
26:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And so people are done with that.
26:54
[SPEAKER_03]: They're looking to get people out, who haven't delivered, get people in, who do deliver, and it is incumbent on all of us to organize, to win things so that, again, we don't
27:06
[SPEAKER_03]: This incredible, I won't say, disgust with the political system, should not result in us losing democracy.
27:14
[SPEAKER_03]: The way we save it is by proving that it can deliver.
27:17
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
27:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I appreciate you taking time for us.
27:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Give me a marching order.
27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: What should we be doing to make sure this gets going?
27:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Please, everybody go to livingwageforall.org, sign up to get involved and to tell your Congress member or Senator to sign on to the Federal Living Wage for all act.
27:34
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
27:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So Rui Yaraman, I appreciate the time.
27:36
[SPEAKER_02]: As always, thanks so much.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
27:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
27:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear your thoughts.
27:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Email me, Rick, at theRicksmithshow.com, what should the minimum wage be?
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Should it be 30 bucks an hour and do you remember when 15 seemed like an unfathomable number?
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I do.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Back after this.
28:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History, and this day in Labor History, the year was 1917.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day more than 10,000 African Americans marched down New York's Fifth Avenue in what is known as the silent parade.
28:15
[SPEAKER_02]: The protest came in the aftermath of the July 2nd East St. Louis race riot and a number of lynchings in Texas.
28:23
[SPEAKER_02]: organized by Black Scholar and activist W.E.B.
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Dubois, James Weld and Johnson and the NAACP, the silent parade protested lynchings and anti-Black violence.
28:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Children led the march dressed in white women, who were also dressed in white, followed them, men dressed in dark suits marched behind.
28:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It was considered the first public protest of racial violence in the United States.
28:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Alexis Newman describes the scene as the parade proceeds to Madison Square.
28:52
[SPEAKER_02]: The marchers carried banners and posters stating their reasons for the march.
28:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Both participants and onlookers remarked that this protest was unlike any other scene in the city and the nation.
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: There were no chance, no songs, just silence.
29:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Some signs read, mother, do linchers go to heaven and Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?
29:16
[SPEAKER_02]: protesters hoped President Woodrow Wilson would make good on his election promises to promote rights for blacks.
29:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But Wilson took no action.
29:24
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, he opposed anti-linching legislation and continued segregationist policies in federal offices.
29:32
[SPEAKER_02]: In an editorial for the New York age, James Weld and Johnson pointed out, quote, that their brothers and sisters, people, just like them, were Jim Crowed and segregated and disenfranchised and oppressed and lynched and burned alive in this, the greatest republic in the world, the great leader in the fight for democracy and humanity.
29:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Labor history in too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
30:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Here's an interesting fact.
30:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Dinosaurs dominated Earth for 165 million years, and they assumed they always would.
30:10
[SPEAKER_05]: which brings us to, well, us.
30:13
[SPEAKER_05]: We, by pedal, far-ranging, homo-sapian primates has certainly established our dominance over modern-day mother-earth.
30:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And even though our reign has only lasted about 200,000 years, we 21st century humans, grandly assumed that we're ordained by the gods to rule odd infinitum over our planet and beyond.
30:33
[SPEAKER_05]: But, oops, unfortunately, we've based our pre-eminence on the unsustainable consumption of our domain, rather than on stewardship for the ages.
30:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Under the global misguidance of corporate political religious academic and other powers that be, our large brain species has ended up making an awful mess of the nest we inherited.
30:54
[SPEAKER_05]: elite plunders and profiteers have imposed an ethic of greed, inequality, and even inhumanity that is devouring everything from Earth's climate to our basic human values of fairness and justice.
31:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Leading this careless assault is a clique of arrogant and abusive high-tech gabillionaires who consider themselves geniuses because, well, they're rich.
31:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Consider Elon Musk, presently the richest of the world's richest, who posture says an uber brain deep-thinker and hoarding corporate dervish.
31:26
[SPEAKER_05]: But wait, strip away the hype, and Musk is just another self-serving, plutocratic ravageer, a cartonish robber Baron whose genius lies in one, taking credit and profit from other people, too, demanding subsidies and special breaks from government, three cheating workers and customers, and four, suing everyone for his failures.
31:47
[SPEAKER_05]: This is Jim Heiter saying it billionaire humanoid's like a lawn really wanted to save us from extinction they would do the honorable thing by going first.
32:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So look, we just talked about raising the minimum wage, but you know, raising the quality of jobs, too.
32:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And look, as a union guy, I think how do we make employers, want to hire people, how do we make employers, employees, better qualified and technical and current and career education in schools?
32:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a huge part of it.
32:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, when I was in high school, there was all kinds of options for vote tech stuff.
32:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Machine shop, auto, woodworking.
32:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You go down the list, cosmatology, all of that,
32:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I understand, the high school that I went to, all of that's now gone.
32:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So this move towards bringing back some technical education, some career training, all that stuff, not just a buzzword, but a real pathway to good jobs, higher wages, and upward mobility, especially for working class kids, like me.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: The folks over at the Center for American Progress have got a new report out.
33:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Career technical education technical education policy a multi-state case study on employment outcomes And it looks at some of these CTE programs the good CTE and who's doing it right who's doing it's wrong And maybe what we should be doing as a country to move in a direction to get people the skills that we desperately need And that's why I've asked Veronica Goodman to come share some thoughts Veronica is the senior director of work first development there at the center for American policy Veronica, thanks for taking time for us
33:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course, thanks for having me on the show, Rick.
33:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So walk me through this, because you know, I'm a big fan of Votech.
33:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a big fan of career training.
33:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we should be expanding high school beyond 12 to 14.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So you walk out within the socials degree or a really good solid trade.
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But walk me through what this the CTE is and maybe what we should be doing more up.
33:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
33:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So, career and technical education in schools, as you noted, has sort of taken a back seat.
34:06
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people, there's been this movement toward college for all, and it's sort of developed as stigma.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think as a lot of young people are sort of looking at the economy and what sort of options we're going to have, they're thinking about what sort of an AI proof.
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: opportunity and so increasingly in high schools they're, you know, taking a shop class, they're going, you know, as part of their high school experience, going to a community college, doing an apprenticeship or a pre-apprenticeship, and things like, you know, welding, they're looking at healthcare, manufacturing, and all that's really positive.
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, you know, been this increase in enrollment from
34:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, 10% between 2022 and 2022 school year and the 2023-2024 school year, so, you know, I think it's a great trend.
34:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And look, we need, we need people who can build stuff.
35:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We've gotten so far away from it.
35:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There's been such a brain drain of people because my friends in the trades keep telling me, people my age are retiring.
35:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's not a lot of folks behind my age.
35:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it wasn't emphasized people all want to college all wanted to do that and the trades have been suffering Especially in the time now where we're gonna need to start building a lot of stuff You know reinvesting in our infrastructure.
35:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I know data centers are a big thing There's a lot of really good kind of jobs here.
35:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So this education this training
35:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm an all in favor of but you know, I look at my building trades friends.
35:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they do it right with their apprenticeship programs I think at the contractors the ABC contractor folks not so much.
35:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So what separates it a good strong CTE program from one that just looks like something on paper
35:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you're absolutely right unions or doing this right thing.
35:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You know how to do this training well.
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And the young people and workers that are moving through these programs are coming out without debt, which is a huge incentive.
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing a lot of people increasingly turned off from colleges, just because they're going to walk out with a ton of debt.
36:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they're coming out and they're making good money.
36:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And in a lot of these jobs, you mentioned, some of the ones that have
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people are tiring, so, you know, electricians, that's one that's in huge demand, huge numbers that are retiring soon, and that also sets you up, so, you know, you mentioned data centers, there's a lot of different opportunities, you know, for what you can do and you're making good money coming out of it.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I've got friends who were like, well, we don't want to be like Germany in the third grade tracking a kid into this direction because they're poor working class because we see potentially this could happen.
36:44
[SPEAKER_02]: How can you avoid this making these CTE programs, the track that, you know, just this is what working class kids do because this is where a lot of a lot of older people than me, you know, their parents were, were brick layers of their parents were cement people and that was where they went and they didn't have any other choice.
37:00
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we, how do we make sure that doesn't happen?
37:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so it's all about quality, you know, some states are, as I mentioned, doing it right, you know, you have states like Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro has been investing, you know, he invested 65 million dollars, that's I think of 50% increase while he's been in office and that's going to making sure that these programs are good, you know, it can look even as early as elementary school, just like exposure to what different jobs are and teaching kids about what different.
37:31
[SPEAKER_00]: No kind of options they may have and then advancing to something in high school that's closer to like a pre-apprenticeship, a youth apprenticeship, that's setting them up to go to a registered apprenticeship program.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know ideally this includes dual enrollment, so say you're taking credit sorority in community college and then you can go on after graduation into some of these programs and then you're like saving money.
37:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more affordable because you've already taken some
37:59
[SPEAKER_00]: credits and your close sort of graduation and getting a paycheck.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my son got into a building trades apprenticeship program that I got to tell you a quite jealous of, I wish that would have been there for me, but a lot of his friends when they were going to high school, especially in the electrician route, some of them were doing just that.
38:19
[SPEAKER_02]: They were taking classes in high school and then the IBW program.
38:24
[SPEAKER_02]: had like a junior apprenticeship program I understand that they got paid for and that they learned how to become an electrician.
38:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So when they graduated from my school they went into the apprenticeship program and they're on the track to a career level wage benefit job which is which is fabulous.
38:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, and I think more students are interested in those kinds of opportunities.
38:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I think just a lot of families, a lot of young people are not aware that these options exist.
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think part of, you know, what makes a good program and what makes good policy is getting out there in the community.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, highlighting why these programs are good and why they're, you know,
39:06
[SPEAKER_00]: something that should be on the menu and more young people should be aware of.
39:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
39:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, this is how we revive a prosperous working class and for some, how we get the middle class that we hear so much about.
39:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But for me, it's about giving people hope and opportunity and the ability to get a good wage job and earn a decent living.
39:26
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, you mentioned a moment ago the word register to apprenticeship program and again I want I don't mean to harp on it, but I I'm seeing a lot of this coming out of the Trump administration Where there's a lot of lip service going on that you know we we've got these registered apprenticeship programs
39:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess my problem then is, is who's overseeing these registered programs?
39:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I know some that don't have really good graduation rates.
39:52
[SPEAKER_02]: The apprentices never seem to get to the end of it.
39:56
[SPEAKER_02]: It just seems to be a way to get cheaper labor and exploitable labor in the door without giving them the skills that they eventually want and need.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, I guess the quality of these registered apprenticeship programs kind of important,
40:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, the the great thing about the registered apprenticeship program, it's sort of like the gold star for quality for training programs, you know, they're successful, there's good standards, you know, they're, they're made to keep people safe as they're going through the training and what we've seen is the Trump administration has been proposing efforts to deregulate the apprenticeship program so.
40:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's ways certainly to make it more accessible, but some of the things they're trying to do is move apprentices through faster and ways that could impact sort of the quality of the training that they're receiving and you know sort of trying to cut corners in a way that that's going to make them less effective and ultimately you know employers and some of the folks who benefit from the talent.
40:57
[SPEAKER_00]: of these programs could say like wait you know what kind of training or um you know the apprentice is really getting here so um and you know they're also cutting funding for a lot of these things so there's a lot of lip service being paid to we want to have this national talent strategy but at the same time they're they're cutting programs they're trying to dismantle a department of education which is you know part of part of this talent system that we have as a country and and so um you know i think it's just bad policies that are that are coming out.
41:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, what's interesting to me is this administration, the Trump administration is, you know, through the Department of Education is basically deep professionalized a number of industries, a number of job titles, especially those that women generally do, like nurses and teachers, and those kind of things.
41:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, I mean, that's a student loan thing.
41:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a whole other thing.
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems to me the emphasis is not on that.
41:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That these are seen as mostly male dominated and a lot of white male dominated industries.
41:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you see that this is an opportunity for policy makers to maybe make it a little more equitable for women and students of color?
41:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Because look, I know the building trades are trying.
41:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I have union presidents on all the time, we're saying, we've got these programs we're doing this outreach.
42:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there an opportunity to maybe use this?
42:08
[SPEAKER_02]: this education through our schools to maybe push some other folks in that direction.
42:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I think we talked about apprenticeships, you know, often those tend to be white and male and the Biden administration who try to do this big push to try to get more women and workers of color to You know, be able to access these programs.
42:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So that should absolutely be one of the goals out, you know, the Trump administration just actually announced plans to get rid of certain You know, reporting requirements for your around career and technical education
42:42
[SPEAKER_00]: that impact the students that have disabilities or some populations that sometimes see discrimination in these programs.
42:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That's only going to lead to less access for these kinds of students in these programs.
42:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I went to high school in a solidly working class neighborhood.
43:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I was solidly working class, you know, high school, they had all of the, all of these, these these opportunities for all different, different trades, had all the academic stuff, but also had opportunities for, you know, industrial arts and like I said, auto and and machine shop and electronics and Cosmo and all that stuff.
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But every student had to take at least the industrial arts one to learn how to hold a hammer, just as every student had to take home
43:30
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... is this an opportunity for schools maybe to come back to that because that hasn't been the experience at least for my kids going to school and this district's a little bit bigger than the one i went to uh... but does it seem like an opportunity here to maybe invest in this and maybe recreate uh... what our economy looks like for the future especially as a i and all these other scary things are coming down the road
43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That should be the goal and one of the things that we found in our report is that the funding for CTE has not kept up with inflation or population growth.
44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is going back decades.
44:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just really face cut after cut and that's made it so that it's not available to students everywhere.
44:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's part of why you've seen this disinvestment.
44:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I think states or some states are trying to fill the gap.
44:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned Pennsylvania is doing a fantastic job.
44:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Our report also looked at Colorado and Washington state and some of the investments that they're making.
44:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think ultimately the goal is to really have this increased funding so that it's available everywhere.
44:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that rural students especially face challenges and accessing some of these programs.
44:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you need to put the money into it if you really want to see the impact.
44:42
[SPEAKER_02]: No, absolutely, because that was my next line of questioning, oh, who's going to pay for it?
44:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we know the jobs of the future are going to be the ones, the blue collar jobs, the jobs that people are going to build stuff and be able to take raw materials and turn it into something, that value added proposition, but who's going to pay for it?
44:59
[SPEAKER_02]: In this area where I'm at, there are a lot of for-profit kind of places, and that's my concern that this becomes another one of those opportunities to get into the taxpayers pocket and not provide the kind of training that we as a society need, but as individually students need.
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And it being more about the profit, more about the just the dollars and cents, kind of like we've done the higher education, my concern is that we don't get the value that we should be getting.
45:26
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were in our schools, our community colleges and that we had better control of it.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that's something that we should be concerned about?
45:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's definitely a role for the federal government to provide more funding opportunities and in that way be able to encourage states to have really quality programs that are available to all of their students.
45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I think there's other ways to sort of incentivize this and to encourage states.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we taught a little bit about the stigma around CTE programs and shop class and, you know, some of these kind of classes and I think there's even opportunities to say, like, hey, like, you know, students have to graduate, you know, with at least like one of these, one of these classes or, you know, be able to count those courses for things like advanced placement.
46:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, you know, toward college in the way that like some of the other AP classes that students take and so then that's kind of elevating them alongside the traditional academic courses and saying like these are just as important and these lead to skills.
46:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's another way to do that.
46:27
[SPEAKER_02]: No, look, my grandfather always used to say, any idiot can tear down a house.
46:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes a craftsman to build one.
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be able to do some of these trades and to do it well, takes training.
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is why I give the tip of the hat to the building trades.
46:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a continuing learning situation, but more importantly, it's not one that you end up going deep in the dead over.
46:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a huge supporter of it, so let me ask you, you know, last kind of last line of questioning, if you're building the system that you guys want to see, what would a worker centered CTE system look like?
47:03
[SPEAKER_02]: What would we build that and what a long-term opportunities would we we want to be getting out of it?
47:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you definitely want to lean on the role of community colleges, right?
47:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They're often the nation's largest training providers.
47:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They have relationships with employers.
47:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They have relationships with unions and they sort of know their regional and local economies best.
47:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think, you know, just creating more partnerships, putting more funding opportunities there so that they can align with high schools.
47:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's also about making sure these opportunities are available everywhere and and sort of how you get to that scale so that it's not just like one off random.
47:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if a student knows somebody or if they live in the right place.
47:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's sort of how, you know, to your earlier point about economic mobility, I think that's how you start to get to economic opportunity for everybody so that it's not just available to some.
47:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No, look, you know, when I was in high school coming out, I would have loved to have gotten into one of the building trade programs, but it was just what you said.
48:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You had to know somebody to get into the door and had to be an uncle or your parents or somebody who got you to the meeting.
48:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to find the meeting.
48:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the key.
48:13
[SPEAKER_02]: We're in a much different place.
48:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I think our unions are much more inclusive.
48:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they're reaching out in ways that I haven't seen in my lifetime and it's a good thing.
48:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The report, career and technical education policy, a multi-state case study on employment, and outcomes you can find that over at americanprogress.org.
48:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Veronica, I appreciate the time.
48:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope, I hope a policy experts look at this and we do make a commitment to, well, rebuilding our country by rebuilding our workforce.
48:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know.
48:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Rick and thanks for having me on.
48:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Always great talk with you.
48:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear your thoughts.
48:46
[SPEAKER_02]: What was your experience like when you were in school?
48:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you take a shop class?
48:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And is it still there?
48:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear your thoughts, Rick and the Ricksmithshow.com.
48:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Quick break, break back.
49:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
49:07
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1932.
49:11
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that flames burnt in the U.S. capital.
49:15
[SPEAKER_02]: The U.S. armed forces set fire to a shanty town of unemployed world war-one veterans.
49:22
[SPEAKER_02]: The veterans had come to the Capitol to demand the bonus that they had been promised for their service.
49:28
[SPEAKER_02]: The payment was not due until 1945, but the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression.
49:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Desperate veterans demanded the bonus be paid early.
49:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Walter W. Walters, a veteran and unemployed former cannery worker, called for his fellow veterans to go to Washington, D.C. and demand payment.
49:47
[SPEAKER_02]: from across the country veterans answered the call.
49:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Many hop trains to make their way to the nation's capital.
49:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They called themselves the bonus expeditionary force.
49:57
[SPEAKER_02]: This echoed the American expeditionary force, the name for U.S. troops that had fought in France during World War I.
50:04
[SPEAKER_02]: In May, the veterans began to arrive in Washington, D.C., they set up tents and shelters in vacant lots and open spaces.
50:13
[SPEAKER_02]: The largest encampment was along the Anacostia River.
50:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Some in Washington began to warn that the 8,000 protesters of the bonus army were led by communists.
50:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But retired Marine Corps major General Smedley Butler came to the camp to encourage the protesters.
50:29
[SPEAKER_04]: He said, I never saw such fine Americanism as an individual by your people.
50:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You have justice much right to have a lobby here as any steel corporation.
50:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Makes me so damn at a whole lot of people, speak of his class.
50:44
[SPEAKER_04]: By God that didn't speak of his class in 1917 and 18.
50:48
[SPEAKER_02]: The early chief of staff, General Magarther, was less sympathetic.
50:52
[SPEAKER_02]: He ordered troops to clear out the veterans.
50:55
[SPEAKER_02]: With cavalry, tanks, rifles, and tear gas, they ousted the protesters and burnt the Anacostia River encampment to the ground.
51:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So as I've said for years, I think the trades are a good place for young people to get involved.
51:22
[SPEAKER_02]: My own son, and I've tried to push my own kids into it, because first and foremost, and this is the really important part of all of it, is it's an education.
51:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we think of, you know, people who work in the building trades, I've had people telling me this, well, that's just, you know, grunt labor and I don't, and look, you know, my grandparents, and my, my generations parents, um, I'll set the same thing.
51:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I want you to have an easier job of better life than I've had, because every, every generation of, of parents wants their kids to do better.
51:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm one of those people as well.
51:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I want my kids to do better than I've done.
51:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I fear that it's probably not going to happen.
52:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope it does.
52:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think every generation of parents wants that for their kids, and they don't want their kids to have to go through what they've gone through.
52:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want my kids to have to work as hard as I did, but I do want them to be able to feel successful.
52:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I want them to succeed in what they do, and these jobs, I think are making kind of a comeback.
52:21
[SPEAKER_02]: as people are now seeing the value in being able to have the ability to take something a raw material and turn it into something.
52:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's incredible that someone could take a honkesteele and with a couple of machines turned in, you know, to auto parts or anything that we have that we take for granted.
52:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, societally, we've kind of diminished the value of work, because we were told
52:50
[SPEAKER_02]: We were told we could have trade policies that other countries would manufacture our stuff and we were going to get the clean jobs, the office jobs.
52:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I was told I was going to have a corner office, it's going to wear a white shirt, a tie, and my hands would never get dirty, I could get manicures, and look for something that's great, good on you.
53:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But for most of us not so much, my grandfather told me that if I ended up driving a truck for a living that I would be a failure.
53:17
[SPEAKER_02]: because he truly believed he bought into the rhetoric, he wanted his kids to do better, his grandchildren, son to do better.
53:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be honest, you know, did pretty well, as a truck driver.
53:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Did pretty well, got a degree, did all of those things, and still going back to that blue collar job that I got some dignity and respect out of, led a pretty good life.
53:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want that for everybody.
53:45
[SPEAKER_02]: especially my kid.
53:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So when my son said that, you know, he wasn't quite ready for college.
53:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I listen and I go, you know, you probably right.
53:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You probably do need to go out into the work force a little bit.
53:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see if we can get you into one of these building trades apprenticeship programs and he got into a really good one.
54:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And even if he stays five or six or ten or 15 years or whatever it is, he's going to walk away with a portable skill.
54:08
[SPEAKER_02]: He puts in the, like you'd go to college.
54:10
[SPEAKER_02]: He puts in four or five years.
54:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Does the work takes the classes
54:15
[SPEAKER_02]: learns every day, gonna walk away with some skill that for his entire life he's gonna be able to fall back on, even if this isn't the job he does forever.
54:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Now he's got it in this head such a good job, never leaving.
54:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But who knows, he may want to go back to school to be at the engineer that he wants to be.
54:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the trades where he's moving, good foundation, a good opportunity
54:44
[SPEAKER_02]: of what an engineer would need to know.
54:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, this is all part of the education system that we should be fighting for.
54:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when I talked to people about my education experience and look, I was a terrible student.
55:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be quite frank about it, the high school years, not a priority.
55:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my mother had passed before I went to high school.
55:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I was living my grandparents.
55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: They couldn't control me.
55:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Wasn't really a thing for me.
55:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But even in that environment, that school was able to take me and give me some education.
55:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And the vote, the vote tech stuff is the stuff I took with me forever.
55:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I still used stuff that Jack Chambers taught me and industrial arts.
55:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I still think of things the way he put it into my head.
55:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's important.
55:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, I remember stuff from the very little from the classrooms, but it was that experiential stuff.
55:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It was getting my hands dirty.
55:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I go back, I now understand most of those programs were a viscerated.
55:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Budget cuts, you know, got to give tax cuts to rich people, got to give tax cuts to businesses.
55:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Businesses are moving because in other communities
56:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And this beggar thy neighbor economic development has trickled down to kids getting less opportunities.
56:11
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the reality of it and we talked about it the other day.
56:14
[SPEAKER_02]: The more money we give to the wealthy, the more we give to corporate America, the less that gets in the classrooms into health care, into infrastructure, into the things that we need.
56:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know Rick you're just being, you're just being, you just don't like tax cuts and I don't.
56:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like tax cuts for the very wealthy because it isn't a good investment because we were sold.
56:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember when we were sold, we were sold it would trickle down and that the benevolence of our billionaire class would equate into education and they are.
56:46
[SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to privatize our education at every turn and guess what?
56:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Their privatized education system isn't doing any better than our public education system.
56:56
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I would say in many cases, it's actually worse.
57:01
[SPEAKER_02]: because they're taking the best of the best and doing nothing with them.
57:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where I struggle with where we are going policy-wise.
57:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, and I asked Veronica, oh, look, the reality is, is there are a lot of apprenticeship programs out there.
57:19
[SPEAKER_02]: The union ones do really well because it's a joint management union program.
57:26
[SPEAKER_02]: The employer needs good, well-trained employees, the union wants skills so they can demand higher wages, seems like a good thing.
57:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's, you go back to the Obama years when they passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, it was kind of to take that model and move it into the mainstream of a lot of other professions.
57:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And to use community colleges as the place of unions where they weren't at it.
57:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I kept saying, no, we shouldn't be doing this.
57:51
[SPEAKER_02]: We should just be getting more people into unions
57:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I still believe that's the pathway forward.
58:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I still think the way that we educate a workforce is, yeah, through the public, through the public sphere.
58:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And that education should not end at grade 12.
58:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It should now go to 14, because our technical and digital needs are so much greater.
58:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But I know, but Rick, we're going to not have enough profit.
58:26
[SPEAKER_02]: because you look at what they've done to the for-profit education system.
58:31
[SPEAKER_02]: My fear is we use a lot of tax dollars to prop up these career and technical education programs.
58:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And they become the kind of scams that you see on these, Trump University for instance.
58:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's use the president's own university.
58:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Which was in essence, in fact, a scam.
58:57
[SPEAKER_02]: to make things worse?
59:00
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm not surprised.
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm excited about the future.
59:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited about the possibilities for young people to define another path, to follow a passion, to learn a trade, and also to rebuild our economy, to make work pay again.
59:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And to give opportunity, especially for, you know,
59:27
[SPEAKER_02]: What have been amazing?
59:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear your thoughts, though?
59:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Email me, Rick, at therixmithshow.com.
59:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear your stories?
59:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you get, if you've been in one of these programs?
59:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear it?
59:37
[SPEAKER_02]: As always, thanks so much for being here.
59:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're working people, come to talk.