Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 2: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
Speaker 3: That is possible.
Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means
Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2: One moment on the debate stage we didn't get to
Speaker 2: talk about yesterday was the climate change section, and actually
Speaker 2: thought it was worth digging into a little bit, both
Speaker 2: about the audience and about the way that Ron Desantles
Speaker 2: handled it. So it sparked actually by a young American
Speaker 2: for Freedom member, a younger Republican I guess, who posed
Speaker 2: the question to the candidates, and then the candidates themselves
Speaker 2: were asked to raise their hand if they believed in
Speaker 2: man made climate change. DeSantis quit swatted that away and
Speaker 2: it led to an exchange also with the vike Ramaswami.
Speaker 2: So let's take a listen to all of that and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it on the other side.
Speaker 4: So we want to start on this with a show
Speaker 4: of hands.
Speaker 5: Do you believe in human behavior is causing climate change?
Speaker 4: Raise your hand if you do.
Speaker 6: Look, we're not school children. Let's have the debate. I mean,
Speaker 6: I'm happy to take it to start. Alexander Chardy Region,
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 7: Think that's the way to do.
Speaker 6: So let me just say to Alexander this, first of all,
Speaker 6: one of the reasons our country's declined is because of
Speaker 6: the way the corporate media treats Republicans versus Democrats. Biden
Speaker 6: was on the beach while those people were suffering.
Speaker 8: Let us be honest as Republicans. I'm the only person
Speaker 8: on the stage who isn't bought and paid for, so
Speaker 8: I can say this, The climate change agenda.
Speaker 9: Is, the climate change agenda is a hoax, and.
Speaker 6: We have to declare in the Lindon School.
Speaker 8: And the reality is the anti carbon agenda is the
Speaker 8: wet blanket on our economy. And so the reality is
Speaker 8: more people are dying of bad climate change policies than
Speaker 8: they are of actual climate.
Speaker 2: Interesting moment, there the way that DeSantis is able to
Speaker 2: parry away from all of this, right VI vike Ramaswami. Also,
Speaker 2: climate's been like one of those number one things we
Speaker 2: had a big exchange about him too. I'm curious what
Speaker 2: you thought whether that was an I thought it actually showed.
Speaker 3: Some political skill from DeSantis, because.
Speaker 2: I remember that you said previously about the whole razor
Speaker 2: hand thing that some Democrats you know, fell into some
Speaker 2: traps that they didn't necessarily want to be into in
Speaker 2: terms of forcing primary activists and others in order to
Speaker 2: take positions clearly that you don't want to be taking
Speaker 2: a position necessarily on that one, or as kind of
Speaker 2: he said, you don't want the overall, you don't want
Speaker 2: the headline that came out of it Ramaswami, because climate
Speaker 2: is such a core thing to so much of his messaging.
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, it was decent answer in terms
Speaker 2: of like what he's going for. I was surprised to
Speaker 2: hear the crowd boo though we were trying to figure
Speaker 2: out were they booing him for the climate change answer
Speaker 2: or for for like Pens trying to tako over him.
Speaker 3: I still couldn't really get there, But.
Speaker 2: On a second watch, I think it might be the
Speaker 2: climate change answer itself. Really, Yeah, I'm still not one
Speaker 2: hundred percent sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so there's a couple things I will say
Speaker 1: here First of all, I do think it was clever
Speaker 1: of Ron to jump in like that and short circuit
Speaker 1: the question, which demonstrates that this has become a very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable question for Republicans to answer, because even among Republicans
Speaker 1: you have probably a majority that at least think climate
Speaker 1: change is real. Now they are less interested in doing
Speaker 1: much about it than Democrats or independence. So the other
Speaker 1: challenge here is you have the Republican base in one
Speaker 1: place and most of the country in a very different
Speaker 1: place with regards to green energy transition, with regards to
Speaker 1: climate and how seriously that should be taken. And you know,
Speaker 1: Fox News queued this up by citing all of the
Speaker 1: list of recent extreme weather that everybody is living through
Speaker 1: and saying, my god, this has gotten worse faster than
Speaker 1: we ever expected. The death is real, the heat is real,
Speaker 1: the wildfires are real, all of that stuff. So I
Speaker 1: think it's an uncomfortable question for them. I think that
Speaker 1: was demonstrate by the fact that Ron jumps in the
Speaker 1: part after that though when he immediately is like corporate media,
Speaker 1: Am I right? To me, that was an example of
Speaker 1: how he isn't really super nimble on his feet. It
Speaker 1: felt very politician me like it was such an obvious dodge.
Speaker 1: And to me, the fact that even though Vivik did,
Speaker 1: I think, get booed in that room for saying the
Speaker 1: climate change agenda.
Speaker 4: Is a hoax, like very directly, I.
Speaker 1: Actually thought in a way it demonstrated why he won
Speaker 1: the night over to Santis, because it didn't feel like
Speaker 1: some sort of like let me try to be here
Speaker 1: and there, let me try to get.
Speaker 4: Around the question.
Speaker 1: He's like, now I'll just come out and say I'll
Speaker 1: take the position, and that will be very device.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is what Trump does, right.
Speaker 1: Trump would say stuff that part of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: probably hated and a certain donors you know, would probably hate.
Speaker 1: And Vivek said something that part of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: actually probably hated.
Speaker 4: Part of it them loved it though, and part.
Speaker 1: Of them just took it as a signal whatever they
Speaker 1: think of climate change, of like, oh, this guy's different.
Speaker 4: He doesn't talk like the other ones.
Speaker 1: He's not Weasley trying to get out of this answer,
Speaker 1: like everybody else on the stage was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's good analysis. I think you're right
Speaker 2: in terms of how it overall went. And I think
Speaker 2: you're right and this is why it's difficult. In general,
Speaker 2: the flag goes up anytime you hear climate change. One
Speaker 2: of the things that I think the VIVG you know,
Speaker 2: the vac if we recall he had a big embrace
Speaker 2: nuclear moment there on the stage whenever he I think
Speaker 2: it was his very first answer whenever he was talking
Speaker 2: about it's very simple.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I appreciated that. I thought it was good.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why that I have seen the
Speaker 2: big turn on it is that there is basically an
Speaker 2: the GOP base in particular, is convinced that any discussion
Speaker 2: of climate change or green transition or all of that
Speaker 2: is basically a deep not depopulation, although there is an
Speaker 2: element of that to some of the discourse, but more
Speaker 2: of like a deconsumption or my brain isn't working all
Speaker 2: that well.
Speaker 1: But hey, idea that you get into this whole world
Speaker 1: economic forum and whatever.
Speaker 3: Which some of it is true, like let's be real,
Speaker 3: like some of it, well, okay.
Speaker 4: The world economics, they're interested in maintaining the status quo.
Speaker 1: I mean, many of these people are rich off of
Speaker 1: fossil fuels, so let's be clear about where the money is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean in terms of the future. Whatever
Speaker 2: that they've published, I'm saying some of that they're they're quoting,
Speaker 2: like directly from the text. So I think one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why that they attack the climate change quote
Speaker 2: unquote agenda is because that is the way it's generally
Speaker 2: understood by the mean Republican voter. I have seen actually
Speaker 2: quite a bit of polling that whenever you talk about
Speaker 2: the environment and environmentalism, the change in the attitudes around
Speaker 2: this actually completely change.
Speaker 1: Well, and as you see, Vivek is very slippery here
Speaker 1: because he was very careful with his choice of words.
Speaker 1: He didn't say climate change is a hoax. Yes, he
Speaker 1: said the climate change agenda.
Speaker 3: Is a hoax.
Speaker 1: So I am one hundred percent sure when someone you know,
Speaker 1: the implication of that is that you don't believe in
Speaker 1: any of this. But he didn't actually come out directly
Speaker 1: say that, So I'm sure when he does another Caitlyn
Speaker 1: Collins interview or whatever and they say, why don't you
Speaker 1: believe you? Oh, well, that's not what I said. Why
Speaker 1: are you lying about how I'm misrepresenting me? Et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So he's very slippery and very intentional in
Speaker 1: his wording here is number one.
Speaker 4: Number two.
Speaker 1: I think bigger picture for the Republican Party this is
Speaker 1: this is a problem for them with you voters. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is quickly becoming the number one issue for young Americans,
Speaker 1: and Republicans have been a little bit excited about like
Speaker 1: maybe young men or like maybe they're thinking again about
Speaker 1: their liberal ways and their progressive ways, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I think that climate increasingly becomes a sort of Lippus
Speaker 4: test issue of.
Speaker 1: Are you even you know, remotely approachable or on our
Speaker 1: side versus are you you know, just like there's no
Speaker 1: chance that I'm going to give you any sort of
Speaker 1: a look whatsoever. So it's going to be a while
Speaker 1: before young voters really packed the punch, especially gen Z
Speaker 1: that you know, would make a huge difference in terms
Speaker 1: of elections. Although you know already you have young voters
Speaker 1: who are showing up in larger numbers in these in
Speaker 1: the past midterm elections, they've been highly motivated by.
Speaker 4: Roe versus weight, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But I do think longer term this is a big,
Speaker 1: big issue for Republicans with young voters.
Speaker 3: I'm just not quite sure yet.
Speaker 2: I know it's a big thing for college educated voters,
Speaker 2: no question about it. Specifically people who are under thirty five,
Speaker 2: amongst like more working class voters who are also young,
Speaker 2: they are willing to say like it's a concern. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's the top one, as you said,
Speaker 2: Also because people don't vote, it's one of those where
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to parse, like what people are actually
Speaker 2: coming out and actually judging said litmus tests on people
Speaker 2: say one thing to a polster, very different whenever it
Speaker 2: does come to the actual voters. I've always thought talking
Speaker 2: about it in a more positive way, talking about the
Speaker 2: ways out, possibly like nuclear energy and all that is
Speaker 2: almost certainly one of the best winners in terms of
Speaker 2: a unite uniting agenda, but also a way in order
Speaker 2: to split the difference quote unquote away from what I
Speaker 2: do think is a very bad strain of like climate
Speaker 2: doomerism that pervades some of the worst parts of the
Speaker 2: American left in the way that at least the discourse
Speaker 2: happens around this issue. So the Veigue's answer was, I
Speaker 2: actually think a view into where the party is right now,
Speaker 2: where you both have the boomer element, but also some
Speaker 2: of the younger voters who are definitely more interested in
Speaker 2: the conversation around like nuclear energy, not necessarily, you know,
Speaker 2: he does have it out for EBS though.
Speaker 3: That's the one thing which I never have quite understood.
Speaker 2: He in particular has like a religious jihad against EV
Speaker 2: tax credits, whereas considering elon is so popular amongst Republicans,
Speaker 2: where it's to me, it's just a messaging thing. I
Speaker 2: don't think people actually care about EV technology itself. It's like,
Speaker 2: if you're pushing it for replacing the freaking Ford f
Speaker 2: one fifty or whatever, that Okay, that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 2: In terms of talking about replacing a sedan, a commuter
Speaker 2: satan in particular, like for a city car. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: I have no reason why to see why that's not
Speaker 2: in the conversations.
Speaker 4: People are just not as ideological.
Speaker 1: But it's pragmatic, like I want to save on gas
Speaker 1: and not have to go to the pump and guess what,
Speaker 1: like save on service as well because you don't have
Speaker 1: to get oil changes, et cetera. I think that's how
Speaker 1: most Americans view potential EV transition. I mean, just to
Speaker 1: underscore the point I was, I just pulled up a poll.
Speaker 1: Even a majority of young Republicans say that they are
Speaker 1: somewhat are very concerned about climate change, and other research
Speaker 1: has found that a mon young voters, climate change is
Speaker 1: the top issue in terms of like activating them to vote,
Speaker 1: activating them to be involved in, you know, volunteer organizations,
Speaker 1: and to be like really politically engaged.
Speaker 4: Climate is a top issue.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I feel like, especially as we
Speaker 1: increasingly live through these extreme weather events and the images
Speaker 1: are they're already really undeniable, that the discomfort that was
Speaker 1: manifested on that stage among everyone except for fake basically
Speaker 1: really tells the story of how they are struggling to
Speaker 1: gropple in real time with what they say now when
Speaker 1: it's not as accept Not that long ago, it was
Speaker 1: very acceptable for them to just be like, no, you know,
Speaker 1: it's fake and look here's the snowballs.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 1: That's not as like acceptable anymore. So they haven't figured
Speaker 1: out how to fully navigate the issue.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good point anyway. That's why we spend
Speaker 2: some time on it. We thought you guys would be
Speaker 2: interested in that. We really appreciate everybody and also everyone
Speaker 2: who's been signing up taking advantage of our debate special
Speaker 2: Breakingpoints dot Com for ten percent off on our Earth discount.
Speaker 3: We will see you all later.
Speaker 5: Hi.
Speaker 12: I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief of the
Speaker 12: Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People
Speaker 12: And this is the Art of class War on Breaking Points.
Speaker 12: After the high stakes contract fight between the Teamsters and
Speaker 12: UPS which resulted in a strike averting or strike postponing
Speaker 12: tentative agreement that workers are voting on as we speak,
Speaker 12: the eyes of labor are on the contract negotiations currently
Speaker 12: taking place between the United Auto Workers and the Big
Speaker 12: three auto makers Ford, General Motors and Stillantis formerly Chrysler.
Speaker 12: The uaw's master agreement with the Big Three covers around
Speaker 12: one hundred and fifty thousand auto workers, and the current
Speaker 12: contract is set to expire on September fourteenth of this year.
Speaker 12: If a tentative agreement is not reached by then, the
Speaker 12: auto industry could be the next to see and be
Speaker 12: rocked by a major strike. This contract fight has many
Speaker 12: similarities to the one that we've been watching unfold at
Speaker 12: UPS over the past year. Like Teamster UPS, workers, UAW
Speaker 12: members working at the Big Three belong to a storied
Speaker 12: union with an equally proud and problematic history, from the
Speaker 12: great sit down strike of nineteen thirty six and thirty
Speaker 12: seven at the Flint GM plant to the creation of
Speaker 12: a unionized manufacturing workforce that formed the backbone of the
Speaker 12: mid century industrial working class. The UAW is a monumental
Speaker 12: pillar of the North American labor movement. However, like the Teamsters,
Speaker 12: the UAW has also been plagued for years by business unionism,
Speaker 12: a management friendly and concessionary approach to contract negotiations, and
Speaker 12: corruption at the highest levels of the union. A seismic
Speaker 12: federal investigation into the UAW recently found widespread corruption and embezzlement,
Speaker 12: resulting in a dozen senior officials, including two former union presidents,
Speaker 12: going to prison. At the end of the day, the
Speaker 12: true meaning of a union and of organized labor itself
Speaker 12: is the translation of the principles of democracy into the workplace.
Speaker 12: And in the wake of disappointment and dishonor from their
Speaker 12: own union leadership, on top of dealing with the Big
Speaker 12: three companies themselves with their relentless onslaught of cost cutting,
Speaker 12: profit maximizing shareholders serving practices, UAW members have fought to
Speaker 12: take back and democratically reform their union and turn it
Speaker 12: back into a fighting organization that is beholden first and
Speaker 12: foremost to the rank and file. At the end of
Speaker 12: twenty twenty one, UAW members made history by passing a
Speaker 12: referendum to have direct democratic elections of their union leadership
Speaker 12: with a one member, one vote policy instead of the
Speaker 12: arcane and less democratic delegate system that was in place before,
Speaker 12: a system that enabled the union's administration caucus to maintain
Speaker 12: unchallenged virtual one party rule for many years. But like
Speaker 12: their siblings in the Teamsters who have also had the
Speaker 12: ability to directly elect their leadership, UAW members expressed their
Speaker 12: democratic power and their deep and frustrated desire for change
Speaker 12: last year by electing in a slate of reform candidates
Speaker 12: backed by Unite All Workers for Democracy, the rank and
Speaker 12: file reform caucus within the UAW, similar to Teamsters for
Speaker 12: a Democratic Union within the Teamsters union, and you know,
Speaker 12: much like TDU organizers rallied their union siblings to elect
Speaker 12: current Teamster's President Sean O'Brien. Unite All Workers for Democracy
Speaker 12: pushed for the election of current UAW President Sean Fein,
Speaker 12: a brawler and a firebrand in his own right who
Speaker 12: has made it very clear to the Big three automakers
Speaker 12: that they are not dealing with the old UAW this
Speaker 12: round of negotiations. Fain has made it clear that the
Speaker 12: union is prepared to strike if the Big Three do
Speaker 12: not come to the table with serious plans to share
Speaker 12: the wealth that workers themselves have generated for them since
Speaker 12: the industry nearly collapsed a decade and a half ago
Speaker 12: and was bailed out by the American taxpayers. As Dan
Speaker 12: DiMaggio and Keith Brower Brown report at Labor Notes quote,
Speaker 12: entering this round of bargaining, the Big three have reported
Speaker 12: a combined twenty one billion dollars in profits in the
Speaker 12: first half of twenty twenty three, comes on top of
Speaker 12: profits of two hundred and fifty billion over the last
Speaker 12: ten years. Our message going into bargaining is clear, record
Speaker 12: profits mean record contracts, Faine told UAW members on Facebook
Speaker 12: Live on August first. Among the demands Fain presented to
Speaker 12: the Big three are eliminating tiers on wages and benefits
Speaker 12: plus double digit raises for all, restoring cost of living
Speaker 12: adjustments which were suspended during the Great Recession, restoring the
Speaker 12: defined benefit pension and retiree healthcare for all, workers hired
Speaker 12: since two thousand and seven have neither increasing pensions for
Speaker 12: current retirees there's been no increase since two thousand and three,
Speaker 12: and the right to strike over plant closures and a
Speaker 12: working family protection program. If the companies shut down a plant,
Speaker 12: they would have to pay laid off workers to do
Speaker 12: communities work. Other concerns include making all current temps permanent employees,
Speaker 12: with strict limits on the future use of tempts, and
Speaker 12: increasing paid time off end quote. To talk about all
Speaker 12: of this and more, I got to sit down with
Speaker 12: Nick Livick, a General Motors auto worker, a rank and
Speaker 12: file member of UAW Local thirty one in Kansas City,
Speaker 12: and an activist with the Caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy.
Speaker 12: Here's my interview with Nick, which we recorded from here
Speaker 12: at the Real News Network studio in Baltimore. Well, Nick Livick,
Speaker 12: thank you so much for joining us today on breaking points.
Speaker 12: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 9: I'm good to be here, glad to be here.
Speaker 12: And apologies to you and to everyone else because if
Speaker 12: you all just watched my introduction to this segment, which
Speaker 12: I recorded earlier today, I totally blew it and mispronounced
Speaker 12: Nick's last name. It is Livic not Livic, So that
Speaker 12: one's on me. Apologies all around, but Nick, it's really
Speaker 12: really great to get a chance to talk to you.
Speaker 13: Man.
Speaker 12: I know there's a lot going on. You just got
Speaker 12: off your shift at work. You guys are in the
Speaker 12: midst of this high stakes contract fights. I really appreciate
Speaker 12: you taking the time. We got a lot to dig
Speaker 12: into here, and we got about twenty minutes to do it,
Speaker 12: so you know, we're not gonna be able to get
Speaker 12: to everything, but I want to just dive right in
Speaker 12: and you know, sort of build on what I was
Speaker 12: saying in the intro and just help set the scene
Speaker 12: here for folks, right, because I mean, so much has
Speaker 12: happened in retrospect such a short amount of time in
Speaker 12: the auto industry. I mean, like everyone else, you guys
Speaker 12: had to endure COVID nineteen, we had the GM layoffs
Speaker 12: in twenty nineteen. We've had, you know, a Trump presidency,
Speaker 12: a Biden presidency, We've had the UAW reform, a referendum,
Speaker 12: the election of President Sean Fain, and we haven't even
Speaker 12: gotten to you know, the Great Recession and everything that
Speaker 12: happened there. Right, So, like when people I think are
Speaker 12: watching this and they're trying to understand, you know, like
Speaker 12: what brought us to this point. There's going to be
Speaker 12: a lot kind of in the backs of their minds.
Speaker 12: So I wanted to just sort of toss things to
Speaker 12: you and ask if first you could, you know, introduce
Speaker 12: yourself a little bit more, say a little bit about
Speaker 12: the kind of work that you do and how you
Speaker 12: got into being an auto worker and a union member
Speaker 12: with the UAW. And also if you could you know
Speaker 12: frame for people as a rank and file worker in
Speaker 12: the auto industry, like from your perspective, what is at
Speaker 12: stake here in this contract fight? Why is it so
Speaker 12: significant for you, the union, for the auto industry, and
Speaker 12: what brought us to this point, you know, like with
Speaker 12: everything that is at stake in this co on track fight.
Speaker 9: So, like you said, my name is Nicholas Lavic. I've
Speaker 9: been an auto worker for just ten years now, eleven
Speaker 9: if you include my temp time. I was actually one
Speaker 9: of the lucky ones that got hired fairly quickly. How
Speaker 9: I came to I'm third generation UAW, so, so my
Speaker 9: family has kind of grown up with this work. My
Speaker 9: grandfather started at AMC in the early sixties. He hired
Speaker 9: into General Motors in Janesville, Wisconsin in sixty seven, So
Speaker 9: that's like how I got into it. Like it was
Speaker 9: always talked about, you know, we always talked about unions
Speaker 9: the auto industry, like whenever autos were good, you know,
Speaker 9: everything was great, but then in the slow times, you know,
Speaker 9: everyone was making cutbacks. So it was something that was
Speaker 9: like very discussed in my family. So I've been I've
Speaker 9: done just about everything in the plant. I've been in material,
Speaker 9: I've been in chassis, I've been in trim, and these
Speaker 9: are all like different departments where like it'll start back
Speaker 9: in stamping where the parts get stamped, the metal gets stamped,
Speaker 9: they'll get put together in body shop get painted. Then
Speaker 9: it'll go to general assembly, which is like trim and chassis.
Speaker 9: So right now, I'm a pool guy in group seven,
Speaker 9: So I will go to any open job in my group,
Speaker 9: or really the entire department if they really need me,
Speaker 9: and I will do that job. My plant runs at
Speaker 9: about fifty eight seconds, so that means every fifty eight
Speaker 9: seconds you're doing a new job, so you have to
Speaker 9: get your work done in that a lot of time,
Speaker 9: otherwise the line's going to go down and if you
Speaker 9: shut the line down, then you know there's hundreds of
Speaker 9: people ahead of you that's no longer working. So there's
Speaker 9: kind of some pressure there, but at most of the
Speaker 9: pressure comes from management to keep that line running and
Speaker 9: not stop it. Like you said, there's it's a lot
Speaker 9: to kind of pack in there. How this struggle came
Speaker 9: to be it it really started a decade ago. You know,
Speaker 9: we had the Great Recession. The auto worker the automakers
Speaker 9: were struggling, and you know, they got the bailout money.
Speaker 9: They came to the UAW and we gave we gave
Speaker 9: concessions to keep our employers open because one we felt
Speaker 9: like we had to, and I mean we kind of did,
Speaker 9: because when you're going through a bankruptcy and like the
Speaker 9: government stipulating, you know, well, you're not going to get
Speaker 9: bailed out. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 9: You're gonna either choose between concessions or potentially having all
Speaker 9: of these people unemployed and the effect that that's going
Speaker 9: to have on the entire national economy. I mean, it's
Speaker 9: a no brainer. And and those concessions they were promised,
Speaker 9: we were going to get those back once they got
Speaker 9: their footing back under him. Well, that never happened. Instead,
Speaker 9: they closed more plants, they closed Lordstown in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 9: we had that entire contract struggle that wasn't in my opinion,
Speaker 9: it didn't go far enough. And then you know, you
Speaker 9: had the corruption scandal, and that was a real galvanizing
Speaker 9: moment for our membership when you have leaders at the
Speaker 9: top and and you know, uh, I think it was
Speaker 9: Ayacoca who said we got to keep them fat, dumb
Speaker 9: and happy. And then you're sitting there and you're wondering
Speaker 9: why our contracts have been what they've been for the
Speaker 9: past few years. So with the reform movement, you know,
Speaker 9: we came in and we had the referendum vote for
Speaker 9: one member, one vote, and with that Admin caucus being
Speaker 9: sole control over our union for the last seventy years,
Speaker 9: we were kind of like, well, what's this going to be.
Speaker 9: But at the same time, you know, this was a
Speaker 9: once in a lifetime chance to win one member, one
Speaker 9: vote because there have been so many reform movements that
Speaker 9: have come before us that have tried to get this
Speaker 9: and tried to win this but have been failed, or
Speaker 9: they have been bullied, or they've been intimidated.
Speaker 3: Until you know.
Speaker 9: Their reform movement was over.
Speaker 3: We pushed through.
Speaker 9: We won one member one vote. It wasn't even close.
Speaker 9: I think it was by three to one margins. I
Speaker 9: want to say it was. It was higher than sixty percent.
Speaker 9: I think it was closer to sixty nine. And then
Speaker 9: we were off to the elections, which is when we
Speaker 9: won our reform slate, which again was another unheard of things.
Speaker 9: And some people in the media say that Sean Fain
Speaker 9: doesn't have a mandate, but when you look at the
Speaker 9: history of our union, we went up against the cack
Speaker 9: that had never been defeated for seventy years, and we
Speaker 9: won every single race that we contested, that's a mandate.
Speaker 9: What's at stake. I think everything's at stake. I think
Speaker 9: the future of auto manufacturing in this nation is at stake.
Speaker 9: I think this is the most consequential contract of my lifetime,
Speaker 9: of my generation, and we got to win what we're
Speaker 9: fighting for because if we don't, the next generation there
Speaker 9: might not be a next generation of autoworkers in this nation.
Speaker 12: Well, let's talk about that for a second. Let's get
Speaker 12: into some of the specifics about what y'all are fighting for.
Speaker 12: Now with this mandate, and I would agree with you.
Speaker 12: I mean, like to given what y'all accomplished in terms
Speaker 12: of reforming your union, one of the biggest unions and
Speaker 12: most story unions in the country after seventy years of
Speaker 12: essential one party rule, Like that's pretty darn significant considering
Speaker 12: what you were going up against, as you said, But
Speaker 12: like I want to like make tangible for people what
Speaker 12: you know, the kind of past regime, you know, like
Speaker 12: what that translated to on the contract side and on
Speaker 12: the union side for y'all, Like what kinds of concessions
Speaker 12: you know, like were workers taking in the auto industry.
Speaker 12: And now that you have reformed your union, you have
Speaker 12: you've been fighting back. I mean, there's always more fighting
Speaker 12: to do. But as you said, you got a real
Speaker 12: opportunity here to, like the teamsters that UPS did actually
Speaker 12: go on the offensive instead of constantly playing defense, which
Speaker 12: you know, American manufacturers and unionized workers they're in have
Speaker 12: been on the back, back foot, on the defensive for many,
Speaker 12: many years because there's always that threat, right if if
Speaker 12: workers demand too much, or you know, if they want
Speaker 12: good paying jobs and a good pension, and you know,
Speaker 12: like no two tier or three tier wage systems. Then
Speaker 12: the bosses could always just threaten to leave. And when
Speaker 12: you have that card in your back pocket, it puts
Speaker 12: labor on the back foot. But then when you combine
Speaker 12: that with a sort of business friendly philosophy in a
Speaker 12: union that is dominated by an admittedly corrupt leadership that
Speaker 12: is not responding to the needs of its members, then
Speaker 12: you get a really like bad you know, you get
Speaker 12: a recipe for disaster there. And that is what I've
Speaker 12: heard from many auto workers over the years, is that,
Speaker 12: you know, we feel like we've been losing ground for decades,
Speaker 12: and you know it only got worse after the Great Recession, right,
Speaker 12: But I think there's a real big lesson here. I
Speaker 12: remember Clayton Clive, a train operator in England who I
Speaker 12: interviewed right here on Breaking Points a couple months ago.
Speaker 12: He said something that really struck me. He said, you know,
Speaker 12: my union is the most democratic area of my life.
Speaker 12: If there's something wrong in my union, and there was
Speaker 12: obviously a lot of things wrong within the UAW, you
Speaker 12: have the chance to fix that, right, you know. And
Speaker 12: you have more of a chance to fix that with
Speaker 12: your coworkers than any of us do with a political party.
Speaker 12: Or a private corporation. Like, just because there's corruption and
Speaker 12: rot in a union doesn't mean that we just say, well,
Speaker 12: unions are corrupt and useless, let's give up on them.
Speaker 12: Like no, you clean house, you fix it, you take
Speaker 12: control of it, and you make it better. And then
Speaker 12: you fight for the contract that you and your members deserve.
Speaker 12: So what are y'all fighting for in this contract and
Speaker 12: how is it different from like the more concessionary trail
Speaker 12: of contracts that you had had under the previous UAW regime.
Speaker 9: So we got we got quite list of demands ending tears.
Speaker 9: So that was one of the things that was born
Speaker 9: about from the Great Recession, where you'd have your traditional
Speaker 9: auto worker that was somebody hired in before I think
Speaker 9: it's two thousand and eight, but it might be two
Speaker 9: thousand and six. I can't remember the exact cutoff date.
Speaker 9: But they have you know, the pension, the retiree healthcare
Speaker 9: they have, they were always full pay. Then you had
Speaker 9: Tier two that came in before or after them after
Speaker 9: the recession, and they started out back when I started,
Speaker 9: it was fifteen seventy eight, now it's sixteen sixty seven.
Speaker 9: And then we didn't have in the beginning, we didn't
Speaker 9: have health care, the same healthcare benefits we didn't have
Speaker 9: we had no opportunity to hit top pay, and then
Speaker 9: those those were kind of built slowly back. So now
Speaker 9: we have a path the top pay. We have the
Speaker 9: same health insurance, but we have a different benefits tier.
Speaker 9: So I don't get a pension. I have a four
Speaker 9: to oh one K that I contribute to, but I
Speaker 9: don't have a pension. I don't have retiree healthcare. I
Speaker 9: don't have the same vacation time that year one or
Speaker 9: traditional autoworkers have. And it was a way for the
Speaker 9: company to save money, but it was also more insidious
Speaker 9: than that. It was their way of eroding solidarity. And
Speaker 9: we've seen this in the past and the labor movement,
Speaker 9: where they've set up different ethnic groups to battle each other. Well,
Speaker 9: now they've kind of evolved that fight and they'll create
Speaker 9: tear structures. So then workers fight workers and pit each
Speaker 9: other each other against each other. That way, another demand
Speaker 9: is getting tempts hired on permanent. In my opinion, there's
Speaker 9: nobody down there that should be there longer than ninety days.
Speaker 3: I was a lucky one.
Speaker 9: I only spent a year and a half until I
Speaker 9: got hired in permanent, one of my good buddies six years,
Speaker 9: six years as attempt. And then after you get hired in,
Speaker 9: you still have an eight year growing scale. So you're
Speaker 9: talking about nearly fourteen years of your working career, almost
Speaker 9: half of your working career, and you can't How can
Speaker 9: you save for retirement when you're barely making enough to
Speaker 9: get by. Another demand is our cola cost of living allowance,
Speaker 9: So whenever the inflation rate goes up, you know, we'd
Speaker 9: get a raise, so we'd make the same amount of
Speaker 9: money despite inflation going up. That was a key demand
Speaker 9: and that was something that was suspended under the recession.
Speaker 9: Another demand is raised for our retirees for too long.
Speaker 9: I'm third generation UAW our retirees. You know, they haven't
Speaker 9: gotten a bump in their pension in so many years.
Speaker 9: And when you retire and you do this work and
Speaker 9: you give thirty years plus of your life to this company,
Speaker 9: you know, that's that's harple tunnel surgery. That's that's surgery
Speaker 9: on your fingers, your shoulders, your knees, your back, Like
Speaker 9: there's a lot that goes into a work. It destroys
Speaker 9: our body and I think the company and the corporation
Speaker 9: has a moral obligation to take care of these retirees
Speaker 9: and give them a raise so they're not becoming destitute.
Speaker 9: I mean, that's it's the same thing that they would
Speaker 9: do for Mary Barra or Carlos Taveras, like they if
Speaker 9: they needed more money, like the corporasure would be like, well,
Speaker 9: here you go. I mean, they got pensions, they got
Speaker 9: millions of dollars. They would cough it up for the CEOs,
Speaker 9: but they don't want to cough it up when it
Speaker 9: comes to the working class. Another thing we want is
Speaker 9: the right to strike over plant closures. I mean, that's huge.
Speaker 9: Sixty five plants in the last twenty years, and I
Speaker 9: like to think about it a completely different way. That's
Speaker 9: sixty five communities in the last twenty years that have
Speaker 9: been destroyed because they made the decision to pull out.
Speaker 9: They made the decision to use those locations as crudgels
Speaker 9: at the negotiation table. And you see it right now
Speaker 9: with Belvedere, they close that leading up to negotiations are
Speaker 9: indefinitely off idled, non out allocated, whatever phrase management wants
Speaker 9: to use, you know. And they did it for a reason.
Speaker 9: They did it so they could use it as leverage
Speaker 9: for negotiations. And it's messed up that the wealthy elite
Speaker 9: does this and they get kind of almost a free
Speaker 9: pass because what they're doing is they're extorting local communities.
Speaker 9: They're extorting the politicians to get tax write offs, like, hey,
Speaker 9: if you want us to keep product in your area,
Speaker 9: you're going to have to give us some money. And
Speaker 9: it's just it's how they've operated for so many years.
Speaker 9: So we want the right to strike over plant closures
Speaker 9: so we can make sure that these good pain American
Speaker 9: jobs stay here in America and support the communities that
Speaker 9: we we support. Gosh, there's there's there's a lot another
Speaker 9: demand and I'll just touch on this quickly. As a
Speaker 9: thirty two hour work week, so with ev production coming,
Speaker 9: you know, EV's are going to take anywhere up to
Speaker 9: thirty percent less manpower to assemble allegedly. So with that
Speaker 9: thirty percent, we think that that increased productivity should help
Speaker 9: benefit the workers and and also behind that, you know,
Speaker 9: for so many years we've worked seven six, seven days
Speaker 9: a week, ten twelve hour days, you know, and and
Speaker 9: it's time that you know, we we are rewarded for
Speaker 9: that hard work and that increased productivity rate.
Speaker 12: Well, I mean, and that's that's a big one. I mean,
Speaker 12: these are all big ones, right, I mean And and yeah,
Speaker 12: like like you said, like y'all are coming in with
Speaker 12: a law list of demands that I'm sure have got
Speaker 12: to put the big three automakers on their back foot
Speaker 12: a little bit, and they'd be like, oh man, who
Speaker 12: are these guys? Right, because like, and that's I think, like,
Speaker 12: what is so crucial about this moment and why it's
Speaker 12: also so exciting. But you know, there's so much riding
Speaker 12: on all of us supporting this struggle and ensuring that
Speaker 12: our fellow workers like Nick win this struggle, right, because
Speaker 12: it carries over. This is a perfect example, right, the
Speaker 12: teamsters negotiating with UPS over the past year. They really
Speaker 12: won a crucial victory by getting UPS to eliminate a
Speaker 12: two tiered position for the drivers of the package cars.
Speaker 12: This is the twenty two to four drivers, a tier
Speaker 12: that was created to essentially allow new hires who were
Speaker 12: driving those trucks to make like a lot less than
Speaker 12: the people who were hired before them. And so you
Speaker 12: have people on this same trucks doing the same job
Speaker 12: making wildly disparate amounts in the same way that you
Speaker 12: have on the you know, shop floor in an auto plant.
Speaker 12: You got tempts, you got tier one, tier two. But
Speaker 12: what we're talking about here in a lot of respects
Speaker 12: is equal pay for equal work, right, and you know,
Speaker 12: like equal protections for all workers who are doing that work.
Speaker 12: But the bosses have created these tiers that, as Nick said,
Speaker 12: it creates resentment because you're looking over your shoulder at
Speaker 12: the guy who's doing the same job as you, but
Speaker 12: is making maybe ten, twelve, thirteen dollars more than you
Speaker 12: as a pension. Right, that's going to seep into your
Speaker 12: subconscious and the bosses know that. That's why they do it.
Speaker 12: They also do it to try to save money, of course,
Speaker 12: But anyway, I mean with the teamsters getting ups to
Speaker 12: say we're going to eliminate the twenty two fours and
Speaker 12: we're going to convert those jobs into full time positions
Speaker 12: at the full tier level, like that was a pretty
Speaker 12: significant moment, and I feel like a lot of union
Speaker 12: and a lot of workers saw that as like, okay,
Speaker 12: it's open season on two tier. Now, we got to
Speaker 12: go for the juggular and we got to fight to
Speaker 12: overturn this scourge that has plagued the auto industry among
Speaker 12: many other industries. Right, So, like, I think that that's
Speaker 12: a really important issue to highlight. I just wanted to
Speaker 12: comment on that for viewers and listeners. But I want
Speaker 12: to pick up also on kind of what you were
Speaker 12: saying about the companies themselves, right, and the kind of
Speaker 12: situation that we're in, because I see this all the time,
Speaker 12: not only having lived in the Midwest, but talking to
Speaker 12: workers for years throughout you know, like the manufacturing sector
Speaker 12: and the former manufacturing communities that have been destroyed because
Speaker 12: companies have pulled out their operations and ripped the economic
Speaker 12: heart out of communities like Youngstown, Ohio, where the famous
Speaker 12: Lord'stown plant was shuttered a few years ago or idled.
Speaker 12: You know, they don't say that they're closing it because
Speaker 12: then they would be violating the contract. But that's the
Speaker 12: story for another day. So this is very personal to
Speaker 12: me in a lot of respects. I'm not an autoworker,
Speaker 12: I've never been one, and I've never been in the UAW.
Speaker 12: But what I mean by that is, in the very
Speaker 12: first season of my podcast, Working People, the first story
Speaker 12: that I got really sucked into were the GM layoffs.
Speaker 12: They were announced right after Thanksgiving in twenty eighteen, literally
Speaker 12: the day that people got back from Thanksgiving break, a
Speaker 12: few weeks before Christmas. You know, these massive layoffs by
Speaker 12: a company that had gotten a massive tax break from
Speaker 12: Donald Trump's government and then was in the black and
Speaker 12: making a whole lot of money and had really kind
Speaker 12: of come roaring back since the dark days of the recession.
Speaker 12: And instead of repaying workers like yourself for the sacrifices
Speaker 12: you made in the Great Recession, they repaid you all
Speaker 12: with layoffs and plant closures or idling of plants. Right,
Speaker 12: is this are the kind of companies that we're talking about,
Speaker 12: and they got bailed out by the taxpayers to the
Speaker 12: tune of over eighty billion dollars, right, I mean, Like,
Speaker 12: so I wanted to ask, like again, with all that
Speaker 12: in mind, like I wanted to ask, like, what kind
Speaker 12: of companies are we dealing with here? Like what do
Speaker 12: you think folks watching this need to understand about companies
Speaker 12: that can, you know, take taxpayer money in the midst
Speaker 12: of recession, you know, force concessions on their workers, promise
Speaker 12: workers like you that they're gonna pay you back when
Speaker 12: they're profitable again, only a few years later to get
Speaker 12: massive windfall profits from tax breaks and still layoff people,
Speaker 12: and still close plants, and still destroy communities like Lordstown
Speaker 12: where Donald Trump in twenty seventeen came and how lo
Speaker 12: rally and told workers at in Youngstown don't sell your
Speaker 12: homes because I'm going to bring manufacturing back. And then
Speaker 12: a year later, a company that got a massive tax
Speaker 12: break from him still closed the plant. But like, I
Speaker 12: don't mean to drag this into a political thing. I'm
Speaker 12: just saying I was there covering all of this. I
Speaker 12: was talking to people in Ohio, auto workers in Detroit
Speaker 12: and other parts of Michigan, in Oshawa in Canada, right,
Speaker 12: and I heard the despair and the hurt in their
Speaker 12: voices at what the companies like GM were doing to them.
Speaker 12: So I wanted to ask you, this is a very
Speaker 12: long question, I apologize, what kind of companies are we
Speaker 12: dealing with here?
Speaker 14: Right?
Speaker 12: They're raking in billions of dollars in profit, They've made
Speaker 12: a quarter of a trillion dollars over the past year collectively.
Speaker 12: What future do they want for the auto industry? And
Speaker 12: what future are you guys in the UAW fighting for You.
Speaker 9: Left out the part where they also got on average
Speaker 9: a forty percent increase in the CEO. Okay, of course
Speaker 9: this is it's the same story that you hear and
Speaker 9: you've covered throughout the entire Roust belt. These companies, like
Speaker 9: Sean president Sean Fagin said, they worship at the altar
Speaker 9: of profit. Their only goal is to increase their bottom line.
Speaker 9: That's what they want. They want to show to the
Speaker 9: shareholders that they're going to pay out dividends to like, hey,
Speaker 9: look guys, we're doing it while ignoring the worker on
Speaker 9: the line. That's that's actually creating the profit. These are corporations.
Speaker 9: And I feel bad saying this because I'm employed by it,
Speaker 9: but it's these are corporations that their their goal is
Speaker 9: to they when they look it out right, they they
Speaker 9: think they talk about competitiveness, which is really just code
Speaker 9: word for a race to the bottom. They will close
Speaker 9: a plant in America, ship it down to Mexico where
Speaker 9: they can really exploit the workers down there and the
Speaker 9: environmental laws. Workers in Mexico are paid sub four dollars
Speaker 9: an hour, and then well then the argument it becomes, well,
Speaker 9: if they don't do that, then the labor costs are
Speaker 9: going to eat up the entire profit mark. And it's
Speaker 9: just simply not true because if that was true, when
Speaker 9: they ship these jobs down in Mexico, these vehicles would
Speaker 9: come back and they'd cost less. But they're they're building
Speaker 9: trucks down there and they're shipping them up here and
Speaker 9: they still cost eighty thousand. So it's not it's not
Speaker 9: the workers' wages. It's really just these companies desire to
Speaker 9: increase their bottom line and they don't. They don't they
Speaker 9: don't think about the human costs. They don't think about
Speaker 9: the people like my mother from James Will, Wisconsin, who
Speaker 9: had her her daughters have children, and she's been in
Speaker 9: Kansas City for the last ten years, so in many aspects,
Speaker 9: you know, she travels back, we travel back, and every
Speaker 9: time we see them, you know, they're they're six months older,
Speaker 9: they're a year older. So we're talking about the human
Speaker 9: cost of of what they what they're doing when they
Speaker 9: only talk about the profit costs. Everything is at stake
Speaker 9: in this contract negotiation. Like I said before, this is
Speaker 9: this is a fight not just for our hay and
Speaker 9: benefits and and the retirees and and everything else. This
Speaker 9: is this is a fight for America's working class. If
Speaker 9: we can't win it, if we can't stop it as
Speaker 9: as labor in America, what's that going to do for
Speaker 9: the non union shops. And and that's what we're thinking
Speaker 9: about as we go into this. You know, this, this
Speaker 9: contract is going to have a massive ripple, especially if
Speaker 9: we win a historic contract like the Teamsters just one
Speaker 9: that's gonna have a reverberating effect down the line through
Speaker 9: all the suppliers, even through the non union automakers in
Speaker 9: the South. And that's another thing they don't tell you
Speaker 9: when they talk about competitiveness. You know, when we get it,
Speaker 9: that also makes their rivals have to pay more and
Speaker 9: increase it because otherwise they're going to lose their top
Speaker 9: talent to the automaker, the big three. So yeah, it's
Speaker 9: just these these companies just they care nothing more about,
Speaker 9: nothing more than their bottom line. And it's sad.
Speaker 11: It is.
Speaker 12: I mean, you know, like you said, just like the
Speaker 12: railroads that we've been covering, right, I mean, here's an
Speaker 12: industry where you know workers, you know, it was one
Speaker 12: of the best blue collar jobs that you could get
Speaker 12: without a college degree, and like they have turned a
Speaker 12: once good job into a miserable experience. They've run the
Speaker 12: supply chain into the ground. Workers are quitting in record numbers,
Speaker 12: catastrophes like East Palestine are happening over a thousand derailments
Speaker 12: a year. But the rail companies are making record profits,
Speaker 12: and like stock buybacks and shareholder dividends and executive pay
Speaker 12: are higher than they've ever been. So like someone's winning
Speaker 12: and the rest of us are losing here, and that
Speaker 12: very much also includes the auto industry. And you know,
Speaker 12: I think that's why this is such a crucial fight,
Speaker 12: as you so beautifully said, not just for folks like
Speaker 12: yourself in the auto industry, but for the working class
Speaker 12: writ large, because we've got to dig our heels in
Speaker 12: the ground and push back somehow, otherwise we are all
Speaker 12: going to be in a perpetual race to the bottom,
Speaker 12: as Bernie Sanders famously said. And on that note, man,
Speaker 12: because I got to let you go, but I really
Speaker 12: appreciate this, But with the last like minute or two
Speaker 12: that I've got you, I just wanted to ask if
Speaker 12: there was anything else that you wanted to highlight for
Speaker 12: people watching, and what can people watching do to support
Speaker 12: you and your fellow UAW members in this contract fight,
Speaker 12: whether you end up going on strike in a month
Speaker 12: or not.
Speaker 9: Well, one way they can get involved is they can
Speaker 9: actually go to the uaw's website and they can sign
Speaker 9: up to receive notifications. Another thing that anybody can do
Speaker 9: is come and join us. If we end up out
Speaker 9: on strike in September fourteenth, come and join us on
Speaker 9: the picket line. You know, talk to us, hear our story.
Speaker 9: Because I'm sure you know this as you've covered workers.
Speaker 9: But when when you're at the direct action and you're
Speaker 9: actually talking to them, you're going to find out that
Speaker 9: you know, in my plant of about two thousand, that's
Speaker 9: two thousand different stories, that's two thousand different hurts. That's
Speaker 9: two to thousand different issues that they got going on
Speaker 9: and why they submitted demand X, Y, and Z to
Speaker 9: better their lives and help out their coworkers. So really,
Speaker 9: just just get involved, share our content, and just stand
Speaker 9: with us, because we're not labor, doesn't We in the
Speaker 9: UAW have never just fought for ourselves. We've always engaged
Speaker 9: in a fight while also thinking about how is this
Speaker 9: going to benefit the American working class as a whole.
Speaker 9: A rising tide lifts all ships, and that's what we're
Speaker 9: trying to do. We're trying to change the dynamic of
Speaker 9: the conversation of American labor in this nation. So whatever
Speaker 9: you can do, whatever you can give, whatever you can donate,
Speaker 9: even if it's just the case of water you found
Speaker 9: out on sale, drive it down to your local UAW
Speaker 9: hall and they'd be more than happy to accept it.
Speaker 9: And we're thankful for any support that we can get.
Speaker 12: Hell yeah, So that is Nick Levick, a General Motors autoworker,
Speaker 12: a rank and file member of UAW Local thirty one
Speaker 12: in Kansas City and an activist with the Caucus Unite
Speaker 12: All Workers for Democracy. Nick, thank you so much for
Speaker 12: joining us today on Breaking Points. Brother, I really really
Speaker 12: appreciate it.
Speaker 9: Thanks for having me anytime.
Speaker 12: So that was Nick Livick, a General Motors autoworker, a
Speaker 12: rank and file member of UAW Local thirty one in
Speaker 12: Kansas City, and an activist with the Caucus Unite All
Speaker 12: Workers for Democracy, and that will do it for us today.
Speaker 12: Thank you so much for watching this segment with Breaking Points,
Speaker 12: and be sure to subscribe to my news outlet, the
Speaker 12: Real News Network with links in the description to this video.
Speaker 12: See you soon for the next edition of the Art
Speaker 12: of Class War. Take care of yourselves, take care of
Speaker 12: each other, solidarity forever.
Speaker 5: I vote, I vote.
Speaker 15: Guys. Do you have opinions on third party candidates?
Speaker 16: Sir?
Speaker 15: Do you have opinions on third party?
Speaker 17: Kid?
Speaker 13: I don't like Republican or Democrat. The third party would
Speaker 13: be nice, but there's no way in hell that they
Speaker 13: would come close to winning.
Speaker 15: Where are you guys from.
Speaker 18: I'm pretty crazy Russia?
Speaker 15: You too hate each other?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean like I love if we have no party,
Speaker 5: but I'd still vote just like for the person instead
Speaker 5: of feeling like you have to be like committed to
Speaker 5: a Southern party so that people feel that. And then
Speaker 5: they taught people who like even though they like their.
Speaker 9: Party and probably hate their candidates.
Speaker 15: You know what's your major finance? How did I know that?
Speaker 15: It's the poll up. That's how I know.
Speaker 7: Sometimes it tends to be too like biprecated, where it's
Speaker 7: like Republican Democrat and then you pick one or the other.
Speaker 7: I think we need more choices.
Speaker 16: Usually, the way third parties are talked about in the
Speaker 16: media usually look something like this and.
Speaker 19: A head to head matchup between Trump and Briden.
Speaker 10: They're tied the two candidates of forty four percent.
Speaker 2: But when you add in Cornell West, Wow, he becomes
Speaker 2: a spoiler.
Speaker 3: Both sides are worried about the spoiler effect.
Speaker 8: Predicts say it's a spoiler that could pull moderate votes
Speaker 8: from President Biden.
Speaker 19: But my suspicion was that that does not summarize how
Speaker 19: most people feel about alternative candidates. Now, regardless of this
Speaker 19: your map of the situation, because yes, of course, in
Speaker 19: twenty twenty four, either a Republican or a Democrat is
Speaker 19: going to win. But I think that most people share
Speaker 19: a common frustration with the system and would probably be
Speaker 19: more than happy to see the duopoly go away.
Speaker 14: Do you have opinions on third party candidates? I feel
Speaker 14: like you do well, but yeah, a little.
Speaker 15: Bit, could I get them from you?
Speaker 10: We're a mess. I don't know if we can fix it,
Speaker 10: but but I don't take a third party's I don't
Speaker 10: think that's the answer to it. The system may not
Speaker 10: be perfect, but when you go to a third candidate,
Speaker 10: you now have someone elected who has not been elected
Speaker 10: by the majority of the public.
Speaker 20: Even if it's a small percentage. But if if it's
Speaker 20: a new thing, it's a if it's a different thing.
Speaker 20: It's good to you know, give it space because what
Speaker 20: if that's the next big thing, you know, you know
Speaker 20: what I mean, or like it's it's something that actually
Speaker 20: but in time more people are gonna resonate with. So
Speaker 20: we have to give chance to the smaller opinions as well.
Speaker 11: Should everyone have a fair shot because our two party
Speaker 11: system leads to a lot of very segregated opinions that
Speaker 11: rile up certain fan bases that people could divide us
Speaker 11: versus just like actually having people who want good change.
Speaker 18: Well, as a foreign person, I would say, it's when
Speaker 18: you come back and the Russian person, which situation comes
Speaker 18: is shitty, I say, it's very nice, just like this
Speaker 18: system is very cool that it's like two parties are
Speaker 18: kind of bottling within each other, so it gives like
Speaker 18: you know, like in Russia they have one president for
Speaker 18: like decades, like here you actually have to switch and
Speaker 18: you have to change, and the third parties are also
Speaker 18: the one who bring more change and who actually gives
Speaker 18: more opinion to people. That is like not only on
Speaker 18: the two different sides.
Speaker 15: Do you think third party candidates are spoilers?
Speaker 21: No, I think that anyone candidate like they're gonna get
Speaker 21: their votes regardless. I think of a third party candidate
Speaker 21: taking votes away from quote unquote your party, you're probably
Speaker 21: just not doing a good enough job to get your
Speaker 21: fan base to come to you.
Speaker 15: They spoil racy. Yeah, they totally do.
Speaker 13: Like I'm kind of hoping Trump runs is a third
Speaker 13: party to destroy the Republican Party because they would get
Speaker 13: dismantled if if he ran third party, or nobody ran
Speaker 13: third party, they would shut down whatever side they kind
Speaker 13: of lean with.
Speaker 10: If you take Ross Burrow, I mean, that's what happened
Speaker 10: to Bush basically pulled from that crowd. Now I'm not
Speaker 10: saying the person went in that was bad. I'm just
Speaker 10: saying that's what happened. But you know, maybe this sim
Speaker 10: it's the best thing that could happen.
Speaker 7: I don't know, in the sense where like there's one
Speaker 7: person that you specifically do not want, you would have
Speaker 7: to like allocate all the votes to like another thing
Speaker 7: just to get that person to be like competitive. But like,
Speaker 7: I think that is like a slippery slope. Though it
Speaker 7: has like a trickle effect of like emphasizing just two people,
Speaker 7: So it's kind of dangerous. That's why I think about it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, again, you know, there might be somebody has somebody
Speaker 10: great to say, and then that would be nice to
Speaker 10: have intelligent adults in there. I don't know. You know,
Speaker 10: my gut feeling has always been two parties and have
Speaker 10: a personal electric.
Speaker 14: Do you feel like we we get enough information about
Speaker 14: third parties in the media or no?
Speaker 15: Not at all, Not at all.
Speaker 13: In fact, I mean, how many people ran on the
Speaker 13: presidential ticket in twenty twenty sixteen different parties and what
Speaker 13: ninety eight percent of it went to the two Democrat
Speaker 13: and Republican parties. So yeah, I mean I wish we
Speaker 13: had more information about it.
Speaker 15: Some kind of going and to our media is also required.
Speaker 21: You can easily change the post of election by being
Speaker 21: a bias media. If someone's you know, influencing the media,
Speaker 21: that can you know, influence the election.
Speaker 15: In a negato, I actually.
Speaker 13: Don't wish we should we had parties at all. I
Speaker 13: wish we voted on platforms. I don't think you should
Speaker 13: have people involved at all. I think you should all
Speaker 13: be about you vote for these platforms and then the
Speaker 13: person who runs for office has a specific platform that
Speaker 13: they line up with, and whatever platforms line up with
Speaker 13: that candidate, that's a win. I don't even think we
Speaker 13: should know their aims until the elections are over.
Speaker 3: But no parties.
Speaker 5: I want no parties, no parties, no part la, no labels.
Speaker 5: People just go out and be like, he's my things.
Speaker 5: And if you if you're with it, you're with it.
Speaker 5: If you're not, you're not.
Speaker 9: That's all I gott.
Speaker 15: Have you ever voted third party?
Speaker 13: We're from Utah and so it's gonna go Republican no
Speaker 13: matter what.
Speaker 15: But voting local in.
Speaker 13: Utah matters, so third party they always lose. But yeah,
Speaker 13: I mean I'm all about third party if it's the
Speaker 13: right candidate.
Speaker 15: Who did you vote for in twenty sixteen, Rry Johnson?
Speaker 15: Yeah that's who I was. Yeah, he was the one
Speaker 15: I aligned the most with.
Speaker 13: And I mean Hillary was part of the system, and
Speaker 13: I just not like I didn't I hated her.
Speaker 20: I liked her more than Trump.
Speaker 13: But it's just something about her because she was part
Speaker 13: of the whole system that's already there.
Speaker 6: That's why I feel.
Speaker 13: Disconnected from everything, because yeah, I if I would say
Speaker 13: I'm more, I don't.
Speaker 15: I'm super independent.
Speaker 13: I don't align with any party specifically, I lean Democrat,
Speaker 13: but everything overall, I would say, I'm going to look
Speaker 13: at the individual person.
Speaker 14: If you couldn't have voted for Gary Johnson, would you
Speaker 14: have voted for Hillary or Trump?
Speaker 15: For a probably, I mean it was down to the
Speaker 15: two of them. I would have voted for Hillary. Let
Speaker 15: me ask you a question.
Speaker 14: If you decided to vote for let's say Fornell West
Speaker 14: if he didn't run, would you then vote for Joe Biden?
Speaker 15: Or would you just say.
Speaker 17: Well, there's a Marianne I might vote for her. Her
Speaker 17: talking points have been interesting to me. I mean, I'm
Speaker 17: still looking at the other candidates, like but you know,
Speaker 17: if there's nobody that interests me and things that I'm
Speaker 17: passionate about or that affect other people and that affect
Speaker 17: like real people, then I'm not really interested in voting
Speaker 17: because then it's just like what does it mean?
Speaker 15: And so there you have it.
Speaker 16: Many people see a value in alternative candidates well beyond
Speaker 16: how they may or may not get in the way
Speaker 16: of the establishment's choices. So if you found this video interesting,
Speaker 16: be sure to share it. If you have ideas for
Speaker 16: other videos like this, leave a comment below. I would
Speaker 16: love to hear about them. Make sure you are subscribed
Speaker 16: to Breaking Points and I will see you in the
Speaker 16: next one.