Speaker 1: All Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could Happen Here podcast about things falling
Speaker 2: apart how to put it back together again, made by
Speaker 2: iHeartMedia and I am your host, Nia Wong. So we
Speaker 2: have been you know, this is our This is going
Speaker 2: to be our first union doubleheader. We have two union
Speaker 2: episodes in a row. And part of why we're doing
Speaker 2: this is that we've we've been covering a lot of
Speaker 2: very sort of very fast drives, very low to the
Speaker 2: ground drives in small shops recently, and today we are
Speaker 2: going to be covering a shop that is not like that.
Speaker 2: It is very large, it is quite geographically diverse, and
Speaker 2: it has been organizing for a very long time. And
Speaker 2: that union is the iHeart Podcast Union. And with me
Speaker 2: to talk about this is Tracy Wilson from Suffie Missing
Speaker 2: History Class and Nomes Griffin, who is a producer on
Speaker 2: many staggeringly too many shows. And yeah, they are both
Speaker 2: on the bargaining committee of the iHeart Podcast Union. So yeah,
Speaker 2: Tracy Nolmes, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: No, thank you, We're glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to talk to you too.
Speaker 2: So all right, first thing, first thing about this iHeart
Speaker 2: Podcast Union. We haven't covered many media unions on this podcast.
Speaker 2: We probably should do more, but it's been a sort
Speaker 2: of product of of what kind I don't know, there's certa,
Speaker 2: there are certain kinds of stuff that we've been focusing on,
Speaker 2: but now now we're doing media unions. So the place
Speaker 2: I wanted to start talking about the iHeart Podcast union
Speaker 2: is the sort of scale of it. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: people everywhere, like there are there are there are people
Speaker 2: who are where there there's one union member in the
Speaker 2: entire city, so you know, can we And it's also
Speaker 2: been going on for a very very long time, so
Speaker 2: I wanted to sort of ask, can you talk about
Speaker 2: how this whole process started and kind of how long
Speaker 2: it's been going on?
Speaker 3: So long? So long? I I was scrolling through my
Speaker 3: phone today trying to remember when when was the first
Speaker 3: time that I was contacted about unionizing, because the first
Speaker 3: thing that happened for me was being organized into the
Speaker 3: union before I Heart recognized us, and that was in
Speaker 3: the fall of twenty twenty. In the fall of twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: I got a text from my friend Lauren that was like,
Speaker 3: can I talk to you about a kind of a
Speaker 3: work thing. It's a kind of work. And I said sure.
Speaker 3: And the question that Lauren had to ask me was
Speaker 3: some of us are talking about unionizing, how would you
Speaker 3: feel about that? And I said, okay, I need to
Speaker 3: check my agreement that I already have with iHeart, because
Speaker 3: a lot of us that I have individual agreements with
Speaker 3: the company. I have worked in the job that I
Speaker 3: have now in some capacity for almost nineteen years, so
Speaker 3: I've been here forever and I already had this. I
Speaker 3: was like, I need to find out does disagreement prohibit
Speaker 3: me from doing this? It did not, And so I said,
Speaker 3: all right, if I'm eligible to be in the union,
Speaker 3: I'm on board. If I'm not eligible to be in
Speaker 3: the union, you have my full support. And that was
Speaker 3: in like November of twenty twenty, which is eons i'd
Speaker 3: go at this.
Speaker 4: Point, Yeah, it's been I came on to the company
Speaker 4: and the union was already in negotiations, Like, yeah, it
Speaker 4: had been a union already. I started in January of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three, and I came like straight into the
Speaker 4: we're in bargaining sessions process.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the organizing process took definitely more than a year.
Speaker 3: And that was more than a year of people talking
Speaker 3: to all of their colleagues about whether they wanted to
Speaker 3: form a union, what would be the benefits of forming
Speaker 3: a union, all of that stuff. And so we have
Speaker 3: three main offices at iHeart, there's New York, LA and Atlanta,
Speaker 3: So there were people who were doing things on the
Speaker 3: ground with people locally to them. But then also I
Speaker 3: think it's something like a third of our unit is
Speaker 3: not actually local to one of these offices. I'm not
Speaker 3: local to in office. I live north of Boston. We
Speaker 3: have like three unit members in the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: So this is like a really long process of getting
Speaker 3: everybody on board and getting everybody to commit to saying
Speaker 3: they wanted to be in the union, and then eventually
Speaker 3: to sign union cards after all of that, that took
Speaker 3: more than a year. We informed management of our intent
Speaker 3: to unionize in December of twenty twenty one, and they
Speaker 3: recognized us about six weeks later in February of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. That took longer than we would have wanted.
Speaker 3: There was some back and forth about exactly what roles
Speaker 3: would be included in the union, and then also the
Speaker 3: winter holidays happened in the middle of that, which, yes,
Speaker 3: like those weeks don't exist for business purposes in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways. We still got to do podcasts for them,
Speaker 3: but nobody's at work, and so, you know, we were
Speaker 3: recognized without having to go through an election with the NLRB,
Speaker 3: which was great, but it did sort of feel like
Speaker 3: it took a little bit to finally get the recognition
Speaker 3: and then we started bargaining in May, so a couple
Speaker 3: of months after that, and that was two years ago
Speaker 3: that we started bargaining.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah it's May now, it is May.
Speaker 3: It is almost June today.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has been a really quite long bargaining process,
Speaker 2: which I think, I mean, this is something we've talked
Speaker 2: about on the show before that this is a pretty
Speaker 2: This is a thing that happens a lot for especially
Speaker 2: for first contracts, is that companies will try to sort
Speaker 2: of just wait the union out and try to because
Speaker 2: you know, the if if you look at like the
Speaker 2: places where unions fail, it's they either fail in sort
Speaker 2: of like they okay, there's there's there's the failures where
Speaker 2: like nothing ever gets started. There's the failures where they
Speaker 2: they lose an election or they don't have enough people
Speaker 2: to sign cards. And then the third place that they
Speaker 2: fail is contract is the first contract. And so this is,
Speaker 2: you know, a situation that I guess is not unexpected,
Speaker 2: but is also negotiating a contract for two years just
Speaker 2: is not very fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 3: Our colleagues at WGAE, when we got ready to start bargaining,
Speaker 3: tried to prepare us for the fact that eighteen months
Speaker 3: to two years is fairly normal in the world of
Speaker 3: media to bargain a first contract. I will readily acknowledge
Speaker 3: that I was overly optimistic when we started. I would
Speaker 3: not go so far as to say naive, but like
Speaker 3: I thought it was a really good sign that the
Speaker 3: company had voluntarily recognized us. I thought it was a
Speaker 3: really good sign that WGAE had successfully negotiated other contracts
Speaker 3: and that we were sort of drawing from a lot
Speaker 3: of that contract. Language is our starting point, and I
Speaker 3: feel like when you have all of the unionized podcast
Speaker 3: shops having similar language to me, that language is now
Speaker 3: becoming industry standard. So I expected less of a fight
Speaker 3: over a lot of that than what we actually got.
Speaker 3: And then also management hired an attorney that has negotiated
Speaker 3: a lot of other contracts with WGAE was just all
Speaker 3: stuff that I thought was seemed favorable, and then when
Speaker 3: we actually got into the bargaining process, it has gone
Speaker 3: on for so long and there have been so many
Speaker 3: things that it has felt like we're just going around
Speaker 3: in circles at the table.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So before we get into kind of what issues
Speaker 2: are being circled around and what management has been doing,
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about what bargaining a contract is
Speaker 2: actually like because I think most of the people listening
Speaker 2: to this have never done it and only kind of
Speaker 2: have a vague idea of what that means. So can
Speaker 2: you sort of walk us through the I don't know.
Speaker 2: So there's a week that has a bargaining session, can
Speaker 2: you walk through the process of what goes into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: In a week where we might have a bargaining session,
Speaker 4: say we have a bargaining session on Wednesday and Thursday
Speaker 4: as a committee will meet probably the Monday the Tuesday
Speaker 4: to prepare whatever our counter proposals will be. So whether
Speaker 4: or not that's on economics. So we're getting back and
Speaker 4: we're adjusting our salary proposals that are going to go
Speaker 4: across the table or we're adjusting what we're asking for
Speaker 4: in severance, how many weeks of severance we're asking for.
Speaker 4: So we'll spend some time as a committee going through
Speaker 4: those proposals and basing our decisions off of like, this
Speaker 4: is where we have an intention of landing, this is
Speaker 4: where management is right now, this is what in our
Speaker 4: conversations with the other unit members we've figured out is
Speaker 4: most important.
Speaker 1: To people, So we'll make counters based on that.
Speaker 4: Lately, our sessions have those sessions have looked like preparing
Speaker 4: to who in the committee is going to be presenting
Speaker 4: that contract language across the table, So we'll divvy up
Speaker 4: those presentations and Tracy might present on diversity, I might
Speaker 4: present about the salary minimums. We might have another committee
Speaker 4: member present on severans and things like that. So we'll
Speaker 4: sort out who is going to say what, and we'll
Speaker 4: also plan out any other sort of editorializing that we're
Speaker 4: going to do across the table, like this is why
Speaker 4: we're making a move here, because it's important to our
Speaker 4: unit for this reason, We've also planned out actions that
Speaker 4: we're going to do across the table and having unit
Speaker 4: members read testimonials about certain contract items. So those are
Speaker 4: all of the things that we might prepare for ahead
Speaker 4: of the bargaining session, and then on the actual day
Speaker 4: of bargaining session, we'll go in and we'll meet as
Speaker 4: a committee in the morning. We're either presenting first our
Speaker 4: proposals or management is presenting to us. As a bargaining
Speaker 4: committee will be there to hear the proposals. There may
Speaker 4: be some session that are more important than others, so
Speaker 4: we'll invite the whole unit to hear those proposals, and
Speaker 4: we will over those two days sort of go back
Speaker 4: and forth, presenting across the table what our proposals are
Speaker 4: and the counter proposals, and with the idea of like
Speaker 4: getting closer to a contract that is fair and like
Speaker 4: Tracy said earlier, industry standard.
Speaker 3: That sums it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess this leads us to the second
Speaker 2: part of contract negotiations, which is management's counter proposals. So,
Speaker 2: you know something, something I think is kind of surprising
Speaker 2: when when you do this for the first time, is
Speaker 2: the extent to which management simply will not show up
Speaker 2: on time. Yeah, yeah, So, how has it actually been
Speaker 2: sitting across the table from management and you know, hearing
Speaker 2: their counter proposals and dealing with whenever they show up.
Speaker 3: All of my bargaining so far has been happening on
Speaker 3: the other side of a zoom or a team's screen,
Speaker 3: since I'm remote to everybody else, which is a blessing
Speaker 3: and a curse, right, I have kind of a buffer.
Speaker 3: I'm not having to directly look at the faces of
Speaker 3: the people who are coming in with salary proposals that
Speaker 3: are dramatically less than what we proposed and what we
Speaker 3: feel as industry standard at this point. But it also
Speaker 3: means that like I'm by myself, I don't have somebody
Speaker 3: near me to when like management leaves the room personally
Speaker 3: react with. We kind of go around the circle in
Speaker 3: the whoever's in the room and on the screen to
Speaker 3: sort of say our reactions, but like it's lonely sometimes
Speaker 3: to do it from afar, I do definitely have to
Speaker 3: practice keeping my expression neutral because sometimes what we are
Speaker 3: hearing is not neutral expression territory. And I also really
Speaker 3: was not totally prepared to hear management justify their positions
Speaker 3: on things like I will feel strongly that the correct
Speaker 3: and most ethical thing to do is a particular thing,
Speaker 3: and then management will explain their position on something and
Speaker 3: I'll sort of be like, that's that's not the decision
Speaker 3: I would like you to be making at all. And
Speaker 3: I'm a little upset that I just heard you say
Speaker 3: that just now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And I'm in Atlanta. So most of our bargaining sessions
Speaker 4: have happened in Atlanta. We have also have them in
Speaker 4: New yorker le but so I have been in person
Speaker 4: for most of the sitting down across from management and
Speaker 4: like waiting a few hours after when they said they
Speaker 4: would be ready to present their proposals, And it is
Speaker 4: like tense and frustrating to sit in that and to
Speaker 4: Tracy's point, like it is nice that we have the
Speaker 4: rest of the committee with us to or whoever is
Speaker 4: in Atlanta with us to sort of share in that together.
Speaker 4: But the energy does get really tense at times, especially
Speaker 4: in those situations where we've presented, hey, we would like,
Speaker 4: however many days of bereavement leave so we can grieve
Speaker 4: our family members, and then management comes back with an
Speaker 4: offer that's like, well, what about just a couple of
Speaker 4: days to grieve your dead family member? And so in
Speaker 4: those situations where it's like, do you think of me
Speaker 4: as a fellow human being, deserving of these like very
Speaker 4: basic things to make my life.
Speaker 1: Livable, and then their answer sort of feels.
Speaker 4: Like a no, and you kind of just have to
Speaker 4: like sit in that in person while they say it
Speaker 4: to your face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, especially when it's something that personal,
Speaker 2: or it's that or if it's something that parental leave,
Speaker 2: where you know, this is your child, right, and yeah,
Speaker 2: you're sitting across the table from someone being like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: you actually you should get like two days to deal
Speaker 2: with this. It's just a brutal we had.
Speaker 3: It was a few months ago. We had a session
Speaker 3: where we had a lot of testimonials that were accompanying
Speaker 3: our actual contract proposals, and some of them were read
Speaker 3: by the person who had written the testimonial, and some
Speaker 3: of them were read by a different bargaining committee member
Speaker 3: because somebody was just more comfortable remaining anonymous and having
Speaker 3: somebody do that for them. And we had testimonials that
Speaker 3: were all over the map in terms of things that
Speaker 3: we were still in the process of bargaining, So we
Speaker 3: had diversity testimonials, we had testimonials about parental leave, all
Speaker 3: of this stuff, and one of the things that wound
Speaker 3: up being just enormously frustrating was that it felt like
Speaker 3: we went through all that and we presented so many
Speaker 3: things about why this matters so much to all of us,
Speaker 3: and the next round of counter proposals that we got
Speaker 3: we're like the same negligible movements as from before. We
Speaker 3: had all read all of the testimonials. And that was
Speaker 3: not my favorite day of bargaining by far.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, that one was not not fun to be
Speaker 1: in on.
Speaker 2: And we are back. So, I mean, we've talked a
Speaker 2: little bit about kind of belief stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: we've talked a little bit about some of the issues
Speaker 2: that have been stuck in negotiations for two years. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I wanted to sort of see, you know, talk talk
Speaker 2: about sort of the specifics of of where of where
Speaker 2: the contract negotiations are right now, and how far apart
Speaker 2: the company and the union is. And also just and
Speaker 2: this is something that I think has been a theme
Speaker 2: of these negotiations is the extent to which management is
Speaker 2: below industry standard. So yeah, I guess we could start
Speaker 2: with sort of wages there because that's one of the
Speaker 2: places where they're very much below standard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we only have a TA on one
Speaker 4: a TA being a tentative agreement on one title and
Speaker 4: only for the rate that they're proposing in New York
Speaker 4: City in LA. Another big thing with our minimums is
Speaker 4: that they're different for producers and other titles living in
Speaker 4: New York City in LA than they are for people in.
Speaker 1: Those roles in other cities.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, we are very far apart still on our
Speaker 4: salary minimums.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When we put together our proposals on salary minimums, like,
Speaker 3: we didn't make them up out of nowhere. We did
Speaker 3: a lot of research on pay rates at other unionized
Speaker 3: podcast shops and other podcast businesses. We came up with
Speaker 3: numbers that felt fair and industry standard based on all
Speaker 3: of that research, and then management just came in so
Speaker 3: much lower than all that. And then as Nomes just said,
Speaker 3: there's this differential they're proposing between New York and LA
Speaker 3: and everywhere else. Most of our unit is not in
Speaker 3: New York or LA. A big chunk of the unit
Speaker 3: is in Atlanta specifically, and the cost of living in
Speaker 3: Atlanta is just not that much lower than New York
Speaker 3: or LA. At this point, we've also been way apart
Speaker 3: on annual increases. Originally management was proposing not to have
Speaker 3: annual increases in the contract at all. And they've moved
Speaker 3: past that, but the current proposals are still way way
Speaker 3: less than the rate of inflation.
Speaker 4: I mean it's about half, like half of what inflation is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like it does, it's not even inflation amount. And I
Speaker 4: will say that, like for many of the job titles,
Speaker 4: they're so far below what industries standard is.
Speaker 1: With the like very little.
Speaker 4: Incremental movement that they make every bargaining session, it's like
Speaker 4: clear that they the company doesn't have any interest in
Speaker 4: getting the industry standard, despite the fact that it is
Speaker 4: like a large and well ranked podcasting company.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just got the Webby Award as Podcast Company
Speaker 3: of the Year, and we continue to be like when
Speaker 3: rankings come out of the biggest podcast networks, like we're
Speaker 3: always at or right near the top of the rankings.
Speaker 3: All of that, we have a lot of shows that
Speaker 3: are really well respected in you know, whatever subject matter
Speaker 3: they are discussing, whatever broadly speaking genre of podcasts, and
Speaker 3: so it sucks to then look at pay scales that
Speaker 3: just don't line up with that in terms of like
Speaker 3: the minimum of what the company will commit to offering people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the person increase thing is really
Speaker 2: frustrating too, because again, the way this works out with inflation.
Speaker 2: And remember, so you know, if we started bargaining in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, right, inflation in twenty twenty two was
Speaker 2: like three like twice what it is now. And if
Speaker 2: you're getting, if you're not getting, this is something I
Speaker 2: think that's important for everyone to understand, is that if
Speaker 2: you're not getting so for inflation right now is about
Speaker 2: three point four percent, if you're not getting a three
Speaker 2: point four percent pay increase this year, that means you,
Speaker 2: like you are taking a pay cut every single year,
Speaker 2: right And the fact that you know this is this
Speaker 2: is what my management's proposal is you take a pay
Speaker 2: cut every single year and you're supposed to be fine
Speaker 2: with this is incredibly frustrating. And I don't I don't
Speaker 2: think it's it's it's it's not really understood in in
Speaker 2: terms of you're literally taking a pay cut very much.
Speaker 2: It's just talked of like it it's something that's talked
Speaker 2: about is just like another benefit, but like, no, we're
Speaker 2: trying not to take a pay cut.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, I would like to if my salary
Speaker 4: is going to not take me any further at least
Speaker 4: not take me any farther back. Yeah, I don't need
Speaker 4: to lose money every year like I've done this year
Speaker 4: in starting my second year at the company.
Speaker 3: Right, there's been a lot of people who have not
Speaker 3: had a raise since like before the pandemic started, And like,
Speaker 3: I'm incredibly lucky I have been at my job forever.
Speaker 3: I'm on one of the biggest shows that we have
Speaker 3: in the network. Like, I'm doing okay, right, But a
Speaker 3: lot of my colleagues who work on shows that don't
Speaker 3: have as much power, don't have as big of an audience, like,
Speaker 3: don't have as much much of an ad budget, People
Speaker 3: who have been with the company less time, people who
Speaker 3: are like earlier on in their careers, especially like I've
Speaker 3: watched these folks go through the last four years with
Speaker 3: no increase in their pay, and like, I can see
Speaker 3: people struggling now financially in a way that they weren't
Speaker 3: struggling financially in twenty nineteen because their pay has not
Speaker 3: changed at all. But the how much it costs to
Speaker 3: exist in the world is so much more expensive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have some members right now who like would
Speaker 4: receive a pay increase with what's being proposed currently, but
Speaker 4: it is nowhere near the majority. Most people are going
Speaker 4: to lose money with the numbers as they are right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's when the things that just you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, and even even the sort of industry standard
Speaker 2: in podcasting isn't great, but that's one of these things
Speaker 2: that's you know, very much below industry standard. And there's
Speaker 2: been another one of these things that I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about that's kind of baffling that I think everyone
Speaker 2: involved thought that this would be something that there wouldn't
Speaker 2: be a huge fight over. But that's at will employment
Speaker 2: you talk about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah too, So just cause employment means your employer
Speaker 3: has to have just cause to terminate your employment. Your
Speaker 3: employer cannot just do it willy nilly. And it's a
Speaker 3: core part of like the rights that union's bargain for
Speaker 3: is to have a process for somebody to be disciplined
Speaker 3: and lose their job. It's a very basic thing, basic
Speaker 3: union protection. And the management has has held firm that
Speaker 3: they basically want to not only have at will employment standards,
Speaker 3: but like enshrine that in the contract.
Speaker 4: Yeah, meaning that they want to be able to fire
Speaker 4: us for any reason at any time, regardless of whether
Speaker 4: or not we've done something actually warrant that loss of
Speaker 4: our income.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's something I think is really important that
Speaker 2: I don't think people think about it this way. But
Speaker 2: you know, both for if you're doing work that's politically
Speaker 2: sensitive or also if you are marginalized, that is a
Speaker 2: you know, not not having your boss not be able
Speaker 2: to fire you for literally any reason is it's a
Speaker 2: necessary piece of protection. And if you don't have that,
Speaker 2: you can have a situation where I don't know, you
Speaker 2: have one boss who's racist or one boss who's transphobic,
Speaker 2: and you know, you and everyone like you's careers are
Speaker 2: just gone. And without that kind of protection, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's incredibly it's incredibly dangerous for like for marginalized
Speaker 2: people to you know, I mean even just like to
Speaker 2: be able to speak up about things that are happening
Speaker 2: to you, right like, yes, like tech technically speaking, retaliation
Speaker 2: is illegal. However, commu see see the entire history of
Speaker 2: labor in America and tell me whether it tell me,
Speaker 2: explain to me whether or not it at it still
Speaker 2: actually happens, especially when you can just fire someone for
Speaker 2: some other reason or again in this case, you can
Speaker 2: fire them for no reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's it's a thing that is so baffling
Speaker 4: because there's no union contract without just cause.
Speaker 1: Like there's a number of reasons why people unionize.
Speaker 4: Obviously we want better salaries, Obviously we want better healthcare.
Speaker 1: But there's you don't form a union and then still
Speaker 1: allow a.
Speaker 4: Contract that says, yeah, and also though we can fire
Speaker 4: you at any reason, because that is sort of the
Speaker 4: antithesis of like what we're about, which is that there's
Speaker 4: like due process and structures in place that like people
Speaker 4: who provide the labor for this company can't just like
Speaker 4: at a moment's notice, be out of healthcare and income
Speaker 4: and all of that comes with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean politically, like it's it. And you know,
Speaker 2: if you look at this as a political system, it's
Speaker 2: a difference between pure dictatorial rule where everything is just
Speaker 2: done purely by fiat right, where you know, like the
Speaker 2: person who rules you can do whatever they want to you,
Speaker 2: and there being something like a functional legal process which
Speaker 2: constrains the power of rulers to just sort of enact
Speaker 2: their will on you. And that's you know, an incredibly
Speaker 2: fundamental basic part of what a union is is the
Speaker 2: democratization of the workplace.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's That's one of the things that I
Speaker 3: think is so important about just the right to unionize
Speaker 3: in general, that I think a lot of people who
Speaker 3: have never been part of a union don't fully understanding
Speaker 3: some of this based on comments I continually see on
Speaker 3: ARII ads, which I am served all the time as
Speaker 3: a person who hikes a lot, because currently their comments
Speaker 3: on their ads are a whole lot of people saying,
Speaker 3: stop union busting ARII. And then there are always people
Speaker 3: who are like, it's retail. If you don't like it,
Speaker 3: get a better job, or they're saying something like ARII
Speaker 3: has always voted one of the greatest employers, like you
Speaker 3: should just be thankful for what you have, And I'm like,
Speaker 3: the thing is, though, an employer has so much more
Speaker 3: power than an individual employee. Your employer has a whole
Speaker 3: HR structure and lawyers and way more money than any
Speaker 3: individual person working for them. And that's why employees have
Speaker 3: the right to come together collectively to just balance that
Speaker 3: out a little bit. Like a union is still going
Speaker 3: to have a power differential between themselves and the company.
Speaker 3: We have a whole lot more equity and a whole
Speaker 3: lot more access to that power together then as one
Speaker 3: individual person going to their manager asking nicely to have
Speaker 3: a couple extra days off because their parent died or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as the old the Old song goes, what force
Speaker 2: on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
Speaker 2: but the Union makes us strong? Yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: think that's a good sort of place to end on.
Speaker 2: The negotiations are still ongoing, flying next week.
Speaker 3: To be there in person next week already. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: a little scary. I don't know what to wear to
Speaker 3: an office anymore.
Speaker 1: Oh see, and me either.
Speaker 4: I actually just show up how I am always in
Speaker 4: my normal life.
Speaker 1: So I encourage you to do the same.
Speaker 3: Can I get a Union shirt from you when I
Speaker 3: get there?
Speaker 1: Oh please?
Speaker 4: They're literally clogging my home and I would love to
Speaker 4: give you one.
Speaker 1: So I have one of that, all right?
Speaker 2: So where where can people go to find the Union
Speaker 2: and to support us.
Speaker 4: We are on Twitter at Iheartpod Union. We're on Instagram
Speaker 4: also at Iheartpod Union.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where you can find us on social media.
Speaker 3: We're on Blue Sky at iHeart Podcast Union. I have
Speaker 3: the keys to that one right now, and I have
Speaker 3: not been really active with it. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, many an update goes out on the Twitter so
Speaker 4: you can stay in touch there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in the in the meantime between now and bargaining,
Speaker 2: this has been naked happen here. Thank you to so
Speaker 2: much for coming on and yeah, let's let's go. Let's
Speaker 2: let's let's get ourselves a good contract.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna get a good contract.
Speaker 1: And it is such a pleasure to work with the
Speaker 1: both of you.
Speaker 3: Oh yes you, thank you so much Mia for having
Speaker 3: us on.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, always happy to all right, and this
Speaker 2: is also your daily union episode reminder that you too
Speaker 2: can do this. You too can spend an enormous amount
Speaker 2: of time going through a spreadsheet.
Speaker 3: And then finally spreadsheets.
Speaker 2: Turn it look. Unionization is the process of turning a
Speaker 2: spreadsheet into into a into a fighting organization.
Speaker 1: You two can get lost in a sea of Google docs.
Speaker 2: But I promise you all, as as much as this
Speaker 2: episode has been about, you know, the sort of stubbornness
Speaker 2: of management and how you know, and how kind of
Speaker 2: demoralizing that process can be, it is worth it, I
Speaker 2: promise you all. It is and you can you can
Speaker 2: do it too.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 4: cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
Speaker 4: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 1: You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 2: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and