Speaker 1: Uh, it's could it's happened? Could hear Robert Evans The
Speaker 1: podcast that is now begun. Um. This is a show
Speaker 1: about how things are falling apart and occasionally how to
Speaker 1: how to maybe deal with that, maybe you try to
Speaker 1: steer things in a better direction. We talk about a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff today. We're gonna be talking about more
Speaker 1: supply line um um stuff. And and and in order to
Speaker 1: kind of introduce this episode, we wanted to bring in Alexis,
Speaker 1: who posted a threat on Twitter um about some of
Speaker 1: their experiences in the industry in which they work that
Speaker 1: that we all found very interesting. And so we just
Speaker 1: wanted to bring Alexis on and uh and and first off,
Speaker 1: have you kind of go over what what you went
Speaker 1: over in that threat and then um kind of zero
Speaker 1: win and talk about that. So Alexis, welcome to the show. Hi,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Um. Yeah, I'm gonna let you
Speaker 1: take it from here and then we'll we'll drill in
Speaker 1: once you once you get through your your piece, all right,
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to go ahead and read the
Speaker 1: thread that I posted and then yeah, we'll go from there. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: labor shortage discourse time. I work for a food manufacturing company,
Speaker 1: specifically bottling and canning various beverages, and we are desperately understaffed.
Speaker 1: The wages are competitive, but they can't keep anyone on
Speaker 1: after they hire them. Why, because we're short on people.
Speaker 1: As soon as someone is trained, they start throwing massive
Speaker 1: amounts of mandatory over time on them to try and
Speaker 1: cover the missing pieces while they look for more people
Speaker 1: to hire in. Folks get burned out and quit. And
Speaker 1: this is where my hate of just in time manufacturing
Speaker 1: comes in. Obviously, in food manufacturing, you can't just stock
Speaker 1: a warehouse with stuff and let it sit for a year,
Speaker 1: but you can keep a couple of weeks worth stock
Speaker 1: rotating at all times if you devote the warehouse space, employees,
Speaker 1: et cetera to doing so. This would give you some
Speaker 1: flex time to train your new people without having to
Speaker 1: run everyone into the dirt. So, even with a place
Speaker 1: that is offering decent money and benefits, because this is
Speaker 1: a union shop, we can't keep people because we're making
Speaker 1: a conscious decision to only ever have one to two
Speaker 1: days of stock on hand to increase profits. Meanwhile, thanks
Speaker 1: to lean manufacturing, we don't keep a ton of spare
Speaker 1: parts for our equipment on hand. Thanks to the supply
Speaker 1: chain just disruption, We've got packaging equipment that's been waiting
Speaker 1: on replacement parts for six months, which further fux our
Speaker 1: productivity doomed to downtime, which makes the company's schedule even
Speaker 1: more overtime to try and make up for the lost
Speaker 1: cases from equipment downtime, which burns out more employees, which
Speaker 1: puts us in an even deeper labor hole. I've been
Speaker 1: warning about just in time being a time bomb in
Speaker 1: the making for over a decade now. When it works perfectly,
Speaker 1: you're fine. A single interruption causes cascade effects. And since
Speaker 1: everyone has been doing the just in time thing, there's
Speaker 1: zero slack anywhere in the system. Grocery stores don't have
Speaker 1: any extra soda in the back they get behind demand
Speaker 1: builds up. Distribution doesn't have any pallets in the warehouse,
Speaker 1: ha what warehouse, so they can't answer the surgeon demand
Speaker 1: from grocery stores. Manufacturing doesn't have spare parts for aging equipment,
Speaker 1: so we can't boost production. Spare parts makers don't have
Speaker 1: stock build up, so and on it goes. The actual
Speaker 1: approximate cause of this is deregulation of capitalism that is
Speaker 1: incentivized quarterly profits and made long term thinking anathema to
Speaker 1: c e O s. But sure, conservatives blame California for
Speaker 1: not letting old trucks offload at the ports. That's it,
Speaker 1: and that's that's the essence of my threat. I then
Speaker 1: plug my podcast at the end. Yeah, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to I'm curious as to kind of like, uh to
Speaker 1: what it like. I'm trying to understand, like what the
Speaker 1: solution is. Like We've talked a bit about Okay, just
Speaker 1: in time, manufacturing is is problematic for a lot of reasons. Um,
Speaker 1: keeping more like on the shelves is going to allow
Speaker 1: you to avoid these crunches and is going to like
Speaker 1: make supply line issues like the ones we've experiencing since
Speaker 1: the start of the COVID pandemic less severe and less common. Um,
Speaker 1: But how do you actually how do you actually make
Speaker 1: that happen? Because I guess the traditional free market thing
Speaker 1: is that, like, well, because this has been such a
Speaker 1: problem for companies, um, you know, they'll naturally change the
Speaker 1: system in order to avoid this in the future. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like that's likely to happen. Um, And I'm wondering, like,
Speaker 1: what do we uh what what what do you think
Speaker 1: is the way forward here? Well, because some of the
Speaker 1: problem is is right now, like most most companies, you
Speaker 1: will pay taxes on stuff that you have stored in
Speaker 1: a warehouse, things like that. Um, so no company is
Speaker 1: going to voluntarily lower their profit margins if the other
Speaker 1: companies don't do it themselves as well. So really there's
Speaker 1: going to have to be some sort of forcing of
Speaker 1: companies to uh have that on hand. And I don't
Speaker 1: see just being able to write a law that says, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you're required to have this much backstock on hand as
Speaker 1: as being a functional way to work. And really, as
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know, Robert, I know you're well aware
Speaker 1: the capitalism itself is kind of the problem. But as
Speaker 1: far as I guess, a solution to this sort of thing, um,
Speaker 1: you would have to disincentivize the quarterly profits above all
Speaker 1: in order to force companies back into long term thinking. Now,
Speaker 1: from a purely like mechanical standpoint, um, I guess if
Speaker 1: you if you did something to incentivize companies having backstock
Speaker 1: or flex stock on on hand, that might help. But um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just I'm just a cog in the machine.
Speaker 1: Getting ground up. So as far as like big solutions,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, I've been looking at it ever since
Speaker 1: I worked in a freaking casket factory and we started
Speaker 1: doing just in time there, and just every time that
Speaker 1: I've been in a place, a manufacturing place and seen
Speaker 1: it happen, I'm just like, oh, this is gonna go
Speaker 1: wrong because you can't. You can do just in time
Speaker 1: if all of your suppliers are local, but having it
Speaker 1: stretched across the global supply chain, it just it's inevitably
Speaker 1: going to collapse in on itself. I'm sorry that I'm
Speaker 1: not more helpful. No, no, but I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is like the problem because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why this supply chain is global. Some of them
Speaker 1: are like labor related reasons, some of them are cost cunning,
Speaker 1: some of them are just like pure pragmatism. UM. But
Speaker 1: it's trying to like I I don't. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's it's one thing to say, like, well, part of
Speaker 1: the problem is that like all of these different pieces
Speaker 1: come from different countries, um. And there's a number of
Speaker 1: shady reasons for aspects of that. UM. But it makes
Speaker 1: for greater problems when there's a pilin shortage and then like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what are we what are we gonna Are you suggesting
Speaker 1: that we make everything domestically because I don't feel like
Speaker 1: that's a realistic solution. Um. Yeah, And it's like it's
Speaker 1: just it's I'm trying to get a handle on there's
Speaker 1: a couple of angles on this. There's there's what we
Speaker 1: think is going to happen, um, and then there's the
Speaker 1: question of like, is there a way that the system
Speaker 1: as it exists could make this whole thing less vulnerable?
Speaker 1: And and a lot of ways that's going to be
Speaker 1: separate from the question of what would be better for
Speaker 1: everyone to happen, because a lot of what would be
Speaker 1: better for everyone to happen is a white A significant
Speaker 1: chunk of these things that we have constantly stocked on
Speaker 1: the shelves are no longer parts of our life, right. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that are made that we
Speaker 1: do not need and that are there's an environmental cost
Speaker 1: and a show social cost and YadA YadA, YadA. Um.
Speaker 1: But I guess first I'm kind of curious to drilling in,
Speaker 1: like how realistic do you think it is that the
Speaker 1: system as it exists is going to like mitigate this
Speaker 1: and come up with better ways to to do this
Speaker 1: that render us less vulnerable to these supply crunches. Like
Speaker 1: is there. I don't see a great financial incentive in
Speaker 1: it for them yet, um, because they don't seem to
Speaker 1: be hurting, right, Like that's that's the thing. Well actually,
Speaker 1: and and again, please keep in mind this as limited
Speaker 1: anecdotal evidence. Yeah, because it's gonna be definitely John Deer,
Speaker 1: I know, was making record profits before all the this
Speaker 1: union stuff happened, but like that's not everyone, right. So again,
Speaker 1: I work for a soda manufacturer. So every time you're
Speaker 1: you know, enjoying your your schmetzy Schmola or your or
Speaker 1: your Chmago whatever whatever, I'm not going to explain which
Speaker 1: company I work for because I don't want to get
Speaker 1: in trouble. Um. And we're we're actually a captive bottler,
Speaker 1: which means that it's a separate company, but we work
Speaker 1: for the big soda corporation. I think that in certain
Speaker 1: instances those things will change, because for example, just last week,
Speaker 1: we had one of our four lines go down, so
Speaker 1: our production capacity went down because we had a motor
Speaker 1: burnout on the rollers that would move a full palette
Speaker 1: out to be picked up by a forklift, and there
Speaker 1: was no replacement motor in stock, and so we had
Speaker 1: I think forty eight hours of downtime on this. Now,
Speaker 1: all the way up at the top, the company executive,
Speaker 1: you know, we're one of thirty some plants, they don't
Speaker 1: care about why it was down, just that it was down.
Speaker 1: So in our position here, um, the people a little
Speaker 1: higher up the food chain than me are insisting like, hey,
Speaker 1: we've been after you guys for months that we need
Speaker 1: spares like this. And I think that as that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff happens, as it cuts into potential future profits,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not dropping their profits, but it's keeping
Speaker 1: them from being even higher, maybe certain companies are going
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, maybe we do need a couple
Speaker 1: more spares on the shelves. As far as on the
Speaker 1: production side of it, I don't see that happening. I
Speaker 1: think we're still going to be shipping out palettes of
Speaker 1: you know, palettes of corn syrup infected carbonated water as
Speaker 1: fast as we can make them. Which you and you
Speaker 1: were talking about the environmental costs, like you do not
Speaker 1: want to know how much water it takes to make
Speaker 1: a single leader of soda. You really don't um. But
Speaker 1: on this on the production like input side, I think
Speaker 1: that companies are going to start stocking spare parts because
Speaker 1: it has been and I still have friends who work
Speaker 1: for other companies that I used to work for. It
Speaker 1: has been all throughout the system, and I live in
Speaker 1: them West. Every company is going through this where they're
Speaker 1: having huge amounts of downtime because the things as small
Speaker 1: as a gasket or an O ring are not on
Speaker 1: the shelf, and they're finally companies are finally going to
Speaker 1: listen to what their maintenance people have been screaming at them,
Speaker 1: that we can't just stagger along and then oh, well
Speaker 1: it's next day delivery. Yeah, and then you freak out
Speaker 1: that this line was down for twenty four hours now
Speaker 1: that it's not even next day delivery, it's next week delivery.
Speaker 1: I think that side of it they're going to probably
Speaker 1: try and fix. But the other side, shipping to the consumer,
Speaker 1: I really don't see that they're going to change that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that makes that makes sense, and we are
Speaker 1: you are kind of lad thinking about this inevitably to
Speaker 1: like two conclusions. One of them is that I have
Speaker 1: my I'm sure parts of this the system will adapt,
Speaker 1: as it already has been, in fact, which is why I,
Speaker 1: like you haven't seen toilet paper run out as bad
Speaker 1: as it did at the start of the pandemic. Again, right,
Speaker 1: there is a degree to which the system is capable
Speaker 1: of adjustment, but kind of in a larger sense, um
Speaker 1: this is number one. I'm kind of left with the
Speaker 1: feeling that because of the way this system was set
Speaker 1: up and the fact that it was disrupted so severely,
Speaker 1: it's kind of impossible to get a percent back on track,
Speaker 1: especially considering the disruptions are going to continue, not just
Speaker 1: waves of COVID, but you know, in natural disasters and whatnot,
Speaker 1: shortages of of things like truck drivers, Like these different
Speaker 1: little hits are going to keep coming, and I just
Speaker 1: don't know that wherever going to like catch up everywhere
Speaker 1: enough that like shortages of some sort aren't an aspect
Speaker 1: of our lives kind of forever. And this is one
Speaker 1: of those things that if you've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time outside of the United States, that's something a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been dealing with for years. It's just
Speaker 1: not something Americans are used to dealing with. And I
Speaker 1: think I kind of feel like that's just where it
Speaker 1: is now. Like I don't feel like every aspect of
Speaker 1: our our production and consumption system is going to get
Speaker 1: back where it to where it was February. I think
Speaker 1: maybe that's never happening again. No, absolutely, it will not
Speaker 1: ever happen. You were saying earlier that you know, there's
Speaker 1: some practical reasons for the global supply chain. Like one
Speaker 1: of the things that we've had such hard time getting
Speaker 1: in is any of our concentrates that contain real vanilla. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we can't grow vanilla in the United States. That's the
Speaker 1: thing you have to I mean, that's part of why
Speaker 1: colonialism exists, right, you need to go get vanilla. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So, like there are certain things that are
Speaker 1: going to be stay have to stay global if we're
Speaker 1: going to continue to make the things that we make,
Speaker 1: and just from my side of it, being able to see, oh, well,
Speaker 1: why can't we get this concentrate in oh because it
Speaker 1: has vanilla as an ingredient, and there's been a bunch
Speaker 1: of draughts and ship and so vanilla is in a crunch,
Speaker 1: you know that sort of thing. So I just, um,
Speaker 1: you're right in that, Yeah, we're going to have shortages.
Speaker 1: There's it's you know, and it's not just the mechanical
Speaker 1: side on ours. It's like we can't get can in,
Speaker 1: we can't get concentrated in, we can't you know. Whatever
Speaker 1: it is that we can't get in is going to
Speaker 1: slow us down and demand will build up. I did
Speaker 1: have somebody in that thread respond and say, I don't
Speaker 1: see how demand for soda will build up, And I'm like, now,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's like a diet Dr. Pepper fiend,
Speaker 1: and as soon as diet Dr Pepper shows up, now
Speaker 1: she buys like packs. Demand will absolutely build up for
Speaker 1: stuff When people feel like they're being deprived of something,
Speaker 1: when it becomes available, they are going to hoard it
Speaker 1: as best they can. Yeah, And that's again with soda,
Speaker 1: just kind of an annoyance, although that can because individual
Speaker 1: people can react in extreme ways, can snowball. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be surprised if one of these days we have
Speaker 1: somebody shoot up a fucking grocery store because they're whatever
Speaker 1: was out. Um, But that's also not a necessity. And
Speaker 1: I think that, like the concern is that especially when
Speaker 1: you look at stuff like you know, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of states that have like their wheat harvests and corn
Speaker 1: harvest that were like half or less than half of
Speaker 1: normal big chunks of a rack. It was like down
Speaker 1: by I think like seventy um. Like these massive shortages
Speaker 1: of growing basic food stuffs. Um. And that's all that's
Speaker 1: all tight into this, Like it's not the same business
Speaker 1: that you're on, but it's all tied into aspects of this,
Speaker 1: and it's all tied into like a lot of our
Speaker 1: ability to get that food out of the field is
Speaker 1: reliant upon different kinds of mechanical harvesting equipment. The materials
Speaker 1: to which to like fix and replace it are often
Speaker 1: like caught up in this whole just in time problem
Speaker 1: because they don't make enough of them, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: don't have them in stores, and then there's like a
Speaker 1: strike at John Deer and so more aren't getting made
Speaker 1: and so there's not what you need to repair the
Speaker 1: equipment in time to get stuff out of the field everywhere.
Speaker 1: And in a year when you already have a reduction
Speaker 1: of harvests like that cuts down on it further. UM.
Speaker 1: Like I I think I don't know, it's it's this.
Speaker 1: There's always a couple of things to look at, which
Speaker 1: is like number one, as we've talked about like how
Speaker 1: is the system uh going to try to handle this?
Speaker 1: What ways are they going to be successful, what ways
Speaker 1: they're going to fail? What things are you going to
Speaker 1: have to endure? And what things? I think what I
Speaker 1: want to talk about next is like what things do
Speaker 1: we need to change, uh in order to like, as communities,
Speaker 1: be more resilient to this stuff, which you know has
Speaker 1: less to do with soda, which again is not a necessity,
Speaker 1: but more to do with figuring out how to anticipate
Speaker 1: and endure supply line disruptions right absolutely, And and while
Speaker 1: I'm currently in soda, I have been in everything from
Speaker 1: automotive too, I think as a or casket manufacturer, so
Speaker 1: you know that. But when I can go through a
Speaker 1: casket a week, you know, especially when you're driving your Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I'm drunk driving in a boy right right through
Speaker 1: a trailer park, I mean you're you're I mean, your
Speaker 1: casket order has got to be through the roof. It is.
Speaker 1: It is a lot a lot of people. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I I do actually wonder how fuck um I
Speaker 1: mean like I do actually wonder how much like the
Speaker 1: casket industry and something that has been affected by the
Speaker 1: by like by the pandemic with the you know, an
Speaker 1: influx of dead people, and how that's how how that's effective.
Speaker 1: Thinks That's something I've been wondering about, but I have
Speaker 1: not actually spent time looking into. I can't speak to
Speaker 1: the pandemic specifically. I quit. I quit the casket industry
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, but I do recall my boss,
Speaker 1: the owner at the time, being very very upset that
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina had a lower death toll than he anticipated,
Speaker 1: because that's really she had over ordered the sheet metal
Speaker 1: to make the caskets, and he was very piste off
Speaker 1: about having all that extra stock because they were just society. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that's that's good to hear. Yeah, great, he was
Speaker 1: in a bad mood for like a month after Katrina
Speaker 1: because it hadn't reached his expectation. Well, sure, that's a
Speaker 1: real problem for for absolutely, he's got that's all the
Speaker 1: sympathy critical support. That job was grim. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say that that sounds like it. I have a through
Speaker 1: a through a loved one, a connection to somebody who
Speaker 1: is like works for a company that makes body bags
Speaker 1: and was amazing for them. They did incredible in um.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear any ghoulish stories. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you guys made a bunch of extra money.
Speaker 1: Sounds like that was great for you putting it. Putting
Speaker 1: in a mental note to go through a bunch of
Speaker 1: the campaign contributions of people who make body bags and
Speaker 1: check if they're supporting anti mess Yes. Yeah, see if
Speaker 1: big Corps got into this at all. Yeah, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: the thing that the thing to do is, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of the stock market in general,
Speaker 1: but next time, the next time that there's a pandemic,
Speaker 1: find out which companies make body bags on the stock
Speaker 1: market and invest in those as soon as as soon
Speaker 1: as the pandemic starts. I mean, I can tell you
Speaker 1: what I'm I'm putting money into big corps as soon
Speaker 1: as uh as soon as the next pandemic hits. That's
Speaker 1: absolutely gonna happen. Oh boy, all right, Yeah, that's gam Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's fine. There's a reason why after after
Speaker 1: I started working there, I immediately told my husband, Hey,
Speaker 1: make sure if I die before you, I'm cremated. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give these monsters any of my money.
Speaker 1: What I what I'm looking into is just full full
Speaker 1: body stuffing that people can pose me around it. But
Speaker 1: that's a set for topic. Yeah, you talk about that
Speaker 1: a lot, Garrison. What I did want to med ship
Speaker 1: is like, actually, when you were talking about how they
Speaker 1: hire in a lot of employees and they make them
Speaker 1: were horrible hours and then they you know, they quitness
Speaker 1: is kind of a constant kind of process and like
Speaker 1: this isn't exclusive to that industry at all. Think one
Speaker 1: of the worst defenders of this is actually the Postal Service. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that the Postal Service has like the lowest
Speaker 1: employee satisfaction out of any shipping company. Um And like my, my,
Speaker 1: my fault. I worked for the Postal Service for a bit.
Speaker 1: And when you first join up, you join as like
Speaker 1: you join as a on like a non career employee path,
Speaker 1: and then you can get promoted to a career employee
Speaker 1: path after a few years. But the turnaround for the
Speaker 1: non career employee paths is massive, Like local branches can
Speaker 1: say after like people who start working at the Postal
Speaker 1: Service will end up quitting within the year. Now that
Speaker 1: number can be different based on nationally and for based
Speaker 1: on like you know, based on what state you're in,
Speaker 1: but but across the board, it's it's always around at
Speaker 1: least fifty for employee turnaround for people who join up
Speaker 1: the Postal Service on these like a city carrier assistant positions.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, yeah, because because when when you when you're
Speaker 1: a non career employee path, you have to work seven
Speaker 1: days a week and you can be called into work
Speaker 1: basically any time, usually working around ten to twelve hour days.
Speaker 1: All of the career employees all of the sounds but
Speaker 1: like all of all of like all of like the
Speaker 1: regular carriers get to work like their specific route and
Speaker 1: that's it. That's their whole day. For the for the
Speaker 1: people who are new to the job, they're forced to
Speaker 1: work tons of routes um all in whenever someone else can't.
Speaker 1: And we constantly be doing over time um and working
Speaker 1: like basically NonStop NonStop with only like two like only
Speaker 1: two holidays off a year or something. It's it's pretty intense, um,
Speaker 1: which is why you know, when the postal service comes
Speaker 1: have problems and because and and because there's so few,
Speaker 1: there's generally not tons of employees. I mean like there
Speaker 1: is lots like comparedively, like like like the Postal Service
Speaker 1: is one of the bigger employers in the whole country.
Speaker 1: But for people when when when employees drop off, filling
Speaker 1: those positions can be really hard in times of like crisis.
Speaker 1: So like you know, last year, when there's all these
Speaker 1: problems with the Postal Service, all of these kind of
Speaker 1: issues around the supply chain and how people treat their workers,
Speaker 1: all of them like like you know, compound to create
Speaker 1: one like much bigger problem which we saw last year
Speaker 1: with the Postal Service and like late in like the
Speaker 1: late summer um. So I just find it interesting how
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, these same issues around like how
Speaker 1: we treat workers is adding on to this problem of
Speaker 1: like supply chains and getting stuff delivered and all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And so what what I find interesting
Speaker 1: there is so you're you know, talking about the employee issue,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's sure. So I've been, uh the plant
Speaker 1: I was working in, which is twenty minutes from my house,
Speaker 1: closed down and now I'm working ninety miles away literally
Speaker 1: an hour, and I am I am working four twelves
Speaker 1: a week and I'm crashing at my parents house, which
Speaker 1: they live about sixty miles away, so it's a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Um. But also yeah, and my parents are
Speaker 1: hard right evangelicals who do not agree with you know this,
Speaker 1: so that's fun. But um, the plant that I was
Speaker 1: in was a non union plant and the one I'm
Speaker 1: in now is a Union plant. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I've noticed that's actually kind of different is
Speaker 1: for once in the non union plant, things were actually
Speaker 1: better because what we could do, what what what could
Speaker 1: be done is, all right, we're all working seven days
Speaker 1: a week. We have enough staffing that if nobody calls in,
Speaker 1: we have one spare person who normally goes around and
Speaker 1: gives aches and stuff like that. Well we could you know,
Speaker 1: basically all take turns taking a day off during that
Speaker 1: seven day week. At the Union plant that I'm at now, though,
Speaker 1: it's all seniority based, so any time that they force
Speaker 1: over time, they go from the bottom of the seniority
Speaker 1: list on up. So the people the people who are
Speaker 1: being forced into those which I described in the thread,
Speaker 1: I think it was it was split off in the thread,
Speaker 1: but the people who were being forced to stay over
Speaker 1: four hours and then come in four hours early, where you, Oh,
Speaker 1: you were working six to two. Now you're working, you know,
Speaker 1: six to six, and then you're coming in at two
Speaker 1: in the morning instead of six in the morning. The
Speaker 1: next day. Are always the people who are the lowest
Speaker 1: on the seniority list, which is same same thing with
Speaker 1: the postal service. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not there's
Speaker 1: a number of different I mean I've heard that complaint
Speaker 1: from a couple of different union gigs, um, and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a problem. Yeah, And it's that's why we get
Speaker 1: these new people and they get trained up and now
Speaker 1: they're trained and they're signed off, and then they immediately
Speaker 1: go from because when you're training, you're not you can't
Speaker 1: train on over time or whatever. But now it's oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well now you're working every weekend. You're being forced over,
Speaker 1: you're being forced in early, just NonStop. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: they get trained for a month and then a month
Speaker 1: after that they quit because they went from working a
Speaker 1: relatively same amount to an absurd amount. We went fifty
Speaker 1: eight days at one point without a day off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like my dad went like almost i think like three
Speaker 1: hundred days without with without a day off when he
Speaker 1: started the postal service. A kind of funny thing is
Speaker 1: like when you hear the Postal Service talking with this,
Speaker 1: like from the in their own reports and on their
Speaker 1: own website, what they find a problem with is not
Speaker 1: not the turnaround in and of itself, but how they're
Speaker 1: basically wasting money on trainings for people that don't end
Speaker 1: up working. It's like that is their main concern, is
Speaker 1: that they're spending all this money on training for people
Speaker 1: that don't stick around often. Um, And like, yeah, well
Speaker 1: maybe you should address why they don't stick around often.
Speaker 1: That's that seems to be kind of the actual issue here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what I've been pushing for, and I know this
Speaker 1: is more on the labor side than on the on
Speaker 1: the supply chain side that we were focusing on. I've
Speaker 1: been pushing for instead of three shifts where we keep
Speaker 1: just getting just hammered with this stuff, I want us
Speaker 1: to do four shifts, twelve hour days and do like
Speaker 1: a two on two off, three on three off type
Speaker 1: swing shift where you have like one shift that works.
Speaker 1: You know, you work three days one week, four days
Speaker 1: the next week, and you work twelve hour days, but
Speaker 1: really you wind up getting a bunch of days off,
Speaker 1: you know, like that's if you're gonna work seven days
Speaker 1: a week, that's the best way to do it in
Speaker 1: my opinion. Yeah, I mean, like you know, it's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of resistance to well, well, then we have
Speaker 1: to hire these extra people. Will you're hiring those people anyway,
Speaker 1: and then they're quitting. I mean, like you're not even
Speaker 1: getting your value out of them slave drivers. I mean,
Speaker 1: like you said, this is more, this is more than
Speaker 1: the labor side than the supply chain side. But honestly,
Speaker 1: these are these are like the same side, right, because
Speaker 1: if you don't have employee like this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is a fundamental you know thing, and like how
Speaker 1: capitalism works, right, you need to have you know, workers
Speaker 1: to make there have be any value at all. Right,
Speaker 1: So if there's if there isn't any people to working,
Speaker 1: then there is no supply chain. It's gone. Because if
Speaker 1: we need people to do it both on the production
Speaker 1: side and both in like the transportation side, that's like
Speaker 1: you know ups um usps, you know FedEx, you know,
Speaker 1: so like the mail carriers and stuff is very important
Speaker 1: to all of this because you you you need in
Speaker 1: order to for for there to be a supply chain,
Speaker 1: there needs to be the chain part right where you
Speaker 1: carry it from one place to to another. So it's both,
Speaker 1: it's both on the production side and on the transportation side.
Speaker 1: For how all these problems you know? Yeah, and one
Speaker 1: and one of the things that I in the replies
Speaker 1: to my thread which I got into, was that, um,
Speaker 1: part of the the only slack in Just in Time
Speaker 1: manufacturing is employees. They've pulled all of the slack out
Speaker 1: of the system on the mechanical side and on the
Speaker 1: production side of it, on all the physical side. The
Speaker 1: only slack left is people, and they have stretched us
Speaker 1: all to the absolute breaking point. Now I'm lucky, relatively speaking,
Speaker 1: in that I'm salary so like I'm more on the
Speaker 1: inventory side of things, so I'm not doing the hourly production,
Speaker 1: seven day a week thing. Like I said, I work
Speaker 1: four twelves, UM. But I can still you know, and
Speaker 1: that that's this job, every other previous job not the
Speaker 1: same thing. But I can still see where they've taken out.
Speaker 1: Like once again, we used to have spares on the
Speaker 1: shelf so that when something broke down we could fix
Speaker 1: the machine and keep running. Now instead of the spare,
Speaker 1: the spare is people working weekends. That's the spare part.
Speaker 1: And that makes total sense, right, You're you're the capitalist.
Speaker 1: A better spare that is a part on the shelf
Speaker 1: costs you money into terms of like you need to
Speaker 1: have that space, that's extra rent you're paying you need
Speaker 1: to have bought that part. Having your people just killed
Speaker 1: themselves is much cheaper. You can sort of misuse the
Speaker 1: marks here, right. Like one of Mark's things is like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know you have you have this increased machinery. You
Speaker 1: have this increased machinery, but that means you're producing less
Speaker 1: value because you know, you've you put more people out
Speaker 1: of work. Was like, okay, well, what if what if
Speaker 1: we just we re extend the work day again and
Speaker 1: sort of you know, reverse all of the gains that
Speaker 1: have been happening, well okay, I say have been happening,
Speaker 1: reverse all the gains that happened between about nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: and like nineteen seventy, and just oh well, what if
Speaker 1: we just make everyone for a twelve hour days again?
Speaker 1: And that that was you know, one of that was
Speaker 1: the thing that would struck me both listening to this
Speaker 1: and reading the threat was that it's it's not even
Speaker 1: just wages, it's just it's it's it's it's it's just
Speaker 1: the fundamental power rebalance. And then it's a fundamental power
Speaker 1: and balance. It's gotten so bad that even like you know,
Speaker 1: the the like sometimes the remains of the union system,
Speaker 1: it's like it's not even you know, like the unions
Speaker 1: like in this picture case like this is they're not
Speaker 1: even it's not even really helping. It's just creating, like
Speaker 1: you have a small labor aristocracy that you have everyone
Speaker 1: else could be getting just like ground down. In this case,
Speaker 1: it's that we've got we've got a small core of
Speaker 1: people who have been there twenty or thirty years. And
Speaker 1: and whereas before, maybe even ten years ago, they might
Speaker 1: have viewed the union as a vehicle to help everybody,
Speaker 1: things have gotten so bad that now it's just okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to use this system as much as I
Speaker 1: can to cover my own ass because things have gotten
Speaker 1: so damn bad. And obviously, you know, Reagan destroying the
Speaker 1: unions and stuff like that help with that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that I and I feel like the union in
Speaker 1: my job could be very helpful, um, but it would
Speaker 1: require certain people in it too. Instead of looking out
Speaker 1: for just their own interest because hey, I've been here
Speaker 1: twenty five years, so I'm in the clear. Like, actually,
Speaker 1: go okay, maybe I should you know, sacrifice a little
Speaker 1: bit of of that power or that privilege to help
Speaker 1: the people who are just hiring in so that we
Speaker 1: can keep them so that that this doesn't have to
Speaker 1: keep happening. Yeah, And it's you know, this is one
Speaker 1: of the things that has made the John Dear strike,
Speaker 1: that made it so powerful, was these those older workers
Speaker 1: who I mean that they had a tiered system, right,
Speaker 1: So you have workers hired I think before like ninety
Speaker 1: seven got a full pension, and then like after ninety
Speaker 1: seven was like a third of that, and then workers
Speaker 1: hired in the last couple of years weren't getting any
Speaker 1: pension at all. And a big part of the strike
Speaker 1: is like all of the workers saying that's not acceptable, um,
Speaker 1: including the ones who had a full pension, who had
Speaker 1: some of a pension, like saying that like the fact
Speaker 1: that the newer people are getting screwed over isn't acceptable.
Speaker 1: And I've heard different reasons for why that happened, because
Speaker 1: this is this tactic what you're talking about, and kind
Speaker 1: of like what happened to John dear. It was a
Speaker 1: common tactic. You know. It's the thing we talked about
Speaker 1: in colonialism all the time. You want to divide the
Speaker 1: population against you know, each other, each other one way
Speaker 1: or the other, give them like make make them feel
Speaker 1: as if their interests are not necessarily aligned, you know.
Speaker 1: So the people who um. And there's reasons. I've heard
Speaker 1: different reasons for why John Deere was different, including the
Speaker 1: idea that like a lot of these are family jobs,
Speaker 1: so it was not people. It was people being like, well,
Speaker 1: my kid's not going to get a pension, and that's bullshit. Um. Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just it's it's it's important to talk about like
Speaker 1: that as a problem and also to highlight different strikes
Speaker 1: where that seems to have been overcome by the workers,
Speaker 1: like this fact that they were attempted to be played
Speaker 1: against each other didn't really work out, and where in
Speaker 1: my case it very much is like another another example
Speaker 1: being so we'll have people who are are lower on
Speaker 1: the seniority list, and like let's say, for example, one
Speaker 1: weekend we're running lines three and five and not the
Speaker 1: other two. Well, the the newer people might only know
Speaker 1: stuff online four. But if the new people don't get
Speaker 1: scheduled to do something, even if they're just being forced
Speaker 1: in to sweep the floor. The people who have the
Speaker 1: higher seniority will throw a fit saying, well, they're lower seniority,
Speaker 1: why aren't they in here as opposed to well, because
Speaker 1: they can't run that machine, and then they don't want
Speaker 1: to train them to run that machine. It's it's very
Speaker 1: they've managed to succeed where the John Deer capitalists might
Speaker 1: have failed in making this all about like all right working.
Speaker 1: And I don't blame the people who have the higher
Speaker 1: seniority on this because if my you know, if if
Speaker 1: you're working, conditions are hell and you have the option
Speaker 1: of okay, well, on a short term scale, I can
Speaker 1: screw over this other person and actually see my family
Speaker 1: once in a while. Most people are gonna do it,
Speaker 1: especially if that person is somebody who just hired in
Speaker 1: that you don't know, we'll scare that guy. And that's where,
Speaker 1: once again, if unions were stronger, if there was more
Speaker 1: than what is it right now, like to three of
Speaker 1: jobs or a union job, but unions have been so
Speaker 1: like just weakened that this sort of situation is allowed
Speaker 1: to happen. I guess you could say, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: that comes back to just like the solute, The solution
Speaker 1: to the supply chain problem isn't really a solute like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not it's not a logistical solution. It's
Speaker 1: not even really like a capital gained solution, like a
Speaker 1: tax solution. The solution is that, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to fundamentally change the balance of power between capital and labor.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean that and that and that
Speaker 1: that can be like you know, I think things will
Speaker 1: get better if it's if it's more unions, but like
Speaker 1: things are going to continue to suck until like the
Speaker 1: capitalists ceased to exist as a class. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think that's like that that's because yeah, that's always the
Speaker 1: And it's one of those like we get we get
Speaker 1: critiqued on the internets sometimes because I think people will say, like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, is your only solution to this? You keep
Speaker 1: talking about like mutual aid and anarchism, and like I
Speaker 1: just don't feel like that's a big scale solutions. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: but the current system isn't going to work very well
Speaker 1: on a big scale. Part of what we're always talking
Speaker 1: about is like how to how to get your how
Speaker 1: to get yourself and your people through the situation, because
Speaker 1: that's also important. And it's the same thing with like
Speaker 1: a union, right unionizing you and your fellow laborers and
Speaker 1: your factory, or or making your union more effective and
Speaker 1: more able to like advocate for everyone. That's not going
Speaker 1: to fix the bigger problem. That's not going to deal
Speaker 1: with the the issues that like, that's not going to
Speaker 1: stop climate change, that's not going to stop supply line
Speaker 1: crunches in a grand scale, it's not going to stop
Speaker 1: creeping authoritarianism. But it can make life more bearable for
Speaker 1: you and the people around you. And that's that's also
Speaker 1: part of like getting by in a crumbling world. Absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: And yep, it's it requires a bit of more foresight,
Speaker 1: which I think was one of the other purposes behind
Speaker 1: working as many hours as they do is when you're
Speaker 1: so fucking tired all the time from working what you're working,
Speaker 1: you don't have time to stop and think about the
Speaker 1: larger implications of things. M hm and yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: part of what they're going for. Yep. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: don't know anyone else get anything, well, I guess just
Speaker 1: the clear solution of this is that I need to
Speaker 1: just stuck up on Bang, right. I just need to
Speaker 1: buy but I can because I love Bang. I. I
Speaker 1: can't stop drinking Bang. I will. I'm scared of how
Speaker 1: much Bag I drink. I will say. One of one
Speaker 1: of the wonderful mutual aid solutions is if you're very,
Speaker 1: very nice to the syrup mixing people, they will be
Speaker 1: kind to you if you are working a double and
Speaker 1: they will give you a shot of the energy drink
Speaker 1: syrup before it's been mixed. Oh my god, oh boy,
Speaker 1: you should not have told Garrison at a problem. Garrison's
Speaker 1: going to quit his job podcasting just to be able
Speaker 1: to get just gonna be shooting up energy drink here
Speaker 1: on out. That's all I'm doing with my time. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, leaving the call right now, finding the nearest factory.
Speaker 1: And my second day on the on the job in
Speaker 1: the soda manufacturing thing, I had a twenty four pack
Speaker 1: of energy drink explode all over me change of clothes,
Speaker 1: and that's when I learned that caffeine and toriing can
Speaker 1: soak through your skin. Oh yes, I mean basically was
Speaker 1: seeing sound Okay, So i I've just been looking up
Speaker 1: inflatable hot tubs. And I feel like if I could
Speaker 1: order enough pure energy drink syrup in an inflatable hot tub,
Speaker 1: I could build basically the equivalent of Baron Harconan's rejuvenation bath,
Speaker 1: but with like pure bangs syrup. That is that is,
Speaker 1: that is my plan. Just be twelve caffeine and Tori.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be. We're all gonna quit our jobs.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna have the same amount of money. They
Speaker 1: get slower over time because we're again spending it all
Speaker 1: on banks. The obviously you need you need the inside
Speaker 1: person to supply you with the syrup. So we'll just
Speaker 1: have sort of an Ocean's eleven situations where you guys
Speaker 1: pull up to the loading dock and with a tanker
Speaker 1: and I'm just hooking the truck up. You know, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be like Scarface, but we're selling pure syrup. And
Speaker 1: then Garrison loses his mind and winds up in a
Speaker 1: machine gun fight in a mansion, and when instead of
Speaker 1: burying his face into a mountain of cocaine, he's instead
Speaker 1: got just a little He's just sticking his hand into
Speaker 1: a bowl of syrup to absorb the caffeinated nutrients when
Speaker 1: it's when I p it's just gonna be straight syrup.
Speaker 1: Now that is yeah. Anyway, well that's the episode where
Speaker 1: if people want to find you a lot, where can
Speaker 1: they find you? So I host, along with my husband
Speaker 1: and our friend Justin, we host a trans comedy and
Speaker 1: pop culture podcast where we also interview interesting people. Um
Speaker 1: it's called the Violet Wanderers. So you can find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at violet Wanderers or the Violet Wanderers dot
Speaker 1: com or email the Violet wanders at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And that's basically that's my Twitter handle. And I just
Speaker 1: slowly got sucked into the Twitter hellscape where yeah that happens.
Speaker 1: Originally one on just like oh, I'm gonna just promote
Speaker 1: my show, and then I started responding to people and
Speaker 1: before you know what, I'm writing twenty tweet rants about
Speaker 1: just in time on my stupid gay podcast account. I
Speaker 1: got into Twitter to converse with a Young Justice podcast
Speaker 1: and that's why I created my Twitter accounts and here
Speaker 1: I am now So I was trying to get a
Speaker 1: planet side to beta key and I got it, but
Speaker 1: the consequences were I am now here. Yeah, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and it's consequences, disaster for your your this you're such
Speaker 1: a child. I remember the first Planet Side Beta today, Chris.
Speaker 1: It was an age and dreamed of Chris and you
Speaker 1: all are welcome to come on the show anytime. I will.
Speaker 1: I will bother you to come on my show sometime. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Plugs plugs probably, Yeah. Like I said, the Violet Wanderers
Speaker 1: were on Apple, were on Spotify, were on podcast Addict, whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, all your major podcast platforms. Uh. The tagline
Speaker 1: of the show is made for no one, so um,
Speaker 1: expect a lot of queer humor, a lot of me
Speaker 1: calling my husband a slut, and us talking about video games,
Speaker 1: comic books, movies, and then occasionally just randomly interviewing really
Speaker 1: interesting people who I harassed in the coming on the show,
Speaker 1: like which Robert I know? You know Daniel Harper from
Speaker 1: I Don't Speak German. He's been on a few times. Um,
Speaker 1: we've had him on and and had some fun talking
Speaker 1: about Nazis, which themes kind of, you know, counterintuitive, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of humor that can be found in
Speaker 1: Nazis if you know the right places to look. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I you know what, I just watched a German language
Speaker 1: movie about Hitler that was made in two thousand seven
Speaker 1: by a Jewish German comedian that includes I've watched a
Speaker 1: lot of Hitler movies, you know, periodically, I just get
Speaker 1: on Netflix and Hulu type and Hitler just kind of
Speaker 1: watch whatever is there. This is the first time I
Speaker 1: have seen Hitler fucking in a movie. I've never seen
Speaker 1: anybody who had the courage to do that. And he
Speaker 1: is just yeah, he's it's it's uncoming as one ball
Speaker 1: just swinging in the land. It is. It is an
Speaker 1: uncomfortable scene, but not the most uncomfortable scene in that
Speaker 1: particular movie. Um, it's quite a film that's doesn't say,
Speaker 1: that's pretty amazing. But yeah, come on, come on sometime
Speaker 1: we'll play around vin Selmageddon, which is a game that
Speaker 1: I've created, and uh, you know, if you guys don't
Speaker 1: want to kill yourselves afterwards, then hey, you survived the game.
Speaker 1: As long as I can get some syrup out of
Speaker 1: the deal, that's that's all I want. I will, I will,
Speaker 1: I will smuggle use some syrup out and mail it
Speaker 1: to you. Okay, alright, well that's that's gonna do it
Speaker 1: for all of us here today that it could Happen Here.
Speaker 1: Until next time, I don't know, Go go read, Go
Speaker 1: read The Dawn of Everything. It's good, it's worth reading.
Speaker 1: Check it out. It could Happen Here is a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone
Speaker 1: media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.