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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.

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Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.

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Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means

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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,

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Speaker 2: let's get to the show.

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Speaker 4: Welcome back to Breaking Points. Crystal and I are so

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Speaker 4: excited to be joined right now by my Counterpoints co host,

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Speaker 4: Ryan Grim, who happens to be the author of a

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Speaker 4: brand new book. It's out on December fifth. You can

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Speaker 4: start getting it in bookstores the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's

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Speaker 4: called The Squad, AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution.

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Speaker 4: It's fantastic. There's so many nuggets in our joant Yes, yes,

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Speaker 4: thanks for joining us here.

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Speaker 3: Ryanks on hand love to talk about the book.

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Speaker 5: Well.

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Speaker 1: It ended up being extra timely because obviously the arc

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Speaker 1: of the Squad is just important in American politics and

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Speaker 1: for you know, people left of center in general.

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Speaker 6: But there's also a.

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Speaker 1: Lot in the book about the way that the you

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Speaker 1: know that a PAC and their spin off, the Democratic

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Speaker 1: Majority for Israel, has aggressively tried to shape the you know,

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Speaker 1: democratic caucus, who gets in, who gets out, what their

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Speaker 1: views are.

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Speaker 6: So it ends up being extra timely because of that piece.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I have a line in there that finishes the

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Speaker 7: first chapter that kind of introduces AOC where that arc ends.

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Speaker 7: If you remember a couple of weeks after she wins

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Speaker 7: her primary, you know, she's soaring, her stars rising, she's

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Speaker 7: crushing every interview, she's becoming a global celebrity. And then

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Speaker 7: she does an interview where she gets asked about Israel Palestine,

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Speaker 7: and it's just like, I mean, it's.

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Speaker 1: Just clear she doesn't really she knows it's a tough topic,

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Speaker 1: she knows she doesn't know enough about the topic, and

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Speaker 1: she just it's the inexperience is very clear in that moment.

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Speaker 7: And her instincts are that she supports Palestinian rights, in

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Speaker 7: Palestinian dignity, and she says the word Palestine in the

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Speaker 7: interview and an occupation, right, and I think occupation, yeah,

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Speaker 7: And the interview, which is somebody who is more schooled

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Speaker 7: on the subject will be like, yeah, that's what I

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Speaker 7: call the region and there is an occupation like that's

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Speaker 7: that's what's happening. But the interviewer is like, did you

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Speaker 7: say Palestine, Margaret Hoover, Yeah, And you can see AOC's

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Speaker 7: face be like, oh God, did I did I hit

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Speaker 7: a third rail?

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Speaker 3: I'm not like it.

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Speaker 7: It's the feeling where because you know there are third rails,

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Speaker 7: you know there are land mines everywhere, right, and you

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Speaker 7: just you've put your foot down and you heard a

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Speaker 7: click and you're like, is that about to blow up

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Speaker 7: or not? Because I don't because because I don't know

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Speaker 7: and she and she finishes by saying, look, I'm not

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Speaker 7: an expert on geopolitics.

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Speaker 3: This isn't something that we talked about a lot at.

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Speaker 7: My bronx, you know, dinner table growing up and just

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Speaker 7: and it's very unusual for somebody to like admit on

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Speaker 7: TV that you don't know much about something like that.

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Speaker 3: It's very rare.

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Speaker 8: Uh.

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Speaker 7: And then she as I reported the book, should they

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Speaker 7: pull her off interviews for a while?

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Speaker 3: Ago, Okay, let's like relax for a little bit.

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Speaker 7: And then the line that finishes that chapter she knew

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Speaker 7: it was going to be a big issue, but she

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Speaker 7: never could have guessed how much she underestimated like it

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Speaker 7: became and nobody could have seen. I don't think it

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Speaker 7: coming how a movement that was built around medicare for all, hirement,

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Speaker 7: own wage, you know, basically economic populism and a Green

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Speaker 7: New Deal would end up being just consumed by.

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Speaker 3: This question of Israel Palestine.

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Speaker 7: And that's because the fight was kind of brought to

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Speaker 7: them immediately after they got to Congress. The pro Israel

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Speaker 7: groups just stand up, these super packs just that start

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Speaker 7: spending millions of dollars against them alphabet And the.

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Speaker 4: Cool thing about the book is that you go behind

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Speaker 4: the scenes of some of these huge moments, like, for example,

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Speaker 4: the Margaret Hoover interview, you're like right there with AOC

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Speaker 4: talking about how her team is handling it. You have

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Speaker 4: information from behind the scenes that makes all this really fascinating.

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Speaker 4: I want to ask how the squad sees itself now

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty three. First of all, how do they

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Speaker 4: kind of define themselves? You have Justice Democrats, then you

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Speaker 4: have people that are sort of broadly recognized as members

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Speaker 4: of the squad. How self aware are they in Congress

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Speaker 4: as they're working together or not working together. It's heavily

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Speaker 4: female obviously you have Jamal Bowman on the book cover,

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Speaker 4: but it does seem almost like a sisterhood.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, they and I think as the book shows, they

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Speaker 7: sort of struggled with that question of what is the

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Speaker 7: squad or kind of is the squad? Like several of

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Speaker 7: them at different points would say there is no such

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Speaker 7: thing as the squad. So the first role of the squadquy,

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Speaker 7: it doesn't exist that there is a squad. And in

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Speaker 7: many ways they were right, like it was a media

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Speaker 7: creation built on there, but they played played along with it.

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Speaker 7: It came from an Instagram kind of post that AOC

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Speaker 7: put up. It was just a picture of the four

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Speaker 7: of them and she just wrote squad and that was

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Speaker 7: That was during the kind of rise of the kind

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Speaker 7: of uh you know, femboss like feminism, like a girl power.

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Speaker 9: Uh.

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Speaker 7: They did a you know, there was a cover with

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Speaker 7: them in Nancy Pelosi, which obviously they were not a

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Speaker 7: squad at all, and she's.

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Speaker 4: Like, we should get that framed for the studio.

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Speaker 10: If you had that iconic.

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Speaker 7: That was that And that was a media effort to

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Speaker 7: like kind of strip ideology away from what was fundamentally

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Speaker 7: an ideological movement. Omar says at one point there is

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Speaker 7: no squad, you know, no such thing. But of course

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Speaker 7: there also is a thing, because if you are getting

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Speaker 7: attacked as a group, it kind of forms you into

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Speaker 7: a group, and so you're kind of forged by fire

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Speaker 7: in that sense. And when Pelosi and whether it's Pelosi

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Speaker 7: in twenty nineteen Donald Trump in twenty nineteen saying send

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Speaker 7: them back. One kind of funny little detail I realized

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Speaker 7: when going back through the history was when there when

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Speaker 7: at Netroots Nation, which is you know, the liberal Bloggis

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Speaker 7: sphere kind of conference. Oh, I've been there, you go,

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Speaker 7: that's that's that's where she did leave and Elanomar said

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Speaker 7: some things that got Trump mad and got him to

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Speaker 7: start saying send them back. Pelosi would love to buy

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Speaker 7: them ticket to send them back. Deb Holand was on

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Speaker 7: stage with them. She was the It wasn't the squad,

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Speaker 7: it was it was those three plus deb Holan literally

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Speaker 7: native American, like the last part, like forget the fact

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Speaker 7: that arrest are American citizens and you're not sending them anywhere.

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Speaker 7: She's literally a Native American saying center, center back. But

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Speaker 7: I don't think Trump cared about that. But so I

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Speaker 7: think that that effort to kind of attack them kind

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Speaker 7: of pushed them into being a group. But at the

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Speaker 7: same time, as Iona Presley told, uh, told the squad

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Speaker 7: you vote alone, and so you know, you vote alone

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Speaker 7: and you vote for your district. And they would often

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Speaker 7: talk about how they were voting for their district. And

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Speaker 7: in some ways I think they resented this like insistence

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Speaker 7: that they were supposed to lead a vanguard at the left,

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Speaker 7: like and there was a marriage of convenience in some

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Speaker 7: ways between Justice Democrats and the Squad members, like that

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Speaker 7: Justice Democrats was useful to some of these Squad members

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Speaker 7: to separate themselves, particularly in Iona Presley's case, you know,

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Speaker 7: from like why why do you need to throw out

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Speaker 7: Michael Capauana And then well, I'm Justice Democrat.

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Speaker 3: I'm like AOC.

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Speaker 7: I'm like so that's you know, that becomes the rationale

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Speaker 7: for it. But then you're like, uh, you don't. They

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Speaker 7: didn't really have the sense of like, well, I'm going

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Speaker 7: to like.

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Speaker 3: Lead a movement here.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, and they never teamed up with Bernie in a

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Speaker 7: way that became kind of mechanical.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because right now, in this present moment, with

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Speaker 1: Israel's Warren Gaza, they have actually acted more like a squad.

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Speaker 1: You know, they've been some of the most outspoken critics

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Speaker 1: of the Biden approach of the indiscriminate bombing in Gaza,

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Speaker 1: calling for a ceasefire, leading these letters and so talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about how actually the amount of money

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Speaker 1: and the amount of attacks that they received in their

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Speaker 1: primary and as being members of Congress coming from the

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Speaker 1: pro Israel lobby actually kind of hardened them into these

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Speaker 1: positions and unintentionally made them leaders on it.

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Speaker 7: It could because if AOC never gets let's say, AOC

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Speaker 7: never gets pressed further on the question of you know, Israel, Palestine, Gaza,

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Speaker 7: her focus is going to continue to be climate change,

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Speaker 7: you know, raising the minimum wage, and broadly trying to

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Speaker 7: pull the Democratic Party left and kind of advance the

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Speaker 7: agenda that Bernie Sanders ran on first time in twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 7: twenty sixteen. But if you force the question in a

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Speaker 7: similar way to the way that kind of Karl Rove

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Speaker 7: did in two thousand and four by putting marriage equality

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Speaker 7: on the ballot on all of these states around the country,

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Speaker 7: that forced Democrats to pick a side, because they would

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Speaker 7: have been happy to say that civil union marriage between

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Speaker 7: a man and a woman leave me alone.

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Speaker 3: I don't want to this is icky. I don't want

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Speaker 3: to think about this.

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Speaker 7: But when you force the Democratic Party ta take a

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Speaker 7: stance on a fundamentally civil rights issue, eventually they're going

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Speaker 7: to have to They're going to be forced by their

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Speaker 7: base to.

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Speaker 3: Get on the right side of it.

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Speaker 7: And I think particularly with Israel Palace and the more

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Speaker 7: people as you study the history, as you study what's

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Speaker 7: going on, as you visit the area. Jamal Bowman went,

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Speaker 7: you know, with Jay Street to see it, and he

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Speaker 7: was bizarrely like protested by you know, some some people

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Speaker 7: associate with DSA. How dare you like go with j

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Speaker 7: Street to Israel? But seeing it firsthand, seeing the occupation

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Speaker 7: up close, you come back changed, like you can you know,

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Speaker 7: once you move past the propaganda around it and you

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Speaker 7: see it firsthand and you really understand what's going on,

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Speaker 7: you can only wind up on one one side if

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Speaker 7: you're a progressive Democrat.

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Speaker 3: So I think that.

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Speaker 7: That is what is effectively happened. Also, as Summerlee told me,

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Speaker 7: she's like, I was like, did you consider you know,

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Speaker 7: moderating your your views on this the way that a

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Speaker 7: lot of other candidates did, and she was like, well, no,

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Speaker 7: but only because that wouldn't have worked, right.

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Speaker 3: They were coming for me either way.

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Speaker 7: She did say that, like it's in her head, Like

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Speaker 7: she admitted, like that the millions of dollars have spent.

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Speaker 7: It does get in your head and and you like

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Speaker 7: think two or three times before you say something.

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Speaker 3: But she's like, but she's like it.

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Speaker 7: In the end, it doesn't matter, because they're coming for me,

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Speaker 7: and not just because of two tweets I had about

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Speaker 7: Gaza in twenty twenty months, because I'm out because of

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Speaker 7: my broader kind of left wing, multi racial working class

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Speaker 7: agenda that is in opposition to the donors, to a

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Speaker 7: pack and to DMFI, like they have other interests as

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Speaker 7: well besides just Israel Palace time. Yeah, they want to

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Speaker 7: keep their tax loopholes and keep their taxes low and

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Speaker 7: all that's fight back against unions and that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 6: Yes, of course.

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Speaker 4: So my last question is something you get towards in

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Speaker 4: the end of the book about the kind of attempt

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Speaker 4: to make an apples to apples between the Squad and

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Speaker 4: the Freedom Caucus, which isn't you know, a dumb comparison.

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Speaker 4: There's some interesting points of comparison there. And something I

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Speaker 4: thought that was interesting in your reporting was that there

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Speaker 4: is some awareness actually of how the Freedom Caucus has

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Speaker 4: flexed their muscles over the last ten years. Among members

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Speaker 4: of the Squad. There's a hilarious conversation about Lauren Bobert

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Speaker 4: between with Aocisi has some really funny thoughts on Laura

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Speaker 4: Bilbert and that's an interesting Yeah, who among us. But

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Speaker 4: that's an interesting sort of question for the squad is

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Speaker 4: how they do they force the vote?

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Speaker 10: Do they?

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Speaker 4: I mean, how has their thinking evolved on using their

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Speaker 4: numbers to force some of these conversations?

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Speaker 7: I think it, You know, they have definitely heard the

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Speaker 7: criticism and it's something I think that they're that they're

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Speaker 7: sorting through. I think when it comes to some some

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Speaker 7: issues like I go through force the vote a little

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Speaker 7: bit in there, and.

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Speaker 4: The page guys love to talk about forcing them.

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Speaker 7: About thoughts on We're just going to do force to

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Speaker 7: vote every day for the entire show for the rest

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Speaker 7: of the rest of our lives.

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Speaker 3: On that, they're like, no, that wasn't it.

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Speaker 7: But they do get the idea, like they are into

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Speaker 7: the idea that that they want to build their leverage,

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Speaker 7: and you know, toward the end of it, AOC is saying,

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Speaker 7: you know, now that we're approaching ten to twelve, like

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Speaker 7: that's that's a place where there's power that can be

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Speaker 7: leveraged and.

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Speaker 3: In a way that won't be annihilated.

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Speaker 7: And there was there was there was a sense of

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Speaker 7: weakness that I think that contributed to something as well

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Speaker 7: as like a sense of being new and not really

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Speaker 7: having a sense of how this.

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Speaker 3: Is all going to end.

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Speaker 7: At the same time, though, will there still be ten

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Speaker 7: or twelve at the end of this next election cycle

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Speaker 7: or will they'll be two?

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Speaker 11: Right?

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Speaker 7: Like, you know, it is quite possible that a lot

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Speaker 7: of them could get wiped out by APAC and dmf I.

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Speaker 1: Money, which just announce the're going to spende hundred million

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Speaker 1: dollars against them.

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Speaker 3: Sort of.

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Speaker 7: The sourcing on that was a little yeah, it's like

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Speaker 7: I think it was sourced to people who are watching

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Speaker 7: or something.

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Speaker 3: However, this is a threat.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, the one hundred million dollars is plausible because if

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Speaker 7: they're spending five million and twenty races, that gets you

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Speaker 7: there right right away. And it's not it's not implausible.

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Speaker 7: But a pack hasn't quite come out and said they're

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Speaker 7: going to do that.

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Speaker 3: They haven't.

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Speaker 7: They haven't confirmed or denied. They're going to spend an

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Speaker 7: enormous amount of money. That is whether like last time

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Speaker 7: they spent like forty collectively between the PROS groups, So

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Speaker 7: it wouldn't be insane to see one hundred.

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Speaker 1: Gotcha, Well, the book is fantastic. I'm almost through it.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to do a talk with you at where

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Speaker 1: are we doing it Politics and Pros on November twenty sixth.

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Speaker 6: It's going to be.

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Speaker 7: Great twenty seventh Monday.

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Speaker 1: That I don't know the name of where we're doing

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Speaker 1: it or the date we're doing it.

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Speaker 6: It's fine.

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Speaker 10: Your calendar then you go.

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Speaker 3: That's all there is.

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Speaker 10: I'll be there.

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Speaker 6: I'll be writing rock. The book is fantastic. Congratulations on it,

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Speaker 6: Ryan as great. You all right, guys.

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Speaker 1: Very excited to be joined this morning by James Johnson

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Speaker 1: of Jail Partners. They of course see the wonderful focus

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Speaker 1: groups for us, and James just took another trip back

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Speaker 1: to Georgia where he spoke to quote unquote double disapprovers

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Speaker 1: who are not impressed with Trump or Biden, of which

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Speaker 1: I think many of us.

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Speaker 6: Relate to, to.

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Speaker 1: See how they are feeling about this election as a

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Speaker 1: great report in the Washington Exammer headline is in Georgia

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Speaker 1: swing country, Trump baggage and all has an edge over Biden.

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Speaker 10: Great to have you, James, thank you, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, So talk to us a little bit

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Speaker 1: about how you selected these people and what the overall

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Speaker 1: vibe was when.

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Speaker 12: You talked about yep, So this wasn't just me roaming

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Speaker 12: around Georgia coffee shops. So we we actually texted by

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Speaker 12: SMS thousand people in two counties of Baldwin and Washington counties.

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Speaker 12: These are places that voted for Biden in twenty twenty

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Speaker 12: in Georgia, but Brian Kemp the Republican in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 10: Interesting the key to this.

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Speaker 12: So we texted people and then we got them to

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Speaker 12: fill out the survey and if they matched our aut

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Speaker 12: what we were looking for, which are people who disapproved

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Speaker 12: of both Trump and Biden and are now undecided or

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Speaker 12: a bit on the fence about how they might vote

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Speaker 12: next time, then we selected them.

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Speaker 1: So we spoke about people suburban.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, it's interesting.

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Speaker 12: So it's abount ninety minutes drive southeast out of Atlanta

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Speaker 12: and Baldwin County has Millageville in the middle. It actually

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Speaker 12: used to be the old capital of the Confederacy in Georgia,

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Speaker 12: the Confederate Georgia for a while. It's a university town,

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Speaker 12: but it feels like a suburb despite being in the

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Speaker 12: middle of rural Georgia. And so that's an interesting dynamic.

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Speaker 12: And then down the road in Washington County a lot

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Speaker 12: more rural, not many towns or connovations at all. Is

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Speaker 12: interesting because there's nothing that makes these counties particularly more

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Speaker 12: volatile in terms of voter's mines. These people aren't just

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Speaker 12: aren't more swinging in terms of their votes. It's because

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Speaker 12: they're quite divided. So they're about fifty to fifty black

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Speaker 12: and white in terms of ethnic mix, and there's also

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Speaker 12: a mix on education and other political views as well.

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Speaker 4: It sounds actually almost like what you're finding confirms with

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Speaker 4: The New York Times, Siena Paul found recently, especially among

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Speaker 4: perhaps black voters, that people who are undecided Biden might

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Speaker 4: be losing support among them. Tell us a little bit

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Speaker 4: about what some of those fault lines are with the

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Speaker 4: double disapprovers that may have them swinging towards Trump. When

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty they swung towards Biden.

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Speaker 12: Yeah, absolutely, so I think that's the big dynamic happening

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Speaker 12: in Georgia. Non white voters are going off of Biden.

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Speaker 12: I spoke to a man called Gabriel in mixed racer

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Speaker 12: man who lives in Tinill And Georgia. It's this little

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Speaker 12: railway town literally at the end of the line. It's

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Speaker 12: right on Sherman's March the sea, you know, so tearing up,

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Speaker 12: you know, rightwayway lines, et cetera. He's still sort of

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Speaker 12: very sort of alive to lots of racial tensions today.

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Speaker 10: And Gabriel that he spoke to.

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Speaker 12: Me and he sets me down in a coffee shop

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Speaker 12: and he said, African Americans are waking up. They're moving

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Speaker 12: away from Biden and the Democrats, and they're becoming more

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Speaker 12: open to Trump. And his main reason was that they

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Speaker 12: were sort of recoiling to some of the more left

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Speaker 12: wing parts of the Democrat agenda. He spoke about transgender issues,

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Speaker 12: he spoke about the sort of what he saw as

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Speaker 12: the political persecution of Trump. He also spoke about seeing

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Speaker 12: that Democrats were swapping African American voters for white women,

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Speaker 12: was how he described it. So he got this feeling

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Speaker 12: that there was a gap between them, and that was

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Speaker 12: echoed a lot across my journey through these through these

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Speaker 12: swing counties, and then the people who were in the

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Speaker 12: state who were more pro Democrat and African American, there

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Speaker 12: wasn't that enthusiasm there. There's almost this sort of you know,

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Speaker 12: irony really, and that people feel more relaxed by politics

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Speaker 12: over the last few years. There's less drama compared to

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Speaker 12: the Trump years. One woman I spoke to even said

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Speaker 12: she went on too well boutrin because because of the

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Speaker 12: Trump presidency, she was so stressed out every day.

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Speaker 10: They say that they're not like that anymore.

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Speaker 12: And actually that's had a sort of ironic effect because

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Speaker 12: it meant that it's meant that they're actually more disengaged now.

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Speaker 12: And people spoke to me about how black people in

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Speaker 12: Georgia didn't come out for Stacy Abrams even in twenty

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Speaker 12: twenty two, and they doubt whether they'll come out for

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Speaker 12: Biden again. So I think that's a huge dynamic happening

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Speaker 12: here with a non white vote.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about the gentleman Nicholas, who voted for Biden

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty and says that if Trump is the nominee.

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Speaker 1: He's going to go Biden again, but if Republicans pick

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Speaker 1: DeSantis or potentially someone else, then he's going to vote Republican.

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Speaker 10: Yeah.

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Speaker 12: So his big problem with Trump was January sixth and

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Speaker 12: the Capital, you know, the sort of events around the

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Speaker 12: Capitol on that day that had his in his view,

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Speaker 12: made Trump sort of disqualified for the presidency.

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Speaker 10: But he's still a Republican.

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Speaker 12: He still sort of you know, wants Republican and conservative

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Speaker 12: ideas in government. So he really likes DeSantis, for example.

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Speaker 12: And this was a thing that we heard again and

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Speaker 12: again and again, actually people sort of saying, you know

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Speaker 12: that they really didn't want one of Biden or Trump,

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Speaker 12: and a strong sense that if there was another alternative

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Speaker 12: to them, then Biden or Trump would lose very badly.

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Speaker 12: And I think we saw that in the NBC poll yesterday.

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Speaker 12: A Democrat, generic Democrat beats Trump, a generic Republican beats Biden.

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Speaker 12: So Nicholas was one of those examples of quite a

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Speaker 12: clued up He was a college graduate, he was in Millageville,

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Speaker 12: quite a clued up person on politics. But for him,

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Speaker 12: Trump was not a viable option. He wasn't keen on Biden,

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Speaker 12: he's going to vote for Biden, but he wasn't keen

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Speaker 12: on him. He spoke about how Biden could have reached

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Speaker 12: across the aisle to voters after twenty twenty, and that's

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Speaker 12: what he expected. He spoke about Biden saying he was

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Speaker 12: going to be a president for all America rather than

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Speaker 12: just Democrats, and he felt that Biden hadn't done that,

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Speaker 12: but he was going to hold his nose and vote

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Speaker 12: for him anyway. This is looking like a very much

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Speaker 12: hold hold your nose election. Everybody sort of had one man, Frank,

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Speaker 12: who was an independent. He sort of sat almost with

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Speaker 12: his head in his hands. He couldn't work out who

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Speaker 12: to vote for. So it's a lot of It's not

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Speaker 12: a happy election for sure.

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Speaker 1: Did any and P's double disapprovers who are not excited

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Speaker 1: about this election, did any of them mention maybe I'll

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Speaker 1: vote third party or I'm giving a third party candidate

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Speaker 1: a look.

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Speaker 12: Yes, Frank, the man I just mentioned he was sort

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Speaker 12: of in a dictionary definition of an independent.

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Speaker 10: He has sort of big sage beard.

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Speaker 12: He was sat back at his in his sop when

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Speaker 12: he was sort of know voted for Ross Perrot in

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Speaker 12: the nineties. He voted for a write in since he

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Speaker 12: voted for Trump in twenty twenty, but he didn't want

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Speaker 12: to repeat it again because of concerns about Trump's tent temperament.

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Speaker 12: He spoke about a writing candidate or third party. I

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Speaker 12: said to him, Oh, have you heard about RFKJ union.

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Speaker 12: He said, oh, yeah, maybe him, but he didn't come

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Speaker 12: up with him, unprompted. A few other people did mention

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Speaker 12: RFK Junior or a few other people spoke about looking elsewhere, however,

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Speaker 12: And I think this is because Georgia is such a

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Speaker 12: swing state.

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Speaker 8: Now.

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Speaker 12: I mean it went to Biden for it's first time

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Speaker 12: I went Democrats, sin it's nineteen ninety two under Bill

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Speaker 12: Clinton in the last election. People are really aware that

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Speaker 12: it's a tight margin. And lots of people said to me,

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Speaker 12: even when they were sort of talking through about oh

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Speaker 12: maybe I could be tempted to buy a third party,

442
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:55,280
Speaker 12: they corrected themselves and said it would be a wasted vote, waste,

443
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:58,960
Speaker 12: And that was a really really strong motivator for these guys.

444
00:20:59,119 --> 00:20:59,520
Speaker 11: Interesting.

445
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:01,359
Speaker 4: One thing that has stood out for me as you

446
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:05,400
Speaker 4: started doing focus groups on Breaking points side was asking

447
00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:07,680
Speaker 4: where people what their news diets look like and where

448
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 4: they're getting their information, and that strikes me as perhaps

449
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,560
Speaker 4: one of the most interesting distinctions between twenty sixteen, twenty twenty,

450
00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:16,280
Speaker 4: and potentially twenty twenty four. When you have the double

451
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:19,119
Speaker 4: disapprovers saying things, for instance, like I think it was

452
00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:22,159
Speaker 4: the man Gabriel you mentioned who felt as though Democrats

453
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:25,679
Speaker 4: were swapping white women for black voters. That is not

454
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,480
Speaker 4: something you hear in the establishment media, the legacy media

455
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 4: at all. And I'm really curious what your sense is

456
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 4: as you're talking to double disapprovers, and maybe as you're

457
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:37,880
Speaker 4: talking to people in general, how media diets have changed,

458
00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 4: just maybe even since the pandemic, just since twenty twenty.

459
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:44,359
Speaker 4: I think that's one thing maybe people like, especially Democrats,

460
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 4: the Democrat establishment might not fully be banking on, is

461
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:50,960
Speaker 4: that there's information, there are narratives, there are arguments that

462
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,679
Speaker 4: are getting the voters in a more powerful way than

463
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:54,439
Speaker 4: perhaps before.

464
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:55,440
Speaker 10: Yeah.

465
00:21:56,040 --> 00:22:00,359
Speaker 12: I mean someone spoke to me there and said, can't

466
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:03,200
Speaker 12: trust anything, you know. They said that they go online

467
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 12: and they'd google something even and try and find out

468
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:07,119
Speaker 12: a story and they think, oh, this looks like a

469
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:08,359
Speaker 12: good news story, and they click on it and it

470
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:12,200
Speaker 12: would just be either an agenda or clickbait and people

471
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:14,720
Speaker 12: feel like there's this real, real loss of trust that

472
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 12: people feel now to the point where they almost don't

473
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:20,080
Speaker 12: flock and trust anything. It's turning some people off. So

474
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 12: I think that is a huge factor. You know, the

475
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 12: usual sources of media that were perhaps banked on, you know,

476
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 12: the world of you know, candidates writing op heads or

477
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:32,200
Speaker 12: candidates getting on an important cable news station. Those days

478
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 12: really really seemed over for these double disapprovers and for

479
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 12: voters as a whole. It's this sort of free orbit

480
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:41,359
Speaker 12: almost of media now that people can sort of select,

481
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 12: select and go for and you know, they're looking for

482
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 12: those trustworthy, straight down the line sources, but they can't

483
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 12: always feel they can find them. So I think that's

484
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:50,640
Speaker 12: an absolute huge factor. It means that viral clips become

485
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:53,360
Speaker 12: more important. It means that sort of how people sort

486
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:56,159
Speaker 12: of feel about the candidates become more important directly. I

487
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:58,520
Speaker 12: think it's also an opportunity for politicians. They're able to

488
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 12: speak more directly to the elect than they ever have been.

489
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 12: That obviously brings dangers if you're you know, if you're

490
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 12: Biden and you potentially fall over. It also brings opportunities

491
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 12: if you're Trump, and you can get your message directly

492
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 12: to them.

493
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,440
Speaker 1: James, What the Democrats are really banking on is two things.

494
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 1: Number One, you brought up Trump January sixth, threat to democracy,

495
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: like basically, this guy and his party are just too extremists,

496
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: too unhinged. The other one which ties into that argument

497
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 1: is abortion. And we have seen even though frankly I

498
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: was skeptical that this would be sufficient.

499
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 6: We've seen now in midterms.

500
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: We saw in the twenty twenty three, you know, the

501
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: off term elections that we just had, that has been

502
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:35,880
Speaker 1: very compelling for voters, and the pro choice position has

503
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: one in every single ballot initiative that it's been put on.

504
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: It seems to be very motivating for a democratic base,

505
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 1: and a lot of independence too, who may otherwise have

506
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:47,880
Speaker 1: been kind of thrown up their hands, stayed home, not been.

507
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 6: Too excited about this election.

508
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: Did abortion come up with these voters at all? Are

509
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: you seeing that in your conversations that this is a

510
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:57,480
Speaker 1: you know, a really super like hot issue that is

511
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: motivating people to come out and express their choices THEO So.

512
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 12: I didn't see too much of it amongst in Georgia,

513
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 12: amongst these double disapprovers and I think one of the

514
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 12: reasons for that is not necessarily because their views on

515
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 12: it differ, but because the presidential race is a different

516
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:15,439
Speaker 12: range of issues. And I think that's the caveat I

517
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 12: make about reading too much endo twenty twenty two or

518
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,360
Speaker 12: the twenty twenty three elections is that they happened off cycle,

519
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 12: and the choice of who's in the White House wasn't

520
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 12: on the ballot, and I think that changes the issues agenda.

521
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:27,640
Speaker 12: That's not to say it weren't important, it won't be important.

522
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 12: So for example, you know, Arizona might have abortion on

523
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 12: the ballot next year. That's probably going to have a

524
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 12: bit of an impact in getting Democrat voters out, and

525
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 12: so I think it does have a potential turnout impact.

526
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 12: But I think what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing

527
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 12: both in polling and in focus groups, is that when

528
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 12: it comes to the choice between Biden and Trump or

529
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 12: whoever it might be, it's the positives and negatives of

530
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 12: those individuals that are weighing more heavily than abortion. So

531
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 12: I'm not sitting here and saying it's not important, but

532
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 12: I do think it's becomes a slightly lower tier issue

533
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 12: when we get into a presidential election.

534
00:24:57,560 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 4: One thing I'm hearing from all of this is that

535
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 4: the people of are not clamoring for Dean Phillips. They're not.

536
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 4: They're not on the Phillips train, right They were they

537
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 4: literally asking you what about Joe Mansion. Please tell me

538
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 4: Joe Mansen is going to get into the race.

539
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 12: I mean there was there was no Joe Mansion train.

540
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 12: There was no Dean Phillips train. There was well, I

541
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 12: mean not. There weren't many trains, to be honest. So

542
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 12: you don't want to get on the Trump or the

543
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 12: Biden train either. It's interesting even despite the more disengaged Democrats.

544
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 10: I went.

545
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 12: I had a fascinating interview with a man called Joseph.

546
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 12: He's a Nighthawks veteran and he runs a helps run

547
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,439
Speaker 12: the Veterans hospital now in Mergerville. And he had this

548
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 12: big army Army shirt on and he sort of, you've

549
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 12: got you've got to remember these things are very exciting

550
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 12: for me as a brit We.

551
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 10: Don't have people wearing big army shirts in the UK.

552
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 12: And he sort of sat back and he had a

553
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 12: picture actually of Clinton and the barber on his shirt

554
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 12: on his on his wall, and he said, He pointed

555
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 12: at them, and he said, Biden's not like them. He's

556
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 12: not a firecracker. I'm not going to put a bumper

557
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:02,120
Speaker 12: sticker on for Biden. Despite all that, he still said

558
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 12: that shouldn't be a primary chalvage to Biden because he

559
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 12: felt that would divide Democrats even more.

560
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 6: That is interesting, fear of Trump.

561
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: It really really does dictate a lot of our politics

562
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: right now.

563
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 6: James, Thank you so much.

564
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: Always so insightful to just hear directly from voters the

565
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: way they are viewing this election that not a lot

566
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: of people are super excited about.

567
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 6: So great to see you. Thank you so much.

568
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 13: All right.

569
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 8: I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief of the

570
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 8: Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People.

571
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 8: And this is the art of class war on breaking points.

572
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 8: With each passing day, more Israeli bombs are falling on Gaza,

573
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 8: more bodies are being blown apart and buried under the rubble.

574
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:59,160
Speaker 8: Over a million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes.

575
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 8: The world has borne witness to a genocidal military campaign

576
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 8: to clear out Gaza once and for all, And every day,

577
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 8: every hour, it feels like the chance to stop one

578
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 8: of humanity's most inhumane crimes is slipping through our fingers,

579
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 8: and the powers that be have shown no interest whatsoever

580
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 8: in listening to the thundering calls for a ceasefire that

581
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 8: are coming from governments and mass demonstrations around the world,

582
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:35,199
Speaker 8: particularly the Biden administration here in the United States, the

583
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 8: increasingly fascistic Netan Yahoo government in Israel, and the arms

584
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 8: manufacturers and war profiteers who are raking in billions from

585
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 8: manufacturing mass death. This is prompting activists and people of

586
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 8: conscience around the world to take direct action themselves to

587
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,360
Speaker 8: try to disrupt the war machine, and that includes working

588
00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 8: people and trade unions. In Australia, for instance, direct actions

589
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 8: and protests have exploded across the country. As Mustafa Rishwani

590
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 8: recently reported for The Guardian, Quote, across the country, protests

591
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 8: continued to be held in major cities. They include a

592
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 8: daily sit in front of the Victorian Parliament, weekly protests

593
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 8: at the Sydney office of the Prime Minister Anthony Albanize,

594
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 8: and prayer vigils at various locations. Protests are being held

595
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 8: against Israeli shipping companies zim at Port, Botany in Sydney

596
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 8: and at the Port of Melbourne where there is an

597
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 8: ongoing presence. Patty Gibson, an organizer at Trade Unionist for Palestine,

598
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 8: said workers were keeping an eye out for future ZIM

599
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 8: arrivals in order to facilitate snap protests.

600
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 9: Quote.

601
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 8: Our intention is to disrupt the businesses and we're calling

602
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 8: for a boycott of Zim shipping, Gibson said end quote. Now.

603
00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 8: The group Trade Unionists for Palestine made headlines early November

604
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 8: when they took action at the Port of Melbourne blocking

605
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 8: entry roads, preventing trucks from accessing the area where the

606
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 8: Israeli shipping line operates. One hundreds also participated in a

607
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 8: direct action to prevent an Israeli cargo ship from docking

608
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 8: at Sydney's Port Botany on November eleventh, and that included

609
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 8: many members of Trade Unionists for Palestine. So to talk

610
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 8: about all of this and more, I got to speak

611
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 8: with April and seb two members of Trade Unionists for

612
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 8: Palestine who have been there on the ground in Australia

613
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 8: taking action with their fellow unionists to disrupt the war machine,

614
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 8: to force a ceasefire and to end the violence of

615
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 8: Israel's seventy five year occupation of Palestine. Here's our conversation,

616
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 8: which we recorded late at night on Friday, November seventeenth

617
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 8: from the Real News Networks studio in Baltimore, although it

618
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 8: was Saturday morning in Melbourne for them. All right, Well,

619
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 8: April Seb, thank you both so much for joining us

620
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 8: today on Breaking Points. Hello from across the world. Good morning.

621
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 8: I was wondering if you could start by just introducing

622
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 8: yourselves to the Breaking Points viewers and listeners real quick. Yeah,

623
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 8: I'm Seb.

624
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 14: I am an Earliot educator, so I welcome my kindergarten sitting.

625
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 13: Yeah, my name is April. I'm an organizer with United

626
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 13: Workers Union, which is a large blue collar union here

627
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 13: in Australia of about one hundred and fifty thousand members.

628
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 13: I am organized in early childhood with members like Seb.

629
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 13: I also work in the kind of background strike an

630
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 13: event logistics. So yeah, I've been doing that for seven years.

631
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 8: And you were both members of Trade Unionist for Palestine

632
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 8: over in Australia. Correct, Yes, that's correct.

633
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 14: It's a pretty good you know, it's like a nice

634
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 14: rank and file organization that popped up pretty organically.

635
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 8: All right, cool, So I want to hear all about that.

636
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 8: I just gave a little bit of an intro when

637
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 8: we introduced the segment earlier. But I guess, like before

638
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 8: we start talking about how Trade Unions for Palestine itself

639
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 8: came to be in the actions that y'all have been

640
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 8: taking over there in Australia, I wanted to kind of

641
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 8: take a quick step back, kind of like we did

642
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 8: in the previous art of Class War segment that we

643
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 8: did with another fellow worker, a healthcare worker here in

644
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 8: the United States, who was also taking action for Palestine.

645
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 8: So you both, you know, and other members of Trade

646
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 8: Unions for Palestine, the rank and file group that you

647
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 8: refer that we were just talking about over in Australia.

648
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 8: I mean, you're all working people, just like the rest

649
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 8: of us. So I wanted to start there, like, tell

650
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 8: us more about who you are, what you do, what

651
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 8: working life is like for you and workers like yourself

652
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 8: in Australia these days, and then tell us about how

653
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 8: you came to be, you know, an active fighter in

654
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 8: the movement to stop Israel's occupation of Palestine and its

655
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 8: genocidal destruction of Gaza. Like walk me through how those

656
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 8: two parts of your lives have converged in this moment.

657
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 14: Yeah, So working as an earli as educator, you know,

658
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 14: that's basically working with children, educating them, helping them get

659
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 14: the best sort of set up for their life. Been

660
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 14: working in that sector for five years now, and you know,

661
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 14: working in a sector like that, you interact with a

662
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 14: lot of children and families from very diverse backgrounds, and

663
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 14: the vast majority of them, particularly where I work, you know,

664
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 14: people who either are or directly related to people from Palestine.

665
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 14: They have some connection to the to the people and

666
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 14: the suffering going on there, and you know, just sort

667
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 14: of working in that sector, you can very you know,

668
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 14: easily rationalize that this is something that's really important to

669
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 14: stand by. In regards to what it's like to live

670
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 14: in Australia, it's you know, for working class people, it's

671
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 14: quite difficult. The cost of living is through the roof.

672
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 14: And you know we've got because we've got a monopoly

673
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 14: in our sort of food provider industry, which is colloquially

674
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 14: referred to as Colesworth. We you know, there's a lot

675
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 14: of price gouging in regards to just basic necessities.

676
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 8: So I think there is.

677
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 14: You know, this sort of convergence for a lot of

678
00:33:55,960 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 14: working class people with frustration of their their own living

679
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:04,719
Speaker 14: conditions and then seeing on the other side like the

680
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 14: most violent way that that plays out. And I think

681
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 14: they have developed quite a lot of international solidarity with

682
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 14: the suffering that's going on in Palestine.

683
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:19,760
Speaker 13: So just to I suppose echo what Seb was saying.

684
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 13: The sector that I organize in, and Seb works in

685
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 13: very howard. He is a very inspirational leader and a

686
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 13: very inspirational educator for children, has been doing it for

687
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 13: many years. It's a sector that leans very heavily on

688
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 13: visa workers, on primarily women who are on their student visa.

689
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 13: It's a sector that kind of burns through workers and

690
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 13: pays them very very low rates. Essentially. The thing that

691
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 13: kind of strikes me as an organizer when I go

692
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 13: out to speak to educators like Seb at their sites.

693
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,439
Speaker 13: These are incredibly skilled and important workers who have been

694
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 13: through an education process to become the professional educator that

695
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 13: they are, but they're being paid what we call in

696
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 13: Australia award rates, and these are rates that are basically

697
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,319
Speaker 13: the bare minimum. There's no agreement there, the bare minimum

698
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 13: that they can be paid. And this is the majority

699
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,959
Speaker 13: of the sector. This is the for profit sector, which

700
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 13: kind is the bottom line is about how much money

701
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 13: they can make. So you see when you have these

702
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 13: conversations with educators that they are really really feeling it.

703
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 13: We as organizers are experiencing it through them. The cost

704
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 13: of living crisis, the fact that they are working all hours,

705
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 13: they're working over time, they're not really getting paid properly

706
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,320
Speaker 13: for that overtime sometimes and this kind of cumulative impact

707
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 13: leads to them not being able to do things like

708
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:59,479
Speaker 13: go for holidays, and it creates this kind of two

709
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 13: tier labor system within the sector, which is reflected elsewhere

710
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 13: in Australia. And there's this kind of this kind of

711
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 13: false idea that Australia is this lucky country, but unfortunately

712
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 13: Australia is actually being built on a colonialism, which of

713
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 13: course you know, relates to what we're discussing today, but

714
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 13: also the exploitation in a very real way of migrant workers.

715
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 13: And what's really inspiring and one of the reasons why

716
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 13: I'm so involved in what we're doing taking action for

717
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 13: Palestine is these educators are actually relating to this struggle

718
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 13: and they're turning out we have more educators coming to

719
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 13: our rallies every week, week on week because people are

720
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 13: becoming aware that this is a class thing and this

721
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 13: does not have boundaries. They relate to what they see,

722
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 13: They relate to seeing children, relate to seeing women, and

723
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 13: they think, my god. You know, there are educators in

724
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 13: that country that are trying to do the job that

725
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 13: we're doing under unimagined you know, pressures. So that's the

726
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 13: context in terms of Australia. I've worked in this space

727
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 13: for about fifteen years. My background is policy in the UK.

728
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 13: I previously worked for a group called Labor Friends of

729
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 13: Palestine in the Middle East, which is a advocacy group

730
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 13: within the Westminster kind of bubble for want of a

731
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 13: better word, that was for many, many years trying to

732
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 13: build a progressive case for for statehood, for the lefting

733
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 13: of the backade, the separation policy. And you know, that

734
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 13: feels like many years ago now with where we are

735
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 13: as at a party, but that's how I came to

736
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 13: it originally. And here the work that we're doing as

737
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 13: a union just does top dovetails so much with.

738
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 8: That struggle, right, I mean, you know, again, from one

739
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 8: settler colony to another. You know, I find a lot

740
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 8: relatable in that, and I feel like I'm seeing a

741
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 8: lot of that, or at least some of it here

742
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 8: in the United States. Even if it's not translating to

743
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 8: say mass action, our labor movement is certainly lagging behind

744
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 8: the rest of the world or other parts of the

745
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 8: world that are standing up with courage against the genocide

746
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 8: that we are watching unfold. I'm sad to say that

747
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,240
Speaker 8: a lot of labor unions here in the United States

748
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 8: have not done so, but many rank and file workers have,

749
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:32,840
Speaker 8: many local unions have, many groups formed by rank and

750
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 8: file workers across sectors have and that is very heartening.

751
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 8: But I remember, you know, I asked the question the

752
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 8: way that I did because I want to, you know,

753
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 8: always emphasize for people that corporate media, as it always does,

754
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 8: is going to try to if it's going to acknowledge

755
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 8: the actions being taken by people around the world to

756
00:38:56,400 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 8: try to end this madness in Gaza over there, that

757
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,280
Speaker 8: Israel is wiping Palestine off the face of the earth,

758
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 8: People of conscience who just want to stand up and

759
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 8: do something whatever they can to stop this horror. The

760
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 8: mainstream media, if it covers that at all will do

761
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 8: what they always do. When we talk about protests, we

762
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 8: talk about them as like as if the people there

763
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 8: just sort of appear from nowhere out of like some

764
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 8: Antifa basements, or that they're all just professional activists or agitators.

765
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 8: And I think what we're seeing right now is no,

766
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 8: these are just regular people. I was down in Washington,

767
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 8: d C. Two weeks ago at the largest pro Palestine

768
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 8: margin US history. I was interviewing people for the Real

769
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 8: News Network. Folks watching can go check it out. There's

770
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,359
Speaker 8: just people like you and me. Yeah, there were activists there,

771
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 8: but there were over one hundred thousand people there, right.

772
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 8: You just gotta you can't fill that much space in Washington,

773
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 8: D C. Without just a lot of regular people like

774
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 8: you and me. And so that's why I asked the

775
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 8: first question that way. And I want to kind of

776
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 8: piggyback onto that and and focus in on trade unions

777
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 8: for Palestine specifically, and and and the work that y'all

778
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 8: have been doing there, the the the actions y'all have

779
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 8: been taking. Right. You know, I first learned about y'all

780
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 8: when I saw a tweet from my colleague over in

781
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 8: the United Kingdom, the Great taj Ali uh showing you know,

782
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 8: uh y'all out there in Melbourne, like shutting down a

783
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 8: port and stopping you know, the unloading of a shipment

784
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 8: headed to Israel. So like, you know, that was really

785
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 8: wild to see. I wanted to ask if you all

786
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 8: could just take us there, like tell us how this

787
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 8: group came together, what y'all have been doing, how you

788
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 8: have been involved in it, and and and yeah, like

789
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:49,800
Speaker 8: what has been happening uh since that you know action

790
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 8: that that y'all took early in November.

791
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 14: Yeah, so I trade used for Palestine. Like I said earlier,

792
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 14: it was very organically formed. It wasn't sort of like

793
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:04,879
Speaker 14: an on high authority was like here we go, here's

794
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 14: trade units for Palestine. It was born from a lot

795
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 14: of unions sort of coming together and going we need

796
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 14: to take a stand, like this is something that is

797
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 14: just simply not acceptable. We can't just you know, sit

798
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 14: idly by the action that happened at the port was

799
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:32,320
Speaker 14: super cool. To really oversimplify it, but what what happened

800
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 14: was there was a ship that was headed for Botany

801
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 14: Bay in Sydney, but it had to go through Port

802
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,760
Speaker 14: Melbourne first, Like it had to go buy it. So

803
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 14: we organized just this rally out the front where the

804
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 14: police basically came out in force to say, you know,

805
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:57,280
Speaker 14: basically tell us to sot off. Like it was pretty

806
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:06,399
Speaker 14: like high security levels, very aggressive police presence, and we

807
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 14: sort of huddled around this spot where you know, we

808
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 14: could sort of you know, make a good like area

809
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 14: of organizing, and we were listening to speeches and discussing,

810
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 14: you know, what else we could do. And I can't

811
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 14: remember which company it was, but one of the Israeli

812
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 14: trucks came through and people were just so frustrated. All

813
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 14: of the workers there were so frustrated just seeing all

814
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 14: of these trucks come through. And eventually we just kind

815
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 14: of had enough and we very spontaneously just went onto

816
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 14: the road to stop it, to stop that truck going

817
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 14: in to be able to be you know, sent off

818
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 14: and help Israel profit on the genocide of Palestinians. So

819
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 14: we sat there until we could send it back. We

820
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 14: did not let it go through. It was a very

821
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 14: powerful moment and I think for a lot of people too,

822
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 14: it showed them that they actually do have this power,

823
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 14: like it's not something that is given to us, like

824
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 14: we have it already. We just need to exercise it.

825
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 10: And just to.

826
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 15: Further echo again what SEB said, The actual grouping itself

827
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 15: came from an open letter that unionist rank and file

828
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 15: unionists started to sign.

829
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:39,280
Speaker 13: So it was I think two members too loan members

830
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,839
Speaker 13: of a union called ASU, who were so frustrated at

831
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 13: the lack of leadership from our own union executives that

832
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 13: they started this open letter that got passed around and

833
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 13: very organically all these different unions and the next thing

834
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 13: you know, every single rank and file unionist is signing it,

835
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 13: and that's members and also organizers. So there was this

836
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 13: kind of like sudden kind of coalition being formed that

837
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 13: brought together all of the industrial knowledge of the different

838
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 13: types of union in the different sectors that they cover

839
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 13: in the different industries. And what we found was that

840
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 13: unions were actually doing this on their own as well.

841
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 13: So workers in union were already within their own separate

842
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 13: unions having conversations and thinking about pressure points where we

843
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 13: could turn up and use our bodies to occupy space

844
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 13: and go to rallies and banner painting sessions has been

845
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 13: become a really big thing because it also brings in

846
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 13: members who might not be ready to come out to

847
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 13: an action, but they are able to engage with the

848
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 13: issue around something that is quite accessible and we can

849
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 13: set around painting and have conversations around the history and

850
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:53,320
Speaker 13: why they need to be there as unionists. The actual

851
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 13: action was organized within the Trade Unionists for Palestine group

852
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 13: and crucially, crucially brought in the community because one of

853
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 13: the things that we need to make sure it doesn't

854
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 13: happen here is that unionists are organizing an isolation of

855
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 13: the communities that are actually affected. So we speak to APAN,

856
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 13: who are the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network, one of the

857
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 13: biggest groups here that advocate for Palestinian rights, other kind

858
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 13: of like rank and file groups within Melbourne, to build

859
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 13: a coalition and to start thinking about how we can

860
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 13: do this in a sustainable way. The ZIM truck that

861
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 13: came kind of turned up out of the blue. Really,

862
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 13: we weren't sure that trucks were even going to come,

863
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 13: but he turned up and there was this wonderful moment

864
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 13: where we were all I think, we're all listening to

865
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 13: a speaker at the rally that had been organized, and

866
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 13: everyone's head just kind of turned and we see this

867
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,800
Speaker 13: truck coming towards us, and then this is just rush

868
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,879
Speaker 13: of human beings running into the middle of the road.

869
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 13: And then like you know, the banners come out. Everyone

870
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 13: ends up sitting down and and we stay sitting and

871
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 13: we're chanting, and it's the chance is up, up with liberation,

872
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 13: down down with occupation. And it goes on and on

873
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 13: and on for about you know, twenty minutes, and then

874
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 13: this this uncle gets up to the front and tells

875
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 13: us about his family who have in the last week died,

876
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 13: and shows pictures to the crowd of his family and

877
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 13: who have died. And as far as I know this,

878
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 13: this this man is still there now in a tent

879
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:39,280
Speaker 13: by the side of that road. So I think what's

880
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 13: happening is there is there is a space being formed

881
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:45,879
Speaker 13: for grief, and that grief is making people show up.

882
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 13: And I think that even if you are not a

883
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 13: Palestinian person, when you're close to that grief, you understand

884
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 13: why it's so necessary.

885
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 8: Yeah. I think that's really beautifully and powerfully put by

886
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,799
Speaker 8: both of you. And I just wanted to quickly sort

887
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 8: of ask about that because I don't have too much time,

888
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:04,400
Speaker 8: and I got one more question I want to get to.

889
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 8: But could you just say a little more about that space,

890
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 8: Like what does the scene look like over there in Australia,

891
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 8: Like I said, like, we are seeing a tremendous amount

892
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 8: of action happening here in the United States. It's happening

893
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 8: in different pockets. It's happening in train stations, it's happening

894
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 8: with you know, people demonstrating in front of Elbit Systems

895
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 8: headquarters and manufacturing facilities. These are the sites where where

896
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,280
Speaker 8: groups like Palestine Action are stopping you know, like production

897
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 8: of weapons that are going to Israel. Also, you know,

898
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 8: people are you know pressing their elected officials. Right there's

899
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 8: a real battle going on between the narratives. You know,

900
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 8: people are seeing like just one totally lopsided account on

901
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 8: certain corporate media channels, and they're flooding to channels like

902
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 8: this to see what else is out there. And they're

903
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 8: realizing that they've been lied to for so long. And

904
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 8: so there's a real mix of stuff happening here because

905
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 8: all of that's happening amidst you know, spikes and hate crimes,

906
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 8: anti Semitic, you know, like it's crimes against Muslims and Arabs,

907
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 8: and like there's a real high kind of tense moment

908
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 8: in the country. There's also a lot of like McCarthy

909
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 8: I repression coming on college campuses. People are losing their

910
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 8: jobs speaking up for Palestine. YadA, YadA, YadA. We'll get

911
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 8: to that in a second. I wanted to ask if

912
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 8: you could just sort of give us again a little

913
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 8: bit of a snapshot of what else is happening there, Like,

914
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 8: do you feel that you're alone in this over in

915
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 8: Australia or is it the opposite? Are there more actions

916
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 8: that y'all are taking part of, more groups that you're

917
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 8: seeing coming to the fore and speaking up about this.

918
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 8: You know, what is the response from the powers that be?

919
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 8: Like Parliament and Anthony ALBANIZI like, I think I call

920
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 8: them Albanese in the introduction, but like, what's going on

921
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 8: over there? I guess for people living over here in

922
00:48:57,960 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 8: North America.

923
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 14: Yeah, Well, the one sort of I guess super awesome

924
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 14: thing is that the community movement, the rank and file movement,

925
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 14: is just growing and growing and growing. I don't remember

926
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 14: the exact number of the last march through the city,

927
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 14: but it was over I think it was over two

928
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 14: hundred thousand from memory. It was huge, and you know,

929
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 14: we've got these mass movements of people who are just

930
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 14: saying no, like this is ridiculous. On the flip side,

931
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:36,399
Speaker 14: we've got elected officials coming out and you know, some

932
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 14: are just blatantly saying that, you know, Israel's in the right,

933
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 14: while others are being a bit more sort of you know,

934
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 14: vague with how they reached the same conclusion, and people

935
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 14: are really getting frustrated with that.

936
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 8: The community is.

937
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 14: Getting annoyed and is starting to show that in a

938
00:49:56,120 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 14: very you know, open way that like a lot of

939
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 14: people have you know, started to connect that what happened

940
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 14: in Australia and is still happening, this active you know

941
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 14: colonization in Australia is now being played out for them

942
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,919
Speaker 14: in a very visible way over in historic Palestine. And

943
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 14: I think that's really causing people to kind of, you know,

944
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 14: raise their consciousness to this situation, to want to understand

945
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 14: why these things are happening and how else we can

946
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 14: fight them. And it's been super inspiring to see more

947
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 14: and more people who would traditionally not want to do

948
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 14: any organizing come out and be trying to start mass movements.

949
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 13: And going back to the struggle to counteract you know,

950
00:50:55,400 --> 00:51:00,879
Speaker 13: partial representation of the truth if it can use propaganda

951
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 13: that I've never seen such propaganda in my life. It's

952
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,359
Speaker 13: it's almost constant. You know, you feel like you're being

953
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 13: gas lit because you see the thing with your eyes,

954
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 13: your own eyes, it's verified by an expert in the area,

955
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 13: and then you're told that you don't see it, and

956
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 13: it's it's maddening and it makes it makes you feel

957
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:23,439
Speaker 13: very frustrated, which you know, on the flip side, really

958
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 13: encourages you to turn out. That's that frustration of not

959
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 13: being heard, not being seen that turns people out. One

960
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 13: of the things that we are doing as a union,

961
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 13: as our union, United Workers Union, is we are actually

962
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 13: actively going to our sites with information, with flyers, with

963
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,839
Speaker 13: ways that people can become involved, and we're having got

964
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 13: to be called toolbox meetings where the organizer will go

965
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 13: and have conversations with leaders at that site about the

966
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 13: history and about the part that unions have played historically

967
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 13: around things like apartheid in raising up the voices of

968
00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 13: people who aren't you know, represented in news, who aren't

969
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:08,800
Speaker 13: generally listened to, and who are really homogenized and othered.

970
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:14,320
Speaker 13: So it's I would say incumbent on us as union leaders,

971
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 13: people like me and seb to continue to have conversations

972
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 13: to actually break through, because it's always much more powerful

973
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 13: having that conversation with a human being in front of you,

974
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 13: who you trust and who you know, than just sitting

975
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 13: and listening to the propaganda that's fed to you. And

976
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 13: that is I think for any union organizer listening to

977
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 13: this in Canada or in America, that is such an

978
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 13: important thing for us to do right now, because because

979
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 13: union organizing isn't just about your site, and it's not

980
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 13: just about your industry, it's about the broader social good

981
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 13: in the world and being part of that.

982
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,759
Speaker 8: Tell. Yeah, well, and like you always saying, I mean,

983
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:57,439
Speaker 8: I think there is it's exciting to hear what you

984
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 8: just said, you know, because it means that the future

985
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:02,399
Speaker 8: is not yet written, right. I think we are seeing

986
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:06,879
Speaker 8: a real battle over the future happen right now, and

987
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 8: what happens next depends on what regular people like you

988
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 8: and me and everyone watching do right now. And you

989
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 8: know I think that that, Yeah, like the ways that

990
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 8: this sort of armature of ideology that had held so

991
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 8: many of us on one side of this issue, that

992
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 8: we were always fed just one side of it, and

993
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 8: we ourselves are living in as I said, also the

994
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:37,280
Speaker 8: United States a successful settler colony that was founded upon

995
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 8: the dispossession of the land and the genociding of the

996
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:43,880
Speaker 8: people who lived here. And so I think that that

997
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 8: is what the role that Israel always played for a

998
00:53:46,719 --> 00:53:49,480
Speaker 8: lot of Americans is. It was like it was like

999
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 8: this symbol upon which we could project our own lingering

1000
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 8: colonial guilt and have it washed clean, you know, like

1001
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:00,959
Speaker 8: through a settler colony that seemed to be the most

1002
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 8: sympathetic version you could have of that project of you know,

1003
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:07,799
Speaker 8: like people like again the story we were told and

1004
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 8: the and the story that really, you know, means a

1005
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 8: lot to a lot of people who believed in that

1006
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 8: that you know, there was nowhere to go in Europe,

1007
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 8: they needed Jews, needed their own nation, and that this

1008
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 8: was there was no one there right. Our media, our

1009
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 8: education made us not ask those sorts of questions that

1010
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 8: people are now asking themselves. And I think it's it's

1011
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 8: really hitting people really hard. But they we need to

1012
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 8: be steadfast and learn and and and understand as much

1013
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 8: of this as we can. But at the bare minimum,

1014
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 8: all you need to understand that is that this is

1015
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 8: wrong this shouldn't happen. This can't happen. We cannot let

1016
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 8: this happen. We cannot let our world go on if

1017
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 8: this becomes permissible over and over again and we do

1018
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 8: nothing to stop it. You can do something to stop it.

1019
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 8: People like Seb and April are doing stuff like that.

1020
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:00,719
Speaker 8: You know your fellow workers are doing stuff like that.

1021
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:04,360
Speaker 8: Whatever it is, you can do something. And that is

1022
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 8: always the message, as you all both mentioned that that

1023
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,319
Speaker 8: is endemic to the labor movement, right It's baked into

1024
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 8: the cake of the labor movement is that we are

1025
00:55:12,920 --> 00:55:15,759
Speaker 8: stronger together and we are fighting for a better life

1026
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:19,160
Speaker 8: for all working people who deserve better than this. So

1027
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,279
Speaker 8: I wanted to end on that note really quickly, because

1028
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:22,440
Speaker 8: we have gone a long and I do have to

1029
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:27,399
Speaker 8: let y'all go. But as people see these connections, as

1030
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 8: the blinders come off, as they allow themselves to feel

1031
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:35,960
Speaker 8: as much sympathy for you know, dying Palestinian children as

1032
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 8: dying Israeli children, as they are dealing with that all

1033
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 8: at once and want to know what they can do.

1034
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 8: But they're worried about again, as I described, the McCarthyite

1035
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 8: sort of fog on that is settled on the country,

1036
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 8: the pressures that are doxing people outside of their college

1037
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 8: campuses for going to a demonstration, even if they're not

1038
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 8: speaking at it. You know, people getting fired from their jobs,

1039
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 8: people becoming paries within their own families. What would your

1040
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 8: message be to your fellow workers in North America and

1041
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 8: beyond about why you have, you know, taken that step

1042
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 8: to get involved in why you think it's important that

1043
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 8: they do.

1044
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 14: My message would be pretty It would be pretty short

1045
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 14: and sweet. I will explain it a little bit though.

1046
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:28,839
Speaker 14: Keep fighting, get united, get organized, and stay educated. Like

1047
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:34,719
Speaker 14: we are stronger together. And people don't like people who

1048
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:36,800
Speaker 14: fight for good because it's easier to stay on the

1049
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:40,719
Speaker 14: status quo, because that's not hard to do. It's hard

1050
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 14: to fight for what's right. So organize, get united, figure

1051
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 14: out how you can create a movement or a community

1052
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 14: that will support you, and keep yourself educated on what's

1053
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 14: going on so you know how to combat anyone who

1054
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 14: tries to feel disinformation.

1055
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 13: I would say that this is actually a moment that

1056
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:06,920
Speaker 13: we really need to rise to as a global movement

1057
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:09,919
Speaker 13: of workers. And one of the things that I think

1058
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:11,920
Speaker 13: really needs to be said right now is if any

1059
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 13: of your viewers watching just now are not in the union.

1060
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:15,720
Speaker 11: Join your union.

1061
00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 13: Find out who your union is, go online, find it,

1062
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 13: join it, and organize right because trade unions are one

1063
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 13: of the few really good resilient structures for engaging working

1064
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:31,040
Speaker 13: people and channeling all of our energy towards taking action

1065
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:36,000
Speaker 13: for what's right. Okay, join your union, organize like Sev said,

1066
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 13: and if you're in your union already, start to have

1067
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 13: conversations around what you as members are comfortable doing. Speak

1068
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 13: to your delegates, speak to your rep find out what's

1069
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 13: happening at your in a community level. Turn out you

1070
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 13: signal right, because signal is relatively safe to talk about

1071
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:58,400
Speaker 13: actions that you can be part of. Because what we're

1072
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 13: talking about here, the need to join a union is

1073
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 13: it's not just about protecting yourself now, It's not just

1074
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:08,280
Speaker 13: about how they can community around you that will protect you,

1075
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 13: but it's about building a country where nobody is allowed

1076
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 13: to dock somebody, nobody is allowed to fire somebody because

1077
00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 13: of their viewpoint that you're strong enough as a union

1078
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 13: workforce to prevent that from happening. Because in a democracy,

1079
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 13: nobody should be shut down for standing up for peace.

1080
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 8: That is April and Seb, two members of Trade Unionists

1081
00:58:30,960 --> 00:58:34,360
Speaker 8: for Palestine, a rank and file group over in Australia.

1082
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:37,280
Speaker 8: April SEB. Thank you both so much for joining us

1083
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 8: today on Breaking Points. I really really appreciate it.

1084
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 13: Thank you, thanks, thank you.

1085
00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 8: Thank you for watching the segment with Breaking Points, and

1086
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 8: be sure to subscribe to my news outlet, the Real

1087
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 8: News Network with links in the show description. See you

1088
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:55,520
Speaker 8: soon for the next edition of the Art of Class War.

1089
00:58:56,120 --> 00:59:00,720
Speaker 8: Take care of yourselves, take care of each other forever.

1090
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 5: Excuse me, do you guys got a sport stern? Hold on,

1091
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 5: hold on, wait one second. Do you have any thoughts

1092
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:09,440
Speaker 5: on CEOKA? What do you think about consulting?

1093
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:10,160
Speaker 8: Is it BS?

1094
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:12,720
Speaker 5: Or do they actually add value to businesses? So we're

1095
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:15,440
Speaker 5: doing a piece trying to get people's thoughts on consulting.

1096
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:19,000
Speaker 5: Is consulting legit business or is it just BS? It's legit.

1097
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 8: I interned there this summer and it was very legit.

1098
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:32,000
Speaker 5: A few weeks ago, John Oliver on his HBO show

1099
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:35,600
Speaker 5: Last Week Tonight, engaged in an epic takedown of mackenzie

1100
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 5: and the consulting industry, where secretive companies like McKenzie charge

1101
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 5: exorbitant fees to their clients, usually Fortune five hundred companies

1102
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:46,120
Speaker 5: for quote unquote innovative advice, and all of our segment

1103
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 5: has garnered over six million views on YouTube so far.

1104
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 16: McKinsey's advice can be expensive but obvious, its predictions can

1105
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 16: be deeply flowed, and it's all gonna be helped super

1106
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 16: charge economic inequality in this country, all of which is

1107
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:01,200
Speaker 16: pretty striking coming from a company who's lead You've already

1108
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:03,640
Speaker 16: seen some of its fundamental mission like this.

1109
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 4: Our purpose is to create positive, enduring change in the world.

1110
01:00:07,680 --> 01:00:08,919
Speaker 8: Yeah, but is it though?

1111
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 3: Good question?

1112
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:12,360
Speaker 5: So I thought it might be interesting to hear from

1113
01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 5: some potential aspiring future mackenzie consultants. We are at New

1114
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:21,200
Speaker 5: York University's Stern School of Business, my alma mater, and

1115
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:23,800
Speaker 5: we're hopefully going to talk to some students about McKenzie,

1116
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:27,480
Speaker 5: which approximately thirty percent of the student population wants to

1117
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 5: work at. That is true. In fact, I may have

1118
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 5: even underestimated that a little bit, because according to NYU's

1119
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 5: latest NBA Employment report, almost forty percent of the graduating

1120
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 5: class went to work for a consulting firm, with an

1121
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:42,640
Speaker 5: average starting salary of nearly one hundred and seventy thousand

1122
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:46,520
Speaker 5: dollars per year, along with a thirty K signing bonus.

1123
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 5: What do you think about consulting? Is it bs or

1124
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 5: do they actually add value to businesses?

1125
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:54,960
Speaker 17: I think the correct answer for me would be for

1126
01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:57,880
Speaker 17: my future, I think yeah, providesoral value.

1127
01:00:58,040 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1128
01:00:58,280 --> 01:00:58,360
Speaker 11: No.

1129
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:00,720
Speaker 18: I mean I've also had like and I've been a

1130
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 18: little bit on the inside and know a lot of

1131
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:04,640
Speaker 18: people and that you know, have worked in these firms,

1132
01:01:04,680 --> 01:01:07,720
Speaker 18: So they probably are adding value to businesses. I mean,

1133
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 18: when you go to mckensey with a business issue that

1134
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:13,720
Speaker 18: you're looking to address, they're more than they're going to

1135
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:17,960
Speaker 18: be likely to solve it in some capacity. But there's

1136
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:21,040
Speaker 18: a chance that they're not accounting for like what people

1137
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 18: feel on the inside. How good does a business really

1138
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,320
Speaker 18: need to be? I mean, if they're not afloat but

1139
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 18: doing well and creating you know, revenue and profits for

1140
01:01:29,720 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 18: their stakeholders, what's the does do you need to go

1141
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,000
Speaker 18: to the next level to and then have to you know,

1142
01:01:36,080 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 18: cut a bunch of employees. It'd be nicer if someone

1143
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:41,080
Speaker 18: from mckensey works on the inside of a company and

1144
01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 18: actually put skin in the game.

1145
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 17: They do provide like some some consultation device that's like,

1146
01:01:47,640 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 17: does seem like common sense, but I think there's a

1147
01:01:49,600 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 17: lot more that goes into it, And based off like

1148
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 17: the casing and all the consultant consulting stuff that I've

1149
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 17: been doing, there's a lot that goes into it, a

1150
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 17: lot more than people think. So I think that's important

1151
01:01:59,120 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 17: to keep in mind.

1152
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:00,560
Speaker 10: John Oliver.

1153
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:05,000
Speaker 5: He also highlighted how mackenzie has spearheaded the extreme rise

1154
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:08,600
Speaker 5: in executive compensation that we've seen in the last sixty years.

1155
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 16: So there was one area where mckinziys historically advised the

1156
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:14,919
Speaker 16: exact opposite of cost cutting, and that is executive pay.

1157
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 16: Starting in nineteen fifty, consultant of Theirs named Arch Patten

1158
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:22,040
Speaker 16: started advising corporate leaders that they were underpaid, writing books

1159
01:02:22,120 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 16: like Men, Money and Motivation executive compensation as an instrument

1160
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 16: of leadership. His advice was so wildly popular that for

1161
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 16: a time Pattern personally accounted for almost ten percent of

1162
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:35,720
Speaker 16: the firm's billings and later came to be seen as

1163
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 16: a major contributor to skyrocketing executive pay.

1164
01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 10: What do you think.

1165
01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 5: About CEO pay? It did too much, too little? Just

1166
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 5: the right amount?

1167
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 17: Oh, I don't know, because it's how much they want,

1168
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:50,160
Speaker 17: how much they I think it's it's probably on a

1169
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 17: per person basis too, because the amount of uh, you know,

1170
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:56,480
Speaker 17: work that they put in, the amount of hours I

1171
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 17: know those jobs are taxing.

1172
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 18: The market does decide, you know, no one is going

1173
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:03,880
Speaker 18: to pay three hundred times three hundred x you a

1174
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 18: salary per c if the market doesn't demand for it.

1175
01:03:07,560 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 19: Yeah, I think they do get paid too much. But

1176
01:03:10,080 --> 01:03:13,120
Speaker 19: a lot of their compensation out tied with their stock performance, right,

1177
01:03:13,160 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 19: So if they're getting paid more than I guess shareholders

1178
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 19: are also beneficiaries. So yeah, I guess it's good for everyone,

1179
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:25,280
Speaker 19: except if you're not shareholders for the company, then I

1180
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 19: guess you were missing out.

1181
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 5: The fact of the matter is if you work at McKenzie,

1182
01:03:28,400 --> 01:03:30,880
Speaker 5: that's kind of a springboard into a very great career.

1183
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:32,160
Speaker 8: There's a lot of well.

1184
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:35,160
Speaker 5: To do people like CEO of Google, people to just

1185
01:03:35,160 --> 01:03:37,240
Speaker 5: all these guys that come from mackenzie. Are you comfortable,

1186
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:40,200
Speaker 5: let's say, working within an industry that maybe does some

1187
01:03:40,320 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 5: unscrupulous things, but it's going to really help your career

1188
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 5: or is it unfair to ask people that to say

1189
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 5: you need to be morally right all the time.

1190
01:03:47,800 --> 01:03:50,320
Speaker 19: It's very hard to say, right, but I guess as

1191
01:03:50,360 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 19: long as within the law boundaries.

1192
01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:56,680
Speaker 18: I don't believe that the consulting industry is evil. I

1193
01:03:56,720 --> 01:03:58,920
Speaker 18: think that it is a good springboard if you want

1194
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 18: to put yourself and surround yourself by, you know, top minds,

1195
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:07,760
Speaker 18: people who've been exposed to the highest level of transactions

1196
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:11,360
Speaker 18: and the highest level of policy, and also just be

1197
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 18: in the kind of reaching distance of real policy makers

1198
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:17,800
Speaker 18: and real change makers. It's it's totally legitimate to go

1199
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 18: to these firms.

1200
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:20,600
Speaker 19: For me, I would just follow my heart, Like, if

1201
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 19: I think this is right now, I'm going to do it.

1202
01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 19: If I don't think it's right, it's not comfortable for me,

1203
01:04:25,040 --> 01:04:25,840
Speaker 19: I'll probably.

1204
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 3: Pass on it.

1205
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:28,400
Speaker 19: You know, there's better ways to make money than just

1206
01:04:28,760 --> 01:04:31,440
Speaker 19: going against your marls and you know, make money from that.

1207
01:04:31,680 --> 01:04:33,880
Speaker 5: Are there any red lines you think in terms of like,

1208
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:36,520
Speaker 5: let's say McKenzie works with the Saudi government questionable human

1209
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:41,640
Speaker 5: rights or regulatory gray areas such as consulting for the

1210
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 5: FDA at the same time they're consulting for a pharmaceutical company.

1211
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:47,840
Speaker 18: That's the market. Because the size of mackenzie is the

1212
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:50,600
Speaker 18: size of the market. So in terms of red lines, Like,

1213
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 18: it's just more like everyone loves to see transparency and

1214
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:58,680
Speaker 18: everyone loves to see kind of a value judgment. Personally,

1215
01:04:58,760 --> 01:05:02,800
Speaker 18: I'm not huge on like government tons of government intervention.

1216
01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 18: So it's just kind of what the market created.

1217
01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 19: There should be more regulations, but also not everyone find

1218
01:05:09,240 --> 01:05:12,000
Speaker 19: this guy is a is a you know, Ponzi scheme runner.

1219
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,600
Speaker 19: So I would say, like, there's definitely a lot of

1220
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:15,840
Speaker 19: bias from outside of the.

1221
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:17,600
Speaker 8: Stern you know, just talk to more stern people. I

1222
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 8: think they're nice.

1223
01:05:18,280 --> 01:05:19,000
Speaker 10: They're nice people.

1224
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:21,560
Speaker 5: I don't doubt that I'm one of them. But what

1225
01:05:21,680 --> 01:05:25,080
Speaker 5: business school students were willing to share I think pales

1226
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 5: in comparison to what they were not willing to share.

1227
01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:30,439
Speaker 5: Hold on, hold on, wait, wait one second. We're part

1228
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:32,760
Speaker 5: of a news organization called Breaking Points. Are you okay

1229
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:33,840
Speaker 5: with us using that footage?

1230
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:34,280
Speaker 13: No?

1231
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:36,000
Speaker 6: No, keep time in my opinion, but a lot of

1232
01:05:36,480 --> 01:05:38,760
Speaker 6: negated something I would be okay with.

1233
01:05:38,880 --> 01:05:42,680
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, you don't want to be caught on camera?

1234
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:43,080
Speaker 8: Is that right?

1235
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 11: Sorry?

1236
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:45,280
Speaker 4: Sorry, Y don't have time.

1237
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 13: I'm gonna decline, but thank you.

1238
01:05:48,240 --> 01:05:50,880
Speaker 5: Very difficult to get people to speak since they have

1239
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:52,400
Speaker 5: a lot to lose. Yeah, I think about it. They

1240
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:55,160
Speaker 5: has a lot of student student loans, two hundred thousand

1241
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:58,280
Speaker 5: dollars in student loans, and then you have to get

1242
01:05:58,280 --> 01:06:01,080
Speaker 5: a job, you know, or else you can't. I did

1243
01:06:01,080 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 5: my best, but truly there is no, at the very

1244
01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:07,240
Speaker 5: least no financial upside in talking to me, so I

1245
01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:10,920
Speaker 5: can't really blame them for prioritizing their self interest. Truth is,

1246
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 5: modern corporations only love superficial diversity, what you look like,

1247
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 5: your sexual orientation, things like that. But they do not

1248
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:21,400
Speaker 5: love diversity and thought. And this principle applies before you

1249
01:06:21,440 --> 01:06:23,520
Speaker 5: get the job and while you're on the job.

1250
01:06:23,680 --> 01:06:24,600
Speaker 3: And I think that's why you.

1251
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 5: See so many unscrupulous business practices or personal misconduct go unchallenged.

1252
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 5: Your company is doing something shady tunnel vision, you say nothing.

1253
01:06:33,760 --> 01:06:36,200
Speaker 5: Maybe a coworkers is getting harassed by boss. Unless it's

1254
01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:39,720
Speaker 5: really egregious, probably best just look the other way and

1255
01:06:39,880 --> 01:06:42,960
Speaker 5: also say nothing for risk of you also becoming a

1256
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:47,080
Speaker 5: potential cultural pariah yourself in the eyes of the company. Look,

1257
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:49,880
Speaker 5: I'm not here to be the morality police. And despite

1258
01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:53,000
Speaker 5: some of the cringe posts that you'll see on LinkedIn,

1259
01:06:53,080 --> 01:06:56,240
Speaker 5: some crap like this about helping the environment, or whatever.

1260
01:06:56,480 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 5: The uncomfortable truth is that corporations can't really be anything

1261
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,440
Speaker 5: more than a platform or a vehicle to help you

1262
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 5: build economic security for you and your family, and unfortunately,

1263
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:09,800
Speaker 5: as we all know today, that does come with tremendous

1264
01:07:09,800 --> 01:07:10,720
Speaker 5: societal cost.

1265
01:07:11,000 --> 01:07:12,000
Speaker 6: That's it for me this week.

1266
01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:14,480
Speaker 5: Let us know what you think. Also, if you enjoyed

1267
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:16,800
Speaker 5: the segment, you can support my work by going over

1268
01:07:16,840 --> 01:07:19,200
Speaker 5: and subscribing to my YouTube channel fifty one to forty

1269
01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 5: nine with James Lee. The link will be in the

1270
01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:23,760
Speaker 5: description below. Your support would mean a lot to me,

1271
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 5: of course, keep on tuning into Breaking Points and thank

1272
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:32,960
Speaker 5: you for your time today.

1273
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:42,960
Speaker 8: All right, I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief

1274
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:45,800
Speaker 8: of the Real News Network and host of the podcast

1275
01:07:45,960 --> 01:07:49,439
Speaker 8: Working People, and this is the Art of class war

1276
01:07:49,840 --> 01:07:54,400
Speaker 8: on Breaking Points after a historic six weeks strike that

1277
01:07:54,600 --> 01:07:59,000
Speaker 8: for the first time in the union's history involved workers

1278
01:07:59,040 --> 01:08:02,280
Speaker 8: at each of the Big three automakers going on strike

1279
01:08:02,320 --> 01:08:06,760
Speaker 8: at the same time, United Auto Workers at Ford, General

1280
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:11,840
Speaker 8: Motors and Stillantis have ratified their new contracts with the companies.

1281
01:08:12,160 --> 01:08:16,280
Speaker 8: As Dan DiMaggio reports at Labor Notes Quote, the stand

1282
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:21,439
Speaker 8: up strike began September fifteenth, when thirteen thousand workers walked

1283
01:08:21,439 --> 01:08:26,240
Speaker 8: out at three Ford General Motors and Stillantis assembly plants.

1284
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 8: By the end, it grew to fifty thousand out of

1285
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:32,800
Speaker 8: the one hundred and forty six thousand UAW members at

1286
01:08:32,880 --> 01:08:36,680
Speaker 8: the Big Three. The agreements came after a major escalation

1287
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:41,200
Speaker 8: striking each company's most profitable truck plant. Workers approved the

1288
01:08:41,240 --> 01:08:45,200
Speaker 8: deals at GM, Ford, and Stallantis this week. At Ford

1289
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:49,080
Speaker 8: and Stillantis, two thirds voted in favor, but at GM

1290
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:52,599
Speaker 8: the numbers were close. Just fifty five percent of workers

1291
01:08:52,680 --> 01:08:58,719
Speaker 8: voted yes, reflecting workers heightened expectations and frustration with years

1292
01:08:58,800 --> 01:09:02,800
Speaker 8: of give backs Any higher seniority. Assembly plant workers at

1293
01:09:02,840 --> 01:09:06,920
Speaker 8: all three companies voted no, saying the raises and retirement

1294
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:11,720
Speaker 8: gains were not enough. Still, DiMaggio notes the new contracts

1295
01:09:11,760 --> 01:09:15,800
Speaker 8: go further than many people thought possible on issues that

1296
01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 8: the companies had insisted were off the table now as

1297
01:09:19,280 --> 01:09:23,360
Speaker 8: far as those contract gains go. As Jamie L. LaRue

1298
01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:28,240
Speaker 8: of Detroit Free Press Rights quote, the UAW represents about

1299
01:09:28,320 --> 01:09:32,320
Speaker 8: one hundred and fifty thousand auto workers at the Detroit Three.

1300
01:09:32,439 --> 01:09:35,400
Speaker 8: In the contracts, which largely mirror each other with a

1301
01:09:35,439 --> 01:09:39,640
Speaker 8: few individual company exceptions, the union won back some of

1302
01:09:39,640 --> 01:09:43,720
Speaker 8: the big provisions lost during the Great Recession, such as

1303
01:09:43,840 --> 01:09:48,760
Speaker 8: cost of living adjustments or COLA, annual bonuses for retirees,

1304
01:09:49,240 --> 01:09:53,519
Speaker 8: and the elimination of wage tiers. The agreements will provide

1305
01:09:53,560 --> 01:09:57,679
Speaker 8: compensation increases of at least thirty three percent after COLA,

1306
01:09:57,760 --> 01:10:01,559
Speaker 8: and compounded wage increases up to over one hundred and

1307
01:10:01,640 --> 01:10:05,360
Speaker 8: sixty percent for some of the lowest paid workers over

1308
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:08,439
Speaker 8: the four point five years of the contract. The union

1309
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 8: won a three year wage progression to the top pay rate,

1310
01:10:12,280 --> 01:10:16,480
Speaker 8: down from eight years at all three automakers. At Stalantis,

1311
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:21,400
Speaker 8: which makes Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Fiat vehicles, it

1312
01:10:21,439 --> 01:10:25,760
Speaker 8: will reopen an assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois that it

1313
01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:29,840
Speaker 8: idled in February. The automaker committed to build a three

1314
01:10:29,880 --> 01:10:34,160
Speaker 8: point two billion dollar battery plant there, employing more than

1315
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 8: one thousand union workers. Also, the UAW won commitments at

1316
01:10:39,479 --> 01:10:43,400
Speaker 8: all three companies to bring thousands of electric vehicle and

1317
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 8: battery jobs under the union's national agreements. Finally, retirees will

1318
01:10:49,040 --> 01:10:53,280
Speaker 8: receive annual bonuses for the first time in fifteen years,

1319
01:10:53,560 --> 01:10:56,800
Speaker 8: a one point twenty five billion dollar boost in their

1320
01:10:56,840 --> 01:11:00,400
Speaker 8: total benefits. That is a billion dollars more than the

1321
01:11:00,479 --> 01:11:05,120
Speaker 8: union won for retirees in the last four contracts combined.

1322
01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:09,719
Speaker 8: At all three companies, traditional workers hired i e. Those

1323
01:11:09,760 --> 01:11:13,160
Speaker 8: on the job before two thousand and seven won a

1324
01:11:13,320 --> 01:11:17,439
Speaker 8: five dollars increase to their pension multiplier, the first time

1325
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:21,400
Speaker 8: getting an increase in over fifteen years. Still, many at

1326
01:11:21,439 --> 01:11:25,280
Speaker 8: GM were dissatisfied with that increase and cited that as

1327
01:11:25,320 --> 01:11:28,320
Speaker 8: one of the reasons several GM assembly plants voted no

1328
01:11:28,920 --> 01:11:32,320
Speaker 8: on the agreement now. In a Facebook live message to

1329
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:37,560
Speaker 8: union members on November eighth, UAW President Sean Fain acknowledged

1330
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:41,480
Speaker 8: that the union had not won on all fronts, including

1331
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 8: in the fight for a thirty two hour workweek and

1332
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:48,680
Speaker 8: the fight to reinstate defined benefit pensions for workers who

1333
01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:53,000
Speaker 8: were hired after two thousand and seven. Quote. What we

1334
01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:56,719
Speaker 8: did win in this contract will change many lives, Faine said.

1335
01:11:57,280 --> 01:12:01,160
Speaker 8: But we went into this round of negotiations to and tiers.

1336
01:12:01,840 --> 01:12:04,320
Speaker 8: One of the biggest and worst tiers in our union

1337
01:12:04,439 --> 01:12:07,280
Speaker 8: is the difference between pre two thousand and seven and

1338
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,000
Speaker 8: post two thousand and seven hires, which determines who gets

1339
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 8: a pension in retiree healthcare and who doesn't. We didn't

1340
01:12:15,240 --> 01:12:19,000
Speaker 8: win on this issue. The fact is both of these

1341
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:23,519
Speaker 8: issues are extremely difficult and expensive to fix, primarily because

1342
01:12:23,560 --> 01:12:27,200
Speaker 8: the Big Three, being so driven by Wall Street, refuse

1343
01:12:27,280 --> 01:12:31,120
Speaker 8: to have the liability on their books. So already we're

1344
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:34,479
Speaker 8: looking at twenty twenty eight for this issue, and we're

1345
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:39,320
Speaker 8: thinking even bigger. Either the Big Three guarantees retirement security

1346
01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:42,720
Speaker 8: for workers who give their lives to these companies, or

1347
01:12:42,760 --> 01:12:47,680
Speaker 8: an even bigger player does the federal government. Look, No

1348
01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:52,479
Speaker 8: contract is perfect, No one wins everything they need and

1349
01:12:52,640 --> 01:12:56,320
Speaker 8: deserve in a single strike or a single union drive,

1350
01:12:56,800 --> 01:13:00,840
Speaker 8: and there is still much much more to for here.

1351
01:13:01,560 --> 01:13:05,559
Speaker 8: But make no mistake, this is a momentous victory and

1352
01:13:05,640 --> 01:13:09,960
Speaker 8: a historic turning point for the UAW, for the auto industry,

1353
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:14,120
Speaker 8: and for the labor movement writ large. After half a

1354
01:13:14,200 --> 01:13:20,080
Speaker 8: century of backsliding concessionary bargaining give backs to the companies

1355
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:25,200
Speaker 8: under immense pressures of de industrialization and offshoring of jobs,

1356
01:13:25,960 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 8: after the post two thousand and eight explosion of lower

1357
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:33,080
Speaker 8: paid tiers and permanent temp positions that turned a once

1358
01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:37,839
Speaker 8: stable career into just another precarious job for so many workers.

1359
01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:42,479
Speaker 8: After being rocked by corruption scandals at the top levels,

1360
01:13:42,800 --> 01:13:47,400
Speaker 8: of the union, and after decades of devastating layoffs and

1361
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:52,559
Speaker 8: plant closures, UAW auto workers fought valiantly to take back

1362
01:13:52,600 --> 01:13:57,320
Speaker 8: their union, to vote in new leadership, to rebuild faith

1363
01:13:57,439 --> 01:14:00,200
Speaker 8: and a fighting spirit among the rank and file file,

1364
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:04,320
Speaker 8: to finally go on the offensive and put the bosses

1365
01:14:04,360 --> 01:14:08,559
Speaker 8: on the back heel for once. And they won. They

1366
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:12,680
Speaker 8: did not win everything, but they won a lot, and

1367
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:17,600
Speaker 8: the owning class is taking notice. Non union auto companies

1368
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:22,519
Speaker 8: like Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota have already announced incoming raises

1369
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:26,200
Speaker 8: for their employees as a direct result of the UAW

1370
01:14:26,280 --> 01:14:30,160
Speaker 8: gains at the Big three, and the UAW has reportedly

1371
01:14:30,200 --> 01:14:33,839
Speaker 8: been flooded by inquiries from workers at non union plants

1372
01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:40,360
Speaker 8: about unionizing, including workers at Tesla. Now that the strike

1373
01:14:40,520 --> 01:14:44,880
Speaker 8: has finally concluded and the contracts have been ratified, I

1374
01:14:44,920 --> 01:14:47,720
Speaker 8: wanted to take a moment to bring back some of

1375
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:52,439
Speaker 8: the many UAW workers I've been interviewing before and throughout

1376
01:14:52,479 --> 01:14:57,120
Speaker 8: this historic strike, including here on breaking points. So in

1377
01:14:57,200 --> 01:15:00,600
Speaker 8: this extended art of class war segment, I got to

1378
01:15:00,640 --> 01:15:04,200
Speaker 8: sit down once again with Nick Leivik, a General Motors

1379
01:15:04,240 --> 01:15:07,679
Speaker 8: auto worker, a rank and file member of UAW Local

1380
01:15:07,720 --> 01:15:10,920
Speaker 8: thirty one, in Kansas City and an activist with the

1381
01:15:10,960 --> 01:15:15,080
Speaker 8: Caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy. And we also sat

1382
01:15:15,160 --> 01:15:19,120
Speaker 8: down with Marcy Pedrasa an electrician at the Ford Chicago

1383
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,599
Speaker 8: Assembly Plant and a member of UAW Local five point

1384
01:15:22,600 --> 01:15:27,120
Speaker 8: fifty one. Here's my conversation with Nick and Marcy, which

1385
01:15:27,160 --> 01:15:30,200
Speaker 8: we recorded right here in the Real News Network studio

1386
01:15:30,240 --> 01:15:36,080
Speaker 8: in Baltimore on Saturday, November eighteenth. Marcy, Nick, welcome back

1387
01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:39,200
Speaker 8: to Breaking Points. Is so great to see you both.

1388
01:15:39,680 --> 01:15:43,120
Speaker 8: Thank you so much for joining me today, especially after

1389
01:15:43,640 --> 01:15:46,800
Speaker 8: this long, intense fight that y'all have been in. I

1390
01:15:46,840 --> 01:15:50,120
Speaker 8: hate to take you away from your much needed rest,

1391
01:15:50,280 --> 01:15:52,240
Speaker 8: but I really appreciate you being here and it's really

1392
01:15:52,240 --> 01:15:53,120
Speaker 8: great to see you both.

1393
01:15:53,840 --> 01:15:56,080
Speaker 11: Good beer, Thanks for having me.

1394
01:15:57,240 --> 01:16:03,760
Speaker 8: All right, So voting is in, the contract is ratified.

1395
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:08,200
Speaker 8: It is a new day for the UAW, a new

1396
01:16:08,280 --> 01:16:10,960
Speaker 8: day for the labor movement here in the US, and

1397
01:16:11,040 --> 01:16:16,000
Speaker 8: y'all have been on the front lines fighting the good fight.

1398
01:16:16,680 --> 01:16:19,759
Speaker 8: And you know, Nick, you and I did a segment

1399
01:16:19,920 --> 01:16:23,479
Speaker 8: here together for Breaking Points before the strike began back

1400
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:26,720
Speaker 8: in August. Lots happened in the world since then, so

1401
01:16:26,760 --> 01:16:29,000
Speaker 8: I was wondering if we could sort of just take

1402
01:16:29,040 --> 01:16:32,439
Speaker 8: a step back. Let's reflect for a second. Let's refresh

1403
01:16:32,439 --> 01:16:35,120
Speaker 8: everyone's memories about how far we've come in a short

1404
01:16:35,120 --> 01:16:38,519
Speaker 8: amount of time, what the strike was really about, what

1405
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:41,960
Speaker 8: was significant about it, and what it felt like. From

1406
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:45,800
Speaker 8: your vantage points is rank and file workers and you know,

1407
01:16:45,960 --> 01:16:51,280
Speaker 8: active members of your union working to organize and uplift

1408
01:16:51,400 --> 01:16:56,040
Speaker 8: your your fellow union members, your fellow workers. Take us back, Nick,

1409
01:16:56,040 --> 01:16:58,000
Speaker 8: why don't we start with you and just sort of

1410
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:01,640
Speaker 8: like for folks who are are you know, maybe forgetting like,

1411
01:17:01,720 --> 01:17:04,200
Speaker 8: you know, like where this all started, what was what

1412
01:17:04,240 --> 01:17:06,639
Speaker 8: it was all about? You know some of that gets

1413
01:17:06,680 --> 01:17:09,120
Speaker 8: lost in the coverage of the strike as it's going on.

1414
01:17:09,680 --> 01:17:11,920
Speaker 8: Let's start back to, you know, where we were when

1415
01:17:11,920 --> 01:17:15,559
Speaker 8: we all were talking before the strike, because of course you,

1416
01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:18,759
Speaker 8: me and Marcy and another one of your UAW members

1417
01:17:18,760 --> 01:17:21,720
Speaker 8: did a podcast together before the strike as well, So

1418
01:17:21,800 --> 01:17:24,240
Speaker 8: let's talk about let's go from there to here from

1419
01:17:24,320 --> 01:17:28,439
Speaker 8: your eyes, what where? What was this strike all about?

1420
01:17:28,920 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 8: And what was it like for you all to live

1421
01:17:32,640 --> 01:17:33,479
Speaker 8: and fight through it.

1422
01:17:34,600 --> 01:17:37,680
Speaker 9: I really think that this strike was about charting a

1423
01:17:37,720 --> 01:17:41,040
Speaker 9: new a forward for the UAW. We saw a lot

1424
01:17:41,040 --> 01:17:43,720
Speaker 9: of a lot of different things from from listening the

1425
01:17:43,760 --> 01:17:51,280
Speaker 9: public demands which were very ambitious to to transparency like

1426
01:17:51,320 --> 01:17:53,880
Speaker 9: we've never seen before with the live streams. I mean,

1427
01:17:53,920 --> 01:17:56,960
Speaker 9: that was the first time I've ever seen my international

1428
01:17:57,000 --> 01:18:00,320
Speaker 9: president get up there and give up weekly up dates

1429
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:03,760
Speaker 9: of where they were. And we had a completely new

1430
01:18:03,760 --> 01:18:06,760
Speaker 9: strike strategy. There was a lot of people talking in

1431
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:09,760
Speaker 9: the media saying, oh, this isn't gonna work. This is

1432
01:18:09,960 --> 01:18:12,720
Speaker 9: uh this, this strategy is too insane, Like it's not.

1433
01:18:12,880 --> 01:18:15,439
Speaker 9: You guys are demanding too much. And what we saw

1434
01:18:15,760 --> 01:18:19,559
Speaker 9: in the end result is a very militant membership that

1435
01:18:19,640 --> 01:18:24,240
Speaker 9: stood up. Rallied around the call, rallied around their their membership,

1436
01:18:24,680 --> 01:18:30,280
Speaker 9: and we won the most large, the largest contract in

1437
01:18:30,360 --> 01:18:33,280
Speaker 9: the UAW in the last twenty years, I believe, dating

1438
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:37,240
Speaker 9: back to Walter Ruther even so nineteen seventy. This is

1439
01:18:37,360 --> 01:18:41,880
Speaker 9: our largest contract. Since then, we've seen some some record

1440
01:18:42,200 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 9: record games. We've reinstated a cola temps have a shorter

1441
01:18:47,320 --> 01:18:47,800
Speaker 9: path to.

1442
01:18:49,600 --> 01:18:50,240
Speaker 3: Full time.

1443
01:18:50,479 --> 01:18:54,240
Speaker 9: We've rolled in all of the CCA and gmc h

1444
01:18:54,360 --> 01:18:57,120
Speaker 9: plants at my facility. I know the phrasing is different

1445
01:18:57,120 --> 01:19:01,000
Speaker 9: for Forden stillanis, but that's huge and that's what people

1446
01:19:01,880 --> 01:19:04,519
Speaker 9: should really take for this, Like when you're when you're

1447
01:19:04,600 --> 01:19:08,519
Speaker 9: unionized and when you're you're aligned in solidarity and you're

1448
01:19:08,520 --> 01:19:11,280
Speaker 9: actually standing up and fighting for this stuff, and you

1449
01:19:11,320 --> 01:19:14,200
Speaker 9: have a leadership that's backing the rank and file, and

1450
01:19:14,240 --> 01:19:17,600
Speaker 9: that's actually keeping the rank and file informed and pushing

1451
01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:21,680
Speaker 9: and and helping the rank and file push forward, you

1452
01:19:22,040 --> 01:19:24,720
Speaker 9: can win record contracts. And we've seen that now with

1453
01:19:24,880 --> 01:19:28,080
Speaker 9: the the Teamsters ups and the UAW.

1454
01:19:28,520 --> 01:19:30,200
Speaker 11: I agree with everything Nick just said.

1455
01:19:31,000 --> 01:19:34,599
Speaker 20: So you know, for us like starting back, going back

1456
01:19:34,640 --> 01:19:38,120
Speaker 20: to our contract campaign even you know, just trying to

1457
01:19:38,160 --> 01:19:42,240
Speaker 20: get more information to the membership on the shop floor

1458
01:19:42,280 --> 01:19:46,920
Speaker 20: about what this contract you know, can possibly mean for

1459
01:19:47,000 --> 01:19:50,240
Speaker 20: us in with this newly elected leadership, right. You know,

1460
01:19:50,800 --> 01:19:52,800
Speaker 20: in the past, this was only my third contract in

1461
01:19:52,920 --> 01:19:56,720
Speaker 20: the past two you know, I've known many folks who

1462
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:59,160
Speaker 20: might not have even voted before because you just thought

1463
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:01,880
Speaker 20: it was hopeless or why bothers.

1464
01:20:01,360 --> 01:20:02,439
Speaker 11: Is going to pass anyway.

1465
01:20:02,640 --> 01:20:06,160
Speaker 20: You know, they're shamming these contracts down our throat without

1466
01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:11,519
Speaker 20: any transparency, right, or or updates on bargaining. So we've

1467
01:20:11,520 --> 01:20:15,440
Speaker 20: seen a real shift in getting members you know, involved

1468
01:20:15,640 --> 01:20:18,960
Speaker 20: and just excited and pumped up to be part of

1469
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:21,479
Speaker 20: this campaign or even to be.

1470
01:20:23,200 --> 01:20:25,479
Speaker 11: You know, asked to join the stand up strike, you know.

1471
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:28,479
Speaker 20: I know that every week when there was the live

1472
01:20:28,560 --> 01:20:32,040
Speaker 20: updates and the announcement of a potential plant being struck,

1473
01:20:32,479 --> 01:20:34,000
Speaker 20: you know, people were on the edge of their seats,

1474
01:20:34,040 --> 01:20:36,360
Speaker 20: like I said, going to be us or you know whatever,

1475
01:20:36,760 --> 01:20:40,040
Speaker 20: And many members were kind of disappointed when they found

1476
01:20:40,080 --> 01:20:43,040
Speaker 20: out it wasn't them. And that just shows to you know,

1477
01:20:43,120 --> 01:20:48,439
Speaker 20: their you know, excitement about this and just wanting to

1478
01:20:48,479 --> 01:20:51,519
Speaker 20: be part of this historic moment, the first time that

1479
01:20:51,680 --> 01:20:55,240
Speaker 20: having all Big three a plant or someone from all

1480
01:20:55,240 --> 01:20:57,240
Speaker 20: Big three on strike at the same time, you know.

1481
01:20:57,920 --> 01:21:00,840
Speaker 20: And there were you know, obviously a lot of folks

1482
01:21:00,840 --> 01:21:05,920
Speaker 20: who were you know, naysayers or didn't agree with the strategy.

1483
01:21:06,479 --> 01:21:09,640
Speaker 20: I mean not just I mean the membership, but you know,

1484
01:21:09,680 --> 01:21:12,720
Speaker 20: mainstream media or just everybody who wanted to have their

1485
01:21:12,760 --> 01:21:15,160
Speaker 20: put their two cents in, right, But at the end,

1486
01:21:15,320 --> 01:21:17,439
Speaker 20: I think most of us have to agree that it

1487
01:21:17,560 --> 01:21:18,200
Speaker 20: was brilliant.

1488
01:21:18,240 --> 01:21:20,360
Speaker 11: The strategy worked, and.

1489
01:21:20,320 --> 01:21:24,280
Speaker 20: We would not have seen these gains if you know,

1490
01:21:24,560 --> 01:21:27,559
Speaker 20: it went another way. Like Nick said, you know, this

1491
01:21:27,680 --> 01:21:30,280
Speaker 20: is the most the highest wage increases we've seen in

1492
01:21:30,280 --> 01:21:31,839
Speaker 20: the last twenty two years combined.

1493
01:21:32,400 --> 01:21:35,360
Speaker 11: That's going to be life changing. For all of us.

1494
01:21:35,439 --> 01:21:38,280
Speaker 20: I think, you know, especially these newer temp workers are

1495
01:21:38,280 --> 01:21:41,520
Speaker 20: going to get even bigger wage increases right off the bat,

1496
01:21:41,680 --> 01:21:46,360
Speaker 20: you know, just to be able to say, like, you know,

1497
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:48,519
Speaker 20: I want to work here, and I want to stay

1498
01:21:48,560 --> 01:21:52,120
Speaker 20: here because now I have a fair living wage. I'm

1499
01:21:52,160 --> 01:21:54,720
Speaker 20: not just gonna work a few months or years and

1500
01:21:54,760 --> 01:21:57,599
Speaker 20: then go somewhere else where I can potentially make more

1501
01:21:57,600 --> 01:21:58,960
Speaker 20: money or get better benefits.

1502
01:21:59,040 --> 01:21:59,240
Speaker 11: You know.

1503
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:00,479
Speaker 13: One of the.

1504
01:22:00,439 --> 01:22:02,640
Speaker 20: Important things, or few of the important things for me,

1505
01:22:04,320 --> 01:22:07,639
Speaker 20: was the that's still the just transition to electric vehicles,

1506
01:22:07,720 --> 01:22:12,160
Speaker 20: right which you know, we we have won some gains there,

1507
01:22:12,200 --> 01:22:15,160
Speaker 20: but I have said, you know, it's like we have

1508
01:22:15,200 --> 01:22:17,240
Speaker 20: our foot in the door when it comes to those plants,

1509
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:20,080
Speaker 20: you know, which they said was impossible before, right that

1510
01:22:20,160 --> 01:22:22,720
Speaker 20: we wouldn't be able to to get that right off

1511
01:22:22,760 --> 01:22:23,160
Speaker 20: the bat.

1512
01:22:23,640 --> 01:22:24,400
Speaker 11: So that's great.

1513
01:22:24,400 --> 01:22:27,880
Speaker 20: And then also even though I worked for Ford now,

1514
01:22:27,920 --> 01:22:30,240
Speaker 20: but I used to work at Belvedere Assembly plant, and

1515
01:22:31,280 --> 01:22:34,479
Speaker 20: you know, just the fact that they are going to

1516
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:38,280
Speaker 20: reopen the plant and build new vehicles and a new

1517
01:22:38,280 --> 01:22:41,640
Speaker 20: battery plant nearby and a parts distribution center that's going

1518
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:44,640
Speaker 20: to be beneficial to the community of Belvidere, you know,

1519
01:22:44,720 --> 01:22:46,760
Speaker 20: I grew up on the southeast side of Chicago, and

1520
01:22:46,800 --> 01:22:49,640
Speaker 20: I seen when the steel mills closed and when they

1521
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:53,519
Speaker 20: all left, and how it just devastated our community. And

1522
01:22:53,680 --> 01:22:55,800
Speaker 20: you know, when I moved to Belvidere, is coming from

1523
01:22:55,880 --> 01:22:58,400
Speaker 20: big city to a small city. I was kind of like,

1524
01:22:58,400 --> 01:23:00,840
Speaker 20: where am I going in rural Illinos. You know, on

1525
01:23:00,840 --> 01:23:04,240
Speaker 20: one side of the street, you see some Trump posters,

1526
01:23:04,280 --> 01:23:06,679
Speaker 20: and then the other side, you know there's a Mexican

1527
01:23:06,880 --> 01:23:09,559
Speaker 20: migrant farm worker making she shut on in his backyard.

1528
01:23:09,560 --> 01:23:13,880
Speaker 20: You know, there's a huge Latino community in Belvidere, just

1529
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:17,960
Speaker 20: a lot of working families and for for if Belvidere

1530
01:23:19,200 --> 01:23:21,760
Speaker 20: were to have been shut down, you know that that

1531
01:23:21,800 --> 01:23:24,639
Speaker 20: would have really just been awful for the small town.

1532
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:27,360
Speaker 11: And I'm just glad to see that it can still

1533
01:23:27,400 --> 01:23:28,439
Speaker 11: be a thriving community.

1534
01:23:28,960 --> 01:23:32,479
Speaker 8: Yeah. No, I think I think it's really huge. And

1535
01:23:32,520 --> 01:23:34,839
Speaker 8: I want us to circle back to that in a second,

1536
01:23:34,880 --> 01:23:37,960
Speaker 8: because I mean, for breaking points, viewers and listeners, if

1537
01:23:38,000 --> 01:23:41,720
Speaker 8: you guys, remember another UAW member and auto worker that

1538
01:23:41,760 --> 01:23:45,200
Speaker 8: I interviewed on this segment during the strike was Austin Gore,

1539
01:23:45,560 --> 01:23:50,280
Speaker 8: who was striking in Toledo, Ohio after he had to

1540
01:23:50,920 --> 01:23:55,280
Speaker 8: you know, leave his family momentarily when Belvidere, the Belvidere

1541
01:23:55,320 --> 01:23:58,720
Speaker 8: plant got shuttered, and you know, he described like how

1542
01:23:58,760 --> 01:24:01,559
Speaker 8: devastating that was to him, him to his family. And

1543
01:24:01,600 --> 01:24:04,120
Speaker 8: this is the situation that so many auto workers have

1544
01:24:04,200 --> 01:24:07,360
Speaker 8: been put in for so many years. And so the

1545
01:24:07,400 --> 01:24:10,840
Speaker 8: fact that we that the UAW has fought to turn

1546
01:24:10,920 --> 01:24:13,920
Speaker 8: the tide on those plant closures to have more of

1547
01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:18,080
Speaker 8: a direct say in managerial and business decisions at the

1548
01:24:18,120 --> 01:24:21,400
Speaker 8: company level is huge. I want to like circle back

1549
01:24:21,439 --> 01:24:24,040
Speaker 8: to that in the next round of questions, but I

1550
01:24:24,040 --> 01:24:26,760
Speaker 8: wanted to just sort of follow up on what you

1551
01:24:26,760 --> 01:24:31,439
Speaker 8: guys were talking about regarding to strike itself. Are there

1552
01:24:31,520 --> 01:24:35,840
Speaker 8: any like particular moments or memories that really stand out

1553
01:24:35,880 --> 01:24:38,599
Speaker 8: to you that you want to share with folks like Marcia.

1554
01:24:38,600 --> 01:24:40,759
Speaker 8: It could be the moment that you heard your plant

1555
01:24:40,800 --> 01:24:43,320
Speaker 8: was one of the ones called to stand up right,

1556
01:24:43,520 --> 01:24:46,560
Speaker 8: or it could be a moment that you y'all experienced

1557
01:24:46,600 --> 01:24:49,799
Speaker 8: on the picket line itself. Like I guess, like looking

1558
01:24:49,880 --> 01:24:54,040
Speaker 8: back now that this intense struggle, you know is well,

1559
01:24:54,120 --> 01:24:56,760
Speaker 8: the struggle is never over, right, but this contract fight

1560
01:24:56,840 --> 01:25:01,200
Speaker 8: has concluded, and y'all are kind of looking ahead. Are

1561
01:25:01,200 --> 01:25:03,800
Speaker 8: there any sort of moments from the strike itself that

1562
01:25:03,880 --> 01:25:05,960
Speaker 8: you want to share with folks or that that stick

1563
01:25:06,000 --> 01:25:06,960
Speaker 8: out in your memory.

1564
01:25:07,600 --> 01:25:10,320
Speaker 9: For for me, like my membership. We were we were

1565
01:25:10,400 --> 01:25:15,639
Speaker 9: laid off about three three working days after Winsville went down,

1566
01:25:15,680 --> 01:25:20,000
Speaker 9: three or four, I can't remember. And I had been

1567
01:25:20,000 --> 01:25:22,200
Speaker 9: trying to you know, I got I got two small

1568
01:25:22,240 --> 01:25:25,720
Speaker 9: kids at home, and my wife still works, so we

1569
01:25:25,760 --> 01:25:28,000
Speaker 9: were trying to arrange our schedules so we could actually

1570
01:25:28,040 --> 01:25:31,880
Speaker 9: go out to Wentsville, which is about three to four

1571
01:25:31,920 --> 01:25:33,599
Speaker 9: hours away. It's on the other side of the state

1572
01:25:33,640 --> 01:25:36,880
Speaker 9: from from where my locals at. So we loaded up

1573
01:25:36,880 --> 01:25:38,880
Speaker 9: the truck, we took our kids out, my kids out

1574
01:25:38,920 --> 01:25:42,160
Speaker 9: there three and uh one. So so just to give

1575
01:25:42,160 --> 01:25:44,920
Speaker 9: you guys an idea of what that car car ride

1576
01:25:45,000 --> 01:25:47,040
Speaker 9: was like, we get there, you know, the kids are

1577
01:25:47,080 --> 01:25:49,080
Speaker 9: finally excited to get out of the car, and you

1578
01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:52,479
Speaker 9: know everyone at Wentzville two two five, oh, they're given

1579
01:25:52,560 --> 01:25:56,519
Speaker 9: high fives, They're excited we're there, and like, it was

1580
01:25:56,600 --> 01:25:59,920
Speaker 9: just really heartwarming for me to to not only be

1581
01:26:00,280 --> 01:26:03,880
Speaker 9: accepted fully on you know another locals pick a line,

1582
01:26:03,960 --> 01:26:09,719
Speaker 9: but to also have like a village in a sense,

1583
01:26:09,760 --> 01:26:12,080
Speaker 9: you know, all all of your brothers and sisters, all

1584
01:26:12,080 --> 01:26:15,000
Speaker 9: of your union siblings are just welcoming you. And they're

1585
01:26:15,040 --> 01:26:17,680
Speaker 9: not just welcoming you as a member, they're welcoming your

1586
01:26:17,800 --> 01:26:20,720
Speaker 9: entire family, you know, offering you snacks, you guys, need

1587
01:26:20,760 --> 01:26:23,559
Speaker 9: any drinks, you guys, and like they're the one they're

1588
01:26:23,600 --> 01:26:24,400
Speaker 9: the ones out on.

1589
01:26:24,360 --> 01:26:24,960
Speaker 8: Strike, you know.

1590
01:26:26,200 --> 01:26:29,320
Speaker 9: So, so it was just really heartwarming when we when

1591
01:26:29,360 --> 01:26:32,040
Speaker 9: we finally found the time to go over to Wentsville,

1592
01:26:32,080 --> 01:26:35,240
Speaker 9: and how welcoming they all are, And it really gives

1593
01:26:35,280 --> 01:26:39,840
Speaker 9: you the sense of camaraderie and and how deep that

1594
01:26:39,960 --> 01:26:44,040
Speaker 9: bond goes because here are perfectly fine strangers and all

1595
01:26:44,080 --> 01:26:45,800
Speaker 9: they know is you're from the other side of the

1596
01:26:45,800 --> 01:26:48,479
Speaker 9: state and you're coming to show support, and they're doing

1597
01:26:48,600 --> 01:26:52,639
Speaker 9: like whatever they can can offer you, from conversations to snacks.

1598
01:26:52,680 --> 01:26:55,960
Speaker 9: I mean we we literally had people bringing up bags

1599
01:26:55,960 --> 01:26:57,800
Speaker 9: of chips to our kids, like, hey, you guys want

1600
01:26:57,800 --> 01:26:59,800
Speaker 9: some cheetahs And you know, my kids are loving it.

1601
01:26:59,840 --> 01:27:02,719
Speaker 9: So it was just it was fantastic. And I really

1602
01:27:02,720 --> 01:27:06,120
Speaker 9: think that that's probably one of the biggest takeaways I'll

1603
01:27:06,200 --> 01:27:09,840
Speaker 9: take away from this strike, is just how how deep

1604
01:27:10,040 --> 01:27:14,000
Speaker 9: that union bond is and how much it means to

1605
01:27:14,920 --> 01:27:17,680
Speaker 9: me and I imagine all of us.

1606
01:27:17,720 --> 01:27:21,520
Speaker 11: For me, it was a few things. Obviously.

1607
01:27:21,560 --> 01:27:23,639
Speaker 20: First, you know, I was sitting in my living room

1608
01:27:23,720 --> 01:27:26,880
Speaker 20: watching the live update from Sean Fain on Friday and

1609
01:27:27,080 --> 01:27:29,760
Speaker 20: I heard Chicago Assembly Plant and I will spit out

1610
01:27:29,800 --> 01:27:30,280
Speaker 20: my coffee.

1611
01:27:30,320 --> 01:27:32,120
Speaker 11: I did scream. I think I jumped up. There was

1612
01:27:32,120 --> 01:27:33,080
Speaker 11: nobody in my house but me.

1613
01:27:33,520 --> 01:27:37,200
Speaker 20: And immediately got ready to go go to work basically

1614
01:27:37,280 --> 01:27:39,800
Speaker 20: at the Union hall, even though it was my day off, right,

1615
01:27:39,880 --> 01:27:43,160
Speaker 20: but I knew, as you know, an involved member in

1616
01:27:43,240 --> 01:27:44,479
Speaker 20: my union, I.

1617
01:27:44,439 --> 01:27:45,160
Speaker 11: Have to do something.

1618
01:27:45,200 --> 01:27:47,479
Speaker 20: I have to go, even if it's just making signs

1619
01:27:48,040 --> 01:27:49,719
Speaker 20: or you know, trying to.

1620
01:27:49,640 --> 01:27:52,800
Speaker 11: Like tell people what's going to happen the next few days.

1621
01:27:52,800 --> 01:27:55,600
Speaker 20: Because obviously the first day was very chaotic and we

1622
01:27:55,640 --> 01:27:57,760
Speaker 20: didn't have everything set up yet to sign folks up

1623
01:27:57,800 --> 01:28:01,240
Speaker 20: for strike benefits. So it was just exciting and exciting

1624
01:28:01,240 --> 01:28:05,760
Speaker 20: moment and time to be there. Another emunctious uh that

1625
01:28:05,800 --> 01:28:08,120
Speaker 20: stands out is we had a big rally at the

1626
01:28:08,120 --> 01:28:12,800
Speaker 20: whole October seventh, where labor leaders and elected.

1627
01:28:12,439 --> 01:28:13,320
Speaker 11: Officials came out.

1628
01:28:13,320 --> 01:28:15,200
Speaker 20: You know, it was huge, was the most crowded I've

1629
01:28:15,200 --> 01:28:18,160
Speaker 20: seen our hall, Like it was standing roomontely. People were

1630
01:28:18,200 --> 01:28:21,200
Speaker 20: overflowing on the parking lot, and like one of our

1631
01:28:22,080 --> 01:28:25,400
Speaker 20: local not my aldermen, but an alderman from Pilsen in

1632
01:28:25,520 --> 01:28:28,679
Speaker 20: Chicago came out and he's texted me like, I can't

1633
01:28:28,680 --> 01:28:32,800
Speaker 20: get inside. I'm like sorry, it's to capacity, you know. Like,

1634
01:28:33,760 --> 01:28:35,920
Speaker 20: but they were able to watch the rally outside where

1635
01:28:36,800 --> 01:28:39,120
Speaker 20: you know, they had great speeches and all that. But

1636
01:28:39,600 --> 01:28:42,080
Speaker 20: and and also to see like you know, Seawan Feyn

1637
01:28:42,200 --> 01:28:46,559
Speaker 20: come out to every picket site and talk to members

1638
01:28:46,800 --> 01:28:50,559
Speaker 20: and you know, just be in involved in in our

1639
01:28:50,600 --> 01:28:53,680
Speaker 20: strike too, you know, because we've seen a lot of

1640
01:28:53,720 --> 01:28:56,960
Speaker 20: coverage of you know, everyone going around to the Michigan

1641
01:28:57,000 --> 01:29:00,160
Speaker 20: plants and all that. So that was that was really

1642
01:29:00,280 --> 01:29:03,160
Speaker 20: significant for a lot of people just to see to

1643
01:29:03,240 --> 01:29:05,400
Speaker 20: see that happen, which you know, I don't think that's

1644
01:29:05,439 --> 01:29:12,560
Speaker 20: happened before, but mainly too, just the the camaraderie and

1645
01:29:12,600 --> 01:29:15,479
Speaker 20: the picket lines, right, you know, just for me first

1646
01:29:15,479 --> 01:29:17,920
Speaker 20: time being on strike, but being in Chicago, there's always

1647
01:29:17,960 --> 01:29:20,960
Speaker 20: a strike somewhere right Chicago teachers Union, hotel workers, and

1648
01:29:21,400 --> 01:29:24,120
Speaker 20: you know, I've supported them, and it was just great

1649
01:29:24,120 --> 01:29:26,479
Speaker 20: to see all of them come out to support us

1650
01:29:26,560 --> 01:29:29,439
Speaker 20: as well. You know, we had so much support from

1651
01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:33,840
Speaker 20: other labor unions, the local community. I mean, tons of

1652
01:29:33,880 --> 01:29:37,720
Speaker 20: small businesses just dropping off food and supplies, and you know,

1653
01:29:37,760 --> 01:29:40,160
Speaker 20: we made a list so that we remember these places

1654
01:29:40,240 --> 01:29:42,679
Speaker 20: so we go back and you know, we support them,

1655
01:29:43,200 --> 01:29:45,240
Speaker 20: especially the ones near the plant because I live and

1656
01:29:45,320 --> 01:29:47,439
Speaker 20: work near the plant, so some of these businesses are

1657
01:29:47,840 --> 01:29:50,160
Speaker 20: you know, ones I frequent, and I just want to

1658
01:29:50,200 --> 01:29:53,559
Speaker 20: make sure that they're recognized and supported because I know

1659
01:29:53,600 --> 01:29:56,160
Speaker 20: they were struggling when you know, a most five thousand

1660
01:29:56,240 --> 01:29:58,400
Speaker 20: of us walked out. You know, nobody was ordering pizza

1661
01:29:58,400 --> 01:30:01,160
Speaker 20: every day or lunch, you know, but they sure did

1662
01:30:01,240 --> 01:30:04,240
Speaker 20: come out and bring us free food. So that was

1663
01:30:04,240 --> 01:30:07,479
Speaker 20: amazing to see. And just having conversations on the picket

1664
01:30:07,520 --> 01:30:10,200
Speaker 20: line with people and I've never met or people that

1665
01:30:10,200 --> 01:30:12,120
Speaker 20: I've said hi to but never really talked to. You know,

1666
01:30:12,160 --> 01:30:16,320
Speaker 20: it was a great moment to bond and share experiences

1667
01:30:16,400 --> 01:30:21,760
Speaker 20: and just you know, make sure that everyone is you know,

1668
01:30:21,920 --> 01:30:25,719
Speaker 20: educated and involved and keep this momentum going because who knows,

1669
01:30:25,800 --> 01:30:28,080
Speaker 20: you know, what we're going to do in four and

1670
01:30:28,080 --> 01:30:28,919
Speaker 20: a half years.

1671
01:30:28,760 --> 01:30:31,840
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, And I like while I was listening to

1672
01:30:31,880 --> 01:30:34,679
Speaker 8: you both talk, I was sort of reflecting on how

1673
01:30:34,720 --> 01:30:37,920
Speaker 8: I would answer that same question right as someone over

1674
01:30:37,960 --> 01:30:40,320
Speaker 8: here in Baltimore in the media who's been talking to

1675
01:30:40,400 --> 01:30:45,519
Speaker 8: y'all throughout this whole saga, and well, before you know,

1676
01:30:45,560 --> 01:30:49,400
Speaker 8: I think that that obviously is my memory from this

1677
01:30:50,600 --> 01:30:55,360
Speaker 8: strike was, you know, first connecting with Nick, interviewing him

1678
01:30:55,360 --> 01:30:59,840
Speaker 8: for breaking points, then doing a podcast with you guys, Nick,

1679
01:31:00,120 --> 01:31:04,840
Speaker 8: Marcy and Taurus, who was another UAW member, Then having

1680
01:31:04,960 --> 01:31:09,000
Speaker 8: like Marcy on a live stream at the Real News

1681
01:31:09,040 --> 01:31:12,240
Speaker 8: Network with a sag AFTRA member who was on strike,

1682
01:31:12,280 --> 01:31:15,599
Speaker 8: and hearing y'all talk about how your struggles were more

1683
01:31:15,640 --> 01:31:20,200
Speaker 8: connected than they may appear in you know, then they

1684
01:31:20,200 --> 01:31:22,839
Speaker 8: may initially appear. And that was just such a beautiful

1685
01:31:22,840 --> 01:31:26,479
Speaker 8: moment of solidarity. That I had the privilege of seeing

1686
01:31:26,600 --> 01:31:30,000
Speaker 8: moments like those by talking to workers like yourselves throughout

1687
01:31:30,400 --> 01:31:33,400
Speaker 8: this saga and seeing the solidarity y'all were bringing to

1688
01:31:33,560 --> 01:31:37,320
Speaker 8: other strikes and struggles that were either going on at

1689
01:31:37,360 --> 01:31:39,799
Speaker 8: the time or are still going on as we record

1690
01:31:39,880 --> 01:31:44,559
Speaker 8: this on Saturday, November eighteenth. You know, that was really

1691
01:31:44,600 --> 01:31:48,280
Speaker 8: significant for me and really beautiful to see. Also, I

1692
01:31:48,400 --> 01:31:51,000
Speaker 8: just got to say, you know, again, as I've mentioned

1693
01:31:51,040 --> 01:31:55,599
Speaker 8: on many interviews up until now, having interviewed so many

1694
01:31:55,760 --> 01:31:59,080
Speaker 8: striking GM workers are laid off GM workers from the

1695
01:31:59,120 --> 01:32:04,400
Speaker 8: twenty eighteen layoffs and the twenty nineteen strike, before the

1696
01:32:04,439 --> 01:32:09,320
Speaker 8: era of Sean Fain and this new reform movement within

1697
01:32:09,360 --> 01:32:14,200
Speaker 8: the UAW, before y'all you know, like voted to have

1698
01:32:14,360 --> 01:32:20,000
Speaker 8: direct democracy in your union elections, which led the union

1699
01:32:20,040 --> 01:32:23,800
Speaker 8: to elect Seawan Fain right before all of that, just

1700
01:32:23,880 --> 01:32:26,640
Speaker 8: talking to workers in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen and

1701
01:32:26,680 --> 01:32:31,360
Speaker 8: hearing how dissatisfied and betrayed they felt by their unions,

1702
01:32:31,840 --> 01:32:36,280
Speaker 8: by the company, and just how hopeless things felt to

1703
01:32:36,360 --> 01:32:39,960
Speaker 8: see for us to go from that to seeing Sean

1704
01:32:40,080 --> 01:32:44,000
Speaker 8: Fain wearing an eat the Rich shirt talking to the

1705
01:32:44,080 --> 01:32:47,679
Speaker 8: members in the country about how some of the ev

1706
01:32:47,920 --> 01:32:51,120
Speaker 8: plants were going to be brought under the Master Agreement,

1707
01:32:51,840 --> 01:32:56,200
Speaker 8: Like that is a seismic shift in the movement, in

1708
01:32:56,400 --> 01:33:00,120
Speaker 8: the politics, the class politics of this country. They you

1709
01:33:00,200 --> 01:33:02,760
Speaker 8: all made happen, and so like that's where I want

1710
01:33:02,840 --> 01:33:07,120
Speaker 8: us to conclude in terms of like thinking about this

1711
01:33:07,200 --> 01:33:09,960
Speaker 8: strike in terms of the big picture and the long

1712
01:33:10,520 --> 01:33:15,559
Speaker 8: trajectory of the UAW, the auto industry, and the labor movement,

1713
01:33:15,600 --> 01:33:18,960
Speaker 8: and where this strike kind of fits into that. But

1714
01:33:19,000 --> 01:33:22,080
Speaker 8: I guess really quick before we get there. I just

1715
01:33:22,080 --> 01:33:24,240
Speaker 8: wanted to ask for people watching and listening to this,

1716
01:33:24,720 --> 01:33:28,479
Speaker 8: if you could say a little bit about the ratification votes,

1717
01:33:28,600 --> 01:33:34,280
Speaker 8: like the results of the strike, right, and and people

1718
01:33:34,320 --> 01:33:38,719
Speaker 8: were hearing, you know, news reports that some locals voted

1719
01:33:38,760 --> 01:33:42,559
Speaker 8: the TA down whether they were in general Motors Ford

1720
01:33:42,600 --> 01:33:46,000
Speaker 8: Stlantis right, you know, you had three big three auto makers,

1721
01:33:46,960 --> 01:33:50,360
Speaker 8: different kind of groups voting on those contracts. Like, I

1722
01:33:50,400 --> 01:33:52,920
Speaker 8: just wanted to ask if you could a just sort

1723
01:33:52,920 --> 01:33:56,920
Speaker 8: of clarify for folks watching, like what the results do

1724
01:33:57,160 --> 01:33:59,360
Speaker 8: mean and do not mean? Like, you know, like what

1725
01:33:59,479 --> 01:34:01,920
Speaker 8: sort of mis conceptions do you think folks have as

1726
01:34:01,920 --> 01:34:06,080
Speaker 8: they're trying to parse the results of these the contracts

1727
01:34:06,080 --> 01:34:08,920
Speaker 8: that resulted from this strike and the votes from the

1728
01:34:08,960 --> 01:34:13,040
Speaker 8: membership on those contracts. And and do you feel yourselves

1729
01:34:13,080 --> 01:34:15,639
Speaker 8: from where you sit, that that this strike has brought

1730
01:34:16,000 --> 01:34:20,759
Speaker 8: the union closer together or changed things within the UAW itself.

1731
01:34:22,680 --> 01:34:26,240
Speaker 9: So I'm one of the people, like I don't I

1732
01:34:26,240 --> 01:34:28,519
Speaker 9: don't really hide what I what I say or do.

1733
01:34:28,680 --> 01:34:31,679
Speaker 9: I voted yes on this contract. This was the first

1734
01:34:31,680 --> 01:34:34,360
Speaker 9: contract I've ever voted yes on. I think thought it

1735
01:34:34,439 --> 01:34:38,240
Speaker 9: was an amazing contract. That being said, my local was

1736
01:34:38,280 --> 01:34:41,599
Speaker 9: within four votes of it being voted up or down.

1737
01:34:42,320 --> 01:34:44,760
Speaker 9: So's there's a lot of people that felt like, you know,

1738
01:34:44,800 --> 01:34:46,519
Speaker 9: we could have stayed out, we could have won more.

1739
01:34:47,439 --> 01:34:50,600
Speaker 9: There's people that aren't happy with like the amount of

1740
01:34:50,920 --> 01:34:53,080
Speaker 9: benefits that we won for the retirees, you know, we

1741
01:34:53,160 --> 01:34:55,200
Speaker 9: won their first race since I believe it was two

1742
01:34:55,280 --> 01:34:59,040
Speaker 9: thousand and two, and their pensions. There's some people that

1743
01:34:59,080 --> 01:35:01,679
Speaker 9: wanted a bigger up from like there was just there's

1744
01:35:01,720 --> 01:35:06,360
Speaker 9: some things that people wanted to see they didn't see.

1745
01:35:06,520 --> 01:35:09,280
Speaker 9: But for me, it was about like looking at how

1746
01:35:09,439 --> 01:35:11,200
Speaker 9: how life changing this was going to be as a

1747
01:35:11,240 --> 01:35:13,680
Speaker 9: tier two person, I took a decade to get to

1748
01:35:13,680 --> 01:35:16,559
Speaker 9: top pay and knowing that that's never gonna happen again

1749
01:35:16,680 --> 01:35:19,720
Speaker 9: for anybody coming in after me. Like I said in

1750
01:35:19,760 --> 01:35:22,519
Speaker 9: a previous interview, this this this strike was about the

1751
01:35:22,520 --> 01:35:25,160
Speaker 9: next generation. While doing everything we can for the current

1752
01:35:25,200 --> 01:35:27,559
Speaker 9: and actives, you know, the next people deserve to have

1753
01:35:27,600 --> 01:35:31,439
Speaker 9: a better chance that that we got. What you're seeing

1754
01:35:31,760 --> 01:35:35,680
Speaker 9: with the results is democracy in action. I wouldn't have

1755
01:35:35,720 --> 01:35:40,720
Speaker 9: it any other way. Dissident is dissidents is important and

1756
01:35:40,720 --> 01:35:45,160
Speaker 9: in vital to democracy. People have the right to vote

1757
01:35:45,200 --> 01:35:48,160
Speaker 9: now and then that's what you're seeing with the results.

1758
01:35:48,360 --> 01:35:52,200
Speaker 9: But with democracy, majority does rule, and that's what you're

1759
01:35:52,200 --> 01:35:55,639
Speaker 9: seeing play out. I think the strike really did bring

1760
01:35:55,760 --> 01:35:58,760
Speaker 9: a lot of people together. I mean you saw offlying squadrons,

1761
01:35:58,840 --> 01:36:01,920
Speaker 9: especially up in Detroit, going out to different picket lines.

1762
01:36:02,280 --> 01:36:05,559
Speaker 9: It didn't matter if they're Affordstlantis or GM. You know,

1763
01:36:05,640 --> 01:36:09,679
Speaker 9: there were people out there driving across the across the country,

1764
01:36:09,720 --> 01:36:10,880
Speaker 9: across states.

1765
01:36:12,120 --> 01:36:13,440
Speaker 8: Man. This was really.

1766
01:36:15,960 --> 01:36:17,680
Speaker 9: I mean, you said, it's there's no other way to

1767
01:36:17,680 --> 01:36:20,640
Speaker 9: say it. It's a seismic shift. And with that, you

1768
01:36:20,680 --> 01:36:23,080
Speaker 9: know there's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of

1769
01:36:23,120 --> 01:36:27,960
Speaker 9: people that aren't necessarily willing to or aren't ready to

1770
01:36:28,120 --> 01:36:30,519
Speaker 9: trust the new leadership. And you know that's that's to

1771
01:36:30,600 --> 01:36:33,879
Speaker 9: be expected. You know, we're we're coming off a corruption

1772
01:36:33,960 --> 01:36:37,200
Speaker 9: scandal that I mean, a lot of people were embarrassed

1773
01:36:37,240 --> 01:36:40,200
Speaker 9: to wear their UAW shirts in public, a lot of

1774
01:36:40,200 --> 01:36:44,200
Speaker 9: people burn their UAW shirts. I mean, it was it

1775
01:36:44,320 --> 01:36:47,639
Speaker 9: was that bad. Morale was that low. You don't bounce

1776
01:36:47,720 --> 01:36:50,160
Speaker 9: back from that instantly. I think Sean Fain and the

1777
01:36:50,240 --> 01:36:53,160
Speaker 9: members United and this entire executive board is doing a

1778
01:36:53,200 --> 01:36:56,360
Speaker 9: hell of a good job with the transparency being open,

1779
01:36:56,479 --> 01:36:58,760
Speaker 9: being honest with the membership. And I think that's where

1780
01:36:58,760 --> 01:37:01,000
Speaker 9: it where it starts, and where we got to go

1781
01:37:01,960 --> 01:37:04,920
Speaker 9: to win some of these major demands back, like getting

1782
01:37:05,000 --> 01:37:10,080
Speaker 9: defined pensions back, getting better raises for retiree retiree healthcare.

1783
01:37:10,400 --> 01:37:14,320
Speaker 9: We have got to unionize the transplants. So if you

1784
01:37:14,479 --> 01:37:17,160
Speaker 9: are a Toyota worker, if you're a super worker, if

1785
01:37:17,200 --> 01:37:19,759
Speaker 9: you're Honda, if you're Hyundai, if you are an auto

1786
01:37:19,800 --> 01:37:22,600
Speaker 9: worker in the United States of America, you need to

1787
01:37:22,600 --> 01:37:25,400
Speaker 9: be reaching out to the UAW and you need to

1788
01:37:25,439 --> 01:37:30,320
Speaker 9: be organizing because your management is afraid of you guys

1789
01:37:30,360 --> 01:37:33,760
Speaker 9: having the power to fight back like we did. That's

1790
01:37:33,760 --> 01:37:36,880
Speaker 9: why you're already seeing Honda fight back in internal emails

1791
01:37:37,960 --> 01:37:41,519
Speaker 9: warning the workers about unionizing. So that's where we got

1792
01:37:41,520 --> 01:37:43,960
Speaker 9: to go next as a union, in my opinion, in

1793
01:37:44,040 --> 01:37:47,639
Speaker 9: the in my sector, because keep in mind, the UAW

1794
01:37:47,920 --> 01:37:49,880
Speaker 9: is bigger than just autoworkers.

1795
01:37:50,080 --> 01:37:54,439
Speaker 11: So yeah, I mean this, who could have predicted all

1796
01:37:54,479 --> 01:37:54,760
Speaker 11: of this?

1797
01:37:55,040 --> 01:37:58,759
Speaker 20: And I think the you know, the people were asking

1798
01:37:58,800 --> 01:38:01,599
Speaker 20: you this so much, like people that were supporting us,

1799
01:38:01,600 --> 01:38:04,240
Speaker 20: Like I'm surprised it was so close, Like I thought

1800
01:38:04,280 --> 01:38:07,720
Speaker 20: it would pass across the board. And you know, I

1801
01:38:07,720 --> 01:38:10,080
Speaker 20: I kind of assumed for a ford at least that

1802
01:38:10,080 --> 01:38:13,120
Speaker 20: it would it would pass, and but it would be

1803
01:38:13,320 --> 01:38:15,960
Speaker 20: not a landslide, you know, for many reasons. You know,

1804
01:38:17,240 --> 01:38:21,960
Speaker 20: some folks were still holding out on retirement, healthcare right

1805
01:38:22,080 --> 01:38:24,920
Speaker 20: or pensions like Nick said, you know, work better, work

1806
01:38:24,960 --> 01:38:27,480
Speaker 20: life balance, which were all things.

1807
01:38:27,200 --> 01:38:29,439
Speaker 11: That you know, we thought we could win.

1808
01:38:30,080 --> 01:38:32,560
Speaker 20: I mean, obviously you can win everything in one contract,

1809
01:38:32,560 --> 01:38:37,200
Speaker 20: but I attribute that to you know, our elected, newly

1810
01:38:37,240 --> 01:38:40,559
Speaker 20: elected leadership getting everybody so fired up that we thought

1811
01:38:40,640 --> 01:38:41,200
Speaker 20: we could.

1812
01:38:40,960 --> 01:38:41,479
Speaker 11: Win it all.

1813
01:38:41,720 --> 01:38:44,559
Speaker 20: Right, damn it, Like we're out here, we might as

1814
01:38:44,600 --> 01:38:47,120
Speaker 20: well stay out here until we win it all. So

1815
01:38:47,760 --> 01:38:50,720
Speaker 20: that's just you know, like exciting, right to see that

1816
01:38:50,840 --> 01:38:54,840
Speaker 20: much involvement and you know, interest in what's going on

1817
01:38:54,960 --> 01:38:58,320
Speaker 20: in our union for the first time in many years, right,

1818
01:38:58,840 --> 01:39:02,880
Speaker 20: So just you know, getting everyone on board and with

1819
01:39:02,920 --> 01:39:06,120
Speaker 20: our demands and fired up, and hopefully that will continue,

1820
01:39:06,240 --> 01:39:08,920
Speaker 20: you know, in this next organizing drive in the next

1821
01:39:08,920 --> 01:39:11,679
Speaker 20: few years, you know, so that we can keep fighting

1822
01:39:11,720 --> 01:39:13,799
Speaker 20: for these things that we didn't get in this contract,

1823
01:39:13,840 --> 01:39:17,920
Speaker 20: you know, and it definitely changed you know, many many

1824
01:39:17,960 --> 01:39:25,799
Speaker 20: workers attitudes towards just you know, our whole campaign across

1825
01:39:25,840 --> 01:39:29,800
Speaker 20: the country and getting support from from non union workers,

1826
01:39:29,840 --> 01:39:32,240
Speaker 20: you know, like like Nick said, we we got to

1827
01:39:32,280 --> 01:39:35,719
Speaker 20: reach out to all these non union shops and they've

1828
01:39:35,720 --> 01:39:39,080
Speaker 20: been reaching out to the U a W already to join,

1829
01:39:39,240 --> 01:39:41,600
Speaker 20: and that's that's going to be great and huge. We

1830
01:39:41,800 --> 01:39:46,280
Speaker 20: just you know, increase our our membership, right, because that's

1831
01:39:46,360 --> 01:39:49,240
Speaker 20: that's how we fight, is with with our labor and

1832
01:39:50,680 --> 01:39:54,880
Speaker 20: I say organize the world, right because uh, that's what

1833
01:39:54,920 --> 01:39:57,280
Speaker 20: it's going to take to to you know, defeat the

1834
01:39:57,360 --> 01:39:59,559
Speaker 20: ruling class and to get what we deserve.

1835
01:40:00,800 --> 01:40:02,200
Speaker 11: So yeah, we got a.

1836
01:40:02,200 --> 01:40:04,000
Speaker 20: Little lot of work ahead of us, you know, but

1837
01:40:04,240 --> 01:40:06,559
Speaker 20: I think it's also important to take a break and

1838
01:40:06,560 --> 01:40:08,599
Speaker 20: take a pause when you need it. You know, it's

1839
01:40:08,600 --> 01:40:11,639
Speaker 20: important to so that we stay you know, in this fight,

1840
01:40:11,800 --> 01:40:14,800
Speaker 20: that we have the energy and because it's you know,

1841
01:40:14,840 --> 01:40:18,360
Speaker 20: it's not a marathon or right, it's a it's not

1842
01:40:18,400 --> 01:40:19,439
Speaker 20: a sprint, that's a marathon.

1843
01:40:19,520 --> 01:40:19,640
Speaker 13: Right.

1844
01:40:19,680 --> 01:40:20,880
Speaker 11: I've heard that said before.

1845
01:40:21,720 --> 01:40:23,439
Speaker 20: So we got our work cut out for us, but

1846
01:40:24,200 --> 01:40:26,000
Speaker 20: it's going to be it's an exciting time for the

1847
01:40:26,040 --> 01:40:28,479
Speaker 20: labor movement and I'm just glad to be part of

1848
01:40:28,520 --> 01:40:29,320
Speaker 20: this this fight.

1849
01:40:29,800 --> 01:40:32,200
Speaker 8: Heh. Yeah, it's essair And like, you know, I think

1850
01:40:32,240 --> 01:40:34,720
Speaker 8: that that's beautifully put right. I mean, this is this

1851
01:40:34,800 --> 01:40:37,680
Speaker 8: is kind of the message I preached to anyone and

1852
01:40:37,760 --> 01:40:40,880
Speaker 8: everyone who is rolling up their sleeves right now and saying, look,

1853
01:40:40,920 --> 01:40:43,680
Speaker 8: the world's in a dire state. Uh, it's got to

1854
01:40:43,720 --> 01:40:46,040
Speaker 8: be us to fix it. And we got to do

1855
01:40:46,080 --> 01:40:50,200
Speaker 8: whatever we can wherever we are, whether we're talking about

1856
01:40:50,320 --> 01:40:54,760
Speaker 8: the destruction of our shared planet, the destruction of our

1857
01:40:56,080 --> 01:41:01,280
Speaker 8: fellow humans in endless war, or the destruction of our

1858
01:41:01,439 --> 01:41:06,599
Speaker 8: society by you know this, this sort of vampiric rigged

1859
01:41:06,600 --> 01:41:10,200
Speaker 8: economy that is screwing over working people for the benefit

1860
01:41:10,320 --> 01:41:13,519
Speaker 8: of a you know few rich executives and shareholders. Right,

1861
01:41:13,560 --> 01:41:16,400
Speaker 8: we got to be the ones to fight back against this,

1862
01:41:16,640 --> 01:41:19,840
Speaker 8: and it's a life's work. We may not see the

1863
01:41:20,439 --> 01:41:22,599
Speaker 8: culmination of it, we may not get to the Promised

1864
01:41:22,640 --> 01:41:25,439
Speaker 8: Land ourselves. But like you all said, and like you

1865
01:41:25,520 --> 01:41:28,160
Speaker 8: and your union siblings, we're fighting for like we're fighting

1866
01:41:28,200 --> 01:41:31,000
Speaker 8: for the next generation. We're fighting for our kids, like

1867
01:41:31,040 --> 01:41:34,120
Speaker 8: we're fighting as hard as we can now for the

1868
01:41:34,160 --> 01:41:37,519
Speaker 8: folks who are here now. But we're also committing ourselves

1869
01:41:37,560 --> 01:41:40,439
Speaker 8: to a fight that goes well beyond us, and that

1870
01:41:40,560 --> 01:41:43,920
Speaker 8: is going to be you know, like carried on by

1871
01:41:44,000 --> 01:41:46,800
Speaker 8: the generations that come after, and so we got to

1872
01:41:46,840 --> 01:41:48,519
Speaker 8: dig in deep. You know, it's not going to be

1873
01:41:48,560 --> 01:41:51,200
Speaker 8: an easy, you know, victory. It's not going to come

1874
01:41:51,680 --> 01:41:53,880
Speaker 8: you know, like in the next year or two. It's

1875
01:41:53,920 --> 01:41:56,120
Speaker 8: a life's work. And I want to sort of end

1876
01:41:56,160 --> 01:42:00,040
Speaker 8: there and sort of take the this historic you a

1877
01:42:00,600 --> 01:42:04,160
Speaker 8: stand up strike again the first time in the uaw's

1878
01:42:04,240 --> 01:42:07,840
Speaker 8: history where y'all struck at each of the big three

1879
01:42:07,840 --> 01:42:11,519
Speaker 8: automakers at the same time, even if you didn't have

1880
01:42:11,760 --> 01:42:15,320
Speaker 8: every worker at those companies go on strike at the

1881
01:42:15,360 --> 01:42:20,000
Speaker 8: same time. And you know, like there's just so much

1882
01:42:20,600 --> 01:42:24,120
Speaker 8: kind of historical context that we've given over the course

1883
01:42:24,160 --> 01:42:26,559
Speaker 8: of the past couple months in our different interviews. We

1884
01:42:26,600 --> 01:42:29,120
Speaker 8: can't go through all that now, but just again, I

1885
01:42:29,120 --> 01:42:31,719
Speaker 8: want to really like stress to folks go back watch

1886
01:42:31,760 --> 01:42:35,000
Speaker 8: and listen to those interviews. Think about this contract fight,

1887
01:42:35,560 --> 01:42:38,400
Speaker 8: not just in like the kind of recent context of

1888
01:42:38,560 --> 01:42:44,200
Speaker 8: the UAW corruption scandals, the post bankruptcy, the post two

1889
01:42:44,240 --> 01:42:48,640
Speaker 8: thousand and eight shenanigans, although that's really crucial, right, but

1890
01:42:48,760 --> 01:42:51,160
Speaker 8: also like in the broader sweep of things, right in

1891
01:42:51,479 --> 01:42:55,400
Speaker 8: the larger trajectory, right, we've talked about the auto industry

1892
01:42:55,439 --> 01:42:58,920
Speaker 8: as a symbol of like de industrialization in the United States,

1893
01:42:59,280 --> 01:43:03,719
Speaker 8: manufacture going away and those sort of good union jobs

1894
01:43:04,439 --> 01:43:08,640
Speaker 8: also going away. Well, the pictures a little more complicated

1895
01:43:08,680 --> 01:43:12,120
Speaker 8: than that, because manufactured auto manufacturing has not gone away

1896
01:43:12,200 --> 01:43:15,280
Speaker 8: in the United States. What has happened is that the

1897
01:43:15,360 --> 01:43:20,559
Speaker 8: industry has been deunionized. And the companies that Nick mentioned,

1898
01:43:20,560 --> 01:43:26,479
Speaker 8: companies like Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, Tesla, right, I mean, like,

1899
01:43:26,520 --> 01:43:30,439
Speaker 8: these are the companies that are replacing those you know,

1900
01:43:30,560 --> 01:43:35,639
Speaker 8: good union jobs at in American auto manufacturing with non

1901
01:43:35,800 --> 01:43:39,320
Speaker 8: union jobs. And so the fact that the UAW has

1902
01:43:39,800 --> 01:43:43,879
Speaker 8: waged this incredible struggle at the big three auto makers,

1903
01:43:44,280 --> 01:43:47,640
Speaker 8: and that that struggle is already spooking companies like Toyota

1904
01:43:47,720 --> 01:43:51,519
Speaker 8: to give raises to their workers, and it's scaring the

1905
01:43:51,560 --> 01:43:54,200
Speaker 8: living shit out of Tesla and Elon Musk that an

1906
01:43:54,280 --> 01:43:58,880
Speaker 8: organizing committee is being formed out in California. Like that's

1907
01:43:58,920 --> 01:44:02,879
Speaker 8: the ripple effect of this struggle. But the struggle itself

1908
01:44:02,960 --> 01:44:07,040
Speaker 8: is against this this kind of larger shift in the

1909
01:44:07,120 --> 01:44:12,000
Speaker 8: economy that has pushed workers to work for work longer,

1910
01:44:12,400 --> 01:44:17,160
Speaker 8: for less while you know, like and have fewer workers

1911
01:44:17,200 --> 01:44:23,400
Speaker 8: doing more work and have like more chances for workers

1912
01:44:23,439 --> 01:44:26,240
Speaker 8: to get trapped in low wage work or lower tier

1913
01:44:26,360 --> 01:44:32,160
Speaker 8: employment with no possibility for advancement, no possibility for retirement,

1914
01:44:33,160 --> 01:44:36,400
Speaker 8: so on and so forth, all while the companies that

1915
01:44:36,479 --> 01:44:40,640
Speaker 8: employ us and their shareholders are raking in record profits.

1916
01:44:40,720 --> 01:44:43,240
Speaker 8: And so the fact that you know, that's been such

1917
01:44:43,240 --> 01:44:48,360
Speaker 8: a long sort of trajectory that American workers have experienced

1918
01:44:48,360 --> 01:44:50,960
Speaker 8: for decades, and that the auto industry and its workers

1919
01:44:51,040 --> 01:44:55,519
Speaker 8: like yourselves have experienced very acutely. But also like this,

1920
01:44:55,520 --> 01:44:57,080
Speaker 8: this is why I want to stress that, like the

1921
01:44:57,120 --> 01:44:59,920
Speaker 8: fact that y'all are kind of turning back the clo

1922
01:45:00,240 --> 01:45:03,439
Speaker 8: a bit, Like the fact that you reached back into

1923
01:45:03,520 --> 01:45:07,400
Speaker 8: time and you said to your employers, like, hey, we

1924
01:45:07,479 --> 01:45:11,280
Speaker 8: gave up cost of living adjustments for our pay during

1925
01:45:11,360 --> 01:45:15,759
Speaker 8: the financial crash that affected the world, when you guys

1926
01:45:15,760 --> 01:45:20,240
Speaker 8: were on life support, when our employers were, you know,

1927
01:45:20,400 --> 01:45:23,840
Speaker 8: on the brink of collapse. We opened up our contracts

1928
01:45:23,880 --> 01:45:25,920
Speaker 8: and gave a lot of concessions, and we were promised

1929
01:45:25,960 --> 01:45:28,840
Speaker 8: we would get those concessions back when these companies were

1930
01:45:28,880 --> 01:45:32,400
Speaker 8: profitable again. And of course that didn't happen, and it

1931
01:45:32,439 --> 01:45:34,880
Speaker 8: was kind of just taken for granted that once you

1932
01:45:35,000 --> 01:45:38,960
Speaker 8: give something up like that, in a contract, you're never

1933
01:45:39,000 --> 01:45:42,160
Speaker 8: getting it back. But you, guys, changed that paradigm. You

1934
01:45:42,200 --> 01:45:45,439
Speaker 8: went back and you got it right. And you mentioned

1935
01:45:45,800 --> 01:45:50,519
Speaker 8: the reopening of the Belvedere plant, again turning back the

1936
01:45:50,600 --> 01:45:54,519
Speaker 8: clock and saying to the company, to the employer class,

1937
01:45:54,560 --> 01:45:59,560
Speaker 8: to the capitalist class, you do not have soul sovereign,

1938
01:46:00,320 --> 01:46:04,120
Speaker 8: unchecked right to determine what happens with your business. Workers

1939
01:46:04,160 --> 01:46:07,320
Speaker 8: get us say too. People get to say too, like

1940
01:46:07,400 --> 01:46:09,839
Speaker 8: we get to say and whether or not this plant

1941
01:46:09,920 --> 01:46:14,040
Speaker 8: closes and this community gets destroyed, that is significant. I

1942
01:46:14,040 --> 01:46:15,920
Speaker 8: wanted to just sort of toss that back to you

1943
01:46:15,960 --> 01:46:20,519
Speaker 8: guys and ask, taking in the broad sweep of history,

1944
01:46:20,600 --> 01:46:26,439
Speaker 8: the larger trajectory of the American labor movement and the

1945
01:46:26,479 --> 01:46:30,240
Speaker 8: fight to unrig this rigged economy, what do you want

1946
01:46:30,280 --> 01:46:33,160
Speaker 8: to communicate to folks watching and listening about the significance

1947
01:46:33,200 --> 01:46:36,479
Speaker 8: of this strike and what happens next? Like, where do

1948
01:46:36,560 --> 01:46:39,639
Speaker 8: we go from here? What should people have their eyes

1949
01:46:39,680 --> 01:46:42,479
Speaker 8: on moving forward from this historic struggle?

1950
01:46:43,600 --> 01:46:47,560
Speaker 9: You know, I think in many ways, between the Teamsters

1951
01:46:47,600 --> 01:46:50,719
Speaker 9: and the UAW and on a lot of unions before

1952
01:46:50,800 --> 01:46:55,840
Speaker 9: us too. You're seeing since like twenty ten, unions are

1953
01:46:55,840 --> 01:46:58,559
Speaker 9: stepping up and they're fighting back and it's getting bigger

1954
01:46:58,600 --> 01:46:59,960
Speaker 9: and bigger every single year.

1955
01:47:00,040 --> 01:47:00,160
Speaker 8: Here.

1956
01:47:01,400 --> 01:47:06,680
Speaker 9: The historical I mean, you can't it's almost hard to

1957
01:47:06,880 --> 01:47:10,800
Speaker 9: even put into words what we've accomplished here, especially like

1958
01:47:10,800 --> 01:47:13,080
Speaker 9: if you look at stillanis they have the right to

1959
01:47:13,120 --> 01:47:18,320
Speaker 9: strike over investments and uh, I mean that that's that's

1960
01:47:18,439 --> 01:47:21,439
Speaker 9: that's huge. That was seen as a management prerogative, something

1961
01:47:21,479 --> 01:47:25,760
Speaker 9: that they have soul say over. So the fact that

1962
01:47:25,760 --> 01:47:28,160
Speaker 9: we were able to get that into our contract was

1963
01:47:28,160 --> 01:47:30,920
Speaker 9: was huge. And and where we go from there to

1964
01:47:31,280 --> 01:47:36,120
Speaker 9: fix this economy is is we got to unionize. If

1965
01:47:36,160 --> 01:47:39,519
Speaker 9: you want to organize, you know, don't don't wait for

1966
01:47:39,640 --> 01:47:42,439
Speaker 9: a union to reach out for you. Start talking to

1967
01:47:42,560 --> 01:47:46,120
Speaker 9: your coworkers. You guys can form that organizing committee and

1968
01:47:46,160 --> 01:47:49,040
Speaker 9: then you can contact unions and you can say, hey,

1969
01:47:49,120 --> 01:47:52,720
Speaker 9: we got this organizing committee and uh, we want to unionize.

1970
01:47:53,320 --> 01:47:55,640
Speaker 9: You know, we've already been We've already got the groundwork.

1971
01:47:56,200 --> 01:47:58,320
Speaker 9: And that's what it's gonna take. It's gonna take the

1972
01:47:58,360 --> 01:48:02,280
Speaker 9: working class of this nation to start organizing themselves, start

1973
01:48:02,320 --> 01:48:04,960
Speaker 9: talking to each other, start talking to their co workers

1974
01:48:05,360 --> 01:48:09,679
Speaker 9: and not being afraid of all the union anti union

1975
01:48:09,720 --> 01:48:12,040
Speaker 9: propaganda and the union busting firms that are going to

1976
01:48:12,080 --> 01:48:14,720
Speaker 9: come in. You know, these guys have one sole goal,

1977
01:48:14,800 --> 01:48:18,320
Speaker 9: and that goal they would rather spend millions on these

1978
01:48:18,360 --> 01:48:21,559
Speaker 9: anti union corporations to beat you guys down than have

1979
01:48:21,640 --> 01:48:25,040
Speaker 9: you guys come together and beat management down. They want

1980
01:48:25,040 --> 01:48:27,479
Speaker 9: that total control over their workplace. And that's what we

1981
01:48:27,520 --> 01:48:29,800
Speaker 9: need to see in this nation, is we need to

1982
01:48:29,800 --> 01:48:33,200
Speaker 9: see workers starting to take the initiative talking to their

1983
01:48:33,240 --> 01:48:36,960
Speaker 9: co workers, forming those organizing committees, reaching out to unions

1984
01:48:37,040 --> 01:48:43,800
Speaker 9: and organizing because labor isn't this monolithic institution. Labor is workers.

1985
01:48:44,320 --> 01:48:47,920
Speaker 9: You are your union, and that's what I really think

1986
01:48:48,200 --> 01:48:51,200
Speaker 9: is going to propel our labor struggle to the next

1987
01:48:51,320 --> 01:48:56,200
Speaker 9: level and is what this nation desperately needs to fix

1988
01:48:56,280 --> 01:48:57,960
Speaker 9: this rigged economy that we're facing.

1989
01:48:58,800 --> 01:49:01,960
Speaker 20: Yeah, I just it to go back to talking a

1990
01:49:02,000 --> 01:49:06,840
Speaker 20: bit about the strike strategy, because you know, like you

1991
01:49:06,880 --> 01:49:09,680
Speaker 20: were saying, some folks were saying, oh, we should have

1992
01:49:09,720 --> 01:49:11,160
Speaker 20: all gone on strike, same time.

1993
01:49:11,240 --> 01:49:11,559
Speaker 11: Whatever.

1994
01:49:11,640 --> 01:49:15,160
Speaker 20: But you know, just seeing I think for the first time,

1995
01:49:15,439 --> 01:49:17,960
Speaker 20: like these companies, for the first time, we had them

1996
01:49:18,160 --> 01:49:22,639
Speaker 20: pitted against each other, right, trying to scramble for who's

1997
01:49:22,680 --> 01:49:25,800
Speaker 20: gonna come out with a better offer. So they don't

1998
01:49:25,840 --> 01:49:30,000
Speaker 20: have another plant going on strike, you know, like it

1999
01:49:30,080 --> 01:49:32,160
Speaker 20: seemed like they were running around.

2000
01:49:31,880 --> 01:49:33,719
Speaker 11: Like chickens with their heads cut off for a minute,

2001
01:49:33,760 --> 01:49:33,920
Speaker 11: you know.

2002
01:49:33,920 --> 01:49:36,320
Speaker 20: And usually that's what they want us to do, right,

2003
01:49:36,360 --> 01:49:39,120
Speaker 20: They want us to take the scraps and fight each

2004
01:49:39,160 --> 01:49:42,880
Speaker 20: other or be against each other, union versus non union,

2005
01:49:43,120 --> 01:49:47,000
Speaker 20: America versus the world, you know, and that's just you know,

2006
01:49:47,200 --> 01:49:50,800
Speaker 20: got to stop, right. We need to have solidarity, international solidarity,

2007
01:49:50,880 --> 01:49:53,200
Speaker 20: because that's how these companies work, right, They're already on

2008
01:49:53,240 --> 01:49:57,720
Speaker 20: a global economy, So we need to think and fight

2009
01:49:57,800 --> 01:49:59,000
Speaker 20: in the same way, you know.

2010
01:49:59,040 --> 01:50:00,800
Speaker 11: And where do we go from here? Wow, that's that's

2011
01:50:00,800 --> 01:50:01,840
Speaker 11: a big loaded question.

2012
01:50:02,040 --> 01:50:05,559
Speaker 20: And you know, me as an environmental activist, you know,

2013
01:50:05,680 --> 01:50:10,240
Speaker 20: we're fighting uh you know, these corporate toxic polluters you

2014
01:50:10,280 --> 01:50:12,360
Speaker 20: know that are contributing to climate change, you know, and

2015
01:50:12,360 --> 01:50:14,800
Speaker 20: that's that's a workers rights issue too.

2016
01:50:14,960 --> 01:50:15,160
Speaker 11: You know.

2017
01:50:15,240 --> 01:50:18,560
Speaker 20: We were just at a demonstration against the American Petroleum Institute,

2018
01:50:18,600 --> 01:50:20,840
Speaker 20: you know, huge lobbying organization.

2019
01:50:20,800 --> 01:50:22,639
Speaker 11: That supports big oil.

2020
01:50:23,240 --> 01:50:25,120
Speaker 20: And you know, what good is a job if we

2021
01:50:25,160 --> 01:50:28,160
Speaker 20: don't have a planet to work on, right, And you know,

2022
01:50:28,240 --> 01:50:32,280
Speaker 20: we need to keep standing up against the military industrial complex,

2023
01:50:32,360 --> 01:50:35,920
Speaker 20: you know, our tax dollars are going to wars and

2024
01:50:36,000 --> 01:50:38,000
Speaker 20: the genocide of people across the world.

2025
01:50:38,520 --> 01:50:39,880
Speaker 11: And you know that's not right.

2026
01:50:39,960 --> 01:50:43,360
Speaker 20: You know, we we They can't pay for payoff student

2027
01:50:43,400 --> 01:50:46,519
Speaker 20: debt or universal health care, but they have billions of

2028
01:50:46,520 --> 01:50:50,240
Speaker 20: dollars to fund these wars, you know, So just you know,

2029
01:50:50,280 --> 01:50:54,960
Speaker 20: whatever you're passionate about, get involved, join a union and

2030
01:50:55,960 --> 01:50:59,519
Speaker 20: fight against the one percent and the ruling class.

2031
01:51:00,040 --> 01:51:04,760
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, well, Nick, Marcy, I cannot thank you both

2032
01:51:04,920 --> 01:51:08,240
Speaker 8: enough for joining us again on Breaking Points. I can't

2033
01:51:08,280 --> 01:51:12,639
Speaker 8: thank y'all enough for letting me annoy you and bug

2034
01:51:12,720 --> 01:51:15,280
Speaker 8: you for months saying hey, can we do another interview

2035
01:51:15,280 --> 01:51:18,320
Speaker 8: for this thing, for this thing like It's just been

2036
01:51:18,360 --> 01:51:21,920
Speaker 8: a real pleasure and honor to be in conversation with

2037
01:51:21,960 --> 01:51:24,519
Speaker 8: you throughout this struggle. Now, please, for the love of

2038
01:51:24,560 --> 01:51:28,479
Speaker 8: God to you and your fellow Union siblings, go get

2039
01:51:28,520 --> 01:51:29,760
Speaker 8: some rests.

2040
01:51:30,400 --> 01:51:33,120
Speaker 11: Thanks brother, thank you anytime.

2041
01:51:33,640 --> 01:51:36,680
Speaker 8: Thank you for watching this segment with Breaking Points, and

2042
01:51:36,720 --> 01:51:39,040
Speaker 8: be sure to subscribe to my news outlet, the Real

2043
01:51:39,080 --> 01:51:41,960
Speaker 8: News Network with links in the description of this video.

2044
01:51:42,640 --> 01:51:45,040
Speaker 8: See you soon for the next edition of the Art

2045
01:51:45,080 --> 01:51:48,800
Speaker 8: of Class War. Take care of yourselves, take care of

2046
01:51:48,840 --> 01:51:59,880
Speaker 8: each other. Solidarity Forever