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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie Smith and welcome to Stefphani never

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Speaker 1: told you production of I Heart Radio. Annie, I have

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Speaker 1: a question for you. Do you remember your first job

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Speaker 1: and do you remember your pay for that first job? Well,

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Speaker 1: I had a lot of odd jobs that were like

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Speaker 1: not official jobs, Like I watched people's cats and I

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Speaker 1: got sixty bucks for that. Their cats were intense, but

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Speaker 1: it was also like a two week period it was okay. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then I like I would rake colawns and like

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Speaker 1: do stuff like that. I get like forty bucks for this.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty good. Um. I worked at a dinner's office

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Speaker 1: as maintenance. I think I got like forty bucks for that.

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Speaker 1: It's like a one time thing, like I guess, I

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Speaker 1: want to say I did it multiple times when it

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Speaker 1: was like right at my first job job, I guess

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Speaker 1: was I worked in retail. I was like a seasonal

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Speaker 1: higher in high school in retail, and uh I did.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I did get paid much, but I think

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Speaker 1: I got paid more than the regular hourly rate because

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Speaker 1: it was seasonal and I think it was fifteen dollars

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Speaker 1: an hour. The job was below it was. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: what was your first job job salary or you know,

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Speaker 1: full time job and how you got paid my first

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Speaker 1: full time job, I did a lot of season't work

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Speaker 1: now that I'm thinking through it, I think, and I

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Speaker 1: did a lot of internships where I was able to

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Speaker 1: get paid, right, But I guess my first salary to

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Speaker 1: position was this foe. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, Like

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Speaker 1: I said, I did a bunch of producer right, I

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Speaker 1: was a producer and I got haide like eleven dollars

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Speaker 1: an hour, So you were hourly still, I was hourly.

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Speaker 1: I think when I finally went to like the yearly.

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Speaker 1: I think it was thirty two thousand, the year it's

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Speaker 1: all of this. Yeah, yeah, So my first high school

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Speaker 1: or job job as a kid, I think I told

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Speaker 1: you I was like thirteen, I shouldn't have been working,

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Speaker 1: but I was like, I gotta work. I worked at

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Speaker 1: a dairy queen and I got the minimum wage at

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Speaker 1: that point in time. And that was before the six

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Speaker 1: fifty Yeah, I think so, yeah, I think so. So

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Speaker 1: that was my first job and I worked. I've worked

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Speaker 1: ever since. Um, different jobs like I got increasingly got higher.

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Speaker 1: I've already already told the story about the Pickli wiggly job,

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Speaker 1: which I just did for like a season, and when

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Speaker 1: I was leaving, they tried to give me an increase,

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Speaker 1: like boosted that they desperately wanted me to stay. And

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Speaker 1: I don't know why. And now that I think on it,

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Speaker 1: I think the manager had a crush on me who

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Speaker 1: was an adult, and may me that's why he wanted

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Speaker 1: me to stay. Because it didn't make sense why they

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Speaker 1: wanted me to stay so badly that they went ahead

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Speaker 1: and bumped my last check up like a couple of

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Speaker 1: dollars and I was like, what, but no, again, this

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Speaker 1: could be an assumption, because I was like, but it didn't.

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Speaker 1: It didn't make sense. My first real job job, meaning

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Speaker 1: I graduated college, I got insluence within all of that

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Speaker 1: was de FACTS or the Department of Billion Children's Services

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Speaker 1: here in Georgia, and I was paid twenty seven thousand,

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Speaker 1: and I was I had like a five increase from

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Speaker 1: everybody else's pay, so that wasn't the bottom pay because

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Speaker 1: I did a practicum with de FACTS first, because they

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Speaker 1: gave you like six thousand dollars for the practicum. So

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Speaker 1: that's the only one we could find that had pay

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Speaker 1: quote unquote because I actually had a different internship. And

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Speaker 1: then I found out about this little scholarship incentive, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, yeo, okay, I'll do that. And then

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Speaker 1: I also had to your work a year for de

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Speaker 1: facts as a way of promising, Like I didn't take

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Speaker 1: away from money, but just you have to work a year.

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Speaker 1: Apparently a lot of people left the country to not

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Speaker 1: do that. I was told, really, or at least the state,

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Speaker 1: so that they could avoid having to go and work

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Speaker 1: in the defense. It's bad, but that was my first job,

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Speaker 1: and that was my first experience of like getting salaried money.

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Speaker 1: Of course I've gotten I've been taxed throughout because I

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Speaker 1: worked a daycare centers, bookstores whatever whatnot. Um, But this

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Speaker 1: was my first official official job. I did have like

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Speaker 1: a full time, summertime job as a daycare worker. I

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Speaker 1: was a preschool teacher at seventeen that got twelve dollars

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Speaker 1: an hour I think, but definitely no benefits. Um. But

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Speaker 1: and the reason I'm talking about this is I wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about wages. So well, not

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Speaker 1: so much wages, I guess, but for this Monday Mini,

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Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about organizing in order to get

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Speaker 1: paid fair wages. Yes, we're talking about a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a UNI, uns and labor movements today a little bit.

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Speaker 1: And this is very small minute things because there's been

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Speaker 1: episodes before. I believe Christen and Carolina have done some.

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Speaker 1: Emily and Bridget may have as well. Yeah they did

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Speaker 1: to run on the labor Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's

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Speaker 1: other past episodes that you can check up on UM.

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Speaker 1: But we wanted to talk about today and the pandemic

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Speaker 1: as well because there's some changes that have happened in

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Speaker 1: the last two years and the numbers have gotten pretty hopeful,

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Speaker 1: I will say, I guess just recently, the Associated Press

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Speaker 1: is in like the released an article headlined young workers

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Speaker 1: give Unions New hope, and I talked about the steady

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Speaker 1: incline of the popularity of unions and in fact, the

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Speaker 1: age group with the highest of the union memberships in

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Speaker 1: the US is ages twenty five to thirty four. I'm

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Speaker 1: not of those ranges, but I you know, support UM,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, those are the highest ages. As in fact,

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Speaker 1: some of the top five unions that have gone on

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Speaker 1: strike or big corporations, we're started by people in those

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Speaker 1: a range. One union was started by a nineteen year

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Speaker 1: old who worked out of Starbucks because they were influenced

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Speaker 1: by two other unions movements that were happening. And yes,

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Speaker 1: if you're up to date on any of the union news,

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Speaker 1: you've seen Starbucks individually are starting to unionize. You'll also

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Speaker 1: see the anti union rhetoric that has happened there, which

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Speaker 1: is interesting as well as the anti union rhetoric. And

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Speaker 1: with an Amazon, uh, it's I didn't know it was

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Speaker 1: so I kind of did, a kind of didn't but

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Speaker 1: it was so almost like soap opera ish in these things,

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Speaker 1: like it's really dramatic and almost dangerous. You've seen, um,

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Speaker 1: I think we've all seen the different conspiracy theory movies

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Speaker 1: where they go after unions. Of course, we've also seen

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Speaker 1: really anti union movies which go after quote unquote teamsters

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Speaker 1: I believe is what they say. But all of that

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Speaker 1: to say, there's a little switch happening. And the reason

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Speaker 1: and unions are becoming more popular are for reasons going

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Speaker 1: beyond just wages and fair wages, but also sickly and

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Speaker 1: overall security and job and mental health needs like asking

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Speaker 1: for them to cover these things because it's not prioritized

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Speaker 1: here in the US. And yes, when we're talking about

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Speaker 1: unions overall, and these numbers are US centric because it's

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Speaker 1: kind of a big thing for us. Like I said,

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Speaker 1: it's not been popular again until recently. For many years

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Speaker 1: the popularity waned a due to again the association of

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Speaker 1: unions with communism dumb dum, the dirtiest of dirty associations

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Speaker 1: as we know, but has come full circle to highlighting

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Speaker 1: the benefits of collective bargaining. And I think there's a

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Speaker 1: lot to be said to that. We'll come back to it, um.

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Speaker 1: And it isn't just a young uns getting together, Annie,

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Speaker 1: It's not just just y'all young guns. You're welcome, but

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Speaker 1: women and non binary folks who are actually leading the

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Speaker 1: movement as well. Many sessions that are dominated by women,

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Speaker 1: like being teacher or nurses and essential workers are at

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Speaker 1: the forefront of unionizing, so we know a lot of

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Speaker 1: these are dominated by women in the field. According to

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Speaker 1: one Bloomberg Law study, women have been the key point

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Speaker 1: of at least forty five strikes between August and November

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Speaker 1: of twenty one. Wow. Yeah, And there are several reasons

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Speaker 1: for the increase of women in non binary folks and unions.

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Speaker 1: One that we've talked about. Not surprisingly, the pantefic has

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Speaker 1: bought a lot of awareness for many of these workers

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Speaker 1: around these issues. After months and months of saying thank

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Speaker 1: you and clapping, not much was done to help or

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Speaker 1: even make conditions better for essential workers. One survey showed

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Speaker 1: that at least eighteen percent of nurses and healthcare workers

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Speaker 1: resigned due to the stress of all of this and

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Speaker 1: having very little support, and that one out of four

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Speaker 1: teachers have planned to quit by the end of the

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Speaker 1: twenty one twenty two school year. And another factor to

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Speaker 1: this increase in unionizing is due to inadequate healthcare. We

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Speaker 1: know that the pandemic has killed millions of people, and

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Speaker 1: yet many of these essential workers don't have access to

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Speaker 1: proper healthcare. In the US, insurance and healthcare are linked

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Speaker 1: to full time employment, which allows for big corporations to

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Speaker 1: scort around actually giving adequate healthcare coverage um and typically

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Speaker 1: not at all. And I know that's something you and

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Speaker 1: I have discussed experiencing. Yeah, we have talked about the

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Speaker 1: fact that their contract employees, so therefore they don't have

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Speaker 1: to be covered part time employees that typically don't have

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Speaker 1: to be covered. The whole Affordable Health Care Act, which

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Speaker 1: happened under the Obama administration, got pretty decimated over the

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Speaker 1: last administration, the Trump administration, and really really hurt those

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Speaker 1: who could have benefit at it and could and and

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Speaker 1: they're still coverage now. I think Biden administration come through

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Speaker 1: and try to be fit up a bit, I guess,

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Speaker 1: But it's been a big issue since then because Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're working in these climates and not only do they

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Speaker 1: not have healthcare, they also don't have time off and

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Speaker 1: we'll not get paid, so they don't get sick leave either.

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Speaker 1: So all of these things were big factors of especially

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Speaker 1: when people were diagnosed with COVID uh couldn't work, They're like,

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Speaker 1: what are we and then weren't getting paid. So those

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Speaker 1: are two big factors in that as well. That's a

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Speaker 1: whole different conversation outside of this unionization, but that was

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Speaker 1: a part of the reason that people are starting to

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Speaker 1: sign on because they're seeing, oh god, this isn't really dumb.

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Speaker 1: What can we do? So and when it comes to

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Speaker 1: collective mindsets, women and folks are more often the ones

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Speaker 1: to bring that together. If we look at a family setting,

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Speaker 1: the matriarch has the responsibility to do what is best

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Speaker 1: for them as a family, and we've seen that play

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Speaker 1: out in work settings as well. They're doing what they

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Speaker 1: have to, not necessarily for the collective of the employees.

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Speaker 1: I'm not talking about that their families and doing the

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Speaker 1: hard things like unionizing. UH is one of those things

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Speaker 1: keeping their families safe at all costs, including the fact

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Speaker 1: that if they are on sick leave and they don't

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Speaker 1: have pay coverage for that, they can't provide for their family,

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Speaker 1: which is already a whole big conversation. If they're no

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Speaker 1: longer employed at a place, they may not have coverage.

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Speaker 1: And because that coverage healthcare coverage is typically linked to

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Speaker 1: the jobs, it also affects the kids. Yeah, y'all, kids

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Speaker 1: aren't covered unless you have insurance or your job. So

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Speaker 1: for those out of state, out of US area, and

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Speaker 1: they're probably like, what the hell is wrong with all?

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Speaker 1: You are correct, there's something wrong here, and they are

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Speaker 1: doing the work and then it's working. The overall approval

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Speaker 1: rating for unions has hit it's all time high since

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, so for almost sixty years. UH. That's

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Speaker 1: in the US, with at least six of the US

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Speaker 1: approving of unionizing, and within those numbers, women were at

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Speaker 1: sixty seven and support for unions, so women are at

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Speaker 1: the time we're like, yeah, this is not working, give

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Speaker 1: us money. Yes, and yes it does work. According to

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Speaker 1: the National Women's Law Center, women who are unions are

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Speaker 1: likely to make around two five dollars more poorer week

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Speaker 1: or more than those who are not a part of unions,

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Speaker 1: and that may also be due to the level of

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Speaker 1: wage transparency, which we also talked about often on this show.

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Speaker 1: In the NWLC report, it states union pay transparency helps

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Speaker 1: to interrupt a culture of secrecy around pay that often

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Speaker 1: makes it extremely difficult for individual workers to prevent our

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Speaker 1: discovered disparities. In one powerful example, Wisconsin teachers began to

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Speaker 1: see a gender wage gap where there had been none

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Speaker 1: before after the state past Act ten, a bill weakening

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Speaker 1: teachers union's ability to set pay before Act ten passed,

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Speaker 1: in teachers salaries were set on a publicly available schedule.

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Speaker 1: After Act ten, past unions could only negotiate base salaries,

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Speaker 1: and further negotiations were left to individuals. Without collective union

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Speaker 1: negotiation power and transparency, women began to fall behind. Right.

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Speaker 1: I thought that was such powerful statement in itself. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: we talk a lot about why it's so important that

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Speaker 1: we talk about our salaries and Andy I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out our base salary and going to other people

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Speaker 1: who are similar situations like us, because we're like what,

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Speaker 1: Because the fact of the matter is one of the

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Speaker 1: ways that corporations have been able to do this is

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Speaker 1: not only trying to tell you not to discuss your

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Speaker 1: salaries with others, keeping it private as if it's a

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Speaker 1: privacy law, which is not true. That is not a thing.

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Speaker 1: That is not a thing. It is illegal. They can't

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Speaker 1: put that in place. But also the fact that the

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Speaker 1: job titles are skewed in all over the place, and

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Speaker 1: that's a big point of contention, is like, wait, so

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Speaker 1: if you don't know what your job title is, you

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Speaker 1: can't compare to others. So it's kind of one of

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Speaker 1: those conversations of like, we need complete transparency and we

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Speaker 1: all need to be on an equal footing. Mhm h.

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Speaker 1: And though we're seeing the women come together today, historically,

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Speaker 1: women have been a part of unions and labor movements

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Speaker 1: for a while, including women like the Low Mill women

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Speaker 1: who came together and created the first union for working

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Speaker 1: women in the eighteen thirties, Mother Jones, who did an

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Speaker 1: amazing job in getting a lot of the mill and

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Speaker 1: children in the workers unions and labor movements, Grace Lee Boggs,

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Speaker 1: whom is one of my heroes and a giant face

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Speaker 1: in the labor movement, as well as well as Delaria Suerta,

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Speaker 1: which we actually have a part. I think Caroline Kristen

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Speaker 1: didn't want on that right on her look for the

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Speaker 1: classic upcoming soon oh uh. And today we are seeing

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Speaker 1: more labor movement activists like I Gene poo and with

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Speaker 1: the first woman president of the American Federation Labor and

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Speaker 1: Congress of Industrial Organizations the a f l c i O.

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Speaker 1: When you see those letters together, you're gonna know what

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about, which is the largest US union federation,

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Speaker 1: Liz Schuler, who again has made history as the first

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Speaker 1: woman president. We hope to see bigger change and more

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Speaker 1: advocates that will help the whole. And that's kind of

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Speaker 1: that big converse station and which is why we don't

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Speaker 1: like anything that looks like socialism, which is the conversation.

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Speaker 1: And yes, and of course you know, representatives like Bernie

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Speaker 1: Sanders really brought out some of the big focal points

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Speaker 1: of why this is important and what unionization is. I

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Speaker 1: did have a friend Annie who their dissertation was on

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Speaker 1: unionization within chicken farms, and it was really really interesting

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Speaker 1: and he he had a lot of deep perspectives of

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Speaker 1: it um and I love talking to him because I

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Speaker 1: was like, why why would they be against being in unions?

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Speaker 1: I don't understand. And even talking to my sister who

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Speaker 1: was a teacher, she's a part of a union, and

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Speaker 1: we talked about some of the things that's important and

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Speaker 1: why some of the past laws were really really damaging

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Speaker 1: and why unions work um. For the for Georgia, I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you remember this, our governor at the

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Speaker 1: time really opposed the Affordable Health Care Act because universal

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Speaker 1: health care such a big deal here and such a

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Speaker 1: controversy here that he decided to not only go against

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Speaker 1: it and reject the federal funds for it and then

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Speaker 1: blaming the administration for that. They also decided to do

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Speaker 1: a single insurance company for the entire state, so we

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Speaker 1: had at one point three different options. He took that

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Speaker 1: all the way, did it one under one specific company,

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Speaker 1: so they had a monopoly. The teachers rebelled and actually

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Speaker 1: the union got involved and had that turned over with

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Speaker 1: more options. So it was because of the teachers union

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Speaker 1: that the entire state. Because I was a government worker

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Speaker 1: at the time, was able to have a little more choice,

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Speaker 1: and that was before it was popular. Yeah, I totally

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Speaker 1: forgot about the Yeah, I remember that, okay. Um, And

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Speaker 1: that's something that comes up. Georgia is a right to

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Speaker 1: work state. So in the acting community, it's such a

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Speaker 1: weird conversation, but it's it's kind of implied you should

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Speaker 1: never join here in Georgia. You shouldn't join SAG, which

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Speaker 1: is Screen Actors Guild, the union untail you're big enough

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Speaker 1: to join it, because otherwise they're not gonna hire you, right,

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Speaker 1: which is weird, right. Yeah, the right to work was

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Speaker 1: one of the big fights against unions that the government placed. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that happened under the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Courts that actually also weakened unionization. And one of the

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Speaker 1: big things that came into play was about the union

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Speaker 1: fees and everybody being very upset having to pay union

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Speaker 1: fees because at one point it was over the top.

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Speaker 1: It seemed like people are being extorted to be a

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Speaker 1: part of the union. And that was a whole other

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Speaker 1: big play. I think they had to do with the mafia.

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Speaker 1: Like I don't even remember the entire story of it all,

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Speaker 1: but it was pretty corrupt. But of course there's also

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Speaker 1: some intrigue in that because like we had people intersecting,

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Speaker 1: and we see that today where they are not pretending

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Speaker 1: to be union people. They're not. They're actually plants. Like

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Speaker 1: it feels like a conspiracy movie, but it's true, it

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Speaker 1: has happened, and that's kind of broke down. And one

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Speaker 1: article was talking to specific people in unions and how

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Speaker 1: they went from being paid ten dollars fifteen dollars an

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Speaker 1: hour to forty dollars an hour and having like gladly

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Speaker 1: paying sixty dollars a month to have those raised wages.

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Speaker 1: And again, this really benefits women so much because it

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Speaker 1: actually puts them on an equal playing field and it

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Speaker 1: also helps uh, women of color, not as much as

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Speaker 1: white women, and apparently not as much as Asian women.

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Speaker 1: I was very surprised by this. I feel like I

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Speaker 1: am way down here in the Asian women like level,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing something wrong. I'm just kidding. But but like

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Speaker 1: the fact that the matter is overall gives a better

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Speaker 1: pay for women and it puts them on an equal

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Speaker 1: playing field, not necessarily equitable, but at least equal. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we're glad these women are coming together and have

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Speaker 1: been hearing this work for so long. And it's not

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Speaker 1: just here in the US. We did we have recently

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Speaker 1: talked about in other other countries as well. So as

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Speaker 1: always listeners, if you think there is there's someone we

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Speaker 1: should talk about these segments, or if there's a movement

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Speaker 1: you'd like to highlight anything about unionization, please let us know.

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Speaker 1: You can email us at Stephanie your mom Stuff at

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Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter

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Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and stuff I'll Never

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Speaker 1: Told You. Thanks, it's always to our super producer Christina.

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Speaker 1: You're the best. Christina, Yes you are, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: you for listening. Stephen Never Told These production of I

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