Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
Speaker 1: know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
Speaker 1: is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. Heck no, we won't go. Heck no, we
Speaker 1: won't record. That's more along the lines of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about better paper podcasters. Yeah, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we could get together with like Adam Curry and um
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan and maybe even Ira and form like some
Speaker 1: sort of local He would be our Jimmy Hoffa. Ira
Speaker 1: would be Is it a threat? No? Are you threatening?
Speaker 1: I glad I know he would be our Jimmy. He
Speaker 1: would make things happen. James P. Hoff Uh, the one
Speaker 1: that the current team's church president. Either one I'm not
Speaker 1: saying get rid of him burying a giant stadium from saying,
Speaker 1: IRA would make it happen. He would break legs. It
Speaker 1: need be. There's a leg breaking goon. Um. So for
Speaker 1: those of you who have already seen the title of
Speaker 1: this you are you are you understand the banter? I
Speaker 1: guess if you have no idea what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: I'll bet you guessed by now that we're talking about
Speaker 1: labor unions. It's a good one man, that we had
Speaker 1: this request a lot last year from when the whole
Speaker 1: Wisconsin Scott Walker things, I know, and we're just now
Speaker 1: getting to it because the Scott Walker thing is like
Speaker 1: my intro. Well, let's hear it. So do you remember
Speaker 1: last year in Wisconsin. Yes, there was this big hubbub
Speaker 1: that was going on. A lot of people were wondering
Speaker 1: if this is going to be like the beginning of
Speaker 1: the Arab Spring in the United States. This is going
Speaker 1: to be the flash point for it because Governor Scott
Speaker 1: Walker was accused of trying to deunionize the public sector
Speaker 1: employees State Employees UM through a little bit of legislation
Speaker 1: that he was trying to introduce. That is very true,
Speaker 1: and it caused quite a stir like thousands of protesters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was some serious protests going on UM and at
Speaker 1: the heart of this whole thing was some legislation where
Speaker 1: he was trying to get the public sector employees unions
Speaker 1: UM to get their union members e g. The public
Speaker 1: or i e. The public sector employees I E means
Speaker 1: that is e g is for example. But I realized
Speaker 1: that uh, to basically pay in half of their pensions, UM,
Speaker 1: to give up some other concessions like um, if they
Speaker 1: were going to get a raise, it had to be
Speaker 1: through public referendum. Yeah, anything over the rate of inflation,
Speaker 1: I think yeah, UM. But probably the biggest one was
Speaker 1: that they were stripped of their ability to collectively bargain.
Speaker 1: And it worked, it got pushed through, and now if
Speaker 1: you are a state employee union member in Wisconsin, you
Speaker 1: can't collectively bargain anymore, which means you are effectively neutered
Speaker 1: as a union member. In a lot of ways. That
Speaker 1: is one of the hallmarks of the unions. And depending
Speaker 1: on where you come from, what you believe who raised you,
Speaker 1: whether or not your grandpa was still alive when you
Speaker 1: were old enough to understand what he was talking about,
Speaker 1: UM that. I think that largely depends on how you
Speaker 1: feel about unions. A lot of people think they're a
Speaker 1: good thing. A lot of people think they're bad. A
Speaker 1: lot of people think they're necessary, A lot of people
Speaker 1: think they're evil. A lot of people think they're necessary evil,
Speaker 1: and in fact they're kind of America as it stands
Speaker 1: as kind of split down the middle these days. A
Speaker 1: pew pole that was taken during this whole bub in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: UM showed that of Americans had a positive view of
Speaker 1: organized labor, which I found surprising. You thought that was high, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was surprised because the the decline of
Speaker 1: union has also been attended by a change in perception
Speaker 1: towards them, you know, like they're kind of bad, or
Speaker 1: that they hamstring business is another big one. UM. But
Speaker 1: they also found that still believe unions are needed to
Speaker 1: improve working people's lives so necessary. Evil. I nailed it,
Speaker 1: you did, And unsurprisingly, a lot of times your feelings
Speaker 1: on unions are drawn along political lines these days. They're
Speaker 1: often expecially of being like the an organizing backbone for
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Sure, but that's not always true, Like
Speaker 1: very frequently unions throw their waiting their support behind Republicans
Speaker 1: as well. At any rate, let's get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of what all this is. Are our unions good? We're
Speaker 1: probably going to avoid this kind of qualitative descriptor and
Speaker 1: instead just kind of stick to the facts and let
Speaker 1: the people decide. Power to the people to decide whether
Speaker 1: unions are good or not. I think that's a good move. Josh. Uh,
Speaker 1: So we got stats. We'll get to those later unions josh. Uh.
Speaker 1: Industrial revolution is kind of where actually we go back further,
Speaker 1: which we will with what medieval times. Yeah, the the
Speaker 1: trade guilds. Trade guilds sort of where the beginnings seeds
Speaker 1: of unions and uh. They originally sort of came about
Speaker 1: though just too uh swap techniques and recipes and uh.
Speaker 1: Then that sort of evolved a bit into hey, why
Speaker 1: don't we get together and also share aside from our knowledge,
Speaker 1: get together and maybe share expertise on how to how
Speaker 1: to do things better and get better wages maybe or
Speaker 1: fixed prices. That's one before they figured out that that
Speaker 1: was um, immoral. This is medieval Europe a long time ago. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the trade guilds, um, we're definitely the origin of unions.
Speaker 1: It's just a bunch of workers getting together and figuring
Speaker 1: out because it is essentially what a union is that
Speaker 1: they have um more strength than numbers, um. And it's
Speaker 1: also an indication of workers understanding their value in the
Speaker 1: production process that what they're essentially doing in return for
Speaker 1: their salary was producing a profit. For business. Do you
Speaker 1: have labor in business? Right? And UM, that gives them
Speaker 1: a certain sense of value, whereas UH, and a lot
Speaker 1: of situations, workers feel like, you know, they're very grateful
Speaker 1: for their job and they don't want to make any
Speaker 1: waves or anything like that, and they're not fully aware
Speaker 1: of their value UM and unions. One of the roles
Speaker 1: that unions plays to point out to a worker, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're doing something in return. This isn't some sort of
Speaker 1: welfare situation that you're involved in. You're producing labor and
Speaker 1: that has value and certain rights as well. Exactly. All right,
Speaker 1: So flash forward a bit to the Industrial Revolution nineteenth century. Uh,
Speaker 1: things moved away a little bit from agriculture. UH, and
Speaker 1: agricultural jobs moved into the factories, as we all know,
Speaker 1: and kind of right off the bat, factories weren't a
Speaker 1: good scene for fair wages and safe conditions and kids
Speaker 1: working in factories and women and children not being paid
Speaker 1: as much as men. Um. Triangle shirtwaist fire. That was
Speaker 1: a big turning point. What was the triangle shirtwaist company
Speaker 1: fire where the working conditions were really really dangerous? That
Speaker 1: it was a clothing company, clothing manufacturer, I think in
Speaker 1: Chicago or New York, I can't remember. Um, and it
Speaker 1: caught fire, the factory did because there was all this
Speaker 1: fabric in the air and it just ignited in the
Speaker 1: whole place went up and all of these women had
Speaker 1: to jump to their deaths. And UM, that kind of
Speaker 1: brought in, brought working conditions into a limelight and help
Speaker 1: the union. Um sentiment. I guess a flash point if
Speaker 1: you will, exactly from your favorite Mr Cladwell the heath
Speaker 1: flash point, tipping point, tipping point, good lord, get it together, Chuck, okay,
Speaker 1: I've got it together now, tipping point. I had to
Speaker 1: take a little break. Uh. In the nineteenth century, they
Speaker 1: would do things called striking. Yeah, they still do today,
Speaker 1: but back then it was a more uh contentious and
Speaker 1: violent affair than it is today. Like people died, bombs
Speaker 1: went off, guns were shot. There was and it was
Speaker 1: on both sides too, I mean, like the workers were striking.
Speaker 1: The point was the whole was the same, where we're
Speaker 1: not working anymore and you're not going to make any
Speaker 1: money because we're not producing the product that you need
Speaker 1: to go sell. Right. Um. But during these times, like
Speaker 1: the National Guard would show up, or um, the cops
Speaker 1: would show up, or maybe the Pinkerton Detective Agency would
Speaker 1: show up and just start beating the tar out of
Speaker 1: the striking workers in order to scare them back into working. Uh.
Speaker 1: Workers also would um defend themselves. Uh. There was this one.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what strik it was. I just read
Speaker 1: about it, where like the workers managed to like chase
Speaker 1: the cops off because they were they were shooting two
Speaker 1: pound hinges in these oversized sling shots like at the cops.
Speaker 1: And I can imagine getting hit by a two pound hinge.
Speaker 1: Was a hinge factory, I had to have them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so the strikes were very violent. People like you said,
Speaker 1: would die and the cops like why couldn't the cotton
Speaker 1: ball factory had been Uh but not funny though, because
Speaker 1: people did die. Uh, not making light of it. Like
Speaker 1: at the Haymarket riot for incidents for incidents, that was
Speaker 1: a big one for instance. That was a turning point,
Speaker 1: a flash point, if you will. It was early May, um,
Speaker 1: there was a nationwide strike saying we only want to
Speaker 1: work eight hours a day. Um, And in Chicago's Haymarket
Speaker 1: there was a violent protest. UM. Not a lot of
Speaker 1: people were there because the weather, thank goodness, because someone
Speaker 1: threw a bomb into the crowd. Yeah, went off, and
Speaker 1: shots were fired by the cops, maybe by the protesters.
Speaker 1: Probably they were not just striking labors, but they were
Speaker 1: anarchists there, and uh, you know this anarchist their trouble. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: this is one of the places where in the public
Speaker 1: imagination at least that anarchists and socialists became married to
Speaker 1: labor like pro labor. Um, and it's always kind of
Speaker 1: haunted labor unions. Is that idea? But it was born
Speaker 1: out of this era, if not this riot, I'm sure. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the end, eight people were charged and convicted. Um.
Speaker 1: The labor leaders tried to get them out, saying this
Speaker 1: is not fair. One of the people committed suicide by
Speaker 1: placing a stick of dynamite in his mouth in prison,
Speaker 1: and uh. In the end, in a few years later,
Speaker 1: the governor of Illinois granted a full pardon to the
Speaker 1: remaining three convicted, and that ended up leading to an
Speaker 1: observance of May Day or Labor Day in other countries. Right,
Speaker 1: May first, it is supposed to be labor Day. Um.
Speaker 1: This whole affair, though, you left out that four of
Speaker 1: the guys who were convicted were hanged, and then one
Speaker 1: guy committed suicide, and then three were but they were
Speaker 1: charged with like basically agitating violence. Um. This was back
Speaker 1: when free speech wasn't protected quite as much as it
Speaker 1: is out right. Um. But the they and they were
Speaker 1: pardoned and as a result, this whole Mayday thing, this
Speaker 1: Labor Day thing, came up about in May one. But
Speaker 1: then within like five years Grover Cleveland was like, well,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a sordid, like scary association with labor.
Speaker 1: Let's just celebrate labor and I'm going to move it to.
Speaker 1: Um the first Saturday, now, the first Monday, Monday in September,
Speaker 1: it was Saturday, be no good, wouldn't get off work? Exactly? Uh?
Speaker 1: Did he move it to to disassociate from that? Interesting specifically,
Speaker 1: So that's why you can't wear white after September September exactly.
Speaker 1: That's exactly the origin of that. All right, So maybe
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the basics of a labor union, josh. Um.
Speaker 1: There's many different kinds, and like you said, it's all
Speaker 1: about strength and numbers to get together to form what's
Speaker 1: called a bargaining unit um with an elected leader to
Speaker 1: deal with the employer right, because I mean, think about it.
Speaker 1: If you are, if you have somebody who's advocating for
Speaker 1: your success, for your rights, higher wages, better conditions, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. Um, you are removing yourself to a
Speaker 1: certain extent from that negotiation. So it's a little less
Speaker 1: sticky for you because you're not talking to your employer.
Speaker 1: You're not saying, I really want some more money. Somebody
Speaker 1: else is going These guys are making a bunch of
Speaker 1: money for you, and you need to share it a
Speaker 1: little better like an agent exactly right in a way.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, you also have that element
Speaker 1: of that bargaining unit being a collective bargaining unit, meaning
Speaker 1: there's that strengthen numbers, so it's a bunch of people
Speaker 1: becoming satisfied at the same time. And implied in there
Speaker 1: is if you don't do this, then you're gonna lose
Speaker 1: a bunch of people all at once and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have some trouble. Right And Uh, they do this uh
Speaker 1: agreement in the form of the c b A collective
Speaker 1: bardying Agreement, and any fan of any professional sports will
Speaker 1: understand what a c b A is and how tinuous
Speaker 1: they can be. Uh. Once you have negotiated this agreement,
Speaker 1: and everyone on the employer sizes, you know, we can
Speaker 1: live with these terms. And everyone on the employee side said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can live with this. We both give a little bit.
Speaker 1: They sign it, and uh, it is set for a
Speaker 1: certain period of time and you cannot break the c
Speaker 1: BA on either side without there being legal action or
Speaker 1: grievance is filed, which usually means an arbitrator will come
Speaker 1: in and say, you know, let me get involved. UM.
Speaker 1: You I feel like just hit the nail on the head. Though,
Speaker 1: for an ideal union presence in business, everyone give a
Speaker 1: little you know, you can't have UM too much for
Speaker 1: on one side or the other. But I think that
Speaker 1: that's kind of the history of UM. The presence of
Speaker 1: unions in business in America, it's been If you look
Speaker 1: over time, it's maybe even down, but if you look
Speaker 1: at in any specific decade, it's more on one side
Speaker 1: than the other as far as who's in the beneficial
Speaker 1: position or who's asking more, who's extracting more? Like UM.
Speaker 1: Samuel Gompers, who who got together the American Federation of Labor,
Speaker 1: I think when he was asked what the a f
Speaker 1: L wanted, his answer was more. Yeah. Yeah, but at
Speaker 1: the same time you have to say, well, business isn't
Speaker 1: gonna just say just give it away. Very rarely do they. Um.
Speaker 1: The whole presence of unions is to extract that. At
Speaker 1: least that was the original idea of them. Yeah, you know. Uh, unions,
Speaker 1: like any organization, costs a little money to run. Um,
Speaker 1: so you have to pay dues. It's a membership thing. Um.
Speaker 1: If I was in the Screen Actors Guilled, which I'm not,
Speaker 1: I would pay dues to the Screen Actors Guilled every
Speaker 1: year to keep my membership current and then they would
Speaker 1: go fight for me and they would have a staff
Speaker 1: that gets paid out of that money. Um. I love
Speaker 1: in here that this is dues vary, but many are
Speaker 1: around fifty dollars a month. What a deal? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's completely varies depending on what union you're in.
Speaker 1: I don't know that you can put an average number,
Speaker 1: or maybe you can if you average it, well, if
Speaker 1: you counted them all up. And I don't think that's
Speaker 1: what they did here. Um, it was fifty dollars a month. Um.
Speaker 1: Act Now. Uh. They're also supposed to be democracies with
Speaker 1: elected officials, elected leaders who UM take action based on
Speaker 1: referendums and votes and basically just using UM voting to
Speaker 1: take the pulse of the union members to see what
Speaker 1: they want to do. Ideally, that's how it works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get the feeling that doesn't always work that way
Speaker 1: throughout history. Yeah, especially once the mob got involved, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to UM a lot of times. You can
Speaker 1: be uh local union member, which is sort of like
Speaker 1: being a fraternity member of a larger national charter. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you're a local union, that means that you
Speaker 1: maybe work in that same business sector, but you're employed
Speaker 1: by a different company. But it's like, hey, I'm in
Speaker 1: the and I keep going back to film business stuff
Speaker 1: because they were lousy with unions still are like hey,
Speaker 1: I'm I work in the art department. I'm a prop
Speaker 1: sky so I'm a member of the local I can't
Speaker 1: remember the number union here in Atlanta, but it's a
Speaker 1: national charter probably pushed out of l A, not mistaken.
Speaker 1: It's like UM, a chapter of a fraternity or a sorority. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is what I said. Yeah, did you say fraternity
Speaker 1: a sorority? No, you didn't, that's a fraternity. You didn't.
Speaker 1: You didn't add sorority. No, no, good point authorities as well, chuck, Um,
Speaker 1: what's the point of all this? I think we've kind
Speaker 1: of touched on a little bit of it, like and
Speaker 1: especially in the strength and numbers thing. But there's other
Speaker 1: benefit it's too being in a union. Correct. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: should we throw out some stats here? I think this
Speaker 1: is high time for stats. Your wages, For one, your
Speaker 1: median weekly income, it's gonna be as a union member,
Speaker 1: about nine hundred and forty dollars. Uh, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: about seven hundred and thirty dollars if you're non union. UM,
Speaker 1: let me see her. You've got some about healthcare? Correct? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So eight eight percent of union workers and this is
Speaker 1: from the Department of Labor. This isn't like from the
Speaker 1: A F L C, I O or anything. UM percent
Speaker 1: of UM union workers have health coverage. Of non union
Speaker 1: workers don't do. UM. It's the same with dental plans
Speaker 1: and the disparities even more pent of non union workers
Speaker 1: have dental plans, where something like sixty six percent have
Speaker 1: a dental plan. If you're a member of a union, UM,
Speaker 1: half of union jobs have vision yeah coverage, and only
Speaker 1: about a quarter of non union jobs, UH have it,
Speaker 1: which in reading this also I was kind of like, man,
Speaker 1: we have pretty good benefits here Discovery. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, if you're a minority, if you're a woman,
Speaker 1: African American or Latino, you're gonna make more money. Women
Speaker 1: earn about nine thousand more a year if you're in
Speaker 1: a union, African Americans eight thousand more year, and Latinos
Speaker 1: close to twelve thousand more year if you're a union member.
Speaker 1: So aside from uh, safe working conditions and health insurance
Speaker 1: and things like that, which are great, wages are really
Speaker 1: the big deal, right Wages benefits UM pensions are another
Speaker 1: huge um and they're also there to um protect workers
Speaker 1: from being unjustly fired. So like we're non union and
Speaker 1: we could if somebody could come in here and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I didn't the way that you looked
Speaker 1: at your boss. I saw you scowling. You're fired. You're fired,
Speaker 1: you're fired, you're fired. And we'd be like, you can't
Speaker 1: do that, and they'd be like, oh, yes we can,
Speaker 1: and that would be that right. Um. There was like
Speaker 1: a big hubbub in Florida about some uh some workers
Speaker 1: that all wore orange either depending on who you ask
Speaker 1: because they were all going happy already together that night,
Speaker 1: or because they were um simulating a prisoner garb to
Speaker 1: um protest the working conditions at this law firm, which
Speaker 1: is really what they were doing, and like twelve of
Speaker 1: them were fired. They were just taking into a conference
Speaker 1: room and the guy was like, you're all fired and
Speaker 1: that's that. And they're like, you can't fire us for
Speaker 1: wearing an orange shirt, and actually, yes, very much so.
Speaker 1: The since it's a work right to work state or
Speaker 1: an at will work state right to work um, the
Speaker 1: the the the employer very much can fire you for
Speaker 1: wearing something that's seemingly arbitrary, is wearing orange. If you're
Speaker 1: a union member, that is not the case. The union
Speaker 1: protects you from unjust dismissal and basically you if you
Speaker 1: feel like you've been fired for wearing orange, you can
Speaker 1: go to your union rep and a big stink comes about.
Speaker 1: That's another big one is protecting them. But I also
Speaker 1: feel like here is a good point to mention a
Speaker 1: lot of the criticisms of unions because that same protection
Speaker 1: from unjust dismissal um Unions are frequently criticized for that
Speaker 1: extending to workers who perform poorly, if like, it's part
Speaker 1: of that give I think with unions among labor to say, okay,
Speaker 1: yes we're gonna protect you, but you have to be productive,
Speaker 1: or you have to be good at your job or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: don't hide under the shield of the union just to
Speaker 1: go phone in your your job every day and collect
Speaker 1: your paycheck exactly and you know, flaunt that protect action.
Speaker 1: That's not what it's there for. UM. Another big criticism
Speaker 1: is that union, just the presence of unions in any
Speaker 1: country harms economic progress on the whole by hamstringing business
Speaker 1: and making it less competitive among countries that don't have unions. UM.
Speaker 1: And so for states that have state employee unions, a
Speaker 1: big one is that UM, state employee pensions can be
Speaker 1: a drain on UM tight state economies. Uh. That's another
Speaker 1: big one too. So there's criticisms of unions that are
Speaker 1: very legitimate true, But again I think it comes down to,
Speaker 1: like where your political affiliation is. Well, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: these days, UH, Republicans are more likely to not be
Speaker 1: in favor of unions, and they have consistently been called
Speaker 1: the backbone of the Democratic Party. That wasn't always the case, though,
Speaker 1: UM in nineteen fifties, h Republican President Dwight Eisenhower UM
Speaker 1: said that you and to have a secure place in
Speaker 1: our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the
Speaker 1: ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and
Speaker 1: women of the right to join the union of their choice.
Speaker 1: And also throughout history, unions have kind of dabbled outside
Speaker 1: their own labor negotiations and protection to fight for things
Speaker 1: like UH medicare, social security, civil rights. Civil rights is
Speaker 1: a big one. UM. I think Missouri Congressman Richard Boeling
Speaker 1: said quote, we would have never passed the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act without labor. They had the muscle. The other civil
Speaker 1: rights groups did not. So there, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to see anyone's strong arm, but there is certainly
Speaker 1: something to be said for strength and numbers, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to something like the Civil Rights Act. UM.
Speaker 1: The who was Eisenhower who had that quote about union rights. UM.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower's speaking at a time that was just after the
Speaker 1: peak of union membership. In ve UM, thirty five of
Speaker 1: all non agricultural workers, which is like everybody but farmers,
Speaker 1: UM belonged to unions. Now it's down to eleven point
Speaker 1: eight percent. Yeah, and UM the public sector thirty seven percent.
Speaker 1: But where they're really getting hurt is the private sector.
Speaker 1: Less than seven percent of the private sector is unionized
Speaker 1: these days. And there's a lot of people that, UH say,
Speaker 1: a lot of the problems that we have in Washington
Speaker 1: and a lot of the financial troubles we've had in
Speaker 1: this country have been to a certain degree, UM because
Speaker 1: of the non unionizing of like the rust belt in
Speaker 1: the private sector. So UM to sociologist Bruce Western and
Speaker 1: Jake Rosenfeld actually wrote a paper that said that, UM,
Speaker 1: the decline of organized labor unions UM from the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies on can account for as much as a third
Speaker 1: of them increase in UH income inequality in the US,
Speaker 1: which has been significant, And they can attribute a third
Speaker 1: of that increase just to the decline of labor. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think it also coincided with in the nineteen seventies. UH.
Speaker 1: Some say that big business really went hard at Washington
Speaker 1: for the not for the first time, but in a
Speaker 1: way that they never had before, and that changed the
Speaker 1: landscape of the distribution of wealth in this country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's a really interesting UM point, Chuck, Like we
Speaker 1: were raised after that period. But so that's just kind
Speaker 1: of like our you know, we The Secret of My
Speaker 1: success or, UM American Psycho, you know, all those great
Speaker 1: movies about the eighties or set in the eighties, Like
Speaker 1: that's just the way it was, like all these like
Speaker 1: you just go after money and like you spend that
Speaker 1: money on cocaine and pinstripe suits, you know, in Maserati's
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. And so we were kind of raised
Speaker 1: with that sentiment. But there was a time prior to
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies where it was labor who was running
Speaker 1: the charge. It was the unions and they were fully
Speaker 1: in control, and business figured out how to regroup and
Speaker 1: reassert itself. And that's the age that we're in now. UM.
Speaker 1: So back to Eisenhower, though when he was talking, he
Speaker 1: was kind of carrying on a tradition where the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government figured out that Okay, there is a um, there's
Speaker 1: a balance of power that has to be struck between
Speaker 1: labor and business because business is part of this economic engine.
Speaker 1: Labor helps fuel economic engine. But they really kind of
Speaker 1: represent two different sectors of the the US, not just
Speaker 1: economy economy, but the population. And we need to keep
Speaker 1: them happy. We need to strike this balance. So the
Speaker 1: federal government got involved starting in ninety five live with
Speaker 1: the National Labor Relations Act, and they basically said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can't have strikes where you guys are shooting two
Speaker 1: pound hinges at cops, and we can't have strikes where
Speaker 1: cops are like murdering, uh, striking workers. Let's get to
Speaker 1: the heart of this matter and figure out how to
Speaker 1: strike a happy balance between what labor wants and what
Speaker 1: business wants and progress from there. And it was a
Speaker 1: really smart thing to do, but they figured out that
Speaker 1: it was very much like Homer trying to keep pinching
Speaker 1: lobster alive with the goldfish in that fresh water tank,
Speaker 1: you know, adding salt, adding water, um. And it's been
Speaker 1: that was kind of the mark of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: in an American economic history, was that adding the salt
Speaker 1: and adding the water over time through legislation. Well, in
Speaker 1: the nl R A was like you said, the first one.
Speaker 1: And prior to that they companies didn't even have to
Speaker 1: recognize a union or negotiate with a union leader. So
Speaker 1: this actually require by law that they not necessarily they
Speaker 1: give workers what they want. But they had to at
Speaker 1: least negotiate in good faith and sit down to table
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, which effectively said it brought unions out
Speaker 1: of the dark and legalized them and gave them a
Speaker 1: legal voice in legal recourse. That's right. And to enforce that,
Speaker 1: they soon passed the National Labor Relations Board to oversee,
Speaker 1: uh what was going on with n l R A
Speaker 1: and UM. The article points out here that they accomplished
Speaker 1: three things. Um. It allowed workers to have elections to
Speaker 1: you know, elect their own union leaders. UM established laws
Speaker 1: protecting employees from discrimination based on union activity, so like
Speaker 1: are you union, well, we don't want to hire you.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing, or even worse, like in the
Speaker 1: case of Ford Motor Company led Forward Security Wing led
Speaker 1: by Harry Bennett, a two thousand man strong goon squad.
Speaker 1: They used to like beat up workers, beat up like organizers,
Speaker 1: beat up union reps um, and do it like on camera.
Speaker 1: They really were kind of above the law in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. But this was definitely target that was
Speaker 1: targeted at guys like that for the goons. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and this kind of sneaks by, but important, Uh. An
Speaker 1: important thing to note here is an l R I
Speaker 1: also protected collective bargaining even if you're not in a union,
Speaker 1: and the ability to bargain for better conditions for all workers.
Speaker 1: So I mean it's it's the unions was one of
Speaker 1: the main things. But it protected everybody, but not everybody.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of groups that were left out
Speaker 1: of this. Agricultural workers UM, domestic service workers UM, federal,
Speaker 1: state and local government employees, which obviously when when a
Speaker 1: different way, UM, railroad and airline employees, that one kind
Speaker 1: of became important. Like we talked about in the air
Speaker 1: traffic control one UM under Reagan when he fired all
Speaker 1: the traffic controllers you know who went on strike. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's important. UM. I guess was that the TAFT
Speaker 1: Hartley that ensured yeah, tapped Hartley Act came along in
Speaker 1: nineteen seven, or the Labor Management Relations Act, and one
Speaker 1: of the important things it did was said, you know what,
Speaker 1: if there's any strike that's gonna put the public health
Speaker 1: and danger, then we can issue an eighty day injunction
Speaker 1: that basically says you cannot strike. And in the case
Speaker 1: of the I guess was did that put the country
Speaker 1: in danger? Necessarily, I put the country's economy and danger.
Speaker 1: But at the same time Reagan didn't have file an
Speaker 1: injunction through the UM relations Board. He fired work. You're
Speaker 1: fired man, that guy, I know? Uh? And what else
Speaker 1: did that? Oh? At the outlawed secondary boycott's the Taft
Speaker 1: Hartley Labor Act, which was a big deal because the
Speaker 1: example they use here in this article is really good.
Speaker 1: Like let's say you're a brewery and you're striking against
Speaker 1: your employer, or you might have a boycott against the
Speaker 1: glass company that makes the beer bottles, just to put
Speaker 1: the strong arm on the company from another direction. And
Speaker 1: you can't do that. It's called the squeeze. Can't do
Speaker 1: the squeeze. You can't as a union, but consumers frequently
Speaker 1: do that kind of It's like UM trying to get
Speaker 1: like Rush Limbaugh off there boycotted a lot of people
Speaker 1: boycotted his UM advertisers until they said, you know what, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll stop advertising with him, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, Russia Limbaugh has the double squeeze on him,
Speaker 1: same with them. I can't remember. There was some special
Speaker 1: interest group, some pack that was getting funding from like McDonald's, Wendy's,
Speaker 1: a bunch of people and UM because of their alleged
Speaker 1: unfair and um very much pro business only practices. UM,
Speaker 1: like all of these companies is kind of abandoned them recently.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, alec A l EC, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: it stands for. No, no, no, no, okay, you sure? Yes? Uh,
Speaker 1: the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of Josh, what's
Speaker 1: that all about? Well, this was during a time when um,
Speaker 1: the winds had really shifted towards not only the unions
Speaker 1: having the uh, the labor um business under their thumb,
Speaker 1: they also had their union members under their thumb. The
Speaker 1: mob was involved the the democracy um where the democratic
Speaker 1: basis of unions had eroded, and uh, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of shady stuff going on. Um. This what I
Speaker 1: thought was cool was rather than the federal government going, oh, well,
Speaker 1: then we need to re reinvigorate the power given to
Speaker 1: business under these union laws, instead they went and invested
Speaker 1: more power in union members. That's right. Yeah, Like you
Speaker 1: couldn't use union dues anymore to promote one candidate over
Speaker 1: another in the union. For union, the elections were really
Speaker 1: pretty heavily monitored from that point on. Uh, every single
Speaker 1: union member has to be notified by mail at least
Speaker 1: fifteen days before the election, like you can't sneak an
Speaker 1: election by them, which probably used to happen in the
Speaker 1: old days. UM. To to increase transparency in the whole
Speaker 1: union thing, there was a lot of UM disclosure and
Speaker 1: reporting requirements that were added, and not just for the
Speaker 1: unions but for also like employers, consultants. They want to
Speaker 1: know where the money was going and basically they wanted
Speaker 1: to see how the MOB was involved as a big one. Well,
Speaker 1: in speaking of money UM, I don't think we pointed
Speaker 1: out that a lot of times UM unions will have
Speaker 1: strike funds and some of the money that you pay
Speaker 1: into it will actually pay you when you go on
Speaker 1: strike to keep you from going hungry. It's like Affleck.
Speaker 1: You know that Gilbert Godfrey didn't do that anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't think I know. And I wonder how ironic would
Speaker 1: it be if he had Affleck insurance and that it
Speaker 1: kicked in Whence Affleck fired him. Interesting, why do you
Speaker 1: I think he got fired because he wanted too much money? No? No,
Speaker 1: he got fired for making Twitter jokes about UM. The
Speaker 1: Japanese tsunami like the day of Yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a money issue. Yeah, I'm worried about the sense
Speaker 1: of humor in this country in the direction that's going,
Speaker 1: like there's stand up comedians have always almost always been
Speaker 1: allowed to some they're exempted from a lot of the
Speaker 1: standards that average joes are held to, you know, like
Speaker 1: their stand up comedians that's their job. Sometimes they make
Speaker 1: tasteless jokes and all that stuff. Yeah, they'll go over
Speaker 1: the line and they'll just go people go oh, and
Speaker 1: they'll go what too soon? And then right exactly, and
Speaker 1: then people will be like, yes, it is um But
Speaker 1: there seems to be it seems to be open season
Speaker 1: on comedians well because of platforms that they've never had before,
Speaker 1: probably like Twitter. I guess all of a sudden, that's
Speaker 1: like your official statement instead of a joke he made
Speaker 1: or yeah, and the audience is much much wider and
Speaker 1: much more um varied and diverse too. So I beg
Speaker 1: you for god read so pissed off. I would imagine so,
Speaker 1: because I mean, you've got tell me there's like ten
Speaker 1: thou people lining up voice actors to go act for
Speaker 1: a huge page. I think he just made a pretty
Speaker 1: good argument for yourself that wasn't as good as but
Speaker 1: but I mean, and the problem is I realize what's
Speaker 1: at risk is you know, cultural sensitivity, even individual sensitivity
Speaker 1: towards people who are going to be offended or hurt,
Speaker 1: but they're also there has to be a balance between
Speaker 1: that and I mean the other thing that that risk
Speaker 1: is like our national sense of humor, which is really important.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things you could be like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just a stupid joke. No, Like our ability to
Speaker 1: take a joke is a very vital and important thing
Speaker 1: about keeping us from like all, you know, killing ourselves
Speaker 1: and stand One of the roles that stand up comedians provide,
Speaker 1: or any kind of comedian provides, is to keep that
Speaker 1: healthy and vital and going agreed, There's nothing more of
Speaker 1: a turn off to me than when you see a
Speaker 1: humorless celebrity, like when Ricky Gervais is doing a thing
Speaker 1: in the Golden Clubes and you see like the people
Speaker 1: out there that just are offended by this. I'm like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, yeah, I don't know. I I think
Speaker 1: for yourself, I can see Ricky Gervais being We'll make
Speaker 1: him the sacrificial lamp leak over God for you alone.
Speaker 1: You know, man, that was a sidebar, Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: Are we talking about labor unions. I don't remember labor
Speaker 1: unions today, Josh, you mentioned the a f l C
Speaker 1: I Oh. Um, A lot of people might not know
Speaker 1: that that is actually a collection to labor federation made
Speaker 1: up of fifty four member unions ten million strong. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of people change to win as sort of
Speaker 1: a new one two thousand five, it was formed, but
Speaker 1: it isn't also a labor federation encompassing seven unions in
Speaker 1: six million workers. Yeah. The A f L that was
Speaker 1: founded by Samuel Gompers who I mentioned earlier, and he
Speaker 1: got some cigar makers and some other industrial laborers together
Speaker 1: to form that. And then that was in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, and I can't remember exactly when, but maybe
Speaker 1: in the forties of the fifties. Uh. He got together
Speaker 1: with the c I O to form the a f
Speaker 1: l C I oh because he loves cigars. U A
Speaker 1: W is a huge one. Autoworkers. Yeah, they have something
Speaker 1: like um one point four million members. Uh No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: The Teamsters has one point four million members and they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are probably the most well known by
Speaker 1: the average job thanks to one Jimmy Hoffa. Do you
Speaker 1: know his story? A little bit here there. Um. The
Speaker 1: whole mob involvement I think with them, with any union
Speaker 1: was they really is that there's a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: UM who are sitting on enormous piles of money and
Speaker 1: let's see how much of that we can steal or
Speaker 1: get their hands on or used to build ourselves casinos.
Speaker 1: And Jimmy Hoffa was in with these guys and he
Speaker 1: just went missing right in. Yeah. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's any secret what happened to him, but they
Speaker 1: definitely don't know exactly what happened. And that's the whole point,
Speaker 1: Wasn't it was a secret what happened to Well, he
Speaker 1: was snuffed out. Oh I don't. I don't think he
Speaker 1: you know, I just had a heart attack while hiking
Speaker 1: in the wilderness and his body decomposed naturally. Well, he
Speaker 1: was supposedly going. He was last seen waiting on to
Speaker 1: mafia associates. It's kind of good giveaway too. But his son,
Speaker 1: James P. Hoffa Um has really kind of brought the
Speaker 1: family name back tremendously. He's the head of the Teamsters today.
Speaker 1: R Yes he is. He's the president of the Teamsters
Speaker 1: Union UM and is doing a lot of work toward
Speaker 1: um relegitimizing um unions again country, which is pretty cool. Well,
Speaker 1: anyone who's ever been on a film set and has
Speaker 1: seen a two hundred and seventy five pound man eating
Speaker 1: a doughnut sitting in his truck, you can say I've
Speaker 1: met a teamster, and they they do great work, and
Speaker 1: they're basically there's a I can't remember the number, but
Speaker 1: they're there. If you're an industrial worker, you're basically eligible
Speaker 1: to be a teamster, and in just about any kind
Speaker 1: of industry. I'm gonna get hate mail for that. Oh
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. There's like two guys that you described
Speaker 1: who listened to this podcast, so you get two pieces
Speaker 1: of hate mail. If I was a teamster, I would
Speaker 1: do nothing but listen to this podcast because you're just
Speaker 1: sitting a rapp That's not true. Teams do great work,
Speaker 1: but on film sets is sort of the old joke
Speaker 1: is that like they'll park the truck and then they
Speaker 1: sit in it until they leave. In the truck, you
Speaker 1: know them that There was another since reference just came
Speaker 1: up with them. The one where that film for Radioactive
Speaker 1: Man comes to town and Homer tries to see who
Speaker 1: can out lazy, the teamsters, good stuff. That is just
Speaker 1: a stereotype. Although yeah, but stereotypes are there for a reason, right,
Speaker 1: has not funny? Isn't that funny? What else? I don't
Speaker 1: have anything else? You get anything else? Um? No, I
Speaker 1: guess I think we covered pretty much everything. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a nice broad overview of people can and like you
Speaker 1: said early on, man, you hit it on the head,
Speaker 1: my friend, whether or not you are pro union or
Speaker 1: anti union largely depends on your family's background. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very tried and true a thing through
Speaker 1: through families, through generations that you know, people feel very
Speaker 1: strongly about it that are involved in unions or like
Speaker 1: my actually my parents were in the teachers union. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a union kid. Huh. Yeah, But that that wasn't
Speaker 1: like factory stuff, Like I never heard them besides complaining
Speaker 1: about not making up money, which every teacher should complain about. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have any kind of passionate feelings
Speaker 1: about it whatsoever, I would advise you to look into it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you do have passionate feelings about it, I
Speaker 1: think a great exercise would be to explore how the
Speaker 1: other side sees it and see if it changes your
Speaker 1: mind one way or the other. Look at you. Um,
Speaker 1: you can do that by reading this fascinating article that
Speaker 1: we just based this podcast on, Um, how unions work.
Speaker 1: You can type in the search bar at house tofforce
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also go into WAPO. There was
Speaker 1: a pretty cool um editorial. That's the Washington Post. By
Speaker 1: the way. That's right, Um, the Wisconsin union fight isn't
Speaker 1: about benefits, it's about labor's influence. From March six eleven.
Speaker 1: That's a good article. That was a good article too.
Speaker 1: And I already said search bar, which means it's time
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. You know, our buddy Joe Garden
Speaker 1: was he's a scanni. He was really upset last year.
Speaker 1: You can tell you you can see right through his skin.
Speaker 1: He's so pale, he's translucent. Vote Joe Garden, big craftwork guy.
Speaker 1: Oh did he get tickets? No? He did a h
Speaker 1: He promoted his own craft work. Um, I believe it
Speaker 1: was a craftwork covers show and he got different bands
Speaker 1: to come and play craft work. And his big deal
Speaker 1: for Joe was it was awesome. He wore like white
Speaker 1: suit and introduced everyone that is sweet. When was that
Speaker 1: very recently? Did you see footage of her? Were you there? No?
Speaker 1: He was just he wouldn't shut up about on Facebook
Speaker 1: and even admitted like, guys, I know you're tired of
Speaker 1: hearing about craftwork. That is significant Joe. Um. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: also I guess kind of in with the music sampling episode,
Speaker 1: there's I think a DJ Food or a DJ Shadow
Speaker 1: I think DJ Food Um craftwork cover mix. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: like maybe three volumes of it, and it's like just
Speaker 1: mixing together all these people who were like sampled craft
Speaker 1: work for those songs. Yeah. They just did a big
Speaker 1: thing at the some museum MoMA. Yeah. Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: We you mean I tried very hard to get those tickets.
Speaker 1: Did you try? Dude? It was such cluster. I'm not
Speaker 1: into craftwork and this solidifies it when I saw the
Speaker 1: reviews of it and it said they did like a
Speaker 1: twenty one minute of auto ban and I was just like,
Speaker 1: somebody put a gun to my head. Are you just
Speaker 1: supposed to zone out and forget where you are for
Speaker 1: a little bit where I'm not a craf work guy,
Speaker 1: but I know people are. People don't know I'm not
Speaker 1: a craft work guy. Either like um, but I will
Speaker 1: say that like that would have been just a momentous,
Speaker 1: just a momentous thing to see MoMA in this pretty
Speaker 1: much Okay, like the Tupac hologram. I'm sure seeing that
Speaker 1: at coache it was just amazing. Yeah, and a bet
Speaker 1: way more amazing for some people than others even. All Right,
Speaker 1: So should I read a listener mail? I guess I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this a good cause. We like to promote
Speaker 1: these and attach it to our Labor Union episode. How appropriate,
Speaker 1: big big fan, guys, I was just down at south
Speaker 1: By Southwest where I caught your variety show and shook
Speaker 1: your surprisingly supple hands. I also, I know I also
Speaker 1: sat on a panel called Harnessing the Power of the
Speaker 1: Benevolent Internet, something you guys, seem pretty skilled at yourselves,
Speaker 1: which is why I thought you might be game to
Speaker 1: help students across the country learn all sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: they should know, in many cases, of stuff they need
Speaker 1: to know. I work for a nonprofit website called donors
Speaker 1: Choose dot org, where anyone with a dollar can give
Speaker 1: support to classrooms and need. Teachers from all fifty states
Speaker 1: post request for resources they feel their students need and
Speaker 1: kind folks from all over the world help bring those
Speaker 1: lessons to life. It's cool. It sounds almost really like
Speaker 1: a Kiva for teachers. I need tickets to craft working well.
Speaker 1: Since our founding in two thousand, we've delivered over a
Speaker 1: hundred and ten million dollars of resources directly to public
Speaker 1: school classrooms, supporting more than six million students. Uh. And
Speaker 1: if you or my fellow listeners would like to help
Speaker 1: you or my fellow listeners. You have listeners, fellow listeners. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have listeners. That listener has fellow listens. Check out
Speaker 1: the page I set up. He set up a page
Speaker 1: with our name, and I was like, that's cool, you
Speaker 1: can do that, but we're not, like, we can't officially,
Speaker 1: like sign on because then it has to go through
Speaker 1: corporate and all that stuff. Oh oh, I already signed
Speaker 1: us on officially made T shirts and it didn't. So
Speaker 1: you can go to donors choose dot org slash stuff
Speaker 1: kids should know and um let me know if you
Speaker 1: have any questions. And this is from Zach and he said,
Speaker 1: by the way, we recently hired a system admin a
Speaker 1: couple of months back. Drove me crazy for a few weeks.
Speaker 1: Then I realized he sounds exactly like Josh, and he said,
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed working with you. Josh. Who is the other
Speaker 1: voice double for me? There's another person that was some dude. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a writer that writes about running. He wrote one
Speaker 1: thing about running one Clark and have been asked five
Speaker 1: times if it was me? What's ironic? Now? I actually run?
Speaker 1: You should write your own orgicle. Um, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: There was some other voice person that did like hike
Speaker 1: videos or something. I don't remember. Yeah, well, if okay,
Speaker 1: who is that that was Zach? Donors choose dot org
Speaker 1: slash kids stuff kids should know. Donors choose dot org
Speaker 1: slash stuff kids should know. Indeed, Uh, if you have
Speaker 1: a great charitable organization you want to us to let
Speaker 1: everybody know about again, We're always happy to do that.
Speaker 1: And if I sound like somebody, let me know because
Speaker 1: it's driving me crazy. Who it is. I've heard from
Speaker 1: like a bunch of people. You sound just like this
Speaker 1: or whatever? Yeah? Remember? Or I want to hear from
Speaker 1: people who have um actively been on a worker strike,
Speaker 1: or if you have been a scab as they called them,
Speaker 1: and been a strike buster, or if you've ever been
Speaker 1: beaten up by the cops. We want to hear about
Speaker 1: that too, Yes, and anarchists, any anarchists out there, We're
Speaker 1: always interested in hearing from anarchists. I guess I got
Speaker 1: shipped down by the cops and happens one night. If
Speaker 1: you get beat up their difference. No, but they like
Speaker 1: threw me against the wall and like we're kicking my
Speaker 1: legs out from under me, and yeah, it was weird.
Speaker 1: And then they had just left. Are you sure there
Speaker 1: are cops and not just some eternity boys dressed up
Speaker 1: as appens police in a car me and my three friends.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they thought we were doing, but
Speaker 1: they they got out of there really click. I'll say
Speaker 1: that they must have thought you were somebody else, Kevin Smith,
Speaker 1: or the reality of their situation hit them and they
Speaker 1: realized that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can communicate with Chuck and I electronically via Twitter
Speaker 1: at s y SK podcast that's our handle, uh, Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
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